Bush 'n Beach Fishing Magazine Location reports & tips for fishing, boating, camping, kayaking, 4WDing in Queensland and Northern NSW
Hi everyone, hope you are all having a good week. It was refreshing to see some great weather this week finally, giving everyone a chance to get out on the water for consecutive days in a row. It would have to be the best week we have had all year so far on the Gold and Tweed coasts, though looking at the coming weekend it appears we’ll see a return of showers. Fingers crossed we don’t see too much rain as everyone has had enough. Keep an eye the forecast if you are thinking of heading offshore, the Seaway is still shallow and can be a handful especially on a run-out tide if the swell increases. Let’s have a look at some options if you are heading out on the water to try your luck. Gold Coast Coomera fishing
As the water finally starts to clear up after all the rain, local fishos made the most of the nice weather conditions this week and managed to find some good quality whiting moving back into their normal feeding areas throughout the rivers, Broadwater and Jumpinpin. Wayne Young and Peter Hamlyn had a good night up the Nerang River recently, managing to find good numbers of quality fish and putting together a nice feed for a great result. Some other spots that have started to fish well again are Wave Break Island, Crab Island, the Coomera River, Paradise Point, the Pimpama River, Bedrooms, Pandanus Island, Tiger Mullet Channel and Jacobs Well. Live bait will always work best – bloodworms, beachworms and yabbies are a must to land the better-quality fish. Whiting can school up in both deep water and in extremely shallow water – up to ankle deep at times. When targeting whiting, it pays to have multiple rods, enabling you to target a range of water depths until you find where the majority of fish are feeding and to concentrate your efforts on. A light outfit with a flexible tip to absorb the bites until the fish can very nearly hook themselves is preferred, spooled with 6-9lb mono, 6lb fluorocarbon leader, 3-5 ball sinker depending on the current and a size 4-6 bait holder hook will get the job done. This time of year, you’ll catch fish during the day and at nighttime. And fishing at night will usually produce the better quality 40cm plus fish. Gold Coast Coomera fishing
Good news for those fishos who enjoy chasing flathead, I have had reports of a few night fish being caught in decent numbers, as the water quality is getting better this week. Jumpinpin has fished well with decent numbers of school-sized fis as well as the occasional crocodile being landed. Try looking around the Bedrooms, Pandanus Island, Kalinga Bank, Crusoe Island, Green and Gold banks, Tiger Mullet Channel and Jacobs Well. There has been a return of good-sized bait schools of fish and prawns which will in turn attract and hold predators in the area to feed. The Broadwater around Sea World channel sandbanks, Wave Break Island, Crab Island, Paradise Point have been worth a look. Also, the Tweed River has started to produce the quality flathead it is renowned for after coming back to life post floods. My favourite methods for targeting flathead are soft plastics around 3-4” in either curl tails, pebble tails or prawn imitations, rigged on a jig head suited for the depth of water you target. Normally 3/8 or 1/4oz jig heads cover most depths, unless you are fishing ultra-shallow areas where you can use unweighted or very lightly weighted weedless hook rigs. I also enjoy working soft vibes lures in these similar depths, with an increased hook-up rate rigged with twin treble hooks. Metal vibes will work a treat once you start to work the deeper edges and channels, being able to keep contact with the bottom making it much easier to tempt a fish lying in wait. Drifting live and dead bait is also a very effective way of enticing a bite and covering ground until you can find an area holding fish to target. I would recommend a rod around the 2-5kg class, reel size 2500-3000 spooled with either 8 or 10lb braid and run a fluorocarbon leader on 12lb – this should do the job on most fish you are likely to encounter. Gold Coast Coomera fishing
Brad from Brad Smith Fishing Charters reports the Tweed River is slowly starting to clean up, but it has a way to go before it returns to its potential. Unfortunately, some of the residents along the river are still battling to get their lives back to some form of reality, so let’s hope the sun keeps shining in order to help the massive clean that’s still required in the area. Once again, this week I was busy on the water and utilised the run-in tides through the lower reaches of the river and came up with some great results for my clients. Bream were going mad and were attacking every lure that hit the water and, in some places, so were flathead. There were a few nice flatties that averaged around 50cm and we managed to catch and release another flattie last week over 70cm. Mixed in with the catches were a few whiting and small but hard fighting giant trevally.
Clint from Brad Smith Fishing Charters reports that the water is starting to look a healthy colour, thanks to the bigger run-in tides. It’s nice to finally see some cleaner oceanic water pushing in and the strong southerly current offshore will help further. Water temperature shouldn’t get too hot from now on, which should enhance flathead fishing and possibly bring on an early run of winter species. It has been 25C in the Broadwater and 26C in the Nerang River. I fished the Broadwater recently with yabbies and vibes, there was an abundance of sand whiting, winter whiting, tuskfish, flounder and a few flathead. This week we are on the back of a full moon, so I’ll be fishing the Broadwater channels and wading for sand whiting.
If you have any great catches or photos you would like to share, 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 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/
Good luck with the fishing.
Brett
