NSW South Coast late summer roundup

By Anthony Stokman

Hello folks. Well the silliest of the season is over and it’s that time when locals start to stick their heads out again and can now venture back down to the boat ramps without any stress of the holiday traffic.

The screaming, yelling, boats sinking without bungs and flying boat winches have ceased till Easter Holidays. This is a local’s favorite time of the year. The fishing is still red hot minus the traffic. Don’t get me wrong the town needs the traffic and business it’s just that it coincides with some of the best fishing of the year. But so is the cycle of life in tourism locations. You can’t have one without the other. So now it’s the time locals and where will you go? Well there are plenty of options.

We’ll start offshore and it has been a cracker marlin run to this date. More people are getting into this offshore scene and in the beginning towing lures are still popular amongst the beginners. Just getting your confidence being out so far and concentrating on safety equipment, electronics and what the boat can handle and what seas you are comfortable in is more of an importance at those stages.

So to think safety first and make sure you are in a boat that is capable of being out there and all your safety equipment is in good working order and you have all that you need to make your trip a safe one is paramount. When all that is secure and you have done a few trips to the shelf your confidence will build and you can start enjoying yourself. However never become complacent and always do a safety gear and weather check before heading out each trip.

We have had a few beginners this season and with such a good run of marlin we have had a few first timers landing their first marlin in their first to second trip out. So well done Anthony and some of my other happy customers.

In an earlier column I talked about switch baiting and that method has definitely been proving itself over the last few weeks. We had the Annual Batemans Bay Tollgate classic held in January and they tagged 104 marlin and weighed in 2. The smallest boat in the fleet aptly named “Fearless” captained by Mad Mick Fields caught the heaviest marlin of the comp angler being Peter McMaster with a Blue Marlin weighing 162.4kg.

Some good sized dolphin fish weighing from 10 to 20 kilo were caught and Zoe Oconnor on “Opatunatee” caught a spearfish. Competitions with such a large number of boats give you a good indication on what’s out there. The competition results indicate to me, plenty of striped marlin, some blue and some black marlin with large dolphin fish and the odd surprise.

One surprise being caught just up the coast at Jervis Bay is a large northern barracuda and as the water increases in temperature up to 25 degrees during March don’t be surprised to see the very odd Spanish mackerel and wahoo down here as they will venture down during those temps and time.

But the target species would be the marlin and dolphin fish that are in numbers. The dollies don’t seem to be around the FAD off Burri at this stage and seem to be in smaller numbers than last year but are bigger in size. Best catches have been off the buoys and fish traps at the back of Montague Is and trolling wide looking for marlin. Anything small or large object you see floating is always definitely worth an investigation with lures being trolled past or sneaking up and putting down a livie can yield results. So offshore is all systems go and even coming closer to shore there have been a few little black marlin chasing bait. So keep your eyes open and you never know your luck in the big sea.

Looking at inshore reefs and fishing it is as to be expected at this time of the year. You got to move around to find snapper. Some fishos are finding them in 15m depth anchored and berleying. Some drifting in 40m and one guy I know found a good school in 100m depth. But it can take you all day to cover that kind of water. Just got to try your old haunts and maybe go somewhere new in your area for a holiday.

Kingfish are swimming around in small to medium schools with the odd nice fish and school moving around our points, bombies and Islands. They are not holding off The Bay in one spot as they do off Moruya. But this is yet to happen. Montague and Jervis still being the most consistent. But if you are on a kayak and want some fun. Then trolling the new Rapala XRap XXXR-10 with the 6 x strong hooks is the perfect size and the colour range of these lures are irresistible to the fisherman and are proven irresistible to the fish. They swim at 5ft and are getting smashed by small kings around Wasp Island and the chance of landing a bigger one is always a possibility. Kayaks have done well in this area and I have been the one to push deeper diving hard bodies onto them with great success on snapper and kings over the last 3 years. As soon as I got the new XXX Raps in stock I thought of the boys in that area and new this was their lure for that terrain.

Obviously works well in all other places like out the front of Pretty point or Snapper point etc but we have done a lot of testing in this place and the kayaks seem to do better than the powered boats. The stealth of the kayak has its advantages at times. If you want to get your lure down deeper trolling the Rapala Fat Minnow 9 is another good bait size and swims down to 8 to 10ft. Then even deeper is the Classics Lure Dr Evil and that swims down to 20ft and has caught snapper and kings time and time again.

If kayaks are catching inshore snapper and kings then this also means rock fisherman are also in for a chance. And Layton Brant and Jem Abbot the area rock gurus proved that with some recent catches of snapper from our stones. Salmon, Tailor, Drummer and sharks have been in the mix from out stones of late also with the odd king off Pretty and Snapper point. Steve Moy had some luck on small kings off Snapper Point on lures and it was a nice size shark that took off with his livie on his last visit.

On the beaches the whiting continue to be running and of a good size. This species has been a great stand out during the warmer months and a fisherman is welcomed home with lots of love by his family not because of his husband/father qualities but because he is bringing home tasty whiting! Beach fisherman have been feeling the love this past summer.

Salmon and tailor continue to be found in large numbers on any given beach up and down the coast. Tailor have been massive in our estuaries as have the trevally. So if you are chasing bream or flathead and your lure gets picked up and goes flying the chances are one of the two species has hit it and you could be initially confused with a mulloway.

Speaking of Mulloway they have been as common as catching bream in our Clyde. There hasn’t been a massive army attacking them during the day bombarding them with lures but of a night they have been a regular catch. The Clyde produced Jews every night for 2 weeks running during the month of January and they continue to be a popular target. Anything seemed to be working which shows the possible numbers in the estuary. Fresh strip bait, butterfly yakka, Lund frozen squid to livies of any kind have all been successful. Keep in mind rules and regulations with live bait though. Squid have been in abundance and are great bait as well as a great feed.

Upstream Nelligen has been struggling to produce good productive water with the onslaught of rain every time it’s looking like cleaning up. There has been a few prawns getting up there and the fishing is slowly improving with a few bream around the structures. Right up the back the bass have been a pretty reliable target. But get right up there and beyond Shallow Crossing.

The prawns have been very patchy and there isn’t really one stand out area and you can go anywhere and have a reasonable to average catch on a good night.

That’s all for now folks, autumn is coming but the fishing is getting hotter!