Ben Hulme with a lovely snapper he caught in dreadful conditions on Saturday. The fish measured 67 centimetres.
Unfortunately, our weekend’s weather forecast was excellent wind wise, but the rough seas didn’t subside quickly enough to run the snapper competition. Some people still fished Saturday and caught fish. However, Sunday was the pick of the days. The reefs were slow fishing, which was due to the churned up waters from the stormy weather prior to the weekend and that churned up water went out to sea till we got to 50 metres off Long Point. We caught snapper to 50 centimetres off the Haycock Reef on plastics and that’s basically all that was caught. The water in close was 13.5 degrees and out over 50 metres, it rose to 15.5 degrees. Burleying in close was a better option. The fish in this week’s photo was caught in this way and they caught 9 snapper in total burleying.
We got sand and tiger flathead from 48 to 51 metres as we went further out the bites stopped. There were a lot of undersized fish in between keepers and plenty of bites which we found out were red spot whiting. There are also some nice flying gurnard up to 50 centimetres, but no gummy’s. The flathead ranged in size from 35 to 50 centimetres. There wasn’t much drift. Maybe fishing off Tura Heads and north a bit might be a better option to get away from the milky water to catch some flathead.
Salmon seem to be very scarce at the moment. The estuaries only have odd fish in them and the beaches have changed again with some gutters and sand banks forming after last week’s weather, so surf fishing might be worth a try on Tura Beach and North Tura Beach. I did get reports of a possible large school of salmon off the Dolphin Cove end of the beach on Friday. That is another possibility for surf fishing.
Our estuary fishing has basically shut down. Fishers are seeing bream around the oyster racks, but told it’s very hard to get a reaction on lures or bait. The estuary water in the Merimbula Top Lake is around 10.5 degrees after the rain.
Gamefishing saw a few boats head out off Bermagui today for odd fish. Reports are that the tuna were erupting near boats but not many caught. Maybe after this next blow, the weather might settle enough to allow a few more boats outside to test the waters. Reports are that 17.5 degrees is what the tuna are hanging in so that’s a good starting point when heading out.
The Merimbula Big Game and Lakes Angling Club is open this Friday night, opening at 6pm. Come on down and enjoy a cold bevy, support our raffle sponsored by Goodalls Butchers and the Bar Beach Kiosk, catch up on the week’s fishing reports. Love to see some new faces there. Don’t forget the junior winter holiday fishing competition that is running at the moment in our estuaries. Get into to Merimbula Tackle World or Boss Outdoors to enter and get your showbag of goodies.
Till next week.
Fishy Fellow