MERIMBULA FISHING REPORT 18-10-2018

Our thanks to Merimbula Big Game and Lakes Angling Club for this weeks report

Best areas for ocean flathead are off Long Point, Tura Headland and SE of Turingal Headland. Off Kianinny and to the north off Baronda headland, try 15 fathoms out to 20 fathoms. Also try, off White Rock, and the Tathra Hotel. Snapper and morwong are available off our local reefs. Best areas are between 15 and 20 fathoms off Long Point and White Rock as well as Lennards, North Head and Boyds Tower.

Good salmon remain on Tura Beach just south of the headland and on North Tura beach. Try also Haycock Beach and Aslings Beach at Eden.

The Merimbula Wharf continues to provide good calamari squid with early morning and evening the best times. Try a slow sinking squid jig let down to the weed tops.

Relatively large tailor abundant in the lakes and Bega River are best caught with metal spinners as they delight in destroying soft plastic lures. In the estuaries soft plastics are great for trevally, bream and dusky flathead. Fishing can be patchy depending on the weather somewhat but there is certainly a lot more activity now the waters are warming; plus 17 degrees is the norm. Unfortunately leatherjackets are competing with the trevally and bream in the Merimbula lake.

Tight lines till next week.

Mallacoota fishing report 18-10-18

Offshore
Again no action from anglers offshore this week. The large swells and strong winds making it too dangerous to venture out. An improvement in the weather this weekend should see anglers venture out.

Beaches
Most the gutters firing up with some of the summer species. Bream, tarwhine, flathead and whiting all being taken. Bastion Point the best gutters to try. Bass yabbies and beach worms are gun baits here and when fished on light lights with small hooks and sinkers just behind the wash zone and in the fronts of gutters, can expect to get into some good numbers of fish. There has been no tide preference with fish getting caught on either tide.
Salmon and a few tailor delighting anglers fishing with slightly bigger baits or lures too. Spinning metal lures or fishing whole pilchards on ganged hooks along Tip and Davis Creek Beach catching some good sized fish. Incoming and high tide the best time to try your luck.
The odd gummy and school shark turning up along Secret Beach now as the water warms up.

Anglers fishing at night here with fillets of salmon or whole pilchards taking some sizable fish. Incoming tides around 8-9pm have been great for these tasty sharks. Please remember if un-desirable sharks and rays are landed that they go back unharmed. A few locals have reported dead swell sharks and port jackson sharks with knife marks in their heads. Even though they can be a pain, this is not the way to treat these species.

Lake
Some good sized bream and luderick have moved back into the snags at Harrisons Channel. Prawns and bass yabbies fished on the drop offs or close to snags have been taking some great fish.
Fisheries Jetties a good place to try for tailor, trevally and flathead. Lightly weighted pieces of pilchard fished in the channel producing
some nice fish.
Tailor can be found through out the whole lake and have been taking a liking to trolled metal lures or lures cast and retrieved along drop offs
Larger fish have been taken higher in the system around Cape Horn.
A few mulloway taken through out the lake last weekend. The anglers were having success fishing with large soft plastics along the many steep drop offs in the lake. Finding the bait is key to targeting these fish. Any schools of bait found should be investigated as the jewies won’t be far away.
Flathead bite really beginning to pick up with many anglers reporting good numbers of fish to 70cm. Similarly to the mulloway the flatties can be found along most of the drop offs in the lake. Any lure that resembles a small garfish seeming to out fish all others at the moment although the old favorite prawn style and black and gold paddle tails will get the fish as well.
The bream fishing has also been great with most of the fish moving back into the regular haunts and feeding hard. Palmers Bank, Goodwin Sands, Dead Finish, Cape Horn and Double Creek all producing good numbers of fish. Bait anglers doing great along the edges of the lake using prawns and bass yabbies.
Lure anglers finding success on a range of techniques with some even taking good numbers on surface lures. The best method has been casting shallow diving chubby style hard bodies along the wind blown edges of the lake to target the feeding fish. the drop offs in 1-2m also producing fish on any small natural soft plastic lure.