HI Everyone, hope you’ve all had a great week, as we say goodbye to winter and hello to springtime, the weather has certainly heated up on the Gold and Tweed Coasts. Fisheries Queensland has made some major changes to the rules as of September 1, 2019. Please see the link in the report to make sure you’re up to date before you go fishing. Let’s have a look at what’s been biting.
New fishing regulations now effective fisheries Queensland http://statements.qld.gov.au/Statement/2019/9/1/new-fishing-regulations-now-effective
Offshore the snapper bite continues with some nice catches coming from the close reefs off both the Tweed and Gold Coast. Good bait schools are holding around the reefs attracting predators like snapper, cobia and jew fish. Picking the current has been a bit of a lottery with constant changes daily, you will just have to adjust the size of your sinker to suit the flow.
Burley is the key to attracting and then holding target fish in your strike zone, just a consistent amount but too much to fill them up. A good mixed bag of pearl perch, moses, tusk fish, trag and jewfish have made up the bulk of other species being caught. Extra-large yellow fin tuna have been showing up over the past couple of weeks with plenty of boats getting multiple hook ups on the heavy tackle grounds 30 nautical miles off the Gold Coast.
Springtime inshore we will see a transition from cooler to warmer water conditions stirring up a few of our favourite species like mangrove jack, estuary cod, tusk fish, trevally and bull sharks. Currently the dreaded snot weed is starting to build up in certain areas making fishing some favourite spots a mission in the Broadwater and Jumpinpin.
As we get closer to the Gold Coast Flathead Classic time plenty of crews are out pre-fishing trying to work out patterns with tides and where the best numbers of flathead are holding. The snot weed makes trolling hard body lures and also working plastics and vibes very hard work at times.
A bit of rain is way overdue and will also help to flush out the excess weed and push the bait fish back out of the river. Some good spots to target flathead are the Jumpinpin Bar Mouth, Kalinga Bank, Crusoe Island, Canaipa Passage, Kangaroo Island, Cabbage Tree Point, Jacobs Well, Neverfail Islands and Crab Island.
Smithy from Brad Smith Fishing Charters reports on the Tweed once again the flatties have dominated the catch rate this week through the middle reaches of the Tweed River. We have not caught any monsters but lots of good quality fish in the 45 to 60cm range have been caught and released to fight another day.
The large amount of flathead has allowed us to mix the day up with different lures and techniques. Fishing the deeper holes with a combination of Ecogear ZX 40 and Strike Pro vibes has worked well with the best bite coming from the deep water on the first of the run out tides. Trolling lures around the shallows has produced great numbers of flathead this week with the odd whiting smashing them as well which is a sign that the water temperature is slowly starting to rise.
Clint from the Gold Coast reports school size flathead and flounder dominated the catch on my charters this week and we also caught squire, winter whiting, bartail flathead, squid, tarwhine, bream and tailor. The squid, winter whiting and tailor have not been around in big numbers this week. I catch squid all year round in the Gold Coast Broadwater so I’m sure they’ll be back.
I suspect like the winter whiting they have moved out of the seaway in search of food. They’ll be back at some point, probably when some decent rains rejuvenate the system. Tailor have mostly remained on the offshore reefs for the same reason. Water temperature is hovering around 20 degrees in the Nerang river this week. One important thing to remember with fishing is fish have their bite periods when they switch on or off. Don’t be in too much of a rush to move spots if there is bait and fish around but no action yet with slack tide. Often fish will start feeding just as the tide starts running then feed for an hour or two and shut down again. If you’re on the move you may just miss that hot bite.
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.
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
Fisho Tackle operates with Coomera Houseboat Holidays. We offer a great range of Fishing Tackle on the Gold Coast for our local area as well as bait & ice. We have the experience and local knowledge to get you out catching fish in no time. We offer off street parking and also a courtesy jetty for customers arriving by boat. Call 07 5502 6200
Coomera Houseboat Holidays Website www.coomerahouseboats.com.au
Fisho Tackle Website https://fishotackle.business.site
Fisho Tackle Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/FishoTackle/
Coomera Houseboat Holidays Face Book page www.facebook.com/CoomeraHouseboatHolidays
