Page 34 - Demo

Fresh live worms and good bait presentation are critical to whit- Stand well back from shallow low tide gutters to avoid spooking
ing success.
This is a long shallow drain on the shore with open ends and water coming over the back.
Page 34 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, January 2021
the sh.
LWow tide beach whiting
ITH sum- mer in full swing, what
Fishing Tips
by SEAN THOMPSON
better time to chase whiting from the beach in Queensland and northern NSW.
These fish also don’t seem to mind the fast rush of a rising tide, while whiting prefer the calmer, cleaner gutters.
swell and your gutters can turn into a washing machine and the fish will disappear, seeking calmer water.
Though they can be caught year round, par- ticularly in southeast Queensland, summer or yellowfin whiting are a great option from the beach, especially when other beach targets such as tailor and bream are in thinner numbers. Not the dart!
For this reason, low tide can be an excellent time to chase whiting off the beach, remem- bering there are a num- ber of factors at play to help ensure you get a feed.
Whiting are a small foraging fish that don’t enjoy too much wave action or stirred sand, as this pushes them around.
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For many anglers, including me, there is nothing worse than go- ing to all the trouble of catching your own beach or bloodworms or paying for them only to have them snatched by bait-stealing dart!
This isn’t to say you can’t catch whiting at high tide on the beach – shallow, calm shore dump gutters in a small swell are in fact a good option occasionally.
Another consideration is weed, and infesta- tions can shut beach fishing down complete- ly.
While you can’t avoid them altogether, this article focuses on catching beach whiting, while at the same time avoiding big dart.
But after many years of trying, I’ve come to favour low tide on the beach for whiting, par- ticularly when the swell and sweep is too fast on a high tide.
The right conditions
Sadly, red weed blooms occur in climat- ic cycles and can inun- date southeast Queens- land beaches such as Fraser Island, Rainbow and Teewah beaches when the water condi- tions are right.
This species tend to prefer to forage for food and seek shelter in deeper gutters, the sort you might often associ- ate tailor with.
Before we focus on the type of water you want to target at low tide, it’s worth noting the conditions that best suit fishing whiting at low tide.
North-northeast wind blow this weed in while southeast and westerly wind blow it back out.
Likewise, high tide will fill a lot of smaller gutters close to shore and bring bigger dart in.
Wind and swell can play a big part in your success on the beach.
But setting aside the weed, a slight to moder- ate southeast wind can be great for whiting, creating enough cover for the fish in the form of ripples, yet leaving
Too much wind and
* continued P35 www.bnbfishing.com.au
This happened again this year.