The cooler conditions have seen the arrival of what many of us call the winter fish such as salmon and silver trevally.

Australian salmon have already arrived in pleasing numbers. John Turner was one lucky land-based angler who had a couple of hours to spare and dropped a line over the side as he reasoned that the fish would be in around the pylons looking for en easy meal. This turned out to be a good idea as in fairly short time he had a mixed bag of salmon, silvers, flathead and some very nice mullet that were caught on small pieces of squid and silver fish.

Although they have not been in great numbers there have been times when the whiting have turned up in very good numbers. The Lewis Channel has been the best place to try your luck and by tying up to the long jetty on the last half of the run out tide seems to be the pick of the spots to wet a line. As well as whiting there has been a sprinkling of silvers and increasing numbers of salmon.

The entrance is still worth a visit when conditions allow where good size flathead, gummies and snapper are being bagged.

Further out wide is also worth a visit but if you are not familiar with this area it is important to make sure that you take plenty of fuel as it is a long trip there and back. Having said that there is very good fishing with plenty of flathead, gummies and salmon. There have not been any reports of the larger predators but no doubt they will be lurking.

A short to the east at Port Albert I called in and spoke to Rob and Ulla Killury who run the local general store and have installed a gantry that will accommodate virtually any size fish. Rob said that the inlet has been a bit on the quiet side but having said that there have been times when locals have been going out and doing reasonably well. There has been a prolonged spell of that awful east wind which has been blamed for the influx of what the locals call swan grass which has been making life difficult as far as fishing is concerned. Rob says that there has been good numbers of fish being caught from the local jetty which include mullet, silvers, mullet and smallish flathead. He also said that there was a flounder caught off the jerry, something that rarely happens but it won’t happen at all if you don’t try.

The Albert River, which runs into Port Albert, is also worth a visit and boats can be launched from a cutting in the bank where tinnies are easiest to handle. There has been estuary perch caught on lures and natural baits along with mullet making a trip to the area worth the effort.

Outside the entrance there has been very good fishing with gummies being taken about 1.5km off shore. There has also been plenty of flathead, salmon and big silvers being taken on a variety of presentations.

Phil Janson runs the Seabank Caravan Park at Port Albert and just before this report he and mate Paul Mether decided to go outside the Cape Kearney Entrance looking for gummies or whatever might come along. They went out about 4km and decided to drift around in hope as they have done well in this area previously. This turned out to be a wise decision as in short time they were into the quality flathead and gurnard.

Phil said that it was a long day but very enjoyable as the water was flat calm on a perfect day weather wise. This was his first trip away from the park in quite a few months but is now dead keen to get out and do it all again. He also said that he is going to buy a camera to replace others that have fallen out of his shirt pocket when reaching overboard to retrieve a hooked up fish. I suggest that he also invest in a strap to put around his neck connected to his camera to save further expence.