BIG BREAM FIRING UP AT NIGHT

HI everyone, hope you have all had a good week. Pretty average conditions for wetting a line with a persistent cool southerly wind, overcast conditions and rain on the way to end the week on the Tweed and Gold Coast. Monday looks like we will see a return to good weather to start the week.

Anglers would have noticed a large amount of snot weed starting to make fishing a bit harder throughout the Broadwater and Jumpinpin. There seems to be a lot more around earlier this year than normal, usually September is the prime month for weed. A lack of rain the past couple of months has not helped, a good dumping would help to break it up.

Coomera Houseboat customers have been getting stuck into some great quality bream from Jumpinpin this week. Numbers have been OK during the day but fishing at night is still the prime time for landing the larger quality fish. Spots that produced have been Short Island Huts, Kalinga Bank, Crusoe Island, Perrys Hole, Whalleys Gutter, The Never Fails, Tipplers Passage and Tiger Mullet Channel. Best baits are white pilchards, blue bait, prawns, mullet fillet, mullet gut and yabbies.

Flathead have been around in better numbers with some good-sized fish starting to show up. Plenty of bait fish around Jumpinpin and the Broadwater at the moment is a great sign as we edge closer to breeding season for these awesome fish.

Hopefully, we get a flushout soon to clean up the snot weed as it can be a massive pain when targeting flathead on lures. Drifting bait is a good way to cover ground and find flathead if you not used to fishing with lures.

Flathead have a habit of wearing through trace line pretty quickly, so I recommend at least 12lb trace when using bait in case they swallow the hook. For the lure fishos , trolling hard body lures along the mangrove lined banks of Islands and edges of sandbanks is a great method as flathead will sit head into the current waiting for bait fish to swim past.

Trolling against the tide is not recommended as the fish will have to turn to attack your lure and can often result in them missing the lure and not hooking up.

Brad from Brad Smith Fishing Charters reports this week the Tweed River has all been about one of our favourite lure-crunching fish, the good old flathead. Jigging the deep holes and drifting the deeper channels with vibes the likes of Ecogear zx40s, zx43s, Samaki vibelicous and Ecogear vx blades have all performed equally well. To mix the week up we have also done a bit of trolling in the same areas with some deep diving minnows and got some fantastic results. Both techniques also caught a lot of bream and the odd whiting that hammered the lures which is unusual at this time of year for whiting to take lures in the colder water. g week as they are great fun.

Clint reports the fishing has been fantastic with great daily catches of various fish, big arrow squid, and nice blue swimmer crabs. It is easy to forget how lucky we are to live on the Gold Coast with its diverse and amazing fishery. We are boating some really nice tuskfish, as well as flounder, winter whiting, tarwhine, bream, tailor.

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.