By Jack Mangrove
The rains have finally started to fall and with this the river has started to colour up, and this makes fishing just that bit easier as the fish can’t distinguish as much between lure and live.
The upper sections of the river – especially between the lakes – has been the spot to be for jacks with plenty of fish taken from between the sticks that line the shores, suspending lures, soft plastics, and live baits have all claimed some good fish.
Big flatties have also been in good supply with plenty of fish holding on the drop offs near sand and mud banks, soft plastics have been working extremely well with both prawn and small fish profiles the most popular.
Hopping your lure on a slow retrieve has been the most successful technique, with most fish taken as the lure makes its way back to the bottom. Small pilchards, hardy heads, whitebait and prawns have also been claiming some great fish.
Heading down towards the mouth, Woods Bays have been firing for trevally and the odd tailor and queenfish.
Fishing the low light periods with both popper and surface walkers has been a very exciting way to catch these predators. As the sun gets a little higher try plastics, and smaller micro jigs.
For those after a feed of whiting, the Dog Beach and the Frying Pan have held some solid fish, live worms, yabbies and peeled prawns have been the prime baits.
Last weekend saw some great weather windows so the offshore anglers were able to get out in force, plenty of larger boats made their way to the Barwon Banks, Hards, and Double Island Reefs.
Quality jewfish, pearl perch, tusk fish, cobia, cod and a few solid red emperor were all landed. Fishing live yakka and slimies produced some of the better results, micro jigs and 7” and 9” soft plastics also claimed some great fish with the Motor Oil and Coconut Ice colours seeming to perform a little better than the rest.
On the closer reefs Sunshine, Masood’s, and Halls reef all fished well.
Pelagics are really starting to come on with plenty of school and spotted mackeral around, tuna are also in good numbers with schools on Mack tuna showing up in Laguna Bay.
Sunshine has been the place to be if you are looking for trout. Fishing live baits hard to the reef with heavy leaders and tight drags has been the only way to get these delicious table fish from there rocky homes.
On the beaches – with the wind conditions playing the game – beach anglers have been spoilt, the closer gutters have held some lovely whiting, bream and solid dart. Live beach worms have been the bait of choice with plenty of anglers getting a good feed just after the turn of the tide on the run out.
Last week also saw the full moon and this is traditionally not the best for jew, but if you fish the run in tide between sunset and moon rise this is considered the best time to target jew.
It’s on again – the National Gone Fishing Day will be held this Sunday.
This is a day when all Australians can get out on the water for a fish and celebrate our love of fishing. It doesn’t matter if you have never fished before, Gone Fishing Day is for everyone. So why not sign up for the biggest fishing event on the Australian fishing calendar. Jump on line and check it out and register at gonefishingday.org/
So on behalf of Jack Mangrove, best of luck on your fishing adventures!
