Southern Bay

Flatties will flourish this spring

SOUTHERN BAY

Nick

Whyte Mulloway will once again will be prevalent this month. With September being one of my favourite months to chase them in the bay and Jumpinpin areas. Work the bigger tides around the moons, as more water flow will get the fish hungrier around the tide changes. different! Leading up to the Gold Coast Flathead Classic there will also be heaps of boats out on the water chasing them. Lures, plastics or baits it doesn’t matter, as long as you have one in the water you should see some activity.

There are plenty of fish around the mouth of the Logan River, Jacobs Well channel, Pandanas Island, along the eastern side of Garden Island and be released.

Snapper have been in great numbers the last couple of months and should continue. Trolling hardbodies is a great way to target these fish at the moment. Lures like the Zerek Tango Shad 89 have been doing really well for me at the moment. The deeper water in the bay around Harry’s and the Peel artificial reef balls have been producing better quality, with islands and are a great target on larger topwaters poppers. I find cup-faced poppers in the 100mm range will attract the larger fish. Working the edges and flats of the shallow reefs are the best starting points. South West Rocks, hole in the wall and the spit beacon at Peel are all worth a look, as well as Green and Mud islands.

There are still plenty of winter whiting around at the moment. The best reports have been from the flats in the Rous Channel. There are still a lot of fish on the Pelican Banks as well. Fresh worms will make a massive difference to your catch rate, so make the effort to dig your own or make sure you’re buying fresh. • If you have a great capture from the southern bay you would like to share email them through to nick@ techfishing.com.au Till next month Tech-it-easy.

These tasty flatties were caught on the 50mm Zerek Tango Shads.

Try and work the current lines down the Pin and find those isolated structures or reef points in the bay. With the smaller tides look for the big bait schools and concentrate your efforts there. Live baits have been accounting for the larger models with some good fish around the 110cm bracket been reported on plastics. Zerek 5” Flat shads have been producing and 110 Fish Traps in the faster moving water.

There’s been plenty of flathead around last month and this month wont be any the weedy edges along the Rainbow Channel. Flathead are all on the move for their annual spawning run. Fish will move into the deeper water around the river mouths and bar entrances sometime during the next month. It’s the time of year when a lot of oversized fish are caught and these fish are our breeders, so please take care when handling. Use fish friendly nets, keep them off hot dry carpet, and support their body weight when taking photos. These tips should be followed with all species looking to the reef edges around Peel, Mud, Green and Macleay producing the numbers. Just remember you don’t have to run big lures to catch big fish when it comes to snapper in the bay. The 3” lures account for more than their share of big fish, matching the bait size they are feeding on is more important.

There are still plenty of tailor getting around with truckloads of choppers inside the Pin bar, especially on the top of the tide. There have been some better quality around the Central Bay This is an average sized southern bay pinky.

Dieter Kelsey Haage was stoked with his 30th birthday present – a bucket-list sized dogtooth tuna he caught on board a Big Cat Reality fishing trip with his dad at Reck Reef.