The outside flathead bite continues with plenty of boats bagging out in quick times from 30 minutes to an hour on quality sand flathead around 50 centimetres and better. Boats are fishing from Turingal Head, back to off Long Point to catch these fish, but the Tura Head area has been really firing. The best depths are around 40 to 50 metres of water. If you are not catching many fish, keep moving around, you will come on to them eventually. If you still can’t find them, look at your bait! Salmon, salted striped tuna, salted mackerel fillets or anything fresh are the baits of choice. The in-shore water temperature is sitting around 19 degrees. There are also a few gummy sharks being caught also with the flathead.
The reefs are still giving up a good feed of snapper and morwong with the odd nannygai, leatherjackets and an array of other reef bait stealers. The tides are better this week with it rising in the mornings. So, a burley trail is a must for those keen snapper fisher people and hopefully a big one is there waiting to be caught. Plastics are also a good option. There are still a few bonito and odd kingfish getting around the reefs and headlands and fresh bonito is great bait.
Our beaches seem to have salmon and tailor moving around on most of them, but you need to be fishing the rising tide, whether it be bait fishing or casting lures. Tathra Beach still has some salmon schools on it, so too does Bournda Beach and Haycock Beach.
The estuary fishing is slowing up with the water sitting around 15 degrees. The Bega River at Tathra is still giving up a few bream, trevally and an odd small salmon and tailor at different times. Merimbula has a few blackfish being caught around the edges on a high tide down in the front lake and tailor, odd salmon and trevally up the top lake in and around the bait schools when they are active. The yellowfin bream have all but gone now. You don’t see them in the channels at Merimbula, but the seals have scored most of the fish from the front lake now. Trolling the channels might catch you an odd tailor or trevally also, as they are usually hiding under boat moorings looking to ambush a feed as it passes by.
The Merimbula Big Game and Lakes Angling Club Seafood night is on this coming Saturday night, 20th June from 6pm. There are still a few seats available for any last-minute decisions. $50 a head for members and $55 a head for non-members. Call Phil on 0403 409 879 to reserve your seat.
The club will be open this Friday night from 6pm. Come along and buy a ticket in the weekly raffles sponsored by the Lakeview Hotel and Goodalls Butchers. Enjoy a bevvy and catch up on the week’s fishing. Bring a crew and make a pre-dinner drink of it.
Till next week.
Fishy Fellow