Hi Everyone, hope you have all had a good week, cold is an understatement last Saturday with only the keenest Fishos heading out to try their luck on the Tweed and Gold Coast. The rest of the week, we have been blessed with sunny days and light winds making spending time outdoors much more inviting. Once the swell eases heading offshore will be a good option. Let’s have a look at what’s been happening.

Reports of some quality fish around the southern end of the Broadwater this week seeing Fishos land a good variety of species such as Snapper, Tusk Fish, Tailor, Yellow Tail Kingfish, Jew Fish, Flathead, Flounder, Bream, Squid and Morwong. Fishing around the mouth of the Gold Coast Seaway has been extra productive with large bait schools of Hardy Heads and Yakka’s proving irresistible to predators. The run-in tide has fished well, try starting a drift from the mouth of the Seaway and heading either North in the main channel towards Currigee or South towards Marina Mirage. Live baits have been getting smashed, dead baits like White Pilchards, WA Pilchards, Mullet Fillet, Prawns and Yabbies will all do the trick. Soft Vibes and Metal Vibes up to half an ounce in weight work well in the deeper water and is a favourite form of fishing for me. I try to target the last 2 hours of the run-in tide and the first hour of the run-out tide for best results.

As the water starts to cool down quality Whiting are heading back up the rivers in numbers, local angler Wayne Young has had a good week finding an excellent feed of some great quality fish. The Tweed River, Tallebudgera Creek, Nerang River, Coomera River, Pimpama River and Logan River are all great spots to try your luck. Whiting bite best when the tide is running at a decent pace, fishing can be quite slow during a tide change. I recommend live bait is the way to go, Worms and Yabbies are at the top of the list and can be great fun to catch, especially for the kids. Fishing lite is the key, 6 to 9lb mainline, a long 6lb fluorocarbon leader matched a size 6 hook for worms or a size 4 hook for Yabbies. A decent-sized sinker is recommended, I usually use a 4 or 5 ball even in quite shallow water. Just keep moving around until you start to find consistent numbers of fish on the bite.

Tailor are starting to show up more regularly around Jumpinpin towards the top of the tide and the first hour of the run-out. The Pin Bar Mouth, Crusoe Island, Kalinga Bank, Tiger Mullet Channel, Mouth of Whalleys Gutter and Canaipa Passage are all worth a look. When targeting Tailor it’s crucial to find the bait to find the fish, birds actively feeding is a great indication of a school of Tailor. If things are a bit quiet, try trolling shallow diving lures around 65 – 90mm in length until you can temp a fish, once located you can try casting metal slugs or surface lures. Matching the size of baitfish they are feeding on is very important, once feeding fish are fixed on bait if you don’t offer a similar-sized lure they will not be interested, this is called matching the hatch.

Brad from Brad Smith Fishing Charters reports the Tweed River continues to produce good Flathead, School Mulloway, Bream and the odd Whiting in the middle to upper reaches. On the flats in lower light with hardbodies that dive to 3.5m, and on Samaki Vibelicious white bait and Ecogear ZX40 colour code 447 in the deeper holes that are holding bait.

Clint has had a bit of maintenance to do this week, so only made a couple of trips to the Nerang River and Gold Coast Broadwater. I will be making a lot more trips soon and very much looking forward to it. The Nerang River is producing Mulloway, Flathead, Giant Trevally and Bream on soft vibes and blade lures. The Broadwater has Squid, Flounder, Winter Whiting and Flathead biting around the Hollywell area, on yabbies and Ecogear ZX40 blades colour 440.

I 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

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