Snapper numbers still high

FIRST CATCH: Emmy Jeffrey caught her first bream last weekend. Picture: SUBMITTED.

THE Limestone coast was treated to great conditions for fishing last week.

Fish up to 140kg have been caught between Beachport and Warrnambool, but Portland, Port MacDonnell and Carpenter Rocks hosted greater numbers and bigger fish caught.

Plenty of bottom fish have been on offer for the boaties, the gummy and school shark have been top notch this, with fish of both breeds to 20kg being boated.

Other tasty reefies you’re likely to come across are snapper, nannygai, morwong and terakhi just to name a few.

The surf fishing has been consistent with a handful of anglers making the most of the small windows of opportunity.

Piccaninnie through to paradise and Browns Bay have continued to produce fish with salmon, snapper and gummy shark regularly caught.

There has been word from Beachport of some good numbers of lumpy salmon inside the Beachport Salmon Hole, and that’s the first decent report from this season.

The numbers are excellent for so early in the season, so get up there and have a crack.

I heard some great fish from the surf to the East of the Glenelg River mouth, up to and even beyond Swan Lake.

The inshore fishing around the south coast has continued to impress.

The whiting and snapper numbers are still good right through for the boaties, as the Port MacDonnell, Breakwater, Cape Douglas, Nene Valley and Carpenter Rocks areas have all produced fish.

The whiting have slowed down a bit compared to the number being caught a month ago.

Snapper are a lot the same, we regularly caught fish between 60cm and 70cm or even bigger, so when we got a 50cm fish, it seemed pretty small!

There have been plenty of garfish on the chew and the waders have been got in on the action.

Boaties have shared success in the same areas along Livingstons and Cape Douglas and managed to boat some nice fish there too.

As per usual, the other by-catch species such as mullet, tommy ruff, salmon trout and trevally are still about and still in decent numbers, so taking home a mixed bag is a real possibility.

There are some good reports coming from the river, with mulloway, bream and estuary perch all being landed.

Ben Jeffrey and Craig Turner had great success as they boated great numbers of bream and some big fish in the 40cm range.

Emmy Jeffrey boated her first bream on a Cranka Cab earlier in the week.

The perch numbers have been spread out far and wide along the river.

Some anglers have found big numbers of smaller school sized fish around the town and in particular opposite the main launch ramp, but most of the bigger fish have come from the upper reaches, from the Sandy Waterholes and higher.

The forecast is breezy and a bit of swell is expected.

However, come Sunday, it looks like everything will lay down nicely and calmer weather is expected.

Until next week, safe fishing.