Hi everyone, hope you have all had a good week. It was nice to see a return to some good consistent weather, with lighter wind, sunshine and a small swell, giving everyone plenty of opportunity to get out on the water and enjoy some quality time fishing. At the time of writing my report, the weekend is also looking good, with a light to moderate northerly wind on the forecast. The wind is tipped to increase by Monday, so hopefully you can get out over the weekend. Let’s have a look at what’s been on the chew this week. Gold Coast Coomera fishing
Quality school jewfish around the 1m mark have been showing in the Gold Coast Seaway again over the past week for those fishos keen to put the time and effort into chasing these fantastic target species. Pound for pound they put up a great fight in shallower water and are fun fish to chase. Live bait have been working best. Try using herring, pike, mullet, silver biddies and yakkas, which can usually all be caught in and around the Seaway area. As for any fishing, using your sounder to locate bait and predators is very important – keep your eyes peeled and make sure you mark areas worth a drift over or spot lock on to try your luck. While targeting jewfish in the Seaway, you will also come across other species such as cod, tailor, trevally, mangrove jack, kingfish and even juvenile samson and amberjack, which are all great fun to catch.
When fishing the open ocean entrances, try to plan your trip around a change in tide, this will make targeting fish a lot easier, with a reduction in tidal flow coinciding with a natural bite time for most species. A medium-sized outfit around the 4-8kg will do the job on most of the fish you will encounter, spooled with 15-20lb braid and a 30-40lb leader on to a set of snelled 5/0-6/0 hooks, depending on the size of bait you manage to find. If you are using herring or silver biddies, a single hook will be sufficient. Jumpinpin Bar has also been producing some great jewfish action, with a few fish well over 1m hitting the deck. Gold Coast Coomera fishing
As the weather heats up during November, it’s a good time of year to start targeting bull sharks around the Gold Coast. There have been a few reports of fishos doing well on smaller to medium-sized sharks over the past couple of weeks. Tackle setup is fairly basic for targeting the average-sized sharks you will come across – a medium-sized rod around 7’, 4-8kg matched with a 5000-6000 sized reel, 20lb mono or braid and trace between 50-100lb will usually do the job. When targeting larger sharks, you will need to step up to a heavier game fish setup spooled with 50-100lb line. A circle or J-hook around 7/0 should work well, baited with a piece of freshwater eel, pike eel, catfish and mullet all good options. You can target sharks during the day or night with good success. Boat traffic will not affect them or scare them away. Some good spots to try are the Coomera River, Nerang River, Main Broadwater Channel, Tiger Mullet Channel, Jacobs Well, Logan River, and the upper reaches of both the Currumbin and Tallebudgera creeks. Quite a few of these spots are accessible as land-based options and produce sharks on a very consistent basis. Just remember the legal-size limit is 1.5m maximum length and a possession limit of one per person or two per boat. Bull sharks do eat fairly well, just make sure you do bleed the fish if you’re planning on keeping one for a feed.
Clint from Brad Smith Fishing Charters reports the tides have continued to favour fishing the shallow flats, and we caught good sand whiting, flathead, bream and flounder. Best areas have been little Crab Island and the Aqua Park bank. The whiting haven’t been huge but there have been plenty of fish around the 30cm plus size. A full moon is next Friday, so we should see the bigger whiting feeding in the Broadwater during the day, and up the Nerang River around the Council Chambers at night. Water temperature has been 22C in the Broadwater and 25C in the Nerang River.
Brad from Brad Smith Fishing Charters reports it has been a funny week weather wise, with shifting north to northwest wind and scattered showers. But with some experienced planning and hard work, my clients and I managed to catch some nice fish on lures. With the wind blowing hard, it was difficult to hold position and jig the deep holes, but trolling Hurricane Slam lures and drift jigging the channels with a few Samaki Vibelicious produced some great flathead. I am looking forward to good tides and promising weather this week.
Gavin from Sea Probe Fishing Charters reports the 50-fathom grounds fished well this week, with current backing off producing some great hauls of fish, including snapper that have been chewing well, along with pearl perch, kingfish, amberjack, tuskfish and pig fish.
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 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
