Fishing Report

I hope everyone enjoyed a great Easter break and managed to get out and about and made the most of the sunshine and go for a fish. It was quite unusual to see stronger westerly winds over Easter for this time of year. The mixed bag of weather continued this week with light SW to NW winds early in the week before a SE change, ahead of some more northerly winds as we head into the weekend. At the time of writing my report Saturday was looking like the pick of the weekend, with light winds and just the chance of a shower. Sunday will see the stronger northerly winds return making fishing conditions a bit hard.

Let’s have a look at some fishing options this weekend.

Mud Crabs

Mud Crabs have been around in pretty good numbers the past few weeks making them a great target for a feed. Brothers Tyler and Cruze (see photos in report) had a great time during the school holidays, managing to catch a nice feed of Mud Crabs just in time for Easter. This time of year, the crabs are usually in very good condition and quite full after feeding up during the summer months. Now the holiday traffic has settled down it would be a good opportunity to gives the pots a soak. A few good areas that have produced some good Mud Crabs are Paradise Point, Coomera River including the South and North arms, Aldershots, Pimpama River, The Neverfails, Jacobs Well, Cabbage Tree Point, The Logan River and around Russell Island. Fresh bait is always best, I recommend either Fish Frames, Mullet and raw chicken. A bait bag is a great idea as it stops small fish, eels and crabs from steeling the bait giving you a much better chance at attracting a Mud Crab into your pots.

Seaway Fishing

The Gold Coast Seaway has been fishing well the past week with a variety of species on offer. Good sized Jew Fish have been hanging around in schools and have been hitting live baits including: Pike, Mullet, Herring, Silver Biddies and Yakkas. When looking for a Jew Fish, keep an eye on the sounder for bait fish and also predators like Jew. The deep hold on end of the north wall and the pipeline and a couple off good spots that will normally hold fish. The Seaway gets a very strong current flowing so fishing the last 2 hours of the run in or run out tide is recommended. A tide change is also a natural bite time switching the Jew Fish on to feed. Fishos also landed Squire, Bream, Tailor, Trevally and the odd Mangrove Jack.

Banana Prawns

The cooler mornings have helped to kick the Banana Prawns into gear a bit more over Easter with a few good feeds being caught during Easter. Like any fishing, a tide change is the best time to try your luck with the cast net. When searching for Prawns keep a keen eye on the sounder for a sign of life sitting in a flat line on the bottom and have a cast at it. You tend to see lots of boats just heading straight towards other boats that are casting, if you can find your own patch it makes life a lot easier. When you cast, try to drive the boat to stay over the top of the net as much as possible. If you feel Prawns kicking just pull on the rope several times. This tends to make the catch swim to the top of the net, getting caught in the top pocket where they can’t escape. Try the usual spots like Jacobs Well, Cabbage Tree Point, Powerlines, Logan River, Russell Island, Lamb Island, Karragarra Island and MacLeay Island.

Quotes from the Boats

Brad from Brad Smith Fishing Charters reports:

“I had a big week on the water combining some trolling and deep water jigging to produce some fish for my clients. With the big tides this week due to the lead up to the full moon the bait schools were spread out and at times hard to find. Once I found the bait on the sounder it did not take long to get the fishing into action with some different species and some quality fish coming into the landing net. The fish caught were Flatties, Bream, Whiting, Trevally and School Jew.”

Clint from Brad Smith Fishing Charters reports:

“A busy week of charters on the Broadwater and some interesting catches including Tailor, Queenfish, Giant Trevally, Bigeye Trevally, Jewfish, Moses Perch, Snapper, Bartail Flathead, Dusky Flathead, Sand Whiting, Winter Whiting, Flounder, Tuskfish, Tarwhine, Bream, Spotted Grunter, Barred Grunter, Grinner, Silver Biddy, Leatherjacket, Squid. That’s 21 species, and lures accounted for at least a few of each species on this list. Vibes have been working well including MMD soft prawn vibes, Ecogear ZX40’s, and Ecogear breamer vibes. I wrote an article on how to use vibes in the April edition of Bush n Beach magazine. There has been a lot of baitfish in the Broadwater, and water temperature is now around 24 degrees. I have noticed Flathead numbers have dramatically increased, although they are small the bigger ones won’t be far behind as the water cools more. Neap tides this week will allow us to thoroughly fish deeper with vibes or cast plastics just off bank edges.”

Gavin from Sea Probe Fishing Charters reports:

“In close Spotted Mackerel have been off and on at the Pin Bar using metal lasers and floating pilchards. Stepping out wider plenty of Jew on 18s and 24s using live bait and on the fads plenty of Dolphin Fish using pilchards and live bait.”

LINKS & INFO

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  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