JTACKLE Sportsfishing Monthly VOL. 13

18 DECEMBER, 2015

MONTHLY

VOLUME 13

HoHoHo!! A very festive welcome to one and all!

been nothing short of astounding, folks travelling

Thank you for tuning into the December edition of

from all corners of the globe to the sleepy bayside

JTSM, your local sportfishing news. We appreciate

town of Hervey Bay.

the reader feedback as always and encourage everyone to send in their favourite pictures; or

Unfortunately the lack of knowledge surrounding

stories about the one that got away. In addition to

the safe handling practises is equally as astounding.

our usual fishing reports this edition has an insight

Images are circulating the modern digital grapevine

to a range of new products along with Christmas

displaying baby marlin removed from the water as

gift ideas. Pour yourself a glass of mulled wine and

some sort of fashion statement in an endeavour to

enjoy this month’s JTSM.

earn “likes” and “follows”. For the month of November “the marlin hug” became as fashionable

Local anglers are again blessed with the amazing

as the “bearded hipster”. The time is now to

run of juvenile black marlin that have returned to

educate each other in safe handling practises, stop

the pristine waters of Platypus Bay. There are only

hugging baby billfish and don’t destroy what we

a handful of locations around the globe where a

came to enjoy. Follow the link to The Billfish

light tackle enthusiast can sight cast to small

Foundations website and read up on the safe

marlin in less than a few metres of water. The

handling tips to improve mortality rates for the

interest on social media surrounding the fishery has

future of your fishery. CLICK HERE

Steve Kelly

EDITOR

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Offshore

REPORT

Long time customer and mate Carl Nicholson with a beauty of a triple tail on his new G Loomis NRX At a risk of sounding like a broken record, once again the weather has been very patchy throughout the Southeast corridor. A mixture of stiff Northerly winds has not only forced the surface sea temperature up, it’s continued to fuel the heatwave we are experiencing throughout the greater Brisbane area. Whilst it’s been a shock to the system for anglers, the migratory black marlin relish in the warmer waters close to land. Hervey Bay is once again experiencing a sensational run of these gorgeous little acrobats as they move on down the east coast. Attracting anglers from all parts of the country and as far away as the US and the UK, our “baby billies” have turned it on again. Spotted mackerel, longtail and mac tuna are also in excellent numbers right throughout Platypus Bay and the northern end of the Great Sandy Straights.

These pelagics should continue to improve in size over the Christmas period; the bait balls the region is known for are arriving as we speak.

Closer to home we have seen a positive start to our billfish season with many sailfish tagged and released throughout the month of November. This stunning caped speedster will now make way for the juvenile blacks as they continue down the coastline. Mahi Mahi (so nice they named him twice) and wahoo have both been caught off South Passage and Cape Moreton providing light tackle fun and fine barbequing.

Beautiful bull dolphin fish have been knocking on game boat doors whilst trolling the blue marlin grounds. Fingers crossed we see a long season with these stunningly marked speedsters moving toward the light tackle grounds as the month progresses. The rumour this month surrounding our billfish fleet is that of a local boat reportedly weighing in a blue marlin above the thousand pound mark. I’m hopeful we can confirm this report and provide a few more details in the next edition of JTSM. Weighing in a grander blue captured in SEQ waters will really put our location on the world map.

Bottom fish have been a little quiet this month, the winter species are subsiding and much of the attention has surrounded the pelagic scene. Squire and tusk fish are starting to show positive signs on the shallow reefs surrounding both Cape Moreton and Point Lookout. Anglers are best served focusing efforts around the tide changes or moon above and below times, especially when these coincide with dusk or dawn.

Floated five to seven inch long soft plastics on lightly weighted jig heads down through the bait schools is still a favoured technique. Micro jigs and pirate style jigs continue to shine, especially in waters ranging from thirty to seventy metres. Good locations throughout December are typically the Halfway and Seven’s reef systems in the south, up through the northern 29’s and the greater Shallow Tempest area. Don’t discount the shallow coffee rock areas on the eastern beach at Moreton Island or the shallow rock in six to eight meters surrounding Cape Moreton. These typically overlooked locations continue to produce some of the better cobia, Spaniards and grassy emperor each summer. Here’s hoping big Hughie (the wind god) shines on us this holiday season. .

An impressive 170kg blue marlin caught this week off the Gold Coast by Peter Ayoub

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Moreton Bay REPORT

Mum’s not the word…mackerel is! It’s been several long summers since the toothy critters have graced Moreton Bay with their presence, but fingers crossed, early reports are favourable. A number of excellent spottie mackerel have been captured from the bottom of “The Paddock” green zone to the east of Mud Island and down through to the western entrance of the Small Boat Passage. These fish have moved into the southern bay early and, fingers crossed, the warm water continues to steer them our way this month.

Schoolies and the odd cobia have been frequenting the markers throughout the northern bay. Focus interests on the four beacons and the main shipping channel markers to the west of Tangalooma and Cowan Cowan Point.

Like offshore, there’s been very little chat surrounding the bay snapper thus far. Relatively poor numbers haven’t reflected summer seasons past. Grassy and spangled emperor have started to frequent the southern bay island reefs, showing a distinct liking for a well presented prawn style soft plastic. Lightly weighted jig heads and long casts well away from the boat are a great way to have a little fun and tempt an emperor this summer. These fish have historically shown preference towards the island fringing reef flats that display positive weed growth. Mixing with any of the emperor species using light tackle in the shallow water sure makes for entertaining fishing. These fish are renowned for hitting baits and lures hard and heading straight back towards the structure.

Western Rocks has been one of the more consistent locations in the northern bay; beautiful Spanish mackerel favoured the area right throughout spring. This much-overlooked location has a good mix of clean water, current flow and rock upwellings that always attract bait and predators alike. Some of the largest longtail tuna, cobia and Spanish mackerel caught in Moreton Bay each season come from Western Rocks and I’m confident it’ll be no different this summer. A large portion of the lure sales in early December have been deep diving 100-160mm long trolling lures for mackerel. Lures like Halco 160DD and Rapala CD14s are accounting for quality mackerel when trolled along the exposed coffee rock throughout the channel edges in the northern bay. As the nutrients push off the shallow sand banks and into the shipping channels on the falling tide, mackerel and tuna roam in search of an easy feed. Trolling these channel edges throughout the northern bay is a fantastic way to find exposed rock, wrecks and reefs to add to your arsenal of reef fishing locations. The run up to Christmas usually provides plenty of fishy opportunities throughout the bay; here’s hoping time and weather are on our side. .

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Estuary

REPORT

With many folks heading away to a waterside location for the festive season, local estuaries certainly endure lots of traffic during the Christmas period. Anglers keen on flicking a few lures about, should look to work the early morning and late afternoon tide changes. Flathead will continue to bite right throughout December and January. Many of the larger specimens will venture to the ocean front gutters and river mouths. With the spike in holiday traffic I would look to target flatties in the deeper channels and along the rock walls with silent lures. Popular lure choices have been the brightly coloured 5� Gulp Jerkshads and the ZMan paddle tails. If trolling the channel edges and rock walls look to a 60-100mm silent lure that dives to approximately 3 meters. Bream tend to be a little quiet during our warmest months, the better quality fish typically hiding in the shaded water under manmade pontoons or cruising along the mangrove lined edges at the high tide change.

Jelly and small greasy prawns are starting to move throughout our estuaries, enticing summer whiting to hunt along the shallow sand flats. Estuary flats that are dry at low tide and have a good mix of rubble and soldier crabs are perfect to fish on the flood tide. Anglers fishing the falling tide should look to target the slightly deeper flats with pockets of weed, or those that support populations of yabbies or worms. Lots of fun can be had running surface offerings across shin deep water, highly recommended for folks visiting busy estuaries systems over the festive break.

The Brisbane River has continued to produce threadfin salmon throughout November and into the early part of December. When the bulk of the population heads up river towards the city reaches and beyond, it’s a great time for land based nocturnal anglers to target their favourite structures and light lines. Larger threadies and jew fish are being encountered towards the river mouth with the recent spell of North Easterly winds making it tricky to fish locations on the southern side. December and January in years gone have said goodbye to our local migratory jewfish population, these beauties should be back to play the game sometime in early autumn.

A relatively slow start to our much anticipated mangrove jack season this summer, numbers starting to improve as this article went to print. The likely locations down the Gold Coast will attract plenty of anglers this jack season, but don’t discount systems on our doorstep. Recent years have seen our northern bayside waterways like Scarborough and Newport produce quality mangrove jack amongst the manmade structures. To the south, the greater Raby Bay waterway also holds quality jacks throughout summer and a lot less knowledgeable anglers targeting them. The modern revelation of fast rolling a large paddled tailed soft plastic on a heavy jig head is a fantastic technique for targeting pontoon residing fish. Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of a deep diving 90-120mm barra lure around rock walls and bridge pylons. Last summer had local anglers brawling with mangrove jacks exceeding 60cm in our local estuaries. Here’s to a bumper 2016 season! .

Brisbane’s best butcher and quality sportfisho Jason Andrews with a river mouth threadfin salmon, caught with yours truly almost ten years ago.

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Flying fish hunt - The Hunt

This month’s feature video is titled “Flying fish hunt” a small teaser taken from episode 4 of “The Hunt” series produced by Alastair Fothergill and his team for the BBC. The series is currently airing on BBC One in the UK and is due to hit our screens courtesy of channel 9 in 2016. With nature’s true wordsmith, Sir David Attenborough, narrating and the production crew that brought us Blue Planet, Planet Earth and Frozen Plane, this will be series not to miss.

“The most exciting behaviour in the natural world is predation, but it has always been portrayed in the same way on screen: bloody teeth, marauding sharks, nature red in tooth and claw. Predators have always been perceived as impressive but aggressive animals, and in particular the kill has been the thing – in the past if you sent a crew out to film a predation sequence, the first thing that the Executive Producer would ask the director is, ‘Did you get the kill?”

“Yet actually the kill itself isn’t interesting, because once animals have killed, the story’s over. What is interesting is the build up, the strategies adopted by both the predators and prey. This has never been looked at in detail, and that is the aim of The Hunt” (AlastairFothergill – Executive producer)

Final

WORD

Folks, that’s about all from the editor’s desk this month. Time’s come to put down the pen and go and earn my keep in the store. With Christmas approaching, we have a broad array of gift ideas and lots of 2015 closeouts, so come down and grab yourself a bargain! From all the crew at Jones’s Tackle we wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and prosperous 2016. It’s been our absolute pleasure to assist you in the store this year and we hope it’s a very fishy kind of year ahead.

Here’s hoping the weather gods shine on us over the holiday period and fingers crossed you get a chance to spend some time with loved ones in the great outdoors. It’s been my privilege to bring you the sportfishing news on behalf of Jones’s Tackle in 2015 and I can’t thank you enough for your continued support.

All the very best, hooroo.

Steve Kelly

EDITOR