The past month has had plenty of big seas with swell after swell pounding the coast leaving very few days for the offshore fisherman to get out amongst the action. When conditions have allowed there have been some good catches of snapper with fish being caught on both bait and lures.

In the early mornings the fish have been in-close but then moving a bit wider out as the day goes on. And some nice fish have been caught from the rocks.

Fish the rocks on an early start, as most reports indicate the fish are biting in the first hour of daylight. A lightly weighted fish fillet, pilchard or cuttlefish would be the pick of the bait.

The beaches and rocky headlands have also produced for salmon along with some good-sized tailor. The salmon are plentiful with decent sized fish to 2kg the norm. Catching the salmon is as easy as finding the fish and cranking a metal lure past their noses. If one gets off, you can be sure that another will jump-on.

Fishing the rivers has been a bit slow with the best action around the entrance area. Silver trevally and tailor along with the odd yellowfin bream are on the bite. Fishing further up the rivers has also been quiet with very few flathead being caught. But not to worry, as we move into spring the fishing will soon start to fire up.

One thing that can put a dampener on a days fishing is to get back to the boat ramp and see that someone has smashed into your trailer or car without leaving their details.

This happened recently to me while I was on the water working. Luckily, the next day as I started work, a witness to the event walked up to me with the rego number and car description – these details now have been handed to the police. The person responsible will be charged for leaving the scene of an accident and will now cost them much more as they didn’t do the right thing. As fishos it pays to stick together and look after each other.