Alovely weekend of weather across the Limestone Coast saw plenty of anglers hit the water.
From the shelf to the beach, up the river or inland, there was some great fishing had.
We have got a bit to cover this week so let’s get into it!
The offshore fishing this weekend was again unreal.
It did not matter if you were out wide over the shelf or in a bit closer, the fish were on the chew.
James Varcoe and crew headed out wide on Sunday and found some great numbers of blue eye trevalla to just under 20kg in 400+ metres of water.
Other crews out wide found a mixture of hapuka, pink ling and gemfish, along with some solid school sharks too.
Coming in a bit closer to that 80 metre to 120 metre line, there has been some nice flathead, snapper and other reef fish boated.
The jiggers are getting a bit more active now and finding themselves some nice fish out there and not touching a bait for the day.
Knife jigs, butterfly jigs and octo-style jigs have all been popular in varying weights, so next time you’re heading out there for a bottom bounce, send one down while you’re out there and you might just be surprised.
The 45 metre through to 70 metre line has been a hot spot again this week for fishos.
I have seen some very nice shark caught on the anchor through that whole depth range, gummy shark to 20kg, and school shark to 25kg, along with nannygai, terakhi and Ryan Ritchie also managed a nice tassie trumpeter, which is from my understanding, a bit unusual in that shallow.
There has not been a heap of news from Green and Danger Points, the water has cleared up a fair bit, so the shark and other target species down that way have been a bit trickier to find, but that’s worked to the advantage of the drop netters who have found some cracking crays early in the season, some over 3kg already.
Surf fishos have been loving the weather over the last few days, with plenty taking the opportunity to hit the beach.
Starting at the top, the Coorong is starting to get a few more mentions each week now from fishos coming through the shop.
This time of year is when a lot of surf fishos start to dust the gear off and get a few pre-summer trips under the belt before the warmer weather really sets in.
There are always a few ripper mulloway caught in October between the 28 mile and the Tea Tree Crossing, so it’s not a silly idea getting up there.
There are always lots of gummy shark around this time of year, and we catch the tail end of the bigger salmon too, so there’s always plenty of action.
Closer to home on our local beaches, it’s still salmon, salmon, salmon.
A real mix from the last week has kept anglers on their toes.
Some fishos have been finding salmon trout and smaller fish to around a half a kilo, whereas other anglers only a couple of kilometres away have been met with 2kg+ fish that have been a real good test on the gear.
Spread out has been the report, some thought Canunda has done well at Whale Rock, Channel Rock and the old drain, Carpenter Rocks has fished well in both Red Rock and Lighthouse, then there have been more isolated catches though Nene Valley, Jones’ Bay, Browns Bay and Piccaninnie Beach.
Sharks have been a little bit slower down this end, but the odd 6kg – 8kg gummy is still being beached.
We cannot be far off seeing a few early snapper hitting the beaches across the South East, and now we have had the whiting kick into gear, I do not think it’ll be too far at all.
It’s been another week of ripper whiting catches from across the South East, the numbers and size of fish are getting better each week it seems.
This week I have had a couple reports of some beauties caught inside the Port Mac Breakwater, both out of the boats and off the jetty.
The hour before and the hour after dark seem to be the golden hours for the jetty whiting, but in the boats you can generally move around until you find feeding fish, even in the daylight.
Boaties have been finding some very nice fish this week in Racecourse Bay, Hutt Bay, Gerloff Bay and Carpenter Rocks, while the landbased guys have found some decent fish at Cape Douglas and off the rock at Blackfellows Caves.
A few anglers have mentioned there have been some chunky silver trevally cruising with the whiting, and with a few pushing the 2kg mark, you’ll know when you have hooked one of those!
We have already had a great start to the squid season with anglers now regularly getting their 10-15 squid in a morning or evening session down at Livingstons Bay, and this spell of flat seas might be what we need to see them kick into gear inside the Port MacDonnell Breakwater.
Walking the jetty of an evening and throwing squid jigs around is great fun once the lights some on, and when the big numbers start to kick off, you’ll know because the jetty gets dyed black.
There has been another good lot of reports from the garfishos this week, and much like the whiting, the landbased and boat fishos have shared in the success.
The usual hotspots such as Petrified Forrest, Cape Douglas, Nene Valley and Livingstons Bay have all been very productive, but like most areas, pick your weather and conditions and you should do well.
The inland fishos have been into some nice trout this past week from lots of different lakes.
Ess Lagoon in Casterton and Coleraine Lake in the middle of town have all produced great numbers of trout for anglers on a mixture of baits and lures.
For the lure guys, small spinners, shallow diving minnows and wobblers have been the most popular, while bait guys have
done well on worms, powerbait or live maggots.
A few local fishos headed to Lake Fyans for the 2022 annual fly fishing tournament held over the last weekend and although our guys did not manage any trout on fly, they did find some nice fish on hardbodies once the comp had finished.
Ben Jeffrey and Craig Turner found a handful of trout and a few redfin on bent minnows, then Andy Barton pulled a ripper 62cm buck brown trout on a soft plastic.
The Glenelg River has been improving week by week for fishos, and although the water is still dirty, there are plenty of fish to be caught.
The bream and estuary perch fishing has been excellent this last week, with fish coming from as high up as the fence.
The bait of choice seems to be scrubworm, whitebait and prawns up the top end, whereas down the bottom, podworms are king.
Lure fishos are still having a ball chasing the perch in the estuary this week.
Stand out lures seem to be Daiwa double clutch and strike pro galaxia minnows, though any similar deeper running diving minnow would do the trick.
Soft plastics are also worth a crack, just run a bigger jig head to get the depth.
The forecast for the coming week looks very fishable for most.
We might see a bit of wind and a spike in the swell later in the week but keep an eye on it and see what happens.
The Port MacDonnell Offshore Angling Club is holding a free event down at the clubrooms in Port Mac with Fishing Edge TV show host Lee Rayner.
The date is November 11 at 6.30pm and there will be nibbles provided.
Everyone is welcome to attend and have a listen to some of Lee’s ripper stories from some of his biggest trips.
Until next week, safe fishing!
