As the warmer weather really starts to take hold, we can expect the traditional Summer species to make their presence felt.

The bass should head back up into the upper reaches of the rivers, the bream should spread out throughout the system and the odd tale of anglers being smashed up by mangrove jacks should start to filter through to the local tackle stores.

It’s a great time on the Tweed area because the silly season hasn’t quite started and we can still enjoy a few more weeks of enjoyable fishing.

Trevally, both big-eye and GTs, should become regular sights on the Tweed River in the early morning and late afternoon as they bust into schools of bait.

Any of the bridges or prominent rock walls consistently holds schools of bait and the trevally make full use of this. Barneys Point bridge is one of the best spots for trevally, with some good schools moving under the bridge and around the rocks just upstream.

The Ivory Marina and surrounding area is also a haven for a variety of baitfish that take shelter around the boats and the pontoons during the day.

We moor our charter boat here and often see schools of trevally cruising around the marina completely oblivious to the schools of bait within striking distance during the day.

However, this changes as soon as the sun starts to set, or at right on daybreak. During low light they smash into anything that they come across and then shut right down again once the sun gets up in the sky.

It is very interesting to watch this little mini-ecosystem in the marina. There are some monster bream in there and anyone who thinks that there aren’t any big bream in the Tweed River needs to come and have a look at the back of Ru4Reel when we back into the pen at the Ivory Tavern.

The wider grounds will really come into their own this month, with early signs of good numbers of blue marlin and mahi mahi on the Tweed Canyons, as well as in the area from just outside the 50-fathom line out to the 200m line.

We hooked a few really good blues and are looking forward to a good heavy tackle season.

The current has been running really hard on occasion on the wider grounds, making bottom fishing a bit tough.

We can only expect this to get worse as we move further into the Summer pattern and bottom bashing out on the 45s and 50s becomes almost a non-event through the Summer.

On the plus side, the current should bring the pelagics to the inshore reefs as long as the rain stays away.

Yellowfin tuna around the Nine Mile Reef should keep a few reels turning until the mackerel and wahoo arrive.

Keep an eye on Palm Beach Reef this month because last year we had a cracker of a mackerel season that started from around the middle of November and we had it to ourselves for a few weeks before the word got out that they were on already.

All we need are a few good southerly blows to push that warmer water and bait into Palmy and the mackerel won’t be far behind.

Lets cross our fingers that the coast doesn’t get hammered by floods again so that we can get out there and enjoy some of the great fishing the Tweed can turn on for us.