Hi Everyone, hope you have all had a good week, pretty average conditions for wetting a line with a persistent cool Southerly wind, overcast conditions and rain on the way to end the week on the Tweed and Gold Coast. Monday looks we will see a return to good weather to start the week. Let’s see what’s being caught this week.
Anglers would have noticed a large amount of snot weed starting to make fishing a bit harder throughout the Broadwater and Jumpinpin the past couple of weeks. There seems to be a lot more around earlier this year than normal, usually September is the prime Month for weed. A lack of rain the past couple of months has not helped, a good dumping would help to break up the snot weed.
Coomera Houseboat customers have been getting stuck into some great quality Bream from Jumpinpin this week. Numbers have been ok during the day but fishing at night is still the prime time for landing the larger quality fish. Spots that produced have been Short Island Huts, Kalinga Bank, Crusoe Island, Perrys Hole, Whalleys Gutter, The Never Fails, Tipplers Passage and Tiger Mullet Channel. Best baits are White Pilchards, Blue Bait, Prawns, Mullet Fillet, Mullet Gut and Yabbies. snot weed
Flathead have been around in better numbers with some good-sized fish starting to show up. Plenty of bait fish around Jumpinpin and the Broadwater at the moment is a great sign as we edge closer to breeding season for these awesome fish. Hopefully, we get a flush out soon to clean up the snot weed as it can be a massive pain when targeting Flathead on lures. Drifting bait is a good way to cover ground and find Flathead if you not used to fishing with lures. Yabbies, White Pilchards, Blue Bait and strips of Mullet Fillet make great baits. Flathead have a habit of wearing through trace line pretty quickly, so I recommend at least 12lb trace when using bait in case they swallow the hook. For the lure fisho’s if you can manage to dodge the snot week trolling hard body lures along the Mangrove lined banks of Islands and edges of Sandbanks is a great method as Flathead will sit head into the current waiting for bait fish to swim past. Trolling against the tide is not recommended as the fish will have to turn to attack your lure and can often result in them missing the lure and not hooking up. Some good areas to try your luck are Bedrooms, Tipplers Passage, Paradise Point, Aldershots, Never Fails Islands, Kalinga Bank, Tiger Mullet Channel, Cabbage Tree Point, Currumbin Creek, Coomera River, Brown Island, Logan River and the Tweed River.
I have included the link to Fisheries Queensland with information on the Snapper and Pearl Perch closure which commenced on the 15th of July and finishes 16th of August 2020. Make sure you know your responsibilities https://www.daf.qld.gov.au/business-priorities/fisheries/sustainable/sustainable-fisheries-strategy/fisheries-reforms
Brad from Brad Smith Fishing Charters reports this week in the Tweed River has all been about one of our favourite lure crunching fish, the good old Flathead. We have been getting some serious numbers of fish in all sorts of sizes from big to small and at the same time have handled them carefully and released them as this is a spawning time for this species. Jigging the deep holes and drifting the deeper channels with vibes the likes of Ecogear zx40s, zx43s, Samaki vibelicous and Ecogear vx blades have all performed equally well. To mix the week up we have also done a bit of trolling in the same areas with some deep diving minnows and got some fantastic results. Both techniques also caught a lot of Bream and the odd Whiting that hammered the lures which is unusual at this time of year for Whiting to take lures in the colder water. We did not catch a Jewie this week but hopefully we will this coming week as they are great fun.
Clint reports the fishing has again this week been fantastic with great daily catches of various fish, big Arrow Squid, and nice Blue Swimmer Crabs. It is easy to forget how lucky we are to live on the Gold Coast with its diverse and amazing fishery. We are boating some really nice big Tuskfish, as well as Flounder, Winter Whiting, Tarwhine, Bream, Tailor. Best bait has been live yabbies, best lures have been Ecogear ZX40 in 440 and 411 colour, ZX43 in 404 and 440 colour, Samaki Vibelicious 70mm forktail in white bait and ghost bait colours. Use Sax Scent goldprawn scent on sunnier, calm days, and Smithy’s UV prawn Sax scent when there’s cloud cover, less light, dirtier green water such as during run out tide. The new size Ecogear ZX will be popular with a lot of anglers. It’s slightly bigger size seems to attract bigger fish on average and it’s 8.8g weight makes it easier to stay in the strike zone during tidal flow. This coming week the Broadwater area between the seaway and Sovereign Island will hold plenty of bait and fish schools.
Hope you all have a good week and stay healthy and safe. If you have any great catches or photos you would like to share, please email us and let us know how you went.
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/
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
