Christmas has come and gone for another year, so there’s lots of new tackle around. Lakes Entrance is a great place to try it out!

The days are long and hot, and with the warmer weather the King George whiting are making their presence known around the lake system, from Reeve Channel through to The Narrows. In the same area, the angler may see some prawns make an appearance, around the Barrier Landing and through to Hopetoun Channel. The latter has seen a nice run of decent size bream and flathead. Local prawns and worms are the best bait, with early morning the best time.

Some very good luderick have been taken under the North Arm Bridge, on baits of local shrimp or weed.

Mid-December saw a large school of salmon turn up around Bullock Island. Metal lures have been doing the trick on them.

The local jetties have been quiet, with only small trevally and mullet being caught by holidaymakers. At least they keep the kids happy during the school holidays.

The new moon has seen a lot of gummy sharks caught on Lake Tyers Beach. Around dark is the best time, and local squid is the pick of the baits. Small salmon to 1kg are loitering around this beach as well.

Fishing outside the entrance during January and February is usually very good for big snapper. Some of these reds weigh 9-10kg. The Rock, Pipeline and Pine are the pick of the marks. In these places you can also drift around and berley up to catch a few sharks.

The latest craze at Lake Tyers is catching bream, flathead, trevally, tailor and salmon in the shallows, using poppers on light gear.

The dusky flathead have been very good around No. 2 Boat Ramp and back to the pub. Lake Tyers is now closed, so the fish are landlocked. If you walk around in the shallows flicking soft plastics, you should catch a few flatties from late in the day until dark.

Bream and flathead are still the mainstays up the three arms (Toorloo, Blackfellows and Nowa Nowa). Mid-December saw a good run of bream up Nowa Nowa Arm and around the Trident Arm.

There have been some good bream caught in the Hopetoun Channel, and elsewhere around Lakes Entrance.