Mackerel and mahi mahi mayhem .................... by Gavin Dobson

Around here, February is the pick of the months for mackerel, if you ask me.

As I write, they are still very patchy but big swells have dominated the bar over the new year holiday period and there haven’t been too many boats getting out.

When boats did take the bar on, an occasional spanish mackerel was caught, but not a lot, that’s for sure.

Mahi mahi are the pelagic of the season so far, with terrific specimens coming from the 32 and 50-fathom lines.

The 50-fathom line – or the shelf line – seems to be the dominance of big mahi, whereas the 32-fathom line is holding anything from 50cm rats to 15kg specimens.

Dust off the mackerel rods and get some bait in the water, it’s that time of the year again!

The fish aggregating device off Byron is on the 32-fathom line and, while the vast majority of mahi are small, there are some bigger models with them this year – if you can wade through the little tackers.

Trolling the 32-fathom line with a spread of skirts seems to be the best way to pick up the larger fish, but if you troll past the FAD, the smaller ones will tackle even a great big lure at times.

I’m not sure why FADs seem to attract large numbers of smaller fish but, as I said, this season there are a few bigger mahi hanging around it, so be persistent.

Back to the mackerel – there are massive amounts of frogmouth pilchard hanging around, which may lead you to think that, if they stick around, both spotted and spanish mackerel will come and gorge themselves – so fingers crossed that is the case.

Anchoring up and using a berley with white pillies, frogmouth pilchard or blue pillies should get you in the game.

Toby caught quite a few bass during a recent afternoon session.

Sometimes live bait can be hard to find – such as at the moment with the big swells we’ve been having – and this is when a good supply of bigger dead bait are important for slow trolling.

Bonito have recently shown up, so grab some of them if you get a chance because they are the premium spanish bait.

But remember, you can’t claim them as baitfish if NSW Fisheries checks you out as they are a species that have a bag limit.

This year, once again, sharks are going to be a problem eating hooked mackerel.

Please don’t keep fishing and feeding the sharks because this is damaging a fishery for no reason.

Damien with a solid bass.

The monster bull sharks are getting worse each year and, while a 3m bull shark jumping clear out of the water with your mackerel in its mouth is a sight to behold, I wish they would just get lost.

At the opposite end of the bull shark spectrum, there are plenty of little ones in the Tweed River currently.

So, if a bit of sport and a feed of flake sounds good, get a few live bait and fish some of the holes during low tide.

Most are only 6090cm long, though you may come across an occasional 1.8m taxman.

Mangrove jack are going off in the Brunswick River.

Live bait are an advantage during the day but, if you are fishing low light or night, all you need is a bit of cut bait or half a pilchard.

In the Brunswick River, the lower rock walls have been hectic with jacks.

The spur wall, the L wall, the harbour walls and, on low tide, the river mouth walls have all produced fish to 60cm.

Snapper and jewfish will often grab a mackerel bait, especially on a downrigger. Damien took this cracking shot of Gary with a jewfish on a recent mackerel excursion.

I haven’t been up the river to check out the jack situation – I haven’t had to – it’s much easier fishing off the bank instead of launching the boat.

You would think, however, that it would be fairly good fishing upstream too.

Bass – mangrove jacks’ freshwater cousins – are going nuts in our creeks, now that the days are hotter.

Brave the snakes, walk the banks and throw topwater lures for some great fun, especially in low light conditions.

Bass are tough fighters and, while I wouldn’t rate them as being as quick to get back to a snag as a jack, the initial hit is that of a jack and even more in my opinion.

All in all, February should be a cracking month and if we can avoid excessive flooding, the rest of the year looks good too.