Now that we are another month into spring and with summer soon to follow the water is slowly starting to warm up.
After all the heavy rainfalls and the great influx of fresh water into the sea the water has taken a little while to clear up. With longer hours of daylight and an improvement in the weather there will be an increasing presence of a variety of summer fish including good-sized snapper.
Fishing off the Lee breakwater, local Bill Wallace landed a nice 3.4kg snapper amongst his bag of smaller sized pinkies up to 37cms. Tony Mathews also had a good days outing catching a snapper weighing 3.3kg as well as a swag of calamari caught earlier in the morning.
Bluebait and local squid have been the main choice of baits for those heading onto the Lee. While numerous others have also landed good-sized snapper while fishing the high tides as well as early morning and evening. There have also been good catches of King George whiting, calamari squid, salmon along with rock ling, flathead and the odd gummy shark.
The arrival of the snapper indicates that the bigger ones should not be far behind which will get into the 10kg plus range. So make sure your surf rods and reels are ready to go as it looks that it will be another good season for snapper off the Lee Breakwall.
Others surf fishing off the beaches have been having good catches of salmon up to 3kg with whitebait being the best bait to use along with surf poppers with blue being the stand out colour. The main areas have been along Bridgewater Bay, Blacknose Point and Pivot Beach.
For those fishing along the north shore there has also been a variety of fish taken with catches of gummy shark, school shark, snapper, whiting, trevally, salmon and the odd mulloway being reported. Paul Benbow on his last outing had a good catch of three gummy sharks and two schoolie sharks.
Boating parties heading out around the back between Lawrence rock and Cape Bridgewater have also been going well with good catches of flathead, gurnard, nannygai, coral perch, snapper, morwong, gummy shark and school shark. Heading back around from Lawrence rock for those targeting whiting there has been some good catches just before little reef by the fence line between 3-13m with pipis and fresh squid doing the job for those having a crack at these great table fish.
As the season progresses mako sharks will begin to make their presence felt for those who love the thrill of the hunt for these powerful fighting fish.
In and around the harbour, trevally, mullet, bream, calamari squid, pinkies and whiting have been the main catches. A good spot to head to is the newly refurbished Fishermans Wharf and fish off the new floating pontoon. Go back to a running sinker with a long shank hook and use plenty of berley, alternatively soft plastics have also been working well especially pumpkin seed and camo in the Berkley range.
Off the marina catches of calamari, whiting, pinkies and trevally have been keeping the young and the young at heart busy. The canal has also been fishing well with some good catches of bream, mullet, slimy mackerel and trevally being landed.
Fresh water anglers have also been getting good catches of bream from the Fitzroy and Surrey rivers now the river systems have all had a great flushing out with all the winter rains.
There has also been some good catches of redfin from the small Bridgewater Lake as well as for those going for a drive out to Hotspur towards Dartmoor.
So if your thinking of heading down Portland way, give the boys at Portland Bait & Tackle a call on 0355235213 for all your latest fishing and weather reports, we are open 7 days a week from 7 till 7.
Reads: 2526