This month is set to fire! August is a month where bait is all throughout the canal systems, estuaries, and the open water. The Seaway and Jumpinpin are two major systems with some insane fish. Mulloway, tailor, kingfish, flathead, trevally and bream: the list goes on. With cooler weather still pumping us, boating a few can be tricky.

The water temperature is doing us some justice, as I found. The warmer the water, the hotter the bite with the bait - although mainly for species like bream, jacks and trevally. When the water cools down, tailor, kingfish and mulloway start coming into the factor. Remember, that’s fishing. Some baits will work differently on other days.

This time of year is when the tailor are in full swing. You’ll see tailor in the Broadwater crunching bait. It can easily become costly with their razor sharp teeth! A good tip is to buy a cheaper model lure and pimp it with upgraded split rings and trebles! These fish are very unpredictable, one minute they’ll be smashing and you’ll boat plenty of solid fish, and the next they will completely turn off. Just keep changing up your style of fishing to see what works!

Will Smedley gave us a detailed report of southern Gold Coast this August: Plague of the Ts throughout the canals: trevally, tailor and tarpon are the three to be mindful of when fishing the canals in the south. Usually winter takes the fire out of these species, but done right, you can add them to your target list.

Finding these fish can be difficult, but when located, you’re in the game! Use your sounder to find schooling fish. This is the easiest way to start your attack. Typically in winter, these species will school in a docile manner, they won’t really bust bait and they lay deeper in the water column. This means your lure choice will be much more important. Keep in mind reaction bites and other methods that will agitate fish to bite. Lures such as TT Lures Switch Blades and Vector Jigs are a great way to increase your chances of a reaction bite.

Smaller soft-plastics will also work. Use the ZMan Slim SwimZ, as these plastics are a great all-round profile for most of the fish in the area. Once you find the fish and pick your lure, it’s time to start pitching at these schooling fish. Vary your retrieves until you get a reaction. Use mid-fast winds with slow and fast jigs. These are always a good starting point. You can easily spook some fish off the lure once you’ve caught one, so swap out your lure choice to find another bite. With these simple tips you can hopefully find a few fun ones this August. It’s another great month to be on the water targeting some quality fish!