Offshore Tweed Action with 'The Wizard'

Its been a long time since I've ventured offshore, but Steve 'The Wizard' Wilson invited me out with him, to hit the reefs off the Tweed with soft plastics. He's been having regular success on the snapper, kingies and even landed a massive Red Bass on his last trip.

The Tweed bar was standing up a bit on a big outgoing tide, but Steve casually worked his 5.9m Attack through the bar with no dramas. Once out, we turned south and made a short run to the first of the reefs we were to fish. There are numerous reefs out from the Tweed all very close.

We were fishing with medium spin outfits, mine was a Berkley Dropshot tournament Pro rod 7ft, 6-8kg matched with an ABU Cardinal 804, loaded with 20lb Fireline and 20lb Vanish leader. I've done a bit of snapper fishing in Moreton Bay and usually fish 10lb braid/12-16lb leader. So I thought I'd be right with 20/20, but a few casts later I was destroyed into the reef in short order! Time to move up to 30lb leader and crank the drag up a bit more!

The fishing was fairly full on for the first hour or two and I cant quite remember the order of what we caught but Steve got a nice 3kg Tea Lea Trevally, and I got a 45cm snapper, followed by another smoking into the bottom. I think Steve also got done over before landing a 3-4kg GT.

Shortly after, I hooked a strong fish that I managed to stop before it found the bottom. I had the rod absolutely loaded and the tackle pushed to the limit, the battle raged for a few minutes before I finally subdued a nice little Kingie. The bait I was using was a 5" Gulp Jerkshad in Sardine rigged on a 1/4 Oz #2/0 Nitro Saltwater Pro Jighead.

Steve was chasing bigger fish and opted for the 7" Jerkshad rigged on a 1/4oz Pogy head with the 6/0 heavy wire hook. The areas we were fishing varied from 8 to 15 metres, so with the lighter heads it took a while for the baits to waft down. But I believe this enhanced our hookup rate as quite a few hits came on the drop.

I had one good hit on the drop, and I quickly cranked in the slack to come up tight on a good fish, it then woke up and hit the afterburners! Line cracked off the spool and then went off with a crack as the 20lb fireline exploded just out of the reel. I'd just finished hacking on Steve for fishing his drag too loose, but obviously I was fishing mine too tight! So I changed to the Cardinal 806 Outfit with 30lb Sten after that -too late though!

Things started to go a bit quiet after a while and we headed the next reef for a change of spots. It was also quiet there. The only action we had was helping out in the rescue of an overturned boat that got rolled when a big wave came over the back of the boat. Luckily the skipper (fishing solo) was OK.

The fishing definitely slowed as the day progressed, and apart from another small squire, some solid bream and a few small mixed reefies, we had no more luck on the reefs.

After working over all the reefs to the 9 Mile and back, we headed back into the Tweed River to chase some bream for a change of pace. There was a heap of bait in the water, and Steve rigged up a 1/8Oz #1 Bream Pro Jighead with green Galaxia 3" Powerbait minnow which imitated the bait perfectly. I was testing some new blades I've designed, to see how they'd go.

First cast Steve hooked up to a very decent fish that took a lot of line, and slugged it out for a good five minutes before he bought in a 2-3kg Golden Trevally. He went on to catch two bream and two flathead, and I managed a couple of bream on the blades before we called it a day.

It was a great day on the water and 'The Wizard' lived up to his name catching some top Fish and putting me onto some as well!

Looking forward to the next trip!