After our wet winter the river is slowly clearing up.

Mulloway catches have been spasmodic with the odd 15–20lb fish in amongst 7–12lb fish. I believe we still haven’t seen our big run of mulloway.

Bill Hartshorne and Mark Gercovich fished very hard recently for one nice 90cm mulloway. The boys were down filming for Bills new show ‘Fishing Life’ which airs on the Aurora Channel Monday 15th February2010 at 8.30pm.

A mere 16 hours went into that one fish, caught on an Ecogear VX 40 in the Bluegill colour. These lures have accounted for the bulk of the catches thus far with baits such as squid, spew worms and rabbit taking their share as well.

I’ve heard of nice mulloway being beached around at Beachport and Southend just recently and it’s these schools we wait for to enter the Glenelg, so stay tuned.

Bream again have been very good down at the estuary. Above Sapling Creek also worked well early in November whilst they schooled in that area for spawning.

I am keen to learn about fishing upstream around Dartmoor and higher. Brian Shepherd from Casterton called and I was very interested to hear some news from up-river.

Brian mainly bank fishes and knows the river above and below Casterton like the back of his hand. This year with the river in full winter flow good bream moved upstream and hang in the deeper holes. When the river levels drop and the flow is reduced to a trickle they are trapped in these holes along with eels, mullet, blackfish, trout, yellow belly and native perch. That’s got to be fairly unique variety in the same water as this is 70-120km from the mouth.

Brian’s earlier bream this year have been very silver and as time goes by he tells me they will become quite black as they adjust to the environment. His best baits are yabbies, minnow and scrub worms.

Good reports of estuary perch are coming from around Donovan’s landing, all on blade and minnow type lures. At present the dirty water is forcing anglers to fish deeper for bream and perch. In December that should change and targeting the banks will come into it again.

As for mulloway, baits fished on the bottom will still account for fish but the trolling brigade will kick into gear and lots of fish will be taken with lures and live baits slowly dragged up and down the river.

Our locals here have all gone mad on surf fishing for gummy and school shark. The best local surf fishing advice can easily be gotten from the new owners of the Nelson Kiosk Dean and Patti, they have been sneaking out to the beaches at Lake Monebeong. Good fish to 1.5m have been regularly beached.

If you are coming to the Glenelg for a fish call Chris, Cheryl and Brett at the Boat Hire for some info and to book your fresh baits - 08 87384048.

All businesses in Nelson sell tackle and frozen baits. Doug at the roadhouse has a good supply of Ecogear along with other brands. The boat hire specialises in lures and soft plastics that suit this river and the kiosk has a wide range of baits, tackle and assorted fishing gear.

Look forward to seeing new and old faces here at Nelson over the summer months, so call into the Nelson Hotel and say G’day.

If you have a nice fish we’ll take your photo and you it might end up in this magazine.