Some balmy days and nights have gotten everyone in a buzz for the upcoming summer after not really having one last year. Salmon off the beaches, bream in the rivers and some welcome snapper and sharks offshore have been dominating the reports this week.
Saltwater: The beach hoppers have had it pretty tough of late when it comes to chasing salmon but there are some solid fish about at the moment at Killarney and surrounding beaches. Jesse Mahony-Gilchrist and his mate landed some great fish to 2kg on the Storm Trick Metals cast as far as they could as the schools were a fair way out. The boys said they lost a lot more when they were jumping during the fight and pulled hooks. Coming into summer the salmon are one of the best baits for fish like snapper, mulloway and both gummy and school sharks, so a lot of people are stocking their bait freezers in hope of calmer weather that we typically see over summer. Using slab baits on circle hooks in the 6/0-8/0 size range will be an irresistible offering for a wandering shark or big snapper. If you’re wanting to use it in the rivers then just downsize your hook to a 5/0 and make your baits smaller too. Even though these fish are the biggest in our estuaries they are quite happy to eat small baits as well as the bigger ones so having a spread of baits will be your best option. If you’re using circle hooks please make sure that you don’t bunch the baits up as that will affect how well the circle hooks pins the fishs mouth. If the bait is bunched up on a circle hook it will just roll out of the mouth and leave you with only a mangled piece of bait. Salty Dog Charters have been turning it on for their customers out of Port Fairy lately. Dan has been putting his customers onto some red hot gummy shark, school shark and snapper action. Snapper up to 6kg have been coming aboard the big yellow vessel and sharks to 25kg. Along with these usual suspects they have been getting onto some nice leather jackets and latchet too. Fresh bait is the key for this time of year so get out and into the rivers and inshore waters to get your bait supply up.
Estuaries: Glenelg River has been the pick of the rivers lately for those wanting to try their luck at a bream or perch. There have been some big fish and they seem to be spread right throughout the river which is great for everyone land based or by boat. Perch to 47cm have been caught on a range of hard bodies and soft plastic lures cast in tight to the banks. With the few warmer nights we had towards the end of last week and earlier this week there have been many anglers starting to use surface lures for them. The emerging favourites have been the Atomic Cicada in black and these have been slowly worked across the surface with either a slow steady retrieve or a stop start retrieve. One thing that our resident perch “Guru” Tim Vincent likes to do with these especially when there are lots of bugs on the surface is just slowly shake the rod tip to make it look like a bug stuck on the surface. This is a great technique when you’re fishing heavy structure and you land your cast right in there. The Hopkins has also had some good perch fishing in the upper reaches which anglers such as Lewis Holland, Mick Mahney and Tim Vincent have all been taking advantage of.
Freshwater: Inland reports have been a little quiet this week, although hopefully the good weather this weekend coming will send a few inland in search of the trout, redfin and natives this region is famous for. If this forecast rain helps bring the rivers up we may see an increase in the trout activity locally; concentrate your efforts where smaller creeks or drains meet larger rivers as that’s where large trout will be concentrated taking advantage of outflowing food. October is typically the tail end of the trout fishing season locally before the water temperatures rise and fish activity drops, so get out there and make the most of it. One waterway which has been fishing very well for trout in the south west is Toolondoo Reservoir, north of Balmoral. Restocked with trout following partial filling in late 2022, this waterway is now producing plenty of trout averaging a kilogram with some larger browns present. Unfortunately it hasn’t quite returned to what it once was, famous until the millennium drought (and just after) for producing monster brown and rainbow trout over 4kg. This may be due to lower water levels, the massive populations of carp which have infested this lake, or other factors. It’s still a great fishery though as Jase and Jake Linskens found out on a recent trip up recently where the duo scored some great brown trout on the troll, using Tassie Devil lures.
With a nice calm weekend forecast we expect to see plenty of anglers hitting the water so if you do make it out, be sure to send in some photos and good luck!