Hello everyone
As May draws to an end its hard to believe we will be heading into Winter, apart from a cold and wet couple of weeks earlier this month it’s been sunshine and 25 dec most days , offshore water temperature is still hovering around the 20- 23 dec mark and for a lot of anglers the Swansea Fad is still producing plenty of Dolphin fish topping off what has been an incredible season in fact properly the best ever seen but be quick it looks like the fisheries will be removing the Fad for cleaning and maintance sometime during the month of June ..
Back on the inshore reefs we have started to see an increase in Snapper numbers no real big fish yet but good numbers something that has been lacking in past years both the Redhead to Merewether stretch have been producing fish up to 3 kg mixed in with small Trag , Bream , Tailor and Bonito prawns and pilchards proving to be the best baits while down South towards Catherine Hill Bay its been Snapper , Mulloway and Kingfish . Over the last few weeks several monster Kingfish have been lost around the front of Moon Island while using live Squid some of these fish have been estimated over 20 kg which will test most gear and anglers .
Out in the deeper water down towards the Nora head / Texas ground the current has been a bit of an issue however those putting the time in are catching good numbers of Perch , Trag ,Snapper and Kingfish , both jigging and live baits are tempting the larger fish . On the shelf things are very quiet at the moment 2 weeks ago both Patrick and I headed out on board Rocket out of Newcastle only the find the sea void of any bird or fish life however Steve ( Dolphin Fish ) Norris show his angling skill when he landed a Porcupine fish in 350 fathoms the poor thing was jagged by a 14 inch marlin lure a story that will be talked about for year to come .
Lake Macquarie is now starting to fire up with good reports of Flathead , Tailor and school Mulloway been found throughout the lake both the southern and northern end are fishing well , the new range of Fuze Pulse soft vibs in 95 mm and 115 mm are proving to be very popular with the deep water lake fisherman these lures used when deep jigging in 10 m of water have been working well on both Flathead and Mulloway .
Good numbers of Bream are been caught throughout the lake and Swansea Channel Chris Rolfe managed 8 solid fish up to 42 cm this week on mullet strip during the middle of the day these fish have been around for the last 4 weeks and should stay into July .The Salts Bay Salmon are starting ti entre into the lake several school have been seen in Belmont Bay and down around Pulbar Island , last week Patrick and his best mate Justin Worley managed 15 Salmon up to 3.1 kg in Salts Bay on the run in tide the combination of the 3 inch Casper Clears with no 2 Squidgy resin heads prove once more to be the best way to catch these fish .
On Saturday afternoon both Patrick and I headed out for our first Tailor session of the season , Pat landed 4 fish between 1.2 and 1.6 kg for the outing unfortunately I was just a spectator coming home empty handed , it seem I have taught my young apprentice too well he has certainly become a very good fisherman perhaps even too good for his old man .
On the beaches Tailor have been a little scarce however reports coming in today indicate it may be about to change with reports of good size fish now coming in from both Foster and Hawks nest it seems the Tailor schools are heading down the coast already this week a few have started to show up , my good mate Steve Rielly landed one around the 3 kg mark only a day ago while Al McMaster and Mick Walker have been catching their fare share of Bream and Whiting on beach worms . Off the rocks there have been quite a few nice Reds around most fish are around the kg mark but I have heard of a few bigger fish up towards the Bay ..
Just a short note Green weed is very scarce at the moment I have had several calls and even emails on where it can be found as yet I have no real answers , lets hope it starts to show back up soon ..
Regards
Jason
