WET SPELL GETS FISH MOVING

HI everyone, hope you’ve all had a great week, we scored a mixed bag of weather including storms, torrential rain and big tides thanks to the full moon making conditions very testing for the fishing last weekend. Let’s have a look at what’s been happening this week.

After such a dry spell on the Gold Coast rain is a muchneeded ingredient to help flush out the rivers and get the bait and fish on the move. We seem to get either feast or famine when it comes to rain lately but we will see the benefits of good fishing as we transition into autumn and focus on different species of fish to target.

My advice for fishing this weekend after the rain would be to look for colour changes in channels where the freshwater meets the salt, bait should be concentrated around these areas in turn attracting a mixed bag of predators. Fishing closer to the open ocean entrances like the Tweed Bar, Currumbin Bar, Southport Seaway and Jumpinpin Bar should be productive.

Mud crabs have been around in good numbers after the rain with our Coomera Houseboat Holiday customers catching a nice feed after the flush out. The Coomera River, Pimpama River, Paradise Point, Never Fail Islands, Tiger Mullet Channel, Canaipa Passage and Logan River have all produced a feed. Mullet and fish frames make great bait, just move your pots regularly until you find where the crabs are in better numbers.

I fished the Pirtek Fishing Challenge last Sunday, where conditions were pretty tough after the big dump of rain had washed a lot of debris down the river.

We ended up with a dozen whiting between 33 to 36.5cm and about 50 bream and tarwhine which seem to love the extra freshwater in the system. Results will be available to all competitors on Saturday morning on the website. https://pirtekfishingchallenge.com.au

Conditions have been pretty good offshore with small swell and light winds, Dave Kington (see Brag Board) took advantage off the good conditions coming up trumps with a great Spanish mackerel caught off Surfers Paradise. Coomera Bait and Tackle customers have reported some good quality Spanish are being caught from the 18-24 fathom reefs east of the Seaway, Palm Beach Reef and also the Gravel patch have been productive. Trolling hard body deep diving lures or live baits have been the best methods.

Bottom fishing is still worth a go with a nice mixed bag of snapper, tusk fish, moses, trag and pearl perch coming from the local reefs off the Tweed and Gold Coast. Matt Heldon (see Brag Board) did well catching a quality tusk fish off Tweed Heads.

On the Tweed River Brad from Brad Smith Fishing Charters reports before the rain not much has changed since last week with the surface fishing still providing the most strikes over the shallow flats for Brad’s guests. There were queenfish mixed in with the trevally on the first of the run in tide. The queenies were small but were still fun on light gear and also took our surface lures.

Hope you all have a good weekend and get out for a fish, if you have any great catches or photos you would like to share, please email us and let us know how you went.