Southern
OLD
A great month to head offshore GOLD COAST
David Green
March is a great month to fish the offshore grounds off the Gold Coast. Target species this month include spotted mackerel, wahoo, blue marlin and black marlin. The current is generally quite strong which makes bottom fishing difficult. For the first three weeks of March there is a closed season on Spanish mackerel, a ludicrous management rule in my opinion.
can recommence chasing bigger Spanish mackerel. Hopefully the review into this management paper will take place soon, as it is clear to most anglers that the stock is in excellent shape. There should be increasing numbers of wahoo this month and it is worth a visit to the Tweed Nine Mile reef. Trolling high speed skirted lures, live tuna, jigging metal lures and casting stick baits are all effective methods here. Hard bodied minnows also work well at times. The Nine Mile works best
grounds there should be black marlin on the 80-metre line around Spot X and blue marlin out wider. This season has seen a lot of smaller black marlin on the inshore grounds but these have generally finished their run by March. Most fish are caught on deep drifted live baits dropped down next to the bait schools. Lure trolling and switch baiting are good alternative methods and are a much more exciting way to fish. Personally I’d rather catch one fish on a lure than three on a live bait. The
We can expect to see some good catches of crabs in the coming weeks. So far this season the mackerel run has been quite good, but now is the time to chase spotted mackere3l rather than Spaniards. There have been some good catches of spotted mackerel at Palm Beach and Mermaid Reef but they have been inconsistent. Trolled pilchards, small metal lures and small ‘squid and tinsel’ skirts are a good way to target spotted mackerel. When the closed season is over on 21 March we
when the current is running hard over the main body of the reef, and if wahoo are about you should see a lot of long toms taking to the air and nervous schools of small tuna in the vicinity. Hopefully this will be a good season for Wahoo, and already a number of smaller fish have been caught. The Nine Mile tends to fish well during the week, and weekend crowds tend to scatter the fish. Out on the wider
weather over the last week has been outstanding with virtually no unfishable days, but prior to this it was terrible. In March most of the black marlin activity will be around Spot X. Drifted live baits catch most of the fish. March is generally one of the best months of the year to chase blue marlin. While the black marlin are generally starting to thin out a bit by March the blue marlin should
be increasing in numbers. It has been an excellent season for blue marlin, with exceptional catches of more than six fish a session happening frequently. Most anglers don’t put their lures in until they hit 200 metres but there are good opportunities well inside this line, and I generally set my lures once I’m in about a hundred metres of water. Last Sunday we caught and released a great fish over 200 kilos after a long battle. Targeting blue marlin is best done on 37 kilo tackle and trolling large skirted lures is the commonest successful method used. BROADWATER AND RIVERS In the estuaries there should be some good fishing this month. There have been plenty of mangrove jacks around this season, with a lot in the 50 to 60cm range. Most of these fish have been caught casting hard bodied lures or soft plastics around floating pontoons. The mangrove jack population on the Gold Coast is thriving, with catches improving each season. As well as being in the canals, a lot of big mangrove jacks have been caught in the Seaway on live baits. In the life cycle of mangrove jacks fish move out of the estuaries to the inshore reefs when they reach a certain age. In more northern areas they are generally around 45cm
Catching wahoo is a lot of fun. when they move offshore, but on the Gold Coast they seem to stay in the estuaries for a much longer period. In recent weeks divers have reported large schools of big mangrove jacks around the north wall of the seaway. Whiting are another good target species this month and chasing them on the flats is a fun way to fish.
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It’s a great time of year to fish the offshore grounds for marlin.
Casting unweighted yabbies to fish moving up on the flats on a rising tide is a fun way to get a feed of whiting. Surface poppers and stick baits are also effective at times, particularly if the whiting are feeding on small prawns. I like the Bassday Sugar Pen for whiting and this lure has caught me hundreds of fish. If you are chasing whiting on surface lures make sure you wind fast. If you see the tell-tale small ‘V’ of a whiting chasing your lure keep winding and do not stop. Some big whiting up to around 40cm love to eat surface lures and it is a fun way to fish for them. If you want numbers, bait is the best alternative. There will be a few flathead around this month on the top of the flats on early morning high tides but overall the flathead fishing in March can be a bit slow and most of the fish are quite small. Working big soft plastics will produce the odd crocodile sized lizard this month and trolling is another good method that lets you cover plenty of water. March is an excellent month to chase both mud and sand crabs on the Gold Coast. Coombabah Creek, the Pimpama River and the weed flats in the central part of the Broadwater all produce plenty of crabs, particularly on bigger tides. Overall, March has plenty of good options for Gold Coast Anglers and is an exceptional month to chase blue marlin.
