Southport broadwater tips

[Captain_Zero]

Mate

See if you can get in contact with Brad Smith and do a charter with him. He knows the Broadwater well and you will have a great day. He usually has an article and advert in Bush n Beach magazine. I am not sure what he charges these days but I went outwith him a few years ago and it was a good day with trevally, flathead, bream, whiting, pike caught on lures and SPs.

Regards

Chris

[Leeann]

Ah V8torrie, sounds like you are having a bugger of a time.
Try concentrating your efforts around Crab Island if you're looking at say catching Flathead. Your boat is perfect for this area.
Trolling lures is a particularly easy way of picking up flathead.
Start with the likes of the Halco Scorpions 52's or the Halco Laser Pros 45mm lures in Golden Green, Fluro green, gold or the pink colourations
Also try the Attack lures (5cm) in pink or the Mad Mullets. Don't go too much over 5cm in length in lures and try to get lures that dive to less than a metre.
While the motor is in gear cast the lures out the back of the boat around 15m or so and slowly motor around the flats. If it looks to shallow to be fishing in then it's the perfect place to be fishing. Try trolling the dropoffs but really concentrate on the shallows as well.
Soft plastics fishing may be a little bit beyond you at the moment but I taught a ten year old boy how to jig and on his first outing with his dad he caught 9 flatties at Crab Island.
All he was using was a 7gm jighead (squidgy round) and a Gulp3" minnow in the lime tiger colouration.
The big thing when fishing for flatties is to make sure that you put a couple of aggressive, short but sharp jerks in the rod tip when you "work" the lure.
So cast the lure out, allow it to sink, wind in slack then proceed to work the lure back. After two or three jerks back of the rod tip, pause for a second or two, wind in any slack and proceed to "work" the lure back to the boat.
If you don't get a fish don't worry, sometimes it takes a few casts to catch fish.
The important thing is the action in the lure. A half hearted retrieve will get nowhere near as many hits as the person that's putting some effort into their fishing.
The Gold Coast Boat show is on at Carrara on the weekend. There's a fishing expo there with speakers talking about local fishing and techniques so it may be worth going along. Ask heaps of questions! The presenters are there to help
Good luck

[wayneoro]

ash your catch looks like the result of a few days fishing in a system like the broadwater you should be able to land double that in 1 trip i fished crab island for 5 yrs it is best spot i noticed even over that period the catch drop off and as i lived on a canal always had live bait . the outer reefs are much different had some great catches all the big fast launches that churn up the broadwater dont go out of the seaway

[ashh]

yes they were caught at different times on different days but were merely put up as an example to show the broadwater isnt fished out, and there are still some good size fish out there, obviously not as many as 10 years ago, but they are still around. Every time I've fished the broadwater, I get a good number of fish on board, not all of keeper size, but still plenty of fun to be had catching them on the light gear. They were just some of the better size ones of what Ive caught.

[loophole]

there is fish there U JUST WONT CATCH THEM WHEN THERE IS HUNDREDS OF BOATS AND PEOPLE OUT ON THE WATER.

ash those are some good fish mate yet to get a snap from there yet.