With the water hovering around 18°, a variety of different techniques at certain times of the day and tide will reap rewards.
One dynamite technique has been to fish deep soft plastics around bait schools and that will continue this month. Over the past two weeks whilst guiding at Wagonga we’ve managed nine mulloway to 14kg on soft plastics and light braid tackle.
This technique allows us to fish light for big fish.Mixed in with the jewies are salmon and tailor, with some hitting 4kg. At that size they are formidable opponents, even on heavier estuary tackle.
For those after a feed, flathead numbers are increasing as the weeks go by.
Fish are averaging 45cm to 50cm with the odd croc over the 85cm. Most fish are falling to smaller plastics, with live poddy mullet snaring a fish or two as well.
Further upstream, bream are thick around the oyster racks at times, but getting them to hit lures consistently has been challenging.Towards the end of the month bream and whiting will become more aggressive towards surface lures like poppers, walkbaits and unweighted plastics. This type of fishing isn’t for everyone but to me, watching a fish eat in plain view of the surface is about as good as it gets.
Tuross has slowed to a crawl but hopefully recent rain will stir the fish. There are flathead in the lower reaches with plastics and vibes faringUpstream of the highway bridge, estuary perch have been caught but there’s plenty of water between them. With warmer weather, bass are certainly viable options later in the month on surface lures, deep-divers and even bunches of earthworms.
There’s some great-looking 20°-plus water to the north and when it does finally get here, yellowfin tuna, albacore, various shark species and marlin will all be encountered.
Trolling skirted pushers will be the go and wide of the shelf the place to fish.
At Montague Island small kingfish and a few bonito have been sporadically caught on jigs and trolled lures, mainly on the southern pinnacles.
Expect some bigger fish later in the month with live baits fished up the northern end of the island effective. Just remember the marine park exclusion zones that come into effect during November if you’re up that way.
On the reefs snapper, morwong, pigfish, nannygai and perch are the go.Potato Point and Tuross are holding reds in around 70m.
With more swells lately, the beach fishing has really picked up.
Salmon and tailor are prolific on some beaches, with Tilba, to the south of Narooma, a hot one. There’s a cracking gutter for a few hundred metres which has been loaded with fish.
A lot of anglers are casting small chrome lures into the suds and having loads of fun but all methods are working, with paternosters with a bait/popper combination most successful.
About half-way along Brou there’s a rocky outcrop that holds all of the above species. An evening flood tide is best.
Salmon are abundant on the local platforms with Mystery Bay the gun spot for smaller kingfish, bonito and bigger tailor.
If there’s a decent wash on the southern end of the ledge, a good snapper is on the cards. Cast an unweighted pilchard into the wash.
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