The Tweed

Enjoy the outdoors this season

THE TWEED Leon McClymont

With the Christmas holidays just around the corner, let’s hope we have seen the back end of the La Niña season and we get some good weather. spotted mackerel will be the top pick for most anglers this month. I predict a busy season here on the Tweed, with the new Queensland closures coming into place. I’m guessing most, if not all, mackerel fishers within an hour of the border will travel down

to NSW to fish.

The mackerel should be firing on the inshore reefs over December and the next six months. Slow trolling skirted pilchards, garfish, bonito, livies or fast trolling hardbodies are great ways to find where the fish are hanging. You can continue trolling to catch your worth/bag limit, but some choose to anchor up or drift for them. Livies and half unweighted pilchards would have to be the best techniques for this. Throwing spinners/

metal slugs, stick baits or poppers from the boat whilst anchored or drifting can also be very effective as some days they won’t seem to want to eat a bait but will hit a lure; then other days it’s the complete opposite.

Being patient in the mackerel game pays off. If you’re marking fish and plenty of bait around then persist. Just keep passing/circling the fish and they will tend to fall to temptation and take a trolled bait or lure. Many other species can be caught doing these techniques, many mulloway and snapper have been caught this way, or on trolled baits meant for mackerel. I have also caught tuna, wahoo and marlin doing this.

The FADs have been producing most days with half pilchards or cut baits in a berley trail or livies being the ticket to the show. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, stopping approximately 100m above the FAD and drifting down into or just past the FAD fishing zone is the best technique. The bigger fish will hang deeper and further from the FAD as they are more comfortable feeding away from it, where the smaller rat fish will hang close to it in large numbers for safety from larger predators. Once you’re ready to motor back up for another drift you can choose to run lures back past where you want to fish, but risk spooking fish, or you can run your bait a little wide like a horse shoe and leap frog back up in front of your fishing zone as to not disturb your targets. Some days it can only take one or two boats to do some circle work round the FAD, thinking the closer they get the better chance they have at getting one, but this will tend to just spook the school of fish and they will move down the chain deeper and are more reluctant to feed.

If you have been thinking of heading wide? Then December is the best month for trolling big marlin off Tweed and surrounding areas. The big yellowfin tuna, wahoo and mahimahi are also about so it can be very action-packed days out wide this time of year. Some good hardbody lure options are the Gillies Blue Water minnows, Zerek Speed Donkey, Halco Laser Pro, Nomad DTX, and Rapala XRap Magnum.

As for skirts, I don’t really have a favourite brand but I have two colours that have proven to perform in the past: pinkish and green tones. I would have to say running a range of different types and colours so you have all bases covered is your best bet, so you can switch it up to suit if one seems to be the hot pick on the day. Giving the fish different options is the way to go. If the fish shies off one, as that lure didn’t tickle its fancy, it might change its mind seeing a little different style/

colour zoom past. So don’t start with 4 of the same lures out the back.

There are still plenty of snapper, mulloway and other reefies being caught in good numbers, so don’t forget to give the bottom a go whilst most boats will be on the troll chasing the pelagics.

The Tweed River has been fishing exceptionally well considering the amount of rain it has had. The temperature of the river at time of writing was 24ºC and I assume will rise another 2ºC or so. It had the jacks fired up with plenty of captures, and goodsized ones at that.

Live bait is a great option for jacks, but catching live bait can be a hinderance, especially in NSW. Going the extra mile can produce great results in the fishing game, but I would have to say cut baits such as mullet, bonito and mac tuna are just as good if not better on some occasions when chasing the elusive red devils. I have had livies out for long periods without a touch then put a strip of cut mullet out and away it

goes, moments later it happens again. So don’t rule out the easy options, always have a back-up plan.

Flathead are in abundance, but I haven’t seen many or large specimens caught recently. I struggled to find any whiting last river session, I think it may have been still a bit fresh for how far up I was fishing the river at the time. It should have cleared up by December, unless we have heaps of rain.

Plenty of juvenile mulloway are in the river finding drop-offs or schooling baitfish. Either dropping baits or lures, such as vibes and plastics, is the ticket to the show for these fish. Most anglers have the perspective that mulloway are a winter species only, but here on the Tweed you can catch them all year round – some of my greatest captures have been during summer. So if you’re chasing that big mulloway (as every committed angler will have on their bucket fish list) a 20kg land-based specimen is the benchmark. A lot of

anglers out there at the top their game and are yet to tick off this iconic sport fish. It baffles me how anyone can just continue catching the same species in the same zone, I love the challenge of taking on a new species and a new zone it pushes me to the limits. Even on the days you don’t succeed, you always learn and take the experience in. That’s one of the best things about fishing the Tweed is the wide range of species that it holds.

I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, until next time all the best and soak ‘em long.

Andrew Strong getting amongst the red ones as usual.

I’m sure everyone will be enjoying the outdoors and getting some fishing done.

Here are some species and techniques for you to try this summer.

First off, Spanish and This jack slammed a MMD Splash Prawn off the surface.

A 54cm mangrove jack for the author, taken on cut mullet.