July is the beginning of the slower winter period for Tasmanian waters however there is still some great fishing on offer.

While tuna action on the upper East Coast has slowed somewhat, there is the chance of a southern bluefin or two with school fish around 20-30kg being caught off the Scamander coastline.

Offshore reef fishing is what the next few months are really about and already some decent catches are coming boat side. Rocky Carosi from Professional Charters has seen some great catches of blue eye trevalla, hapuku and gemfish over the last few weeks using the new Shimano Dendou Marou Electric Fishing Reel. The electric reels allow easy fishing in depths of over 200m and Rocky has seen 22kg hapuku, 12kg gemfish and blue eye trevalla of up to 18kg brought to the boat without the need for messy dropline gear or the torture of hand winding from 300m+.

The trout season has well and truly ended now and anglers on the east coast saw some cracking action on the Georges and South Esk rivers to see the season out with fish being caught on the dry fly on the last day of the season. For hardcore trout fly addicts it doesn’t get much better.

Georges Bay has also fished well over the last month, reports of garfish action building all the time with some quality fish being caught and even some elephant fish surprising some anglers soaking baits in the channel.

Large garfish are now being caught in good numbers and can be found mostly around the sea grass beds down along the red channel markers. A small float with a small #10-12 hook and a tiny piece of white squid bait is the perfect rig for the garfish.

Whenever fishing for garfish, berley is as important as the bait and Ultrabite Stimulate Ground Berley mixed with a small amount of fish oil and sent in a trail down current will attract a school of gars very quickly.

The Scamander River has started to produce some good bream fishing. This river will slowly start to fill with the winter run of fish heading up to prepare for the spawning run over spring. It’s a good time to snag a good big fat winter bream.