Hi Everyone, hope you’ve all had a great week, we have been desperate for rain on the Tweed and Gold Coast for months now, it seems it’s either feast or famine with some parts of the Gold Coast copping up to 300mm of rain last Friday night and Saturday morning. Unfortunately some residents didn’t fare so well with localised flooding of houses and units, our thoughts go out to you. With so much fresh water in the system let’s have a look at some options for the upcoming Australia Day Long Weekend.
Local Fisho Paul Wilshire had a great trip recently getting stuck into some top quality Spanish Mackerel on the shallow reefs (see photo in report). It’s great to finally see these great fighting fish show up, Paul used a couple of methods to temp a bite. He was slow trolling live baits and when that slowed up he switched to trolling diving lures. Spanish can be found on most of the reefs on the Gold and Tweed coast from the bait reef out to about 24 fathoms will fish the best. Same principals apply as any other form of fishing, keep an eye on the sounder for bait schools, bird activity or surface feeding action and you should find the fish. Mermaid Reef, Palm Beach Reef, Gravel Patch, Fidos, Nine Mile, and the 18 to 24 fathoms reefs off the Gold Coast should all produce Spanish. For live baits I recommend using a single strand wire trace with a stinger rig of a mustad hoodlum on top and a quality treble hook on the bottom.
After a massive flush out fishing closer to the open ocean entrances is recommended, either the Pin Bar mouth or the Gold Coast Seaway should be fishing well around the tide changes. The best areas to target will be the current lines where the fresh water meets the salt, these areas will hold bait fish and the predators like Tailor, Trevally, Jew Fish, Squire and Bream just to name a few will be targeting these areas.
Regular customers have done well on the Mud Crabs after the rain scoring a great feed using Mullet as bait. The Coomera River nearer the mouth of the North or South Arm has crabbed well, also the Pimpama River, Logan River, Nerang River, Brown Island, Jacobs Well and around Brown Bays on Russell Island have produced a feed.
Bream are one species that love the rain and don’t mind a heap of fresh water in the system, fishos have been catching plenty this week. Bream will eat just about anything and can be found scavenging in numbers around most canal entrances, bridges, jetties, rock walls, marinas. Find the right structure and you should do well. They are a great target species for the kids to chase on school holidays.
Our local waterways will be extra busy this Australia Day Long Weekend, be safe on the water and enjoy our great backyard.
Smithy from Brad Smith Fishing Charters reports on the Tweed the boat traffic on the river this week has been a lot quieter with the constant wind and early morning showers. The inclement weather has not stopped us fishing and with some good planning we have had some fairly consistent results. Fishing the flats around the top of the tide with surface lures has been fun with Whiting and Bream being the main players. The top water fishing with bassday sugapen lures and mmd splash prawns worked across the top of the shallows gets better from now through to April. The key has been keeping an eye out for the birds working in the deep channels as there has been some big Golden Trevally feeding under the birds and baitfish.
Clint reports it has been a good week for fishing with some variety caught in the Broadwater and big Mangrove Jacks still coming in at night and late afternoons. The lighter winds and smaller tides have made for pleasant conditions for fishing the broadwater. There has been a lot of Squid around. On one trip we caught over 20 of them, 30 Whiting, and some small Squire, Grassy Emperor, Flounder, Tarwhine, Pike, and some Tailor. Flathead have been scarce with just odd legal size ones about. Best areas to fish have been Southport, Bums Bay, the West side of Carters Bank, and the Currigee area at times.
Hope you all have a good weekend and get out for a fish now there’s plenty of fresh water in the system. If you have any great catches or photos you would like to share, please email us and let us know how you went.
New fishing regulations now effective fisheries Queensland http://statements.qld.gov.au/Statement/2019/9/1/new-fishing-regulations-now-effective
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
For more tips for fishing the Gold Coast post-flood, click here!
