We have experienced a very ‘tropical’ season so far, which has excited not only the anglers but the fish as well.

Most evenings lately we have had a shower of rain, followed by a warm sunny day.

At the time of writing the entrance remains open. It has been open for just on 8 months and ‘refreshed’ the waterways with an abundance of fish and saltwater.

I have had excellent reports of a variety of fish being caught in the system. Quality yellowfin bream up to 45cm are being caught in the channel on the incoming tide – best bait being chicken strips, worm or shell under floats. Flathead between 40-50cm are being caught in the channel on soft plastics. There have been an abundance of trevally in the channel; they prefer chicken strips as bait.

The lake is producing whiting, average size being between 30-35cm, with worm the preferred bait as well as peeled prawn and Bass yabbies.

The river is certainly very active with plenty of bream and also a few estuary perch sneaking around. Sizes of the perch range between 30-45cm and have been caught on hardbodied lures with the bream biting on soft shell. I have just had a report this morning that the surf beaches have been producing excellent gummies with one reported to have been around 1.2m

Martin Cherk, who visits Bemm River every chance he gets, recently reported how much fun he and his mate had fishing in the channel and river. The abundance of fish, ranging from bream, trevally, tailor, flathead and the odd luderick definitely kept them entertained for the duration of their stay.

David and Jenny Russell and Rob Leonard visit Bemm River on an annual basis in November. After struggling to get more than a couple of fish at a time on soft plastics, they fished near the entrance to the channel and picked up some nice flathead and yellowfin bream on prawns during the run-in tide.

The following morning they went back up the river where they found some fish stacked up in mid-water. Using 100mm bloodworm wrigglers they caught around a dozen bream of 30-44cm and also landed numerous tailor.

David caught the largest bream, weighing 1.18kg and 44cm long on 1kg line. The following day when Dave and Rob ventured out, Rob was rewarded with a beautiful sea bream measuring 46cm in length and weighing in at 1.5kg. Rob caught this beauty on half a pilchard in the channel.

Whilst there, Dave landed a nice ‘yank’ flathead, on the other half of Rob’s pilchard. To add to their bag they also landed trevally and a couple of black bream around the 35cm mark.

Finally they took the advice of Dave’s wife, Jenny and yours truly with a few ‘fishin’ chick tips’ on how to catch fish!

For on the spot and up to date fishing reports check out Robyn’s website and make your bookings now at www.bemmaccommodation.com.au , phone: (03) 5158 4233, Mob. 0427 584233 and email: --e-mail address hidden-- .