Some fantastic offshore fishing in winter and continually catch fish, so the older I get the longer I spend in there. Moving to the 40m-deep section of the reef as the wind drops away and temperature rises will quite
YAMBA
Dave Gaden
Winter has arrived once again, and with it comes those cold mornings with the predominant southwest wind blowing off the top of the frosts up in the tablelands. The cold and I are not good friends. I hate being cold, but winter fishing is just so good that it almost takes your mind off the fact that you can’t feel eight out of your 10 fingers. It’s time to target snapper this month, and an early start in the very shallow water is the preferred approach for us. The southern grounds all the way from One-Man to Brooms Head are where you will find some nice fish. Around 8-12m of water on the edge of the kelp will be a good start, and if the breeze is light you should
ever recorded on our charter boats from the South Evans Reef. Many days we bagged out on nice fish between 12-16kg. We would anchor over the shoals of yellowtail and slimies that sit high off
Andrew Symons from Emmaville with a big 16.2kg wahoo.
The late mackerel run worked out well for the kids onboard.
drift over the ground with two or three floaters out the back on very light drags. A lot of the time the cold morning wind will be fairly stiff for the first hour or so of daylight, so anchor on the edge and berley hard with the floaters following the berley down. You will be amazed at what you will catch in this shallow water. Obviously snapper are the target species, but trag, pearl perch, Moses perch, Maori cod and even some squid will all hit your floaters. I usually move wider as the sun gets higher in the sky, using the theory that the light penetrating the water puts the fish off or they move into deeper water to feed. As I’ve mentioned before, I have mates who fish these shallows all day
Father and son Brian and Trevor from Dalby with a pair of mulloway from the northern grounds. often result in a lot of pearlies this month. I do like to drift fish for these guys using the good old paternoster rig with mullet fillet or squid baits, always having that floater out the back. The north ground from Black Rock up into South Evans reef will still have all the fish mentioned above, but will have the added bonus of a big mulloway this month. Last June we had the best run of mulloway we’ve
the bottom, jigging fresh ones up and sending them back down just one at a time while bottom fishing. They don’t last long, with the really big trag taking them in between the mulloway strikes. Wide offshore this month will be red hot. Anything from 45 to 50 fathoms will be pearl perch heaven for those anglers who are prepared to travel out. This month I like the
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JUNE 2019