As I have said in previous articles, we’re having an awesome whiting season with good weather and warm water, and it looks like there’s plenty more awesome fishing to come.

What a whiting season… we have been spoilt. I can’t remember having a whiting season like this, and I have had old local gurus tell me there hasn’t been a whiting season like this in 15 years. Let’s see if next season is like this!

Anyways… 3-4m of water has been the standout depth to fish at Port Albert for the whiting and at McLoughlins, you just need to find the heavy weed beds in the channels, but they are often a bit shallower and can be in a shallow as 2m.

Most baits are working well, but pipis and squid have been standouts. I don’t think you need to go to the effort of pumping nippers, but they are catching plenty as well.

Sizes are wide spread, anywhere from 32cm-49cm – there have been some monster whiting caught.

McLoughlins and Manns beaches have given up some whopping big flathead for the lure anglers. They’ve scored their best results with soft plastics and vibe lures and they have been catching blue-spot flathead to 65cm regularly with heaps of 40cm-50cm the norm.

Inside there are good-sized pinkies in large numbers, especially at Port Albert, with the whiting anglers catching plenty of 30-35cm. There are a few 45-50cm available as well; you just need to use slightly bigger baits and hooks to target those larger pinkies.

Anglers fishing in the Port Albert entrance are still getting better sized snapper to 5kg and we saw some cracking snapper just outside the Port Albert entrance recently with fish to 6kg regularly.

Offshore McLoughlins Beach has been producing plenty of pinkies to 40cm as well and the odd bigger 4-5kg snapper as well. Pilchards and squid have been the standout baits for the reds.

Big gummies are outside McLoughlins and Manns beach entrances. Most anglers are fishing between 15-21m and there have been some monsters to 6ft in length caught. Anglers heading towards the islands doing flathead drifts are also getting the odd big gummy as well.

Inside Port Albert, the Snake Channel is your best bet for a gummy with good meter long gummies getting caught during the morning and evening tide changes on pilchards.