Warm, but windy conditions made life slightly tough for offshore fishos last weekend, however the northerly winds ensured sticking around the beach was still a good option.
Some lovely shark was caught by the boaties, while the wind was kind enough on Saturday morning to allow anglers out a bit deeper. Gummy and school shark were in great numbers, as were the knifejaw, terakhi and other reefies.
I have not heard of too many shark along the coast, but on Saturday Jesse Davies and myself stumbled upon a school of snapper, while shark fishing. They were not big fish, but around 45cm and was encouraging to see.
I have heard whispers around the ballot and tag system for snapper this year will be dropped in favour of a reduced bag limit. Let’s hope there’s some truth to the rumour and we can finally get back to catching a few.
Surf fishos got stuck into a few nice fish with many hot spots fishing well. Nath Taylor, Sam Von Duve and their crew had a night out on Saturday evening at Piccaninnie Beach, landing a nice mix of school and gummy shark to 50 odd pounds, a pair of elephant sharks and were bitten off by some even bigger models.
The salmon fishing has also been excellent coming from Canunda through to the back of Beachport along the 10 mile. The Coorong fired up big time and I saw a picture from the Salt Creek area of a mulloway well over 50lb, so now is the perfect time to have a crack. Whiting fishos found great fish across the Limestone Coast.
Matt, Adam and Alex Bell found 20 fish inside the Port MacDonnell Breakwater and also managed a handful of nice squid, while some nice fish were caught off the jetty on Saturday afternoon also, which is great to see.
The boaties fishing Nene Valley, Hutt Bay and Carpenter Rocks also claimed some solid fish. Cape Douglas and Livingstons are still the go-to hot spots for most, but some of the lesser known areas like Petrefied Forrest at Port MacDonnell, Racecourse Bay and Blackfellows Caves have also produced nice catches.
The squid numbers in Livingstons Bay are still impressive. Prawn style jigs have been the most popular, with the Shimano flash boost jigs and Majorcraft egizio 3.0 natural jigs working well.
The Port Mac jetty produced nice squid in the evenings and no doubt as the weather continues to improve we should see more. The Glenelg River is fishing nicely for bream and estuary perch right along its length.
Deep diving minnows, heavy weighted soft plastics or cranka crabs are also in form for the lure fishos, while bait anglers are doing well on cut pilchard or prawn. The mulloway fishing has been good down the bottom end caught on trolled live mullet.
The weekend ahead looks to be fairly fishable, the sea is dropping out and although that wind is still sitting around 10kn, it should be okay.
Until next week, safe fishing. Coatsy
Column by Jamie Coates of Spot On Fishing Tackle
