THERE has been some pleasant weather over the past few days which has allowed offshore anglers to get the boats back out and on the water.
Bottom bouncers have been catching some excellent fish in the 60-100-metre area over the long weekend, with some nice shark, red snapper and flathead reported.
Geoff Currie boated himself a cracking school shark on Sunday which pulled the scales down to over 20kg, among an esky full of other bottom fish.
Jesse Davies found a nice patch of red snapper in 50m, with some of those fish nearing on 50cm and 2kg+.
A few boaties from Robe and Beachport did head out wide for a fish on the shelf.
Most reports have been a little slow, but anglers still managed hapuka to 22kg, blue eye and plenty of gem fish.
The inshore reef and kelp beds have been excellent for the snapper fishos again this week, just in time for the early closure of the season.
We have seen some cracker fish this season.
Locally I know of a handful over 80cm, which is not only an excellent fish for our waters, but for everywhere.
The majority have been between that just legal 38cm and 50cm, which are all great fun.
Steve Jensen, Jake Dowdy and Josh Aston made the most of the ideal conditions on Sunday morning and boated their six snapper in the mid 50cm range, a handful of big whiting and a cracking 2.5kg crayfish on a pilchard.
The land based guys had one last hurrah on the snapper too.
Nene Valley and Blackfellows Caves have been hotspots for land based snapper this year and this weekend was no exception.
Fish up to 60cm have been caught this year, which are thumpers from the surf.
The surf fishos have been getting some nice fish this week.
The local surf fishing club held their annual Coorong long weekend trip up to Salt Creek and there was a great turn out of blokes – and some even better fish numbers.
Plenty of gummy and school shark made up the bulk of fish weighed in, but Graeme Ploenges managed a pair of nice mulloway to take home for the table.
Locally we have seen some reasonable gummy sharks.
The main news has been from in Canunda, but I did hear of a couple at Piccininni too.
Hopefully the strong winds this week do not stir that weed up and it all remains fishable.
Whiting fishos have continued their run this week.
I have seen some more nice catches from inside the Port Mac breakwater by the boaties, with some crackers well over 40cm.
The average size in there still seems to be that 34-36cm range but the bigger fish are always mixed in with them.
Land based whiting fishos have done fairly well in Cape Douglas, Nene Valley and Carpenter Rocks.
Sometimes they are quite slow and you will get one every so often, other times they can be real hard and fast, so you just never know.
Garfishos have made the most of the full tides in the afternoon to put a few fish on the table.
All of our go-to areas are fishing well and some of the fish I have seen recently have got tongues wagging.
The bigger winter gar seem to be filtering through already in some areas and they are in very healthy condition.
Livingston’s Bay, Cape Douglas, Hutt Bay and the Port MacDonnell breakwater have all produced fish this week but most other protected bays and ribbon weed beds will do the same.
Small tommies and mullet are plaguing the heavy burley users, so keep your trail small but constant and you will have great success.
I have seen pictures of nice freshwater fish from the long weekend already.
The Jeffrey family all headed to Lake Fyans in the Grampians and managed some lovely redfin from the lake but the fish of the trip was Craig Turner’s cracking rainbow trout at 55cm.
There were some nice callop reports from Rocklands Reservoir and again the daiwa double clutch lures did the damage.
There have been a few cod reports from the locals up that way.
They are not monsters by any means but the signs are very good.
The Glenelg River fished very well this week.
We have finally started to see some reasonable fish turning up.
The Glenelg River Angling Club had a competition on Saturday night and there were some nice bags of fish weighed in.
Pauly Bingham claimed top honours with a nice mulloway, while his young fella, Hunter managed to take out the junior section with a great bag of bream.
There were a few nice fish caught this week in the upper reaches.
I saw some cracker perch from the Redgum area from the last few days and there has been nice bream on baits too.
The coming week looks fairly decent weather wise, but come the weekend we see a bit of a spike in the wind.
The keen anglers will still fish but the fair weather fishos might have to seek alternate plans.
Until next week, safe fishing.
