Hello everyone
Hard to believe that August is only a week away feels like spring is just around the corner, even the weather over the past few weeks has been perfect and it looks like we will get another chance this weekend with light winds on the forecast. During the last few weeks the Flathead have really been on the bite in the lake I have had quite a few trips of late, one such trip I had a chance to fish with Peter Hopkins and test out his new boat, of course I was late so Peter already had the boat in so in no time we were off up the lake to Coal Point, first cast I landed a 72 cm fish which was released. We released another 15 Flathead that day only keeping 4 fish for a feed and that seems to be the case this season big numbers of Flathead throughout the lake all Winter.
The Tailor have started to move around as the bait schools are thinned out. I had a crack at them a week ago and landed some nice fish up to the 1.5 kg mark while there have been a few bigger fish down around Pulbah Island. The lake Jew seem to have gone a little quiet with most fish caught coming in from down around the Summerland Point area, most fish have been taken on lures, good numbers of Bream are also down around this area. Patrick and his good mate Justin Worley fished most of the second week of the school holidays with similar success with Flathead up to 60 cm most trips , the boys are that keen they even fished last Sunday morning in the freezing conditions up in Salt’s Bay, it was a struggle with only 1 Bream for the morning. However, they did comment on the amount of Trevally they had at the back of the boat, the trouble was they wouldn’t bite even when using the smallest bait, there’s always next time. Speaking of Salt’s Bay the whole bottom of the bay seems to be changing with lots of sand now covering most of the bay it would seem most of the problem has come from tonnes of sand which has been removed from Black Ned’s Bay and dumped along the shore line. Looks like another rocket scientist came up with that idea, when will they learn.
At the moment the Salmon have only been coming in as far as Lucy’s wall and only during daylight unlike earlier in June, who knows what next month will bring there’s still plenty of large schools off the coast. Between Moon Island and Mawson wall there are some huge schools mixed in with Tailor and Mack tuna. It’s been years since I have seen schools of Mack’s off the coast, Steve Reilly landed a few of these on Monday about 1 km off the island, he said the schools were moving quick so you just needed to get in front of them to hook up.
The inshore reefs at this time of year can sometimes be a little quiet, but not this year, there have been bag limit catches of Reds up to 2 kg coming in right along our part of the coast, stacks of Trevally, big Tarwhine and still good numbers of Tailor. This weekend should be ideal for offshore fishing, even down south towards Norah Head there are still good numbers of Kingfish and for those who are looking for Tuna out wide there are plenty of Albacore out the back of the Canyons. There even been a report of Albacore mixed in with striped Tuna behind the Farm. Time to dust the trolling gear off.
Along most beaches it’s a typical story for this time of year with heaps of Salmon around, but again like offshore still some solid Tailor and Bream, while on the rocks there’s no complaints either with Tailor and Salmon early in the mornings and Bream, Drummer, Blackfish and Trevally later in the day. Late last week we weighed a 26 kg Kingfish which was speared off Moon Island by Blake Clarke, in speaking with Blake he commented on the school of Kingfish he had seen with the one he speared being a mid-range size fish with 20-30 in the school and some fish estimated upward of 30 kg, for years I have wondered where have the big Kingfish gone and it seems they may have been right under our noses all the time.
Regards
Jason
