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Getting Warmer
  |  First Published: November 2011



There have been some good fish around at McLoughlins and Port Albert over the past month, but it’s good to see the summer species back into the estuaries as the water gets warmer.

McLoughlins Beach

The water has warmed up a few degrees now, and it’s consistently in the high 13s and even up to 15C on the warmer days. This has bought species such as flathead and whiting on the bite. The whiting still are not thick at McLoughlins, certainly not like at Port Albert, but they are a little bigger in size. Pipis and squid have been the best baits to use. The soft plastics guys are getting good numbers of bigger flathead now.

There’s plenty more 40cm + fish around and in the next little while I bet there will be the big females warmer themselves up in the shallows. For these girls, get out your soft plastics and fish the shallows.

Even better, if you can find sand flat that has no floating weed; get out some poppers and bibless floating hardbodies. This is perhaps the most fun way to catch flathead, but it’s hard to do if there is too much weed around, as you just get caught up all the time. You can put on a single lure hook on instead of the treble, which reduces this effect though, which is what I always do now.

The estuary perch have been on the chew over the past few weeks. I always released these fish as they are fairly localised and there is always a risk of removing them from an area if you keep taking them. They are seriously great sport for anyone that hasn’t tried them.

The salmon season has been atrocious ever since the big ones were around in June. There are plenty of little ones, but there are no big ones anywhere. There is the odd school coming in and out of Manns Beach entrance during the big tides but that’s about it. We normally get another run of big salmon in October but it hasn’t happened yet. We have had plenty of dirty water coming in and out of the estuary though which might have something to do with it.

Port Albert

The whiting have been going very well over these parts, and especially in the past few weeks. There are averaging the 28cm mark but there have been some 40cm+ fish turn up over the past few weeks. Pipis and squid have been the go.

There have been anglers trying their luck in the entrance for gummies and snapper. I haven’t heard many snapper reports yet, but that will change very shortly. The gummies have been going well and anglers are getting there bag limit consistently.

The draughtboard sharks seem to be all gone which is great to see and this is due to the increase in water temperature that we have received over the past few weeks. There are some barracouta getting caught as well, but more so outside the entrance.

This means the toothy sharks won’t be too far away either. There have already been the odd school shark caught as well as seven-gill sharks, but bronzies and makos will be just around the corner.

For more information, contact Will at Allways Angling in Traralgon on 51748544. You will get expert advice and great deals on fishing bait and tackle.

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