By Jamie Coates
A NICE weekend across the South East was taken advantage of by plenty of anglers and although there was a bit of swell to contend with, we still managed to wet a line.
Offshore fishing was pretty slow thanks to the afore mentioned swell, but earlier in the week we saw plenty of boats make the trip out.
The bulk of the fishing I saw came from around that 50-100m line, where anglers were treated to some lovely flathead, snapper, morwong and sharks.
Out wide has been tricky with the wind and swell, but hearing anglers are planning trips out wide this week should hopefully bring plenty to report in my next column.
The tuna and kingfish news from around the corner at Portland is steadily trickling though.
We are still hearing of good numbers of both from most fishable days and I would expect them to hang around for a while longer yet.
Surf fishing over the past week was super popular while the weather was warm and I foresee this week being no different.
While the snapper are in such good numbers, it is a no-brainer to get onto the beach and have a crack.
Easily accessible places such as Browns Bay, Factory Bay, Nene Valley and Carpenter Rocks are all areas worth throwing in a line.
Over the past few weeks we have heard of plenty families heading down in the late afternoons, having a barbecue on the beach, throwing a rod in and in lots of cases, taking home a snapper or two.
You can not go wrong.
There are still a few gummy sharks cruising around in similar areas and I have even heard of a few small mulloway this week too, which is very encouraging.
There have been a few crews headed up to the Coorong this past week and in typical fashion, just like every other year, the fish are in excellent numbers on the weekend after the surf fishing competition.
I have seen some cracking catches of gummy and bronze whaler sharks from the Granites to the mouth and a few nice mulloway in there too.
Axel Beattie managed a ripper at 14kg to top off his handful of sharks and round out a very successful trip.
Inshore snapper fishing has been red hot again this week, with fish up to and over 70cm hitting the deck along the Limestone Coast.
Fishing from as shallow as one metre of water, through to 12-15m in some areas, it has not seemed to matter, the fishing has been excellent.
Some anglers have been lucky and landed straight on their heads, while others have had to move around a bit to find them, but once you do, they are usually ready to go.
I have heard this week whiting are slowly but surely on the improve.
Anglers are now managing to find their bags of fish instead of only a few here and there and the size is starting to increase as well.
Spots worth looking are Racecourse Bay, Port MacDonnell breakwater, Cape Douglas and Carpenter Rocks for both the beach anglers and the boaties.
There are some chunky silver trevally in the same areas too, so you may just run into a school of them out there.
Garfish numbers have been excellent this past week and I have even heard of some real big fellas caught on the bottom with a cockle while anglers have been chasing whiting.
The usual haunts have produced well this week such as Cape Douglas and Livingstons Bay, but they are definitely not limited to those areas.
The Port MacDonnell jetty has produced some nice fish for the land-based anglers and the night time dab-netters have done well in Racecourse Bay, the breakwater and Livingstons.
The freshwater fishing in Rocklands was pretty decent over the long weekend.
There were a few cod caught that I have heard of, but the bulk of the fish have been yellowbelly – and some rippers up to and over 50cm too.
Purple stumpjumpers cast or trolled have been dynamite, as have the Get Bent Baits chatter and spinner baits in black/purple colours.
There have been a handful of nice redfin caught as well in there.
Most doing well have found them on the sounder and hit them with weighted plastics, although a bunch of worms or a little yabby will also get the nibs.
The Glenelg River was bustling with tourists over the long weekend, from the flats down the front, to the sticks way up high, there was plenty of fish caught.
The estuary anglers found some good numbers of bream and perch down the front, with the bream taking a liking to soft plastics and the perch nailing the cicada top water style lures.
There are still heaps of little ones down there, but there are bigger fish mixed in with them, so keep on fishing through and you will be rewarded.
The mulloway news is quite light on, but I have heard of a handful from the last week around that 60-75cm mark, so they are no monsters, but definitely good fun.
The forecast for the weekend is another decent one, warm temps, fishable winds and reasonable seas, so I think we should be in for another ripper.
Until next week, safe fishing.
