It’s been a typical summer at the Ninety-Mile, with all species being present, so there’s plenty of opportunity to catch anything from flathead to big sharks.

The flathead are still here, and anglers fishing the western end around Reeves Beach and Woodside have been getting some cracking flathead. Don’t count out Seaspray and Golden Beach though, as anglers are often getting a decent by-catch of flathead there as well, especially early mornings and evenings.

Now that the McLoughlins footbridge is open again, anglers can get back to McLoughlins Surf beach where you get good flatties as well. Surf poppers and white grubs have been the standout artificial baits to use off the surf for the flathead. The especially poppers have been getting a good by-catch of big summer salmon and anglers spread across the whole Ninety-Mile have been catching the odd really big salmon to 70cm every now and again if they have been using these artificials.

There’s been mostly the typical meter long gummy sharks caught all along the Ninety-Mile with neither beach being better than the next, it’s just depending on what the beach structure looks like at the time. There have been the better sized 10kg plus gummy sharks caught, and during the hot days that we have had lately, there’s been better fishing really late and also very early in the morning before sun up.

In saying this, as we go through March, that late evening period will be the standout gummy times again and you would be looking to fish between 8pm-12am ideally.

There has been the odd small bronze whaler landed as well by casting of the beach and few school sharks and small hammerhead as well. Salmon fillet has been great if you can get it, and some anglers have been lucky enough to get the odd tailer for bait as well. If you can’t get fresh bait, squid and bluebait has been the next two best baits.

The land-based game anglers have been getting some massive sharks over the past month with some bronze whalers up to 8ft long being caught. These big sharks have generally been caught greater than 200m out from shore, so game rod and reels spooled with either heavy braid or mono has been the preferred tackle. Whole fish such as bonito and salmon have been perfect baits for these big sharks.