What a couple of up and down months of fishing we have had in Portland. The icy cold weather with winds and large swells had certainly hit us hard and made the fishing trips a real challenge.

The tuna season was reasonable and the number of fish caught when the guys could move due to the weather found them in pretty good numbers and there was no need to travel too far.

I would suspect that the tuna are still out there in numbers but most charters have made there way back to Melbourne and the local guys are pretty over it by now and start looking at options for the new season.

When the weather has been kind some very nice fish in the deep water have been caught. Some very nice blue eye around the shelf have been boated, but coming back into the 130m mark, some very impressive Tassie trumpeter over 10kg, some big flathead over 2kg and some nice snapper around 4-7kg are also featuring in bags. Also, the chance of a nice gummy or school shark has been keeping anglers on their toes.

Bridgewater Bay has also been fishing OK, and again, when weather permits there’s been very good hauls of flathead and sharks.

This side of Lawrences Rock has been killed by small couta and pinkie snapper, which make it hard to fish the bottom, but when you can get past them, some nice flathead have been coming aboard and we should start seeing some big whiting very soon. There is some very big schools of salmon around, which can be taken boat or land-based, and flicking lures or blue bait around generally works the best.

The Lee Breakwater has been very quiet for the last couple of months apart from couta, salmon and the odd squid.

The local anglers are itching to see the Breakwater improve and are waiting to see the first big snapper arrive and then the chase will be on!

The locals have had some fun with salmon cruising around yellow rock and towards Bridgewater. Some of the salmon have been up to 3kg and lures and light-weight baits seem to work very well in these areas.

For the fishers chasing bream, the Fitzroy and Surry rivers have been fishing OK. The Fitzroy has also seen perch and the odd mulloway.

Of course, the mighty Glenelg River is another fantastic place to fish and the chance of big bream, big perch and mulloway is why so many people chose to fish this area.

• Remember for all your bait and tackle needs call into Portland Compleat Angler and say g’day to the team and check out the great range on offer. You can contact us on (03) 5521 1844 for all up to date weather and fishing reports.

We are open seven days a week from 8am-6pm and you will find us at 61 Bentinck Street, Portland next to the Gordon Hotel. Fishing licences also available in store.