Hi Everyone, hope you’ve all had a great week, it was nice to see some much needed rain last Friday giving the rivers a bit of a flush out. With Christmas just around the corner it’s a great time of year to get out for a fish with family and friends on the Tweed and Gold Coast. Let’s see what’s been happening.
Christmas is a very busy time on the water, we hope everyone heading out enjoy a well earnt holiday. Just because there will be a bit more boat traffic doesn’t mean the fishing will be quiet, the fish on the Gold Coast are used to a bit of boat and jet ski traffic and should be on the bite for those that want to chase a feed.
Some good rain last Friday combined with the full moon larger tides was just what the rivers needed giving them a bit of a flush out. The good news is it stirred up the Mud Crabs just in time to Christmas lunch, customers did well scoring a few nice healthy looking bucks. I’d recommend getting the pots in and having a go at catching a great feed of Mud Crab, try the Coomera River, Pimpama River, Logan River, Jacobs Well, Cabbage Tree Point, Tiger Mullet Channel and Canaipa Passage. Whole Mullet and Fish Frames work well. Changing the bait regularly is a must as they prefer fresh a fresh feed, I also recommend using a bait bag to keep the little fish and eels from stealing the bait.
We’ve had reports of the odd Little Black Marlin showing up this week off the Gold and Tweed Coast is good news for anglers keen to get out over Christmas. Fish have been spread out mostly between the 18 to 50 fathom line. The old saying is find the bait and birds and you should be lucky enough to find the fish. Keep your eyes peeled for the smallest log or bit off rubbish acting as a FAD floating on the water, even large jelly fish will attract small bait fish and will also hold pelagic predators like Billfish, Dolphin Fish and Wahoo. Trolling small skirted Pakula lures rigged on 80 to 100lb mono is my method of catching pelagic species, it’s a very exciting and visual way to fish.
Whiting have been around in numbers this week, customers have been landing a nice feed with some good sized elbow slappers on the chew. A few good spots to try are Canaipa Passage, Tiger Mullet Channel, Bedrooms, Coomera River both arms, Paradise Point, Pimpama River and the Nerang River. Worms and Yabbies are the best bait. Another fun and popular method is casting small surface poppers and surface walkers in the shallows, Whiting are very aggressive feeders and will chase down your lure and smash it.
Smithy from Brad Smith Fishing Charters reports on the Tweed this week’s report is much the same as last weeks with the highly visual surface fishing producing the results. Flathead, Bream and Whiting as we know are all predominant bottom feeders but by choosing the right lures that skip along the surface like MMD Splash Prawns and Bassday Suga pens these fish will readily rise and explode from the bottom to devour them. It is also important to choose the correct areas to use this technique which are the shallows that contain a mixture of sea grass and yabbie banks and the Tweed River has plenty of these types of grounds. This is the right time of the year to try this fun technique with the surface fishing being at its absolute best from now right through to April.
Clint reports in the Broadwater Mangrove Jacks have been feeding aggressively at times in the Nerang River, and we have been doing well on our evening charters with some big fish boated and released. Most are over 50cm and up to 58cm with bigger fish out there that are hard to stop. Live Whiting is quickly becoming the bait of choice as the season goes on. Winter whiting are best as they have no size limit and are easily caught on Ecogear ZX40 blades and Samaki Vibelicious in the Gold Coast Broadwater. Fishing the broadwater there is variety on offer but not much size out there at the moment. We have been catching Winter whiting, Flathead, Tarwhine, Squid, Tuskfish, Snapper, Grassy emperor, Spangled emperor. We have been running night charters for Mangrove Jacks in the mid to lower reaches of the river, timing the tides is crucial to get the bites. No run no fun but too much run no fun either. There are that many big Bream in Nerang river at the moment it is insane. The biggest ones of 40cm and over come out at night and are very hungry and in huge numbers.
We wish everyone a very Happy and Safe Christmas, keep in mind it’s the busiest time of year on the water and extra patience will be needed especially at the boat ramp.
Hope you all have a good weekend and get out for a fish, if you have any great catches or photos you would like to share, please email us and let us know how you went.
New fishing regulations now effective fisheries Queensland http://statements.qld.gov.au/Statement/2019/9/1/new-fishing-regulations-now-effective
Fisho Tackle and Coomera Houseboat Holidays now have Hire Tinnies follow the link to view http://www.coomerahouseboats.com.au/our-fleet-type/hire-tinnies/
Seabreeze is a great website to access a local forecast http://www.seabreeze.com.au/graphs/
If you have any great catches to report or fishing photos please email them to brett@fishotackle.com.au Good luck with the Fishing. Brett
