It has been another quiet month on the fishing front at Port Albert. With the strong winds and cold weather keeping most fishers at home, reports have been few and far between, however species are starting to move as we head into spring.

Garfish and silver trevally are making up most bags of fish. These species respond well to berley and can be taken on the grass beds at the edge of most channels and backwaters.

Some large flathead have been seen in the grass beds too, but have been very hard to catch. One fisher even reported hitting them on the head with soft plastics, but they just didn’t want to feed. Good-sized fish have been taken from the Old Port on the change of tide, but they seem to only bite for about an hour either side of slack water.

Some very nice estuary perch are available in our rivers, as Brad Cunningham showed by snaring a very nice 1.6kg perch on live shrimp at low tide. He has also done well with soft plastics.

Australian salmon are still being taken at Manns Entrance. Fishing is best when the surf is at its roughest, which pushes the salmon inside. Salmon are easily taken by trolling chrome lures in the entrance.

Offshore the fishing has been quite good. In particular there have been good reports of flathead being taken out wide near Cliffy Island. There have also been some nice-sized snapper taken. Gummy sharks have been caught out of Welshpool and the odd one in Whale Bay, but the water is still a little cold so you will still get the odd skunk and banjo.

With the football finals over and the weather improving, we should start to see some nice catches of fish. Get out there and give it a go, the weekend weather has been great.