September is a great month to fish the Glenelg River as we transition out of the cold of winter into the more mild temperatures of spring.

The preceding months of winter have seen some fantastic fishing in the Glenelg with a seemingly highly successful congregation, recruitment and spawning of the resident bream and estuary perch populations. Good flow rates and alternating closure and opening of the mouth have seen water and salinity levels remain at ideal conditions for the fish to do their thing.

The lower reaches of the river have had massive schools of bream, perch and small mulloway and the fish have been easy to find on the sounder sitting out around 3.5m. Timing is everything though, and the key has been dragging a lure or bait through these schools during the sometimes short bite windows available.

As usual, peak times have been early morning and very late afternoon as well as at the tide changes. Heavy plastics and deep diving hardbody lures fished slowly and methodically through the schools have accounted for plenty of good fish. Bait fishers have had success using pilchard fillet, lightly weighted and allowed to drift down through the schooled up fish.

As the weather starts to improve with the onset of spring, we will start to see these schools break up and move more freely around the system. Estuary perch will commence moving back upstream and onto the heavier snags at the shallower edges.

Bream to will be more readily found feeding on the shallow edges and lightly weighted plastics as well as shallow to mid diving hardbodied lures will account for plenty of fish. The estuary through to and above Sapling Creek will be all worth concentrating on.

Finding the best congregations of fish can be a slightly harder prospect but a general search pattern is the best way to locate the fish. Casting lures or baits into the shallows around rock walls, weed banks or mud flats will soon indicate what kind of terrain the fish are holding on and once a pattern is established it is usually consistent through most of the river.

September also holds the promise of large mulloway entering the river. In years gone by this month has been very productive for fish in excess of the 10kg mark. The estuary itself is always a reliable hunting ground when the fish are about.

Larger soft plastics and vibe/blade style lures are always a ‘go-to’ when targeting mulloway down the front. Jointed hardbodies and live baits like mullet are also a great way to target the bigger fish. The best times are the 3 days in the lead up to the full moon and the 3 days after the full. The slack water periods at the top and bottom of the tide also seem to be the peak bite period.

With the temperature slowly on the rise after the cold of winter, now is the time to get out and spend some quality time on the Glenelg.