The cold weather has moved in and lots of rain from the east coast low that has devastated some parts of NSW costal regions was falling consistently last month, and with the rainfall the rivers will begin to rise and move huge volumes of water throughout the whole of the Snowy River and Brodribb River estuary system.

The swollen rivers are directing raging torrents down through the estuary and out to the ocean taking and with it all the debris that has built up over the summer months giving the estuary a much needed flush that will scour the sand bars and deepen the entrance. With the deep entrance, huge volumes of water will allow big schools of fish to move in with the tides and signal a renewal as the estuary restocks and becomes once again a pristine fishing destination.

The estuary is fishing very well with the winter run of bream already moving through out the whole system and with them trevally, luderick, mullet, salmon and tailor are re-establishing themselves in the system.

Our surf beaches fish well all year with plenty of salmon, tailor, flathead, mullet and shark. Anglers have good results bait fishing using blue bait, white bait, pilchards, pipis and squid always accompanied with a popper. Other anglers prefer to use light gear and spin with metal lures.

Offshore, the kingfish are harder to find and I can speak from experience. A good friend of mine Peter Kurrle was good enough to take another friend Colin Austin and myself on a fishing outing specifically to capture kingfish. We had reports of good size kings being caught on Tamboon Reef, a 35km trip form Cape Conran boat ramp. As we travelled we scanned the ocean for signs of baitfish with no luck. On arriving we trolled in close for salmon or any live bait we might capture, resulting in one tailor and a barracouta, not a very good start. We proceeded to live bait with the skippy and troll with the end result nil. After several hours we decided there were no kingfish so we headed home.

We had only travelled a few kilometres when we met another boat going up to the reef, after telling them our story they continued to the reef and we went home empty-handed, and as you could guess when they arrived at the reef kingfish were breaking up everywhere, that’s fishing.

The fishing is still very good for the anglers who prefer to baitfish, and there are plenty of flathead, pinkie snapper, squid, barracouta, morwong and gummy shark on the chew.