St Helens is certainly a hive of activity on the water in the bay and offshore.

As the water temperatures have increased so has the fishing action with plenty of king flathead being caught in around 85m of water as well as some good gummy shark captures.

The reef fishing has also in creased with many anglers catching good bags of silver morwong and of course some great striped trumpeter in on some of the closer reefs such as Merricks and Middle Ground.

The offshore water temperatures increased up to 17C in December with small albacore to 5kg showing up just outside the shelf line. January should see the game action really swing into gear.

The coastline around Elephant Rock and Binalong Bay has also continued to fish well, calamari squid are all up and down the coast as well as schools of large Australian salmon consistently feeding on the small baitfish and krill. Salmon of 3-4kg have been caught all around Elephant Rock and surrounding bays.

Georges Bay has also continued to produce a wide variety of fish and is just getting better and better all the time. Large silver trevally are still stretching the arms of light tackle anglers all up and down the channel.

Schools of big salmon continue to come in and out of the bay feeding on the baitfish, although spasmodic with their locations and appearance at any given time there will be a school of salmon feeding hard somewhere in the bay.

The bream fishing has slow up a lot in the Scamander River from the heights of spring, however the flats in Georges Bay have come alive with bream feeding on the rich shellfish.

This will set the bay up well for some up and coming bream tournaments in the early part of the year.

Many of the jetty anglers have also been catching quite a few bream, some using soft plastic lures and some using baits but it’s a great indication of the amount of bream in the bay.

Once again the King George whiting have returned and are providing some fantastic sport for bait anglers as well as top class table fare. Pipis are still the number on bait for the King George whiting placed on a #4 Gamakatsu Red Baitholder hook and a small 10g bomb sinker.

The best areas for success is in the sandy patches down the channel in amongst the weedy areas. Fishing with this bait and method will also produce myriad other species such as bream, trevally, leatherjacket, mullet, flathead, salmon and a host of other fish so it’s a great way for the whole family to spend the afternoon.

As the weather starts to warm up the grasshoppers will start to move and the north east trout streams will fire up.

The Georges River offers great sport for the fly fisher during this period with not many small river trout able to refuse a well placed grasshopper pattern.