Autumn is well and truly here, and so now the focus changes to the surf.

There have been some good Australian salmon coming in off some of the beaches when the weather and the seaweed permit.

Kilcunda and Williamsons have both had good reports with fish to 2.5kg with the bigger fish being caught right on the top of the tide.

Bluebait has been accounting for the larger fish.

Below the bridge and Cleelands Bight has been fishing well with pinkies to 40cm being caught just on daylight.

Outside The Entrance the odd yellowtail kingfish has been taken off Cape Woolamai and around off Seal Rocks.

The makos are all but gone till next year barracouta and arrow squid are about, but not in big numbers.

Lots of reports above the bridge are coming in for pinkies and elephant fish.

Plenty of pinkies are on the Corals and Coronet Bay and elephant fish between Rhyll and Corinella.

The whiting have been a little harder to locate but Tortoise Head Bank and Reef Island have been getting good reports.

The deeper water off Cowes and Ventnor has been producing some snapper to 6kg and some good gummies in the 10kg bracket.

Whiting have been scarce and hard to come by with catches of 2-3 fish around 400-600g being the norm.

Snook are about over the weed beds in reasonable numbers up to about 2kg for anyone wanting to troll a lure on a paravane or lead line.

Recently a good friend of mine and I headed to Tumby Bay, about 50km north of Port Lincoln in South Australia to see if we could get some of that great whiting fishing. The spot to fish was a group of islands about 20km offshore called the Joseph Banks group which covered an area of about 20km2.

We managed to get to the islands three days out of our proposed five due to the windy conditions which also made some of the crossing a bit hairy. But once you were there you were protected by all of the islands. Most of the water in and around the islands is between 2-8m deep and for anyone who loves catching calamari, its squid heaven.

With so much weed covered ground even in the windy conditions we had no trouble in catching as many as you wanted but the whiting were another matter.

Three days of hard fishing saw us land 50 whiting, the biggest about 500g and talking to the locals, the odd 1kg one comes in, but that’s it.

So it seems fish tales grow over distance and we travelled 3000km to prove it.

The other irony was that a couple of days after arriving home I travelled 20km to Hastings and then 5km by boat to fish for three hours, caught 20 whiting, some of which were around 600g and was home for lunch.

It seems we just don’t know how good we have got it here till we try elsewhere.

Tom Wright with a nice leatherjacket.