Late summer blooms big

WARRNAMBOOL mgercovich@hotmail.com

Things have just started heating up finally in the South West recently, and hopefully the good fishing will continue into March, which is still a great month to target the summer species locally.

The summer run of tuna is back again with fish present right along the coast. It is amazing how close these fish come to the shore, and it’s now common to encounter schools of fish in anything from 5-14m of water. It is a great opportunity for anglers in smaller boats to be able to target hard fighting game species without the need for long runs out to sea.

As always, some days tuna can be very difficult to entice, but keeping moving from school to school is the best option, rather than continually hassling the same school trying to entice a bite. We’ve found smallish poppers that throw plenty of splash to work the best. Occasionally we have caught fish by tossing a soft plastic in behind the popper when there are fish tailing it but not striking it.

Kingfish have been a little inconsistent this summer, here one day gone the next. But what they have made up for is their size with plenty of metreplus fish being taken from all the regular locations.

As well as the kingfish and tuna, there have been schools of decent sized salmon cruising the coast with both boat anglers, as well as landbased anglers at Killarney, hooking in. Overall it seems a pretty bad time to be a baitfish at present.

For those targeting bottom fish the gummies have been regular captures for those in closer, whilst those journeying towards the shelf on the all too rare super flat days have been taking all manner of tasty critters like blue-eye, gemfish and hapuka.

Bream fishing has been okay without being exceptional recently. March can be a great time to chase estuary perch in both the fresh and saltwater sections of the Hopkins River. A warm calm evening can produce some exciting surface action whether using lure, fly or floated cricket baits. The attraction of this style of fishing has an extra incentive with the possibility of tangling with a bass. Bass have never been officially stocked in the Hopkins and don’t occur naturally but a number of fish in a variety of size ranges have been turning up in the past bait is the go with plenty of squid about and fresh salmon. The fish are well spread, in depths of 30m out to 65m of water. Gummys have been caught in the same areas.

For best results, try anchoring either side of the tide change and use fresh salmon fillet on a 8/0circle hook.

The new pontoons in the harbour are working well. There is a lot of squid ink on them and it gives you good access to a bit deeper water down there. It’s been good seeing so many people using them as it also gives us so much more room to launch and retreive the boat. The parking is still a bit of an issue in the busy times of the year but I’m not sure what can be done. few seasons. If you are lucky enough to hook a good one you’ll be amazed how hard they go. On an unfortunate note there have been a few

Overall the fishing is going strong here at the moment with all species on the go. The weather has been good despite a few eastly winds.