THIS WEEK’S GOLD COAST AND TWEED ESTUARY FISHING REPORT
29 August 2019
TWEED RIVER by Smithy
Once again the flatties have dominated the catch rate this week through the middle reaches of the river.
We have not caught any monsters but lots of good quality fish in the 45 to 60cm range have been caught and released to fight another day.
GThe large amount of flathead has allowed us to mix the day up with different lures and techniques. Fishing the deeper holes with a combination of Ecogear ZX 40 and Strike Pro vibes has worked well with the best bite coming from the deep water on the first of the run out tides.
It is fantastic to be fully stocked with Pontoon 21 crackjack lures again as these are my favourite trolling lures and have been for many years.
Trolling these lures around the shallows has produced great numbers of flathead this week with the odd whiting smashing them as well which is a sign that the water temperature is slowly starting to rise.
GOLD COAST RIVERS by Clinto
School size dusky flathead and flounder dominated the catch on my charters this week, and we also caught squire, winter whiting, sand whiting, bartail flathead, the odd squid, tarwine, bream, and tailor.
The squid, winter whiting and tailor have not been around in big numbers this week. I catch squid all year round in the Gold Coast broadwater so I’m sure they’ll be back. I suspect like the winter whiting they have moved out of the seaway in search of food.
They’ll be back at some point, probably when some decent rains rejuvenate the system. Tailor have mostly remained on the offshore reefs for the same reason.
Water temperature is hovering around 20 degrees in the Nerang river this week.
One important thing to remember with fishing is that fish have their bite periods when they switch on or off. Don’t be in too much of a rush to move spots if there is bait and fish around but no action yet with slack tide.
Often fish will start feeding just as the tide starts running then feed for an hour or two and shut down again. If you’re on the move you may just miss that hot bite.
This coming week finally sees bigger daytime tide co efficient around the new moon. It seems like we have been stuck for months in the same pattern of small daytime tide ranges and larger night time ranges.
What this will mean is hotter but shorter bite periods, you will need to be in the right place at the right time, then carefully consider your next move.
I will probably be fishing North of the seaway area around tide changes then focusing on the middle reaches of the rivers, or the extreme Western and Eastern edges of the broadwater where the tide doesn’t flow as hard.
Charter options in the coming months with Brad will include targeting flathead, trevally, and mulloway in the deeper holes with vibes, shallow water trolling for flathead and others, surface luring for whiting, and chasing mangrove jacks on lures.
On my charters options will include hunting mulloway, trevally and flathead with vibes and trolling deeper divers, live baiting for jacks, big sand whiting on bait, broadwater fishing with blades and yabbies for a large variety of great eating quality reef and estuary fish, including tuskfish, squid, flathead, flounder, winter whiting and many others.
In our facebook store at the moment we have available River to Reef Gold Coast books, Ecogear ZX40 vibes in colours 440 (my favourite), 415, and 442.
We also have Sax scent goldprawn, Pontoon 21 crackjack 48 SP DR in colours bloody tiger prawn (Brad’s number one flathead trolling lure), green tiger prawn, bleeding tiger prawn, spanish red, plus Ecogear SX48F in colours 303, 517, 525 which are very nice trolling lures for flathead.
I’m putting together a special flathead classic pack, keep an eye out for it coming soon to our facebook store.
Browse our store:
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Cheers
Smithy & Clinto
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