With the warmer weather now upon us and the water temperature on the rise the mighty yellow tail kingfish should start to make their presence felt over at Minerva Reef along the north shore.

With the depth of the water varying between 3-13m, you are working in some pretty shallow water which doesn’t give these mighty power horses much room to get away by heading into the deeper water as they will tend to do when fishing elsewhere. Instead they will take you down through the reef making the battle even more exciting with the reel screaming and line peeling off at great speed.

A lot of battles are won and lost so make sure you gear is in tip top condition if you want to win the encounter and have a great days sports fishing. The best way to fish for kingfish is by baiting up a squid head under a balloon, live baiting along with plenty of berley, casting soft plastics or trolling a lure with a teaser float.

This may vary from year to year as past experiences have shown, so, remember to give the boys a call at Portland Bait & Tackle so they can put you on to what method has been working lately. The kingfish can average between 3-11kg but there has been larger fish caught up to19kg over previous seasons. Kingfish can also be found along the town reef, off the Lee Breakwater and inside the harbour.

For those not chasing kingfish along the north shore there have been good catches of snapper, trevally, gummy and school sharks, whiting, calamari squid along with the odd mulloway for those fishing from either boat or land.

The Lee Breakwall has also been fishing well with good catches of snapper. The heaviest to date weighed 11kg, along with snapper there have been catches of King George whiting, calamari squid, gummy sharks, salmon and barracouta which works well as fresh bait while fishing this mighty fishing platform.

Fishing in and around the harbour off the marina there has plenty of King George whiting along with calamari squid, silver trevally and pinkies. Off the Fishermans wharf there has also been good catches of King George whiting, pinkies, silver trevally and salmon. Fishing in the canal catches of mullet, trevally and black bream have been keeping anglers occupied.

Boating parties fishing between Pivot Beach and Blacknose have been getting good bag numbers of good sized King George whiting along with salmon and the odd gummy and school sharks. The old flathead grounds between the smelter and the corkscrew fishing in depths between 15-20m have seen some nice flathead caught along with the odd King George whiting coming from this area.

For boating parties heading out of the bay between Lawrence Rock and Cape Bridgewater, excellent catches of good-sized flathead, gummy shark, schoolie shark, along with snapper, morwong, nannygai, coral perch and knifejaw have all been appearing back at the cleaning tables.

Freshwater fishing the Surrey and Fitzroy rivers has been producing good catches of bream and mullet with reports of mulloway also being caught upriver on the Fitzroy River.

If you’re heading Portland way give the boys at Portland Bait & Tackle a call for all your latest fishing and weather reports. We are open 7 days a week from 7 till 7. And don’t forget to mark the weekend of 19th and 20th January 2013 for the Portland Bait & Tackle annual fishing competition with great cash prizes and all money made being donated to The Make A Wish Foundation