Here in Portland, there are plenty of big fish to keep anglers happy, including kingfish and thresher sharks. All the while though, gamefishing addicts are keeping an eye on the conditions at sea. By every indication, the southern bluefin tuna are on their way!

There have been big kingfish caught at the North Shore. Ross Dimauro landed a 15kg fish, while Anne from Melbourne, fishing the ANSA competition, caught an 8.6kg kingie on 1kg line for a pending Australian record.

The water is warm and clear enough to encourage the kingfish to bite, with most hook-ups coming from anglers anchored up and using baits out in a light berley trail. Good-sized calamari squid are coming from the same area, with a mixture of snapper, whiting, trevally, the odd mulloway, school sharks and small mako sharks to 30kg.

Good numbers of thresher sharks have also been caught in this area. Kevin McNab caught one weighing 90kg in his 3.7m dinghy. Many of these threshers have also released themselves during the fight, which is not surprising as a lot are well over 100kg.

For surf fishers, the area fishing from the mouth of the Surrey River through to Cape Bridgewater has produced snapper, whiting, salmon, trevally and school sharks.

Those land-based fishing around the harbour (i.e. the trawler wharf, marina and canal) have been kept busy by pinkies, whiting, trevally, slimy mackerel, mullet, calamari squid and kingfish to 3kg. In the harbour use a running sinker rig with a size 4 long-shanked hook, and plenty of berley. Many fishos have caught whiting to 900g at Blacknose and Danger Point.

For those fishing close to the Lee Breakwater from boats, snapper, squid, whiting and kingfish from 1-3kg have have been available.

In 60m of water off the Cape Nelson Lighthouse, there have been blue morwong, coral perch, gurnard, snapper, flathead and gummy sharks. Big mako sharks have also been caught in this area, including a 60kg version landed by Julian Dickeson. Cameron Ordner from Port Fairy weighed in a mako of 117kg after his last outing.

Out the back, all the southern bluefin tuna signs are looking great and we should start playing with these fish throughout March and the following months.

We would like to thank everybody who entered our fourth fishing competition. It was a great weekend and we raised over $5000 for the very worthy Make-A-Wish Foundation.

If you’re heading down this way, give the boys at Portland Bait & Tackle a call for all your latest weather info and fishing tips. We are open seven days a week from 7am to 7pm. We would also like to welcome aboard our new team member Tim Clark, who has many years experience fishing the local areas.