With the weather improving, more anglers are beginning to get their fishing gear up to scratch for this fishing season.

With all the freshwater now subsided, the estuary is back to normal and is in pristine condition for the up and coming season.

With the conditions ideal, it is the time of year that many fish species come into the estuary and seem to be on an early spawning run.

Anglers are reporting big numbers of bream, estuary perch and mullet throughout the system as they move up into their spawning grounds in the lakes and small creeks and streams.

Anglers are reporting getting good bags of bream from the entrance up to both lakes using sandworm and frozen prawn on both the tides, with some bream measuring up to 44cm.

Estuary perch can also be caught from the entrance and up both rivers, again using sandworm and lures.

Mullet are throughout the whole system and are taking sandworm.

I mentioned in the last issue that with the opened entrance and many big schools of fish entering, some mulloway might appear. There’s a report that has come in of an angler capturing small mulloway fishing from the Marlo Jetty.

Salmon and tailor can be found down towards the entrance on the incoming tide, and the best results have come from using metal lures.

The surf beaches are still fishing great with plenty of salmon and tailor being caught by anglers fishing with surf rods and using blue bait, squid or pipis, always accompanied with a popper.

Other anglers are getting good results using light gear and spinning metal lures.

Offshore fishing is good all year round, but in the winter months the seas are usually rough and winds make it unsafe and unpleasant on most occasions.

Weather permitting, anglers should get good mixed bins of flathead, gurnard, squid, barracouta, pinkie snapper, morwong and gummy shark.

As the weather warms up and the rough seas subside, anglers will e able to get offshore a bit more often in the coming months.