Winter offers some fantastic fishing opportunities on Flinders Island, but you do need to keep an eye on the weather.

In May we had a day of Bass Strait gales with winds to 55 knots. A quick look on the internet that afternoon had the weather station on Hogan Island to the north of us with winds at 82 knots or 155km/h.

Winter on Flinders Island means the Australian salmon are back in the North East River and on the beaches with a vengeance. Anglers are reporting 2.5kg salmon in good numbers and tailor are feeding hard in with the salmon schools as well.

Floated baits and lures are taking good fish off the rock at the mouth of the river and lures and flies are working well at or close to the high tide further up the river. It is a great time for the light line sports-fishing enthusiast to be on Flinders as winter is always the best times for the North East River.

Offshore around the islands the kingfish have headed away and will be back in November. Snapper are still around and should hold into early June. Sometimes chasing a snapper or other target species can produce a spectacular bonus, a great change from the usual by-catch of wrasse and draughtboard sharks.

Chris Dargan went over on Flinders for a weekend’s fishing managed to hook a 3kg crayfish on a snapper rod, 15kg line and a 5/0 hook in 18m of water!

Further out toward the shelf the water is still very warm at 18.8 degrees and the deep water will continue to fish well into June. Most of our effort has been focused on trevalla and good catches have been achieved on each trip out. Striped trumpeter have also fished well just inside the shelf and these will improve as the water cools.

Watch the weather, stay warm and stay safe.