JEWFISH COME ON THE BITE

HI everyone, hope you have all had a good week.

Australia Day looked like a busy one on the water. Heaps of people were enjoying the great weather we have been blessed with on the Gold and Tweed coasts.

Fishos who hit the water early saw some great action until the traffic peaked, stirring everything up.

Looks like we may see a bit of swell and a south-easterly change as we head towards the weekend. Let’s see what’s been on the chew.

The Gold Coast Seaway has been the place to be if you are keen to chase a jewfish. There have been consistent catches of school-sized fish around 75cm to 90cm landed by local fishos.

Jewfish have been schooling up in big numbers here for two months and really came on the bite the last week.

If you can combine an early start before all the traffic hits and a tide change you will be in with a great chance of landing the elusive jewfish.

Tidal flow is a big issue when attempting to fish the Seaway. If you can time your trip an hour before and after a tide change you should get a nice bite window to try your luck. Live baits like pike, mullet, herring, diver whiting or silver biddies will do the job nicely rigged on a mono trace of up to 40lb fluorocarbon.

For the lure fishos, soft vibes, metal vibes and soft plastics should temp a bite if fished into the school of jew.

Locating fish to target is key to success. Spend a bit of time sounding around and mark any bait or fish with the GPS and then concentrate your efforts in these areas until you are lucky enough for the fish to switch on and start biting.

Some decent schools of mangrove jack have also been hanging around the jewfish, making a bit of a lucky dip.

Spotted mackerel have also been on the chew around Mermaid Reef this week. There have been reports of some good-sized ‘macs’ being landed. An early start is the key when chasing mackerel. You will find the boats that do well are on the spot and get the berley trail on the go as soon as possible.

The schools of fish will patrol the reef system. The positive of the berley trail is that when the fish are near your boat you have a better chance of keeping them in the strike zone for much longer.

Keep on casting metal slugs while soaking boats. This method teases the fish to the boat and is very effective to get the ‘macs’ excited and into feed mode, and also produces a good number of hook-ups.

Small WA pilchards or half-larger WA pilchards are the great bait and also cubed into berley is very effective. Live baits will also work and can temp a bigger Spanish mackerel to have a crack. Palm Beach Reef and the Gravel Patch have also fished well the past few weeks.

Brad from Brad Smith Fishing Charters reports the river has become very muddy again after another dumping of rain in the catchment.

We have been fishing the deeper holes in the mid sections with Samaki soft vibes and catching flathead and large numbers of bream.

Until the water clears more, try fishing the run-in tides leading up to full moon this week with vibes for mulloway, flathead, bream, whiting and trevally from the golf club to Stotts.

If you have any great catches to report or fishing photos, please email them to brett@fishotackle.com.au.

Good luck with the fishing.