Hi everyone, hope you are all having a nice week. It was good to see some clearer skies and westerly wind, apart from a couple of days of cloud on the Tweed and Gold coasts this week. For anyone keen to brave the cold morning starts, the fishing has been great to kick off the winter season. Fishos had to deal with a lot of tidal flow from the big tides linked to the full moon on Tuesday. With a southerly change threatening to spoil the weekend at the time of writing my report, let’s have a look at what’s been biting this week. Gold Coast Coomera
The cool winter conditions have stirred flathead up, with good numbers of fish being landed on the Gold and Tweed coasts for fishos keen enough to brave the cold weather and get out and have some fun. The Broadwater, Jumpinpin and the Tweed River waterways are all holding good numbers of baitfish and prawns after the extended rain and floods affected these areas, which in turn attracts predators such as flathead to these areas to feed. Gold Coast Coomera
I headed out with my daughter Jess last Sunday for a look, conditions were a lot cooler and windier than predicted. We planned to have a fish around the Broadwater and Jumpinpin to see if we could locate a few flathead, as it was the first time I had been out targeting them for a while. We worked the deeper channels and tops of sandbanks while the tide was high. Once the tide turned to run-out, we focussed on the edges of sandbanks, edges of channels and entrances to any feeder creeks we could find with a range of soft plastics and soft vibes until we found better numbers of fish. We ended up catching plenty of nice fish including a good-sized 60cm plus fish, making it worth braving the cold for.
I used a range of soft plastics around 3” in size, including prawn imitations, paddle and curl tails. The best soft vibes were the Zerek Fish Trap – 65mm being the standout – these versatile vibes can be worked in deeper water and can also be cast and retrieved in shallow water situations with an action that flathead can’t resist. Try to keep in mind that flathead will normally head into the tide, so throwing your lures upcurrent and working them back with the tide direction will result in more strikes and a much better hook-up rate. Some good spots to try are the upper reaches of the Tweed River, Crab Island, Brown Island, the Coomera and Pimpama rivers, Aldershots, Tipplers Passage, Never Fail Island, Bedrooms, Tiger Mullet Channel, Crusoe Island, Kalinga Bank, Jacobs Well and the Logan River. Gold Coast Coomera
Some good-sized tailor are on offer throughout the Broadwater and Jumpinpin areas at present. The cooler conditions, combined with a good supply of baitfish, has seen good numbers of tailor spread out in these areas. I ended up hooking a few good tailor last weekend when targeting flathead on both the incoming and outgoing tide. The birds seemed to be very active, hovering over current lines in the channels, following the schools of tailor harassing the bait. Ideally, the best time to target tailor is the last two hours of an incoming and the first hour of an outgoing tide, when the water quality is at its best, but in saying that, I did catch them in dirty brown water around Jacobs Well. Gold Coast Coomera
With the wind and swell tipped to pick up, beach fishing will not be a good option and your best bet will be to have a look inshore instead. I would recommend having a look around the Gold Coast Seaway mouth, Seaworld Channel, Currigee Channel, Paradise Point, Jumpinpin Bar mouth, Millionaires Row, Crusoe Island, Kalinga Bank and Canaipa Passage. The best bait are whole Western Australian pilchard, blue bait, white pilchard, mullet fillet and bonito fillet. Gold Coast Coomera
For lure fishos, try trolling a combination of deep and shallow-diving lures to cover ground and help you locate fish feeding. If you’re lucky enough to spot some birds working, you may be able to throw a mixture of metal slugs, surface poppers and stickbaits at the feeding fish, which is a great way to target tailor. The Gold Coast Seaway mouth has been alive with plenty of smaller mack tuna too. These are awesome pound for pound fun to fish for on lighter tackle and will hit the same lures you throw at tailor.
Brad from Brad Smith Fishing Charters reports… what a great week of fishing with light wind and more importantly no rain, which has been a long time coming this year. The good conditions were matched with some absolutely fantastic fishing, with the deep holes in the Tweed River producing big numbers of fish. Samaki Vibelicious lures were outstanding and Pearl Shrimp, Phantom Craw and Chartreuse Ginger Squid were the proven standout colours. The fish caught were a heap of flatties as well as ever-present bream – currently in plaque proportions. The amazing run of small school jewfish were once again present and one of my regular clients Noel capped the week off with three winter mangrove jack, and two of the jack were crackers that also crunched on Samaki Vibelicious.
Clint from Brad Smith Fishing Charters reports… the fishing has improved noticeably this week in the Gold Coast Broadwater. It’s good to see the water clearing up nicely and not overly dirty on the run-out tide either. There are plenty of flathead, tarpon, whiting, tailor, flounder, squire, bream and tarwhine. We have been catching plenty on Samaki Vibelicious – Cleopatra Tiger is a favourite colour of mine – Ecogear ZX40 blades and live yabbies. I had to cancel my charter today after I injured my shoulder, though I’m hoping to be OK as soon as possible, after some therapy and teaspoons of concrete. Gold Coast Coomera
If you have any great catches or photos you would like to share, please email us and let us know how you went, brett@coomerahouseboats.com.au or brett@fishotackle.com.au
Stay up to date with all fishing regulations in Queensland https://www.daf.qld.gov.au/business-priorities/fisheries
Fisho Tackle and Coomera Houseboat Holidays now have Hire Tinnies follow the link to view https://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/
Click here for more Gold Coast fishing reports!!
Good luck with the fishing.
Brett
