The fishing over the Christmas break was pretty slow for most of us. We were at Currumbin for the first two weeks and the big swell which arrived Boxing Day kept me from crossing any bars to get offshore. However when I finally did get out there I didn’t turn a reel! I worked some good bait schools on the 50 metre grounds off Burliegh where previous years I had caught many small Black Marlin – but not this year. Thankfully these tasty little Yellowfin (pictured) taken just off Currumbin Creek helped ease the pain! Reports from some of my clients indicated better fishing off the Sunshine Coast. Jim Stening released a nice Black Marlin and Peter Hyne and and his boys caught Mahi Mahi, Spaniards and Wahoo on the Barwons and a few Squire off the bottom (pictured). Unfortunately the influence of the La Nina is again looking to upset our light tackle Marlin season. In the Bay where we enjoyed a week onboard South Pacific II, the fishing was just as slow for sportfisherman, however the Whiting were in good numbers at the Sandhills. The Longtail Tuna were very thin along the eastern shipping channel with more activity reported towards Bribie. However, young angler Will Quayle managed to hook a solid Longtail on a plastic right in the Sandhills’ anchorage and fought it for nearly two hours on light tackle, only to have it break off west of Tangalooma after stepping on the gaff – ouch! There were a few School Mackerel around the Four Beacons and even the odd Cobia still according to reports, but I wouldn’t call it red hot action. We saw a 25kg Cobia (pictured) in the shallows at Lucinda Bay one afternoon swimming with a massive ray which is something Cobia seem to do. The kids were actually managing to drag plastics over the Cobia’s back in an attempt to get a bite from it – a speargun would have been a better option! Out wide on the shelf the Blue Marlin fishing has been pretty consistant with Brownie on Megumi averaging a fish per day when he can get out. I also have an unconfirmed report of a Blue around 900lbs taken off the Gold Coast – its only a matter of time before someone takes the first 1000 pounder Blue in our waters!!
Good fishing and keep the reports coming in.
Jeno
