New Years Gold Coast trip

[Jo5hC]

Day 1: Starting the new year with a road trip to Gold Coast, staying there for a week with the family. We had a quick break at Nambucca heads, and I couldn't resist having a quick flick. Saw a pufferfish and quite possibly the biggest trumpetfish ever, but no fish caught. We stayed the night at a motor inn in Grafton as a pit stop, tried to fish the river but the bank was pretty much inaccessible due to reeds. 

Day 2/3: Wasn't able to get any fishing in on day 2, and due to the crazy amount of rain that the Gold Coast had, pretty much everywhere was chocolate coloured, but was able to plan a session for the morning of day 3 with dad. Hit up a local tackle shop that somehow opened at 4:30am and they suggested that we get beach worms and pilchards. Hit up the beach on the inside of the seaway hoping that the water would be a little bit clearer, but it was still very brown. Chucked out the beach worm on a long shank hook and pretty much instantly hooked up on a small whiting. The whiting were there in large numbers, and I was able to pretty much get a fish a cast, all of them being quite small however. Had a look at the seaway but it was too windy and also low tide. Tied on a 3 inch Holt Prawn and had a couple casts on the beach with no luck, so went back to bait. My dad had a go and somehow second cast hooked onto a monster that was just running fast for a straight 30 seconds and then snapping him off. No headshakes or anything apparently so we've got no idea. Also found a barely alive bream that was washed up with a bite taken out of it. After that we headed home.

Day 4: Today we decided to head up to the northern part of gold coast and tried to fish some creek entrances and flats. the flats were still brown but they still had fish on them. Caught undersize bream and whiting on the flats and then decided to switch up to topwater but couldn't entice a hit unfortunately went back to the seaway and was happy to see that clearer water was finally pushing back in to the system. Looked for any signs of pelagics around but only saw schools of mullet and nothing else so went back to the hotel. 

Day 5: Last day before making the road trip back to Sydney and we heard that the water was clearer down south so drove down to the Tallebudgera system and the water looked much better. The sand banks were chock full of nipper holes, and tons of tiny whiting that you could see. Unfortunately did not bring a pump, so settled for flicking a plastic around. I had quite a few hits, but not sure whether my lack of skill in setting hooks, or whether the fish were just nipping at the end of my plastic but wasn't able to connect with any of the bites.

Day 6/7: We stayed next to the Macleay river in Kempsey, so I decided to give it a go for my first bass. Wasn't expecting too much as I went down but saw some fish jumping and other surface activity so tied on a slippery dog for a quick session. I was completely caught off guard when I had an aggressive explosion on the lure, but somehow the fish didn't connect. No more hits after that, but decided to go the next morning before we checked out. When fishing there, I ended up seeing some bream and garfish following my topwater, even though I didn't expect them to be so far up river. I had another hit which also missed, which got me wondering whether it was just a bream or a bass/EP. I was just reeling my slippery dog in when I had a something small hit it right at my feet, and of course this one somehow got hooked, and I guess I finally caught my first bass, albeit not much bigger than the lure itself... It could've also been an EP but it was hooked pretty good so I wanted to get it back in the water as soon as possible. Planned to meet up with a mate staying at Port Macquarie after on the way down to Sydney. The session there didn't amount to much, saw some donkey bream and blackfish, as well as some whiting, but were all really skittish. My mate did catch a legal flatty on plastics though. Saw someone filleting what would've been a 1m plus jewie which was cool to see.

I definitely enjoyed this trip to the Gold Coast, even if the weather made the fishing difficult. Seems to be rainy back in Sydney as well, but hopefully can still get some good fishing done.

[Yowie]

An adventure, moving about and trying different locations, will give you some ideas for future longer stops.