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Spawning sandworms a smorgasbord
  |  First Published: February 2008



It’s really been a perfect summer at the Bemm, with plenty of warm weather for the beach goers and some red-hot fishing in both the river and estuary. The entrance has remained open despite a few strong easterlies, although it appears only days away from closing.

Most anglers have enjoyed some of their best fishing ever, with the luderick in the lake and channel providing great sport on light tackle. Some of these fish have been in excess of 50cm and have tipped the scales at nearly 2kg. Sandworm has worked a treat, however some anglers have also had success using weed and cunji.

With the warmer weather the sandworm are now spawning and can be seen swimming around the lake. The fish are taking advantage of this and have been very active on the surface, feeding on the vulnerable worms. A few anglers have had great success using worm pattern plastics and have caught, bream, luderick and trevally.

The river has also been firing and has provided some pretty exciting sight fishing, where you can actually see the bream inhale your plastic. There are big schools of bream swimming close to the surface, and they are best targeted with soft lures fished unweighted or on a resin head. Bloodworm Squidgy Wrigglers have been particularly effective with Gulp Sandworms in camo colour working well. Floating hard-bodied lures have also been working well.

The flathead haven’t really fired yet, but there have still been a few good ones over 3.6kg caught. They seem to be pretty hard work on plastics, and the better results have been achieved using live mullet. The channel is still the best place to target the big lizards, with only the odd one caught around the edges of the lake.

The surf has been a bit patchy, but there has been a few good salmon and tailor caught on pilchards and surf poppers. The odd gummy has also been landed, but, if we use last year as a guide, we still have a couple of the better ‘gummy months’ to come. Cured eel is a great bait for the gummies, and when fished on a circle hook it makes a deadly combination with a fantastic hook up rate.

Having not seen any prawn in the month of December, it was great to see a few in mid-January, giving us a chance of having a reasonable prawning run. There seemed to be a few different sizes, with some of the smaller ones only 2.5cm or so long. Once the entrance closes, the water will warm up, making perfect conditions for the prawns to grow quickly. At this stage it looks like we should get a few over the new moon in February, with March possibly the pick of the months.

The sandworms have been spawning at Bemm River and the fish have been feeding furiously. Tony Blackford caught this bream that scoffed down a 100m wriggler.

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