@sapphirecoasteats catering with Jaz and Damo. Here, owner Jaz is about to start serving at Saturday night’s annual Seafood Dinner, held at the Merimbula Big Game and Lakes Angling Club at Spencer Park. A great feed and night was had by all.
The great fishing continues outside with anglers still catching good numbers of sand and tiger flathead. I have been getting plenty of reports from anglers that they are catching their bag within one hour over the last week. The sand flathead are mostly large fish around 50 centimetres and better. The tiger flathead are a bit smaller up to 45 centimetres. The best areas to fish from reports are from Tura Heads up to Turingal Head, and out off Tura Beach. However, they are not catching them as quickly there. The depths where most of the action has been between 40 and 45 metres. The boats fishing wider are catching more tiger flathead. There are also a few flying gurnard and an odd gummy shark being caught in the mix as well. The inshore water temperature has dropped a little this week, sitting around 17 to 18 degrees.
The snapper fishing has also been good. There are still good numbers of 40-plus centimetre snapper being caught, with odd larger models periodically. There has also been good numbers of morwong and a few nannygai and odd leatherjackets. There have also been a few reports of a few rat kings around the reefs for the lure fishermen. Bait fishos are using pilchards, yellowtail and squid and the lure fishos are catching more on 4-inch or 5-inch plastics.
The beaches are still fishing well too. With some nice tailor and salmon being caught on Tathra Beach, Bournda Beach, North Tura Beach and Haycock Beach. The bait fishos are telling me that whole undamaged pilchards are getting bites. If the pilchards are damaged, the fish won’t touch them and 30-to-40-gram metal slugs are getting a fair bit of attention for the lure casters. I’m hearing that the Wapengo Lake system has salmon coming in on the rising tides at the moment also.
The lakes’ fishing is getting slower with the cooling water and the fish are bunkering down. The Bega River at Tathra’s water temperature has dropped this week down to 13 degrees and the fish have gone quiet. The water is very clear down the front part and I only have reports of a few undersized bream and trevally from around the bridge piers. I saw a pic of a small mulloway caught after dark near the bridge also. There have been a few perch caught whilst targeting bream along the rock walls, but I understand they are only small fish. Merimbula Lake is fishing a bit better, with a few blackfish being caught around the edges of the front lake on weed and under a float. There are also a few trevally in the channel and up the top lake they are catching a few tailor trolling and spinning once bait is found. Anglers are catching tailor, odd salmon and trevally under the bait. The Merimbula Lake water temperature is sitting around 14 degrees.
There was a bit of game fish action on Saturday just north of Tathra off Bunga with one boat catching 3 yellowfin up to 35 kilogram in size. There were also a few albacore caught by other boats in the area. I heard the tuna were caught from 150.33E out the to 150.36E and I know of boats that have trolled out to 150.51E of Tathra and seen and caught only a couple of striped tuna. The water out wide is sitting around 20 degrees.
The Merimbula Big Game and Lakes Angling Club rooms are open this Friday night opening at 6pm. Come on down and meet the regulars. Get involved in our Friday raffles sponsored by the Lakeview Hotel and Goodalls Butchers. There is a fully licensed bar, and nibbles provided. Hope to see you there.
Till next week.
Fishy Fellow