This month has been a sensational month to fish Golden Beach.

The good thing about this month has been the lack of weed. The weather has shifted to more westerlies, pushing the weed away from the beaches which is the number one key to having a successful nights fishing.

Some beaches have had the weed linger around a lot more, as some beaches have gutters in close, trapping weed at certain tides, making them for example unfishable at high tide but fishable at low tide or vice versa. Yet other beaches have been completely clear all the time. The point is to search the beaches and not settle for the first beach that you arrive at. If it’s no good, moving even 200m up the beach could see you with fishing an entirely different structure and therefore have no weed.

The elephant fish run has started as usual and if anything, it’s a tad late, but by mid autumn the run had started well and most anglers was catching 1-3 fish per night. They were scattered the whole length of Ninety Mile. Not many anglers really target the elephants, but they are mainly by-catch when chasing gummy sharks and surprisingly enough, the elephant fish caught from the Ninety Mile taste pretty good despite what most anglers say about them from other regions.

Now hopefully everyone is still reading after talking about elephant fish, but probably the best thing happening at the moment is the sheer amount of bait.

There are small baitfish everywhere and some anglers are watching hoards of predatory fish round up schools of baitfish and smash them onto the beach where you can literally pick them up still alive. Salmon and tailor in their thousands are the responsible hoodlums. Many anglers are taking down spin rods and casting metal lures and getting salmon and tailor nearly every cast at times. The tailor are up to 45cm in length which are great for our area and there have been a few monster salmon up to 3kg caught on bait and lures as well as plenty of spotty salmon. This is what leads us to the next good thing. Salmon and tailor means fresh bait for everyone and you can’t beat fresh bait for gummy sharks especially.

This is maybe why there have been so many gummy sharks caught this month. There are heaps of undersize gummy sharks, but there are equally as many gums to 1.2m which are great for eating. There have been bigger specimens of up to 1.6m in length, just not as many,

There have been nearly half a dozen snapper caught off the surf as well in the past few weeks and all this shows how alive the Ninety Mile Beach is at the moment. Hopefully this is a sign of some fantastic winter fishing to come, as last year it was pretty ordinary. If it’s this good at the moment, hopefully it’s going to be a cracker salmon season where we can walk the beaches spinning.

The gummy sharks should hang around for at least another month now, so there no time like the present, get out there and smash before it gets too cold.

For more information, contact Will at Allways Angling in Traralgon on 51748544. You will get expert advice and great deals on fishing bait and tackle. Tune in to Rex Hunt and Lee Rayner’s “Off the Hook” on 1242 to hear Will’s Report on what’s going on in Gippsland!