A long-awaited westerly change is about to reshape fishing on the Gold Coast, and according to the team behind Dougie Burt's Fishing Channel, it could be exactly what local anglers have been waiting for after weeks of dirty water and relentless swell.
Speaking from a Gold Coast tackle shop in the channel's 28 May report, Dougie described an autumn that has been anything but normal. "This year's been very, very unseasonal," he said, pointing to a run of subtropical lows that have refused to break and a monster swell that has lingered far longer than usual. That swell is finally forecast to ease, dropping toward a metre by Sunday and around 0.6m the following week.
The catch is the wind. A strong northwesterly near 25 knots was due to arrive first, swinging west and then blowing between southwest and northwest for as long as eight days. It will be uncomfortable offshore, but Dougie is convinced it will pay dividends inshore. "I don't know what it is about westerly, but I've seen it happen in front of my eyes," he said. "It more or less filters the water so it's really clear."
Once that clean water arrives, the report expects mackerel to fire in close. Anglers were advised to troll deep and shallow divers around the bait reefs inside 50 metres, running north-south so a side-on westerly is less of a problem, and to watch for working bait birds with mackerel underneath. Spotted, school and longtail will all be on the cards, along with the chance to cast metals at surface-busting fish on lighter 7-foot spin outfits.
Snapper rated a strong mention, with ball jigs, slow-pitch jigs and soft plastics in the 40-80 gram range recommended for fish holding inside 50 metres. Cobia and longtail tuna were tipped as the live-bait options around the 18 and 24-fathom reefs, with the report noting the first whales should be moving through any day, often with cobia in tow. Spanner crabs were flagged as a good flat-water bet, since the pots sit and bait far better without swell rolling them around.
Inshore, the dirty water flushing out of the Broadwater has not killed the fishing. Jewfish have been showing around the Seaway and the Jumping Pin bar after the rain pushed bait and fish out, while flathead were expected to sit in the saltier mid-sections. Tailor on small metals, whiting on the clean banks near the high tide, and a healthy run of mud crabs all featured, with the advice to sort through soft-shells and keep only quality fish within the bag limit. Big mangrove jacks were turning up off the north wall on live bait.
The report also reminded anglers that May is prime time for a Seaway snapper, fished light on fresh flesh baits early and late, and noted an unusually strong year for calamari and arrow squid. In the fresh, a spilling dam had bass active on the surface in the upper Nerang.
The takeaway: the westerly may look ugly, but for those who pick their windows and wait for the water to clean, the next week could be one of the better stretches the coast has seen all autumn.
