After a quiet winter fishing wise everyone is anticipating things picking up as the weather warms. Unfortunately the water doesn’t warm up as quickly as the land with the water remaining cold for another few months yet.

Knowing good fishing is on its way the time for maintenance is here; for those heading offshore the last thing you want is to be miles out at sea and the boat breaks down.

The other thing worth checking is the bearings on the trailer as you are lucky if they last 12 months and no one wants to get stuck broken down on the side of the road when you should be out there fishing.

The start of the offshore fishing is dependant on the offshore current. Once the current starts moving to the south it will bring the warm water and the fish. Yellowfin tuna will be the first to turn up followed a little later by striped marlin.

Closer to shore the yellowtail kingfish will also show up once the water warms. Over the past months those fishing the inshore reefs have been getting amongst some good sized snapper with plenty of fish around the 1.5kg mark and the odd bigger fish to 4kg.

Early starts help when chasing snapper. Anchor in close to the headland and work your offerings through a berley to get amongst the fish. As the sun comes up and the fish slow down move out a bit deeper for the best chance to keep the bites coming.

Sand flathead and tiger flathead are still being caught with the fishing only improving over the coming months. Sometimes even if you know where the fish are they won’t bite, so come back an hour later and try again, often you will find they are suddenly ravenous. The key rule to fishing: fish the right spot, at the right time.

The dependable salmon haven’t let us down over the past month with fish caught off all the local beaches on both bait and lures.

It won’t be long before the fishing starts to fire up in the estuaries, fish haven’t been caught over the past month with bream, flathead and silver trevally caught in the Kiah River.

Wonboyn has been producing with the rocky areas toward the entrance fishing well for blackfish; fishing the right stage of the tide is the key. Some good sized tailor are also being caught in the lake with the best bream fishing at the top end of the river where the fresh meets the salt.

Bait fishos have had good success using squirt worms for bait, with nippers a close second. Fish will also take small lightly weighted soft plastic lures and suspending hardbody lures.