Play the waiting game
THE fish, it seems, are on holidays. I have fished over a few consecutive days, and my fish diary tells me that previous years have been very successful about this time. However, this year has been rather slow. This applies to freshwater and salt, I might add.
Several seasoned anglers I have spoken to think the same, and it’s hard to say whether it’s to do with the tides, food supply or water temperature. Let’s just hope the fishing picks up soon, as I’m sure it will. It certainly picked up for some anglers fishing around Tasman Island last weekend, with some school bluefin landed early in the morning. However, they weren’t about in vast numbers.
Anglers bottom-bouncing in Munros Bight tell of some excellent captures of flathead and, in reefy areas, striped trumpeter and perch.
In Trial Bay, plenty of sand flathead are being taken, as well as some large calamari squid. Other catches include couta and wrasse.
Off the Margate jetty of a night, cod, squid and wrasse are being landed, as well as some small pesky couta.
East Coast action has slowed, unless you are a bream angler.
There are plenty there for capture, with a couple of nice specimens in the Swan River last weekend. Ansons River is also giving up some good bream. Many people, including this writer, are just waiting for the sea-run trout to show, which should happen as soon as we start to get a bit fresher water coming down.
Bridport fishing is firing, with big tiger flathead being taken in Anderson Bay, along with the occasional snapper and couta.
At Southern Cross Reef, blue sharks are about, as are arrow squid, no doubt attracted by the vast amounts of baitfish present.
I keep getting reports of large fish at the mouth of the Tamar and around to West Head. These are presumed to be West Australian salmon, because a couple were hooked, but not landed.
Some tailor of a good size were also caught in salmon schools near the Farewell Beacon.
Snapper are everywhere in the lower reaches of the Tamar, and anglers are advised to try squid baits or couta heads, which is what the fish seem to be favouring at this time.
Anglers at Craigbourne Dam last weekend hoping to catch one or two of the newly relocated brown trout didn’t have a lot to talk about, with only one or two landed.
The salmon I spoke of a couple of weeks ago were still about, with a couple of smaller models taken by anglers trolling lures and soft plastics.
Sadly, it seems many people are not heeding the warnings over life jackets, with a few in boats who decide that they don’t need to wear them. The adults in a boat at Craigbourne with children last weekend certainly should have known better. CARL HYLAND THE 2017-18 rainbow trout season closed at midnight on Sunday.
Tasmania’s rainbow trout waters are Dee Lagoon, Junction Lake, Lake Meston, Lake Rowallan, Lake Skinner, Lake Youd, the Mersey River above Lake Rowallan, the Leven River upstream of Loongana Road, and the Weld rivers (both North and South).
The following waters are open all year and offer the chance of a winter fishing experience: Brushy Lagoon, Craigbourne Dam, yingina/ Great Lake (other than Canal Bay), the Huon River downstream from the Huonville Bridge, Lake Barrington, Lake Burbury, Lake King William, Huntsman Lake, Lake Meadowbank, Lake Pedder, Pioneer Lake, the Leven River downstream from the Allison Bridge on Golf Course Road, kanamaluka/River Tamar downstream from the Lower Charles Street Bridge on the North Esk River and West Tamar Road Bridge on the South Esk River, and the River Derwent downstream from the Bridgewater Bridge.
It is not long now until the brown trout season opens on August 4.