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Big Red Around Again
  |  First Published: March 2010



April an exceptional month to fish. This time of year truly is the best.

There has been myriad species caught, ranging from big snapper through to the humble whiting.

BIG RED

This month has been the first month that we have really had a good run of snapper offshore from McLoughlins and Manns beach. There’s good fish in close from 2-5km out that are averaging 2-4kg. However the biggest I have heard of has been 11kg, and a few 6-9kg, so there has been plenty out there.

Drifting has been a very successful way to find the fish; most anglers are then anchoring once they have found the fish. Pilchards and squid are doing just as good a job as any bait, however there’s lots of slimy mackerel, yakkas and barracouta out there, so there’s plenty of anglers using them for bait as well and having good success.

Speaking of ‘couta, they have been in plaque proportion on some days, making it tough to drop down anything. However many anglers are keeping a few for bait and are hooking mako sharks and gummy sharks on the fillets.

There has been some thumping gummy sharks caught. Neville Lowe had a great day hooking four gummies over 5’, however one gummy that he lost at the side of the boat was the biggest gummy he had ever seen, so there are some real monsters out there at the moment.

INSIDE

The whiting have made a strong appearance this month, with many anglers getting close to their bag limit. The good thing for the average angler is that they aren’t as finicky as they have been, meaning there taking a wider range of baits such as pipis, little bits of squid and prawns.

The sizes have been good, with whiting ranging anywhere from 32-45cm. Light running sinker rigs have been the best set-up to use. The whiting anglers are also catching good bags of pinkie snapper and silver trevally as a by-catch.

It would pay to get the soft plastics out and fish around the weed beds especially for the bigger trevally.

There’s still plenty of flathead throughout the system and they will stick around for a couple of months yet. Most anglers are using soft plastics fished around the channel edges and sand flats.

PRAWNS

There’s loads of prawn around at the moment, most anglers are getting between 50-200 prawns a night. There just on eating size now, so they will only get bigger over the next couple of moons.

Most of the prawners are also chasing flounder as well and there’s plenty of good sized flounder in the system, so it might pay take a flounder spear along with you.

For more information on fishing McLoughlin’s beach, contact Will at Allways Angling in Traralgon on 51748544, for some excellent deals on fishing tackle and all the latest fishing reports.

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