This is the month where all the good stuff begins!

Congratulations, you’ve made it through a long winter and if you hadn’t had much success over the start of spring last month, now is your chance to redeem yourself - whether it’s freshwater, or saltwater.

We have had some major floods lately but let’s have a look on what we can predict for October:

I have a routine every October; fish hard for sea runners at the beginning, do a little bit of freshwater trouting when the weather’s bad, and then finish off the month in the salt. That’s just me however, the options are truly endless and you can’t go wrong!

In our rivers around the north west, our sea run trout tend to fire later when compared to rivers in southern Tasmania. The start of October is usually the peak of the action, especially for those chasing trophy fish on the far western rivers. I said this last year, and I’ll say it again; if you want a bit of adventure with some top quality sea runners head down to the Reece power station on the Pieman River and experience one of the biggest whitebait migrations you’ll ever see! Soft plastics, hardbodied lures, spinners or bait will produce fish here. It’s a great spot land-based, just fish below the turbines.

On the saltwater side of things, October can be the start of great things to come. The water temperature is on its way to a rise, the weather is warming up and fish are on the move! I have recently been involved with some research on blue spot flathead. October is believed to be the breeding month that coincides with recreational catches.

Large flathead of up to 80cm come into shallow estuaries to spawn and therefore make an exciting target for land-based or boating anglers. I recommend fishing paddle tailed type soft plastics such as Squidgy Fish, DOA Shads or Powerbait Ripple Shads in bright colours, hopped along the bottom.

Spots include the Port Sorell estuary, Stanley and the mouths of North West Coast rivers. If you want any more information on these fish, don’t hesitate to email me. Remember, October is a great month for squid as well, so throw some bright squid jigs off rocky points and with a bit of berley you could take home a feed.

It’s also a great month for trout in the higher reaches of our rivers, so if the weather is bad, you can always fall back to that option.