Autumn outshines summer for South Coast anglers

If you’ve dipped your toes on a South Coast beach this summer you will have felt the reach of a huge upwelling of cold water on our coastline, which in places dropped the temp to 16 degrees or less.

This along with a strong offshore current has had a significant impact on saltwater fishing. The swift Australian current has not allowed bait to hold on our continental shelf and so game fish have not been holding either, rather they are just travelling past swiftly with the flow.  This means luck has been a big part in crossing paths with striped Marlin, which are usually more reliable, especially once they hold up and you can pinpoint them.

One thing that has been consistent is the temp breaks and water quality. Inshore waters have been quite murky, then halfway to the shelf it has been green and 19 degrees, followed by brilliant blue 22 degree plus water on the shelf.
It has been along this green to blue water line that there has been particularly good fishing for Mahi Mahi.

These fish love schooling around the floating debris which the current brings through; spot this and you will often find big numbers of these colorful and tasty fish.  Many have been small, but there’s some good ones in the mix. Topcat Charters got a stunning 10 kilo Mahi Mahi and there have been some even bigger ones caught all up and down the South Coast. Most have been caught on trolled small to medium size skirts-pick a bright or flashy one to get them fired up.

The currents as expected have brought better numbers of small Black Marlin than previous years, mostly around the 30 to 40 kilo mark, but there’s some good ones amongst them.  For example amongst the typically small ones caught off the rocks at Jervis Bay earlier this year one well above 160kg was landed!

Striped Tuna have been out beyond the shelf and there is the odd big Blue Marlin feeding on these.  Amongst the black marlin I’ve dropped 2 big blues and another busted me off in spectacular fashion.  Meanwhile charter boat Aspro has an estimated 250 kilo blue straighten the hook at the boat. The occasional Wahoo or Spanish Mackerel has also been landed as the water temperatures peak.

The current has eased over the last few days and the striped marlin fishing has already picked up a gear as you read this, hopefully this trend continues as the striped marline are always more reliable than their strong current loving black and blue cousins.

Inshore, the combination of a lot of current and cold water pushing up against our coast is probably a contributing factor to why we are experiencing a lot of shark activity in our bays and river systems. It is not uncommon for the sharks to come into these systems to have their pups, but we have noticed a massive influx. Mostly Gummy Sharks, Bronze Whalers and Bull Sharks but also the odd Hammerhead and some sand shark species.

If you want a Gummy, which are a good table fish, anchor in a deeper part of the Clyde River and put a fresh squid down.  Tide changes at dawn, dusk or night are best, and you might get a Mulloway along the way.  Don’t forget the Mulloway size limit is now 70cm.

If it’s Snapper you’re looking for then just offshore is the go.  Topcat charters has found nice snapper up to 3 kilo’s in approximately 10 to 20 meters of water.  Even inside the bay has seen better than usual snapper fishing than usual with a few fish to 3kg, and lots of small kingfish at times.

Smokin’ Drags, Anthony Stockman
Anthony Stockman runs the Complete Angler Tackle Store at Batemans Bay