QUEENSLAND The Tweed

THE TWEED Leon McClymont

Long tail tuna have arrived with reports of solid schools harassing baits balls of pilchards and white bait from the Gold Coast all the way down to Iluka. They should hang around for the next few months. I was spotting tuna with the drone last season right up until August in the Tweed area and they tend to be very large specimens late into the season.

Spanish and spotted mackerel have been on fire with many anglers either bagging out or taking what they need and back inside the bar before 9am, remember fishos to stick to the bag limits and only take what you need.

The technique of choice, and proven to be most successful, seems to be slow trolling dead baits – Tweed Pete McDonald with a nice wahoo, using fast trolling hardbody lures.

Koby Warloz and Jacob Howell with two cracking Spanish mackerel. Bait bonito, garfish, whole slimy mackerel. The fish still seem to be found out that little bit wider than usual due to the consistent dirty water flowing from our rivers.

The mackerel catch rates will dwindle off at the end of May. The last Spanish I recall being caught off Tweed last season was mid June. They are generally XXL sized mackerel coming through late, so don’t rule them out when everyone switches back up to targeting those winter species, such as snapper and pearl perch.

Speaking of snapper, the big schools that hang wide on the 50 fathoms will move right up on the shallow reefs when there is a decent run of fresh taking advantage of the free offerings the floods are providing. The snapper will also school under and around the mackerel feeding, picking off the discarded left overs that are drifting down the water column. There will be some really good sized snapper coming in over the last couple of weeks as by-catch whilst anglers are targeting mackerel. Yellowfin tuna and wahoo have also been showing up in large numbers. Most of the yellowfin have been in real close. The wahoo have been showing up on the 18 fathoms and the 24s all the way out to the shelf. High speed trolling hardbodies seems to be the ticket to the show. Nathan Dodd caught this yellowfin trolling hardbody lures.

Dave Williams is proud as punch with his first Spanish. It was taken on a slow trolled Tweed Bait bonito.

The lures of choice are Zerek Speed Donkey, Bluewater Classics f200, Nomad DTX minnow 200.

There’s not too much to be said from the beaches as they have been hammered from the consistent storm swells this season, but tailor have been showing up on dawn and dusk in the gutters on high tide. On the low tides, plenty of good flathead and whiting hanging in the gutters being taken on beach worms and white pilchards baits.

There should be some good mulloway hunting along the beaches this time of year. Big schools of mulloway will be hanging on the beaches getting stuck into the annual mullet run. Over the month, I have seen numerous large mulloway caught from the river mouths and beaches over previous years as they work in large numbers preying on massive schools of mullet that migrate from our rivers and travel north this time of year for spawning.

The rivers are still slowly recovering after the constant downpours of rain this year. When the Tweed is running brown, the Terranora Inlet is always a lot clearer than the main inlet of the Tweed and recovers quicker as it doesn’t cop as much run off. So if you’re looking at putting the tinny in or soaking a line from shore when the rivers in bad shape, the Terranora Inlet would have to be the pick. I had one gentleman give me reports of his recent captures post flood in the river up Cobaki area, he said he’d been getting some good mulloway and had even caught a spotted mackerel up the river, I was astonished to hear one had gotten that far up. That’s one thing I love about fishing is the general camaraderie from most anglers willing to share tales and experiences of their day on the water, as this is where a lot of the learning and socialising takes place and we need more of it! I’ve met some great people, who are now life long friends when fishing from all over the place and I feel privileged to have shared some of these great experiences with these people along the way.