The great thing about this part of the world is that the winter is now well behind us and with the water temperature rising the fishing has been improving.

Information from the Welshpool Boat Storage is that there have been quite good numbers of flathead to 1.5kg being taken outside the entrance as well as Australian salmon that have been around 2.5kg. At the time of this report there had not been many snapper making an appearance but they can’t be far off.

Inside the entrance the whiting continue to make up many impressive bags and they seem to be all the talk. Of course, one of the reasons could be that most anglers are ignoring the other species and just concentrating on the royals. This is very reasonable and hopefully the situation will continue.

As has been the case for a little while, they have been well spread out and good-sized fish have been caught in the deeper water.

The Lewis Channel has been an old favourite for a long time and is still the place that most seasoned anglers tend to head for when the best time seems to be on the last half of the run out tide and first of the run in flow.

There have been quite a few boats tying up to the old jetty, which always seems to produce as far as the royals are concerned. Having said that there have also been quite good numbers of silver trevally, mullet and flathead.

The jetties are beginning to produce reasonable bags of mullet, garfish, flathead and silvers. This is good news as through the winter there has been very little activity with the weather far from being encouraging. The best spot to try your luck would be on the eastern end of the structure on the run in tide.

At the other side of the inlet at Yanakie, the whiting continue to put a smile on the faces of anglers. One reason, in the opinion of many fishers, is that there has been a return of the sea grass, similar to the situation at Inverloch. As well as whiting there has been a good mixture of silvers, whiting and gummies. Of course there are plenty of those useless skunk sharks but as the water temperatures rise their numbers will thin out.

A short distance to the west is Shallow Inlet and this is where the fish have been going very well right through the winter. Andrew Starrett runs the local caravan park and says that there have been huge silvers that have been to the 60cm mark. These runaways will always test out light gear as well as fishers and mixed in with them have been good numbers of whiting, mullet, flathead and gummies.

Andrew said that he and a visitor who was staying at his park went out on a fine, calm day looking for what ever might come along, preferably whiting. They didn’t have to wait long as before long they were into them as well as silvers and salmon. At the end of the day they had a very impressive bag of fish that were taken on a variety of natural baits.

As well as boaters, land-based anglers have also been doing very well. There is a fair walk around the eastern side of the inlet towards the entrance but the results can be very worthwhile. Good-sized salmon have been taken to the 2.5kg mark along with flathead on a variety of presentations. If you decide to try your luck on the run in tide, just keep an eye on the water as it can be a bit of a trap, creeping up behind the unwary fisher.