Hi everyone, hope you have all had a good week. It’s been great to see such a good run of weather on the Gold Coast the past week with plenty of opportunities for anglers to hit the water in search of some fishing action. Looking towards the weekend, at the time of writing my report we should see a weather window on Saturday morning – worth keeping an eye on before the wind kicks in – and a big southerly change is due to hit on Monday. Let’s check out what’s been biting this week. Gold Coast Coomera – weekly report
The Gold Coast Sport Fish Clubs Flathead Classic was a great success despite some extremely tough fishing conditions due to strong winds and rain. Some fantastic fish were caught and released during the competition including a 94cm flathead at Jumpinpin taking out the biggest fish of the comp. The classic saw 176 teams with 425 anglers who managed to catch and release 5043 flathead on the Gold Coast over the three-day event, which is a fantastic effort for all involved. Gold Coast Coomera – weekly report
It will be worth heading out over the weekend in search of a flathead and there are a few methods that will work best if you are keen to give lures a crack. Finding a nice edge of a sandbank, gutter or creek mouth will be a great sport to throw around some soft plastics. I recommend using a plastic around 3-4” in lengths rigged on a 3/0 hook and a jig head weight of either 1/4-3/8oz should work well. Trolling hard body lures around 50-70mm in length in 1-1.5m of water along the edges of sandbanks or shallow channels will do the job. Keep an eye out for bait fish in the area and you should be in with a good short and landing a few nice fish. Crab Island, Wave Break Island, Brown Island, Aldershots, Never Fail Islands, Jacbos Well, Tiger Mullet Channel will be good spots to have a look.
Tailor have been around in good numbers along the Surf Beach gutters the past few weeks with Lucy Hammond having a great session on South Stradbroke Island over the long weekend landing 12 good quality tailor using Western Australian pilchard as bait. With a smaller swell around over the weekend checking out your local beach gutter early morning or late afternoon into the evening will be worth a go with some nice fish on offer. WA pilchard, bonito and mullet fillet rigged on gang hooks will temp a bite if the fish are around. If you prefer to cast lures you may like to try metal slugs from 25-45g, it may take a few casts to work out what size bait fish the tailor are feeding on before you can match the right sized and weighted lure. Also surface poppers and stickbaits should do the trick if the fish are fired up in feeding mode. Gold Coast Coomera – weekly report
Reports of quality whiting have been coming in this week with local fisho Brett Van Latham coming up trumps landing a great feed of big whiting on a recent trip in the Nerang River, which is great news as we head into summer. The recent rain will be a good thing for the local rivers and estuary systems giving them a bit of a flush out after such a dry spell. Other spots to try will be Wave Break Island, Crab Island, Coomera River, Pimpama River, Jacobs Well, Cabbage Tree Point, Currumbin Creek, Tallebudgera Creek and the Logan River are all known as good producers of quality whiting. Live worms and yabbies make great bait.
Clint from Brad Smith Fishing Charters reports the weather forecasts have been badly out again with the weather often turning out better than expected during our fishing days.
The 30mm of rain we’ve had will only help what is already a bumper flathead season. Rising water temperature will bring on the monster whiting in the Broadwater. There are still some school mackerel in the Broadwater. There looks to be some great weather this week and new moon falling on Wednesday which will see some good fishing. I fished the Flathead Classic at Jumpinpin for the first time with Wazza this week and we had a great comp. We were lucky enough to finish second in the two-man team division, catching and releasing 83 flathead in three days. Most of the fish falling to Ecogear Balt 3.5” soft plastics on 1/4oz 3/0 jig heads. I ran some charters around Crab Island and we caught heaps of flathead, winter whiting, sand whiting, tarwhine and bream. I was surprised how many solid sand whiting were feeding in the deeper channels. Best bait as always were live yabbies, while Samaki vibes and Ecogear Isome worms were smashing the fish too.
Gavin from Sea Probe Fishing Charters reports in close on the 24 fathoms the silver jew have been on the chew all fish ranging 12-18kg while out on the wider reefs a few little mahi mahi have been showing up on the fads.
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
