June is renowned on the Sapphire Coast for bright sunny days starting with cold, frosty mornings. The snowfields are only a couple of hours away and you can definitely feel the chill in the air when the westerlies blow.

Merimbula Lake has been producing some nice fish lately with bigger than normal trevally being caught. They are nicely spread out through the lake, from the entrance to the Top Lake. You can catch these hard little fighters with smaller soft plastic lures such as Squidgy Wrigglers and Atomics with light jig heads. For the bait anglers, the good old nippers are your best bet or, failing that, the ever-faithful beach worm.

Pambula Lake should produce some quality tailor and salmon this month. Try some trolling around the Shark Hole area, which is along the rock bars. I know it’s not the most exciting way of catching these fish but is sure does work.

Reef fishing can be extremely productive this month with leatherjackets, morwong, snapper and wrasse all being on the hit list for anglers. But beware, the dreaded barracouta who will start to make its presence felt with the dropping of water temperature. If you find your baits being snipped off, move on because the couta have found you and won’t give up. Or you can tie on a wire trace and pick on a few.

The big news of May was the absolute abundance of kingfish out off Eden in the Morwarry Rock area, with everyone having a ball. These fish were scoffing everything from slabs of tuna to soft plastics. Loads of these fish were averaging roughly 6kg but many anglers were blown away by some monsters. It’s great to see these fish in such numbers, with many locals saying it’s the best kingie fishing they have ever seen. Let’s hope they hang around the headlands for a while and June fires as well.

On the gamefishing scene, things are looking OK for June with the water at the time of writing still quite warm and loads of baitfish around. Looks like it may be a good month to head out to the shelf or the wide reefs and chase some mako or yellowfin tuna.

Hopefully the yellowfin will make an appearance this month along with some albacore. It has been quite a few seasons since these fish have made any significant showing and everyone is ready and waiting.

Marlin have been slow this season, to say the least, but with the odd one being caught here and there, it seems to be keeping the game anglers’ appetites whetted.

captions

1

Jason Hassell with the sort of kingfish that has locals saying it’s been the best kingie season ever.

2

There have been a few yellowfin tuna hanging around out wide, as John Graham found out.