JUST like that Christmas has come and gone for another year.
We hope you had a great day with friends and family, eating and drinking too much and enjoying the beautiful weather.
Now we can focus on the important stuff – the fishing.
There have been several good reports from the offshore guys this week.
Ben Tweedle and Damien Kaczmarek fished with Roger Munn for a nice feed of blue eye trevalla off Port MacDonnell over the shelf in 450m of water.
John Schinkel also went out wide and managed his first hapuka, a fish of approximately 20kg.
In a bit closer there have been several nice catches of reef species reported, with most anglers finding good numbers of nannygai, flathead and gummy sharks.
The snapper fishing along the coast has been exceptional yet again.
Anglers have regularly found their bag limits with no trouble and often without even moving around.
Green and Danger Points are still the hot spots, but there are so many good locations out there.
All you need is a bit of kelp and some broken bottom and you are half way there.
Shark numbers have also continued to impress along the coast, with some excellent school, gummy and bronze whalers caught.
For guys who do not mind hooking the boat on and heading to Portland, there have been quite a few nice kingfish caught over on the North Shore.
Trolling deep diving lures, or slow trolling strips of squid is the best bet to get into some kingy action.
Surf fishos love this weather.
Warm nights with light winds are just what we like down here and the fish seem to be playing the game too.
Piccininni Beach through to Browns Bay has again been the hot spot.
Joel Davis beached a nice mid-80cm mulloway a couple of nights ago, which I have no doubt would have made for an excellent Christmas lunch.
There have been some great snapper caught off the beaches, with Paradise, Orwell Rocks and Blackfellows Caves all productive.
Sharks are going well – gummys mainly – but a few nice schoolies have been landed through the Canunda National Park, as well as Browns Beach.
The whiting have fired up this week thanks to that stir we had on Christmas Eve.
The breakwater is fishing well in the late afternoons as the sun sets and both the boaties and land based guys are doing well.
There have been some nice fish caught off the beach, with Nene Valley, Red Rock Bay and Livingstons all mentioned to me, but they can be a bit patchy.
Fishos have said once the mullet and little tommy ruff move in, it is virtually impossible to keep a bait in the water.
The gar have continued again, with Cape Douglas, Livingstons and Pelican Point all fishing quite well.
A bunch of gents under a small float is still number one, but a hungry gar will eat almost anything.
Squid numbers are pretty good still and with these light winds, drifting will be excellent for covering more ground.
The Glenelg River is producing more nice fish at the moment, with some of the trollers boating fish to around 15 pounds, but several of the smaller fish have also made an appearance.
Live mullet have been the deadly bait, but the guys anchored fishing cut pilchard and squid have also put a few runs on the board.
Garry McDonald boated two in the low 70cm range last week on cut pilchard and also a nice 42cm perch.
My daughter Evie and I fished on Christmas Day for a couple of hours for half a dozen bream to 33cm on pilchards just above Dry Creek.
The lure guys have caught some nice fish on surface lures in the upper reaches of the river, with some of the perch nudging the magical 50cm mark.
The folding wing cicada-type lures have been red hot, largely due to their ease of use.
The upcoming week looks fantastic weather wise, so I have no doubt we will see plenty of fish.
The crew at Spot On Mount Gambier thank all of our customers for their support and friendship throughout 2018 and we look forward to another great year in 2019.
Until next year, safe fishing.
