Jacks love a dirty fight
HI everyone, hope you are all having a nice week. The hot weather continued this week on the Tweed and Gold Coast with warmer northerly winds and a few showers hanging around.
At the time of writing my report the weekend was looking okay to start with on Saturday morning being the pick of the days seeing much lighter northerly winds before a southerly change moves through later in the day and then increases on Sunday making conditions a bit unpleasant for being on the water unless you can find some shelter up the rivers. Let’s check what’s been on the bite this week.
Some quality Mangrove Jack have been landed around the Gold and Tweed coasts during the past week. The Coomera River has produced some quality fish with canals and marina entrances around Hope Island and Coomera holding some big fish and a fair bit of bait.
The western reaches of the Coomera River have also fished well up past the highway bridge with plenty of natural structure including the big rock bar behind the old koala town and the channels behind the quarry that have several deep holes close to structures.
Bait fishing is my number one go-to when chasing Jacks. If you can manage to cast a net or catch some live herring, mullet, silver biddies, garfish and pike, they all make fantastic bait. Mullet fillet or half poddy mullet are my favourite dead bait that seems to attract the big Jacks but is tough enough to put up with little pickers like bream until a Jack shows up. Fishing with bait is a great way to tempt a big Jack, but also plenty of estuary cod and trevally will respond to this method.
Jacks will tend to hit hard so having a fairly tight drag will give you the best chance of a solid hook-up and limit your chances of being bricked back into the nearest snag that the fish can find. Jacks are dirty fighters and will make you earn each fish on most occasions. My normal outfit will be a medium to heavy rod 5 to 10kg rating with either a bait caster or spinning reel spooled with 30lb braid and either 30 to 60lb leader depending on how tentative the fish are and the type of structure you decide to fish.
It’s that time of year to dust off the cast nets and start having a look around for a feed of prawns on the Gold Coast. They usually start to appear from February and most years run until May or June. I have seen a few reports of fishos scoring a feed from up north around Pine River but some of the prawns have been a little on the smaller side.
We have not had as much rain as last year so it will be interesting to see how this season will go as last year was a cracker with plenty of great feeds on offer for those willing to put in the time.
Try looking around The Powerlines, Rocky Point, Logan River, Russell Island, Macleay Island, Cabbage Tree Point and Jacobs Well.
When choosing the right net, I recommend using a top pocket cast net because as the net sinks the prawns are pushed into a catch pocket in the top of the net. When you have casted, and you can feel something kicking in the net just pull on the rope a few times and that will make the prawns head into the top pocket.
The top pocket makes emptying the prawns from the net an easy task then you can go straight back into casting at the school a lot quicker.
An easy way to know if there are prawns around just keep a keen eye out for other boats throwing nets that way you know you are in the general area.
Tide changes are important when timing your trip. Top or bottom of the tide will work for most areas. When the tide slows the prawns will pop from the mud to schools and feed, this is the prime time to target them. As the tide starts to flow and more boats start casting the schools tend to break up and you only get a few at a time which can be hard work.