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Beach gutters, rock ledges and headlands

from Fishing Monthly Magazine | June 2023

from Fishing Monthly Magazine | June 2023, page 118

GEN III

THE TWEED Leon McClymont

Beach gutters, rock ledges, and headlands, for land-based anglers these locations are the key to success, but when and where should you be fishing them? All these spots can fish well on either tides, moon phases or time of day depending on the location for the day.

With beach gutters you want to find a deep gutter that has an entrance and an exit, and that is feeding straight out into open water.

These zones will fish well on a run out-tide and a run-in tide. As the tide does this, the big predatory fish will push in and out of these gutters feeding with the dropping and rising of the tide. If the gutter is deep enough, big predator fish, such as greenback tailor and mulloway, will comfortably sit in a gutter like this for prolonged times, especially if it’s holding bait. If the gutter is deep enough for them to feel safe they really have no reason to leave, especially if the food source is in the same location.

Big schools of tailor and mulloway will hang for days in the same gutter/beach just moving back and forth gorging on bait. Hitting the beach can be done just about anytime of the day but sunrise and sunset, coinciding with either tide pushing in or out of your selected gutter, and one hour either side of the tides can narrow your bite period down.

Following this pattern provides valuable information and can be the very crucial piece to the puzzle that will increase your chance of capturing that big one by fishing these phases.

Most beach anglers will even fish throughout the night. Fishing both sides of the tide doing this can be very rewarding and give you great advantage, you can learn a lot from spending just one full night on the beach.

Fishing the whitewashed rock ledges can be fished with bait. However, fishing bait in these snaggy wash zones can be very frustrating rigging up and then casting your bait out only to get a snag within minutes, it can lead to consistently retying knots and huge loss of tackle. You can change up your technique and work different types of lures, such as metal spinners, poppers or stickbaits, which will bring any big greenback or GT unstuck.

Slow rolling hardbodies and plastics in these zones will also tempt huge mulloway and big greenbacks hiding in the suds. This way of fishing can be implemented in areas baits just aren’t suited to and has proven to be very successful. Generally tackling these locations with a range of lures can provide great fishing, and sometimes a lot more of an enjoyable session once you work out the depth and where the fishable zones are.

Headlands are generally a daytime thing throughout summer for most anglers, as sight casting pelagics is the name of the game when in season. Since we are talking winter species, headlands are generally a sunrise or sunset location, but are also great spots to set up for the long haul through the night. Having deep water with a rocky bottom is the pick of the crop, but a headland with a good deep sand gutter running past it is also generally very successful. Once the headland has sanded up they tend to fish very slow.

Fishing bait from the headlands is just about always a go to, as the variety of fish that can be taken from a headland is much larger. Soaking a bait out the front has got to be the go, typically gets the first bite and generally the big fish as well. The best part about headlands is generally the height which then provides safety from the waves and water, which then allows you to soak a bait and possible throw a lure around with a second setup. This will increase your efficiency and chances of a hook up.

Fishing for big tailor and mulloway during winter is for the committed angler. It involves long hours, cold nights on the beach baiting up, chilly mornings flicking spinners and hardbodies amongst the whitewashed rock ledges, and plenty of cut fingers and busted knuckles. But I wouldn’t have it any other way as the fish I work hard for make them all that more rewarding. Well just a quick one this month on the Tweed, as I havent done any fishing in the last month. As I’ve just returned from a 10-day Swains trip – consistent bad weather and backload of work to catch up on.

This month has seen plenty of mulloway caught, ranging from small 1kg soapies to big 20kg+ fish. They have been just about everywhere you can find a mulloway, on the inshore reefs, in the rivers in big numbers also land-based around the river entrances and headlands etc… and the rivers are filled with juveniles. The headlands, beaches and river mouths have been producing the bigger class of fish.

The old boys have been out soaking pillies on the beaches for tailor with great success as the early winter chill has brought them on thick. Some good gutters along Pottsville and Wooyung Beach, Kingscliff Beach and Maggie’s hole has also had a good feed of tailor hanging in it.

Snapper, pearlies and tuskies are biting well on the 36s out to the 50s. There are slow currents this time of year so heading out deep has been the go-to for most boaties on the Tweed. There are still a few Spanish around but they are very thin and aren’t worth targeting this time of year. Floatlining or bottom bashing on the inshore reefs targeting snapper and mulloway is much more successful this time of year. There are reports of bar cod and flame tails coming in from the shelf and beyond.

Thanks for reading, see ya next month tight lines.

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