The big news this month on the fishing front has been the trout fishing all around the state.

Record rainfalls and snow dumps over the last two months have raised lake levels and flooded river backwaters have produced some of the best spring trout fishing seen in many years, and the best is yet to come.

The Pioneer Mine Dam is still fishing well with a few local St Helens anglers hitting it up and catching quite a few rainbows to 2kg on a mixture of soft plastic lures and grubs drifted under a float.

The lower Georges River and the South Esk were both flooded into surrounding paddocks for a number of weeks and although now starting to really clear up they are still running high and will need a few more weeks to come down to a more manageable flow for easier fishing.

They have been producing some great fish however and you can expect some absolutely fantastic fishing for the coming summer.

The Scamander River has really started to fire now especially in the lower reaches with some great bream being caught with what appears to be a slightly better run of bigger fish than in previous years. Some anglers are reporting at least one or two 40cm+ fish, almost 4lb in the old scale, per session.

For the lure angler the Lucky Craft Pointer 65, the Bushy’s Stiffy Minnow and the Shimano Lure Project series have been the standout models. Plastics such as 100mm Squidgy Wriggler in Wasabi and Bloodworm and for the bait angler the prawns, pipis, mussels and crabs are the standard diet needed.

Also the Dynabait Freeze Dried Worms have proven to be a handy bait to just have in your bag or box, with an unlimited shelf life they can stay packaged until you are ready to use them.

Offshore fishing has seen good bags of flathead being taken off Elephant Rock in around 60-65m of water and mostly taken on Neptune Arrow jigs in Lumo and Pink/White by drifting over the sand banks where the flathead lay in wait to ambush its prey.

For any more advice on where to go and what to catch just drop in and see me, Jamie, at St Helens Bait & Tackle, the East Coast Specialists.