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Jetties, rubble and weed beds
  |  First Published: December 2016



The weather is finally improving, allowing anglers to enjoy the range of fishing available at this time of year. The prawns are on the move, and surface and flats fishing has begun.

Lakes entrance

The annual prawn run has begun, and locals and travellers alike have taken full advantage of the easy catching of fresh prawns – either for a meal or for bait. This is great, fun and very simple! All you need is and a fine mesh net, a prawn light (preferably waterproof), and a bucket. There’s no better guarantee in fishing then a live prawn. Fish non-weighted, or with small sinkers around the edges of sand flats, or structures such as jetties and fallen trees – this is a truly deadly tactic.

In the centre of town, the wharfs have held some quality bream that have pushed up into the shallower wharfs in search of worms and other food sources. They’re usually seen rolling and flashing, as the try to eat something off the sand flats, or the side of moored boats. Lightweight is the key; and I like to use lightly-weighted jigheads in 1/40oz down to 1/60oz. These lightweights give you enough to flick a small creature style plastic to a feeding fish without creating a large splash and spooking them.

Commonly you will see free-swimming bream cruising around the sand flats. A long cast is your best bet – cast your lure or bait well past the fish, then slowly drag it along the surface until you’re a few metres away from the fish, then allow your bait or lure to slowly sink under surface. Usually a feeding fish will be wary of anything moving along the surface, especially when the prawns and sand worms are on the move.

Silver trevally, King George whiting and flathead have been widespread around the town wharfs, with mixed sizes being caught. The most productive areas in town have been either; the post office wharf, Ferrymans Seafood Cafe wharf, and the new Myers Street jetty. The fish mainly stick to the shallower areas hiding, in search of prawns and other food sources.

Lake Tyers
Over the last month, Lake Tyres has been fishing well, but slightly patchy, requiring a little bit of work to find quality bream and flathead. Lately the lower areas of the Nowa Nowa and Glasshouse have held plenty of bream and flatteis around the flats and weed beds throughout the day. The best fishing happens in the early mornings or evenings, when the fish are up in shallows and eager to climb over a little surface lure worked with a lot of pauses. Areas such as Half Moon Bay have been holding plenty of bream, which are regularly been caught either on surface lures, like OSP Bent Minnow or Cranka Minnows in the selection of naturel colours.
The flathead have been rampant throughout the lake over the past month, with most flats drop-offs and weed beds holding plenty of flatties. Most have been taken on 3-4” plastics in pearl and smelt colours, worked with a series of hops and pauses along the bottom. A massive key has been to cast as close to the edge of weed bed as possible, so it appears that your lure just hopped out the weed bed as a little prawn or baitfish would do – just ducking out of the cover provided by the weed bed.
Offshore

The offshore fishing has truly begun to kick in to gear. With snapper up to 7kg being landed. Most of these quality fish have been caught either at the pipeline or The Pines. The best tactic for catching these fish local is to use the traditional Paternoster rig, with pilchard and squid strips, fishing them hard against the rubble bottom.

I hope that’s enough to get you started this month. Don’t miss out on the prawn action! Get out there!

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