The summer season is finally upon us, and with water temperatures reaching 17.5C inside the estuary recently, a wide range of species has become available including snapper, gummies, whiting and flathead.

Finally the soft plastics guys can get into the shallow flats fishing again with the influx of good sized flathead this month.

The warmer water temperature has brought in good numbers and good-sized sand and rock flathead. The entrance and boat harbour at Manns Beach has produced some excellent catches of flatties up to 50cm in length; mostly on soft plastics such as Berkley Pumpkinseed Minnows and Gulp Banana Prawns and Squidgy Silver Fox plastics.

The sand flats around McLoughlins have produced even better fish of up to 55cm in length: they fish are only going to get bigger over the next few months. Again plastics have been the lures to use. Pearly white colours have been working well at McLoughlins, but the flatties aren’t usually all that fussy. Bait anglers are doing well, however there has been plenty of by-catch of salmon, tailor and snook.

The salmon have been turning up in both entrances and down the Shoal Channel towards Mann’s beach around the snapper hole. They have been the biggest all year at the moment with plenty of fish up to 2.5kg being caught.

Soft plastics and metal lures are doing the best. A popular thing to do has been to anchor up and use berley, and then simply drop a soft plastic down on a decent size jig head and feed it into the berley trail. This method has been producing some monster salmon as well as good flatties.

The jetty has been fishing well. On a run in tide there has been plenty of flathead up to 40cm and good sized trevally up to 35cm being caught. Pilchards are working best for the flatties and the trevally are being caught on pipis.

Brian and Jake Walsh had a ripper day offshore Mcloughlins Beach. Jake managed to land a 20kg gummy shark on a salmon fillet. The Henry brothers did very well over the long weekend, landing a 12kg gummy shark as well as some nice snapper up to 50cm in length. There’s been some nice snapper caught in very close to the entrance also, so you don’t always need to head out to the reefs.

There’s been plenty of good sized flathead caught offshore as well. I’ve heard of some real beauties up to 70cm in length caught. Pilchards seem to be the best bait to use, however the squid will soon start to fire as bait. Speaking of squid, there are some good-sized squid to be caught offshore, plenty of anglers have been putting out a squid jig whilst there bottom bashing and landing 3 or 4 squid in a session.

For more information, come a see Will at Allways Angling in Traralgon. You’ll get great prices and expert advice. Ph. 51748544