By Jamie Coates
A BREEZY weekend along the coast put a halt to many anglers’ plans, but the dedicated few who do not mind a bit of stir still managed to hit the water and get into some fish.
The offshore fishos found some nice shark and bottom species over the last week or so, the boys from Southerly Fishing Charters put their clients onto some nice fish including sharks, flathead, nannygai and terakhi.
I am still to hear of the first Port MacDonnell tuna for the season, but it can not be much longer away.
The fishing in around the shallow kelp beds is about to get a whole lot more interesting now the snapper season is finally open again.
There have already been a few nice fish caught that I have seen and remember you have to report all your snapper catches on the SA fishing app, or by calling fishwatch.
It is a bit of a pain the way the system has been created but hopefully it means we can continue to bring a few home for the table.
There has been some nice shark caught in the last few weeks down there, gummies predominately, but the odd schoolie and bronzie mixed in.
It is from about now onwards we start to see the schools of mulloway turning up along the coast.
Fishing the kelp the way we usually would for shark and snapper is how we target mulloway and get plenty of burley on the go too.
There is often a mix of sizes down there – anything from 50cm to 50lb could be caught, so hang on.
The whiting numbers this week have remained excellent again.
The usual spots such as the Port MacDonnell breakwater, Cape Douglas and Carpenter Rocks have all produced some nice fish, while some of the lesser fished areas such as Danger Point, Blackfellows Caves and even up as far as Southend have all been fishing well.
There are still plenty of silver trevally, salmon trout, mullet and snapper mixed in with our whiting, so you never know what you might take home.
The garfish have been great again this week and the size and numbers have both continued to impress right along the region.
The swell has not really slowed them down at all – it just seems to have pushed them to the more protected bays.
As has been the case for the last several weeks, mullet and tommy ruff will be found with them in good numbers in most areas too, so they will add a bit of variety to the bag.
There were some nice sweep caught late last week by the boaties.
A lot of anglers took advantage of Friday’s amazing weather and fished in some of those harder to get to spots.
The size and number of sweep was nothing short of impressive along much of the coast and I even saw a few nice hauls by the spearfishos.
The Glenelg River has been fishing well for the lure guys this week.
I have seen some excellent fish come from the upper reaches of the river.
Ben and Kahne Jeffrey managed several nice perch up around Pritchards on a mixture of Cranka Crabs, diving minnows and Zman Grubs.
Brad Kain got stuck into some nice bream down on the sandflats of the estuary over the weekend when the blue water pushed in.
Lightly weighted plastics were the weapon of choice and plenty of bream could not help themselves.
The mulloway news has been a bit quiet for most but a few fishos did manage a couple down around the poles area trolling live mullet.
Hopefully we see them kick into gear soon and the size start getting a little bigger.
The forecast for the weekend is a little bit up and down.
Let’s just hope the wind stays away for as long as possible so we can get a crack at some fish.
Until next weekend, safe fishing.
