NEAR perfect conditions over the past weekend saw plenty of anglers head for the water and chase different varieties of fish.
It did not seem to matter whether you headed offshore or stayed inland, there were some excellent fish on offer.
Plenty of boats headed offshore in search of tuna and although they were finicky at times, there were still plenty of nice school fish caught.
Small skirts were the way to go, with some anglers going down as small as three or four inches just to tempt a bite.
Small deep diving minnows such as the speed donkey 140 were also claiming their fair share of fish.
Nige Telford boated a nice 82cm snapper and a nice little 18kg mako shark for the table on his charter fishing trip.
There have still been good numbers of big arrow squid being caught in as close as 50m.
Not only is the arrow squid fantastic bait, but not bad on the chew either.
Some nice hapuka in 450 metres were caught when a charter made its way to the shelf, so while the weather is still good, that is a great option.
The Port MacDonnell Offshore Angling Club’s Annual Tuna and Sportsfish Tournament kicks off this Saturday morning and although the conditions early in the tournament look a bit dodgy, the coming days will settle and allow everyone a crack at the big one.
Good luck to all the locals and interstate anglers who are competing, I can not wait to see the results.
Salmon have been going ballistic the last week or so in Beachport, several anglers are managing their bag limits of fish in only an hour or two.
The average size has still been that 750g to 1kg range, but still excellent fun on the light gear.
The 40g metal slugs are still the pick of the lures, but the bait guys are still landing some great fish on pilchards.
There have been a few nice salmon caught around the Cape Banks area, but the numbers are not quite like that of Beachport just yet.
There have been some nice fish caught out of the boats in Carpenters Rocks by trolling metal slugs or soft plastics, with some of those being up over 1.5kg, but they are just out of the reach of beach casters.
The Coorong has still been fishing well from the surf, quite a few shark have been landed and a few mulloway to 1m that I know of.
The whiting fishing has gone from strength to strength again this week, with the Port MacDonnell Breakwater being just as consistent as ever.
Several anglers have been catching their baglimits of fish to 40cm and even the odd fish being up to 45cm.
A mixture of cockles, squid and pilchard fillets have been doing the job.
There are quite a few flathead getting about in the breakwater at the moment too, so along with the whiting, salmon trout, mullet and garfish all being caught in there at the moment, you should find yourself a nice mixed bag of fish.
The garfishing has not slowed at all this week, with plenty of big fish still being caught at Cape Douglas, Livingstons Bay and Pelican Point.
Numbers are excellent, as is the size, so let’s hope we get another few weeks out of them yet before they disappear.
Tommy ruff and mullet have also been caught in the same areas, and I have even heard of a couple of whiting and big bream caught on gents under a float.
The inland fishing has been excellent again this week, Lake Toolondoo has produced some more big redfin, Matt and Alex Bell have done it again with several lovely fish over 40cm and a few nice trout mixed in too.
The weed can be an issue in places when you are trying to troll, but there are clear areas where the fish are holding, so keep on the move.
Lake Kooongwootong has produced some reasonable fish with the cold snap and that should really start to fire up soon.
The Glenelg River has been fishing well, with a few nice mulloway landed between the top of Taylors Straight and the Princess Margaret Rose Caves on a mixture of live and dead baits.
Mullet are always a popular choice by the trollers this time of year and as the bigger mulloway start to move up the river system, they can almost always be tempted with a livie.
Cut pilchard and squid strips are a close second, with the amount of oil and blood that leeches from a pilchard, it is easy to see why.
The bream fishing has been good through most of the river, the guys up around Wilson’s Hall and Redgum landing have been picking up some great fish on plastics along the rockwalls.
Natural coloured Samaki Boom baits in the 2.5-3 inch models have been the best bet recently and rigging them on hidden weight style jigheads is a deadly combination.
Perch have quietened down a bit, but they are still there, just a bit harder to talk into having a go at a lure.
Persistence will almost always work, but if it does not, they will fall for a whitebait.
The weather looks a bit average for the weekend, but with plenty of inshore and river options, there will be plenty of choices to wet a line.
Until next week, safe fishing.
