Spring has sprung a leak, by Anthony Stokman

Hello fisho’s! Spring has sprung and started with some great weather. But winter didn’t want us to forget her.

So she has thrown together some big swells and some rain to rain on our Spring parade. Durras Lake has opened, the whales are migrating back south and the bait should start coming in. It’s a beautiful time of the year where everything comes out of hibernation, the animals, the flowers, the fish and fisherman.

The rainfall has made the fishing a little tough in the estuary. But it’s also given it a good flushing and cleaned it up and that snot weed that was annoying everyone so much should now be cleared away. By the time of reading this it should be looking good to coincide with the numbers of mulloway to be targeted over the next coming months. With all this recent rain we should see big numbers of estuary perch and bass coming out to play. A big rain at this time of the year should see them happily breeding also. You can see the effects of this year’s breeding in about 5years time when they will grow to 25cm and then the growth rate slows right down where they might put on another 15cm over 20 years. I’m expecting big things out of the estuary this October.

This month go upstream and pepper the snags, rock walls and holes for bass and estuary perch. Hard bodied divers and 3 inch grubs have proven their success in the past. The schools of estuary perch tend to be tightly packed and you could only be meters away from a school. So if you are casting at drop offs along rock walls make sure you cover the area completely. Once you find them, you can pull 10 or more out of that patch.

If it’s the mulloway you are after then look for bait at the back of the eddy’s up and down the river. Last year we saw massive schools of prawns and bait in our estuary. This could be due to the drought on land being over. So if this is true we should hopefully see a repeat this year. Find the big schools of bait and the predators won’t be far away. You would think a prawn imitation lure would be effective and they were quite effective in the Tuross system. But the lure of choice in The Clyde has been hard and soft vibes. There are a lot of different vibes out there ranging from 15g to 30g and being 7cm to 10cm in length. Shimano Sniper Vibe, Shads Lures, Cultiva Mira Vibe plus a host of others will all work on any given day. Tony G caught 2 nice jewie’s ranging from 65cm and 75cm on little bream blades a couple of weeks ago out of Tuross. In this case they were probably feeding on small bait and matching the hatch worked a treat.

The 5 inch jerk shad or 100mm Squidgy Fish has always been the most popular plastic and will catch you fish as well. But probably the most important thing of all is put the hours in. For some it’s difficult because work gets in the way. Work always gets in the way. But if you can put in a good 5 days fishing in you’ll start to live and breathe the system and you will track them down and your chances of catching the holy grail of the estuary just jumped.

Coming out of the estuary snapper are still being caught in close and out wider now as we expected. There have been some good schools getting around in all depths. There’s the odd shark being caught and some flathead and the other usual reef suspects. We didn’t get as hammered by the leatherjacket as they did further south. But we should soon start to see the other tackle rat turn up, the barracuda. Kingies are still very quiet with the odd school getting around.

Further offshore there has been some good 20kg to 30kg yellowfin tuna getting caught from Jervis Bay to Sydney. We are hoping that water pushes down to Batemans Bay. There would have to be the odd tuna off here but due to bad conditions not many have been getting out. And when there has been a small window a lot more guys these days are getting into fishing off the bottom just over the Continental shelf with electric reels. They have been bringing back some good catches of Ocean Perch and the odd gemfish. But it’s the blue eye trevalla that everyone is after and only so few have been caught recently.

Back on our beaches there is a good steady flow of salmon and tailor and if you fish out of the opening of Durras Lake you’ll be in for some action. During October and November Durras Lake itself should be fishing quite well. They are still getting big bream off the beaches, but as you read this you’ll see them moving back into the estuary. So it’s happy days. You can feel that extra warmth in the air, leaves will start appearing on the trees and the South Coast River and lake systems are coming back to life. Enjoy!

Cheers
Anthony Stokman
Complete Angler Batemans Bay