Dead calm weather and pleasant winter days over a fair bit of the last week has seen plenty of anglers out and about and there have been some excellent catches all over the place which is very encouraging.

The offshore guys were spoilt for choice over the weekend, some made the trek out to the shelf, plenty stayed in a bit closer and even more fished along the coast and the best thing is that most fishos found their target species.

A few of the bigger boats found themselves out over the shelf trolling lures and  albacore to 18kg was caught, along with some nice school tuna.

There were a few crews having a deep drop for blue eye and hapuka and although the hapuka have slowed down a little bit, the blue eye have picked up the slack.

The shark fishing anywhere  from 5mt to 100mt was red hot with some excellent schoolies amongst them.

Colby Munro boated a cracker at 29.5kg, along with a few slightly smaller samples in the mix.

There have been a few squid boated by the shark fishos, so keep a jig handy because a fresh squid or two goes just nicely with fresh flake.

The snapper season is still open and the quota is still yet to be reached, so each angler can bring one home per day.

Just check up with the regulations online and make sure you know what to do when you do catch one, but it’s great to see many caught.

There have been plenty of anglers getting the surf gear out and getting back  onto the beaches.

If you rug up, light a nice little fire and keep out of the wind, some amazing night fishing can be had.

The local surf fishos have still been tucking into the salmon along the Canunda NP with some of the bigger fish  nudging 3kg.

Baits and lures are both still doing their equal share of damage, so if you’re equipped with 9 foot casting setups or a 12 foot surf rod, you’ll be able to share in the success.

Land based I have seen some excellent fish come from the rocks at Blackfellows Caves and the odd one in Hutt Bay.

There have been plenty of fishos targeting the gar while the weather has been so  nice and the numbers are impressive.

The mullet and tommies are still in pretty good numbers through the same areas and the size of those has only improved too.

I’m hearing of a few boaties coming across some reasonable silver trevally and if you throw soft plastics their way, they’ll chomp them down.

We have seen some really nice big winter redfin and typically we stop  chasing the reddies in the cooler  months, but those braving the cold days are being rewarded.

Boaties trolling bright coloured chatterbaits and spinnerbaits have found the bigger fish, so if you’re new to that sort of fishing, we can help you out.

The Glenelg River has stepped up a gear this week and we have finally seen the first big fish of the season.

Tony Fowler (pictured) boated himself seven lovely fish, one being a cracker at 110cm.

Trolling live mullet has been good for the guys down the bottom end, while anglers up the top have had best luck on baits after dark.

Keep the sounder on and find the fish, that’s the only secret.

There have been plenty of bream and perch from right along the river and Gordon Jeffrey found some lovely big perch around the Nelson area.

The forecast for this coming weekend looks like the sea is building and the wind is picking up, so heading inland or up the river could be a great option.

Until next week, safe fishing!