It’s that time of year again when the whiting and snapper have moved out of the bays and gone off to warmer waters. It’s now time to put all that gear away until next season and start chasing trout in the lakes and impoundments, bream in the rivers or salmon on the surf beaches.

Weather permitting the surf beaches are fishing reasonably well with some big salmon around the 2.5kg mark being caught. The bigger artificial poppers are producing the larger fish.

It’s all shaping up to be a good salmon season.

Cleelands Bight is still producing calamari and a few whiting. Outside the Entrance the makos have headed north for warmer waters. There were a few 200kg+ ones caught in early April. There are still some reasonable flathead to be had drifting and the big couta should be starting to show up in numbers.

A few whiting are still being caught in Dickies Bay, The Boys Home Channel, Coronet Bay and the Middle Spit.

Some large squid are coming in off the Tyabb Bank. I managed 5 over 1kg on my last trip.

There have also been some good gars taken out wide of Dickies Bay.

The Corals area has been full of small pinkies, most of which are undersize.

There have been some big whiting in the 600g to 1kg mark being caught off Flinders and out wide off Somers. However, the bag numbers have been very small, one or two fish being the norm. Snook are starting to show up in numbers over the weedy, reefy areas. Trolling with lead lines, paravanes or deep diving lures will do the trick.