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Prawns galore this March
  |  First Published: March 2014



Prawning season is in full swing, and the many warm nights have allowed those to get out and bag some excellent specimens.

Cunningham Arm and Bullock Island have been the key areas for prawns, especially around Eastern Beach Creek along the sand banks. Walking along with a light and dip net is great fun and there have been plenty of flounder around too. Keep an eye out for those nasty little cobblers, one spike and hours of pain may follow.

Some good bags of whiting have been caught near the footbridge on mussel and shrimp. While they haven't been as big as the specimens being caught in the main channel they have made up for it in numbers. Fish the edge of the weed beds and drop-offs around both tide changes for best results. Some huge trevally and pan size pinky snapper have been taken too, and don't be too surprised if you hook one of the many huge flathead that call these sand banks home!

The jetties have been fishing well for bream and luderick, and again a few trevally thrown in for good measure. Soft plastic shrimp have been best, with the new savage prawns proving to be dynamite.

Further up the channel has been fishing well for big whiting on live shrimp and squid strips. Kalimna Jetty and Barrier Landing are reliable areas, as are the beds around the red marker at Nyerimilang.

The north arm has been quiet with a few bream right up the very top of the arm in the shallow timber. Hardbodied minnows and surface lures, like cicada patterns, work well at this time of year, especially first and last light. Garfish have been taken on worm and bread under a pencil float.

Offshore has been sensational with gummies and snapper featuring heavily in angler’s limits. Most have been heading west to the pipeline, although some great shallow reef action has been found around the bluff and beacon point. Whole pilchards, Californian squid and salmon strips are gun baits, while throwing soft plastics on light gear adds another exciting way if catching a feed of pinkies. Kingfish have been hooked and lost, so it pays to have a popper or stickbait rigged on a heavy spin rod ready to go.

The surf beaches have been firing too with gummies, big salmon and good numbers of big bronze whalers for the LBG freaks. Again Californian squid is best bait for the gummies and salmon (rigged with a surf popper), while whole tuna and salmon are jellybeans for the bronze whalers.

I just want to add about surf safety, after a recent tragedy at Lake Tyers Beach. If you don't know how to read the beach for rips, currents and troughs don't attempt to go in the water. Always swim between the flags and don't go in the water alone.

Lake Tyers is again at its very best. Those who fish with lures have had best results throwing big jerk bait style hardbodies over the flats, along with surface lures, like those deadly Bent Minnows. Stickbait style plastics twitched along drop-offs and around the channel markers are producing good bream too. Bait fishers have scored well using live prawn in the main bay and around the Glasshouse, casting the livies with no weight into the shallows.

Prawns have been taken in Tyers but due to the entrance being closed this won't last long. One angler even caught a 3’ gummy at the Glasshouse on a peeled prawn, so you just never know what's going to show up next.

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Alex Coutts with his thumping bronze whaler taken on a whole tuna.

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