17 August 2018 fishing report

This week’s tip:

Do not take bananas on a boat! Seriously they are bad luck haha.

Another tip is look for dredgers in estuaries. Especially this time of the year when the river water is super clear, any discoloured water created by dredgers working is going to attract fish. Firstly the food dug up is a feeding opportunity for them, and secondly the dirty water creates an instant ambush zone for fish such as flathead.

Just imagine a bait fish being swept along with the tide. One minute you are cruising along with enough visibility to take evasive action and escape getting eaten, the next minute you are entering dirty water with low visibility, getting inhaled by a hungry flathead buried in the mud.

In this dirty water it pays to use lure colours that will stand out against the contrast of the the sky and water colour, if something isn’t working change lures until you get a strike.

Fishing report:

This week our fishing charters have been based at Nerang river and the Gold Coast broadwater between Sundale bridge and Sovereign island.

Again flathead are the dominant species, and they are holding far upstream in the rivers due to the lack of rain and subsequent clear water.

Generally when the water is very clear bait fish will head upstream to find more discoloured water to hide in to escape predators. False security as the predators know this trick and will follow them, using the lower visibility to ambush their prey at close range.

We in turn can take advantage of this situation and hunt flathead and other predatory fish in these areas, doing our best to use lures that closely mimic what the fish are feeding on.

The average catch in the past week has been 10-15 pan size flathead a day as well as as bream, tarwine, winter whiting, flounder, small snapper, squid. Metal blades and trolled Pontoon 21 crackjacks and Lively Lures micro mullets smeared with gold prawn flavour Sax scent, have been the weapons of choice.

This coming week we have the lead up to full moon which often provides good estuary fishing. This weekend if the wind is not too bad try drifting with lures and lightly weighted yabbies around the edges of the weed beds at Crab island, and along the sand bank drop offs between Runaway bay and Wavebreak island for a mix of estuary and reef species.

Message us to chat about your personalised charter, we have great gift vouchers available for Fathers day. If you’ve never fished with lures before we will take you on a “lure challenge” where we only take lure rods on the boat and no bait. We have easy techniques guaranteed to catch fish!

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