1st Sep 2008
Al McGlashan’s gamefishing report
Welcome to my first report in a while. Over the last few months i have been working hard on new books and Strikezone as well as hunting a lot but now with the weather improving I am keen as mustard to get stuck into some serious fish.
Fin are still on.
Spring is prime time to chase the fin, especially north of Sydney. There is a good temp break that is sitting off Port Stephens at the moment. Seeing a break in the weather I took Strikezone up and after catching 30 odd snapper on plastics headed to sea to find the sea crawling with tuna. There were schools of striped tuna breezing everywhere on the surface in the 18.5 degree water. Trolling Laser Pros we quickly found there were school sized yellowfin in good numbers. In the space of just a few hours we enjoyed constant double hook ups tallying 15 fish as well as a few little albies. While trolling proved the most successful for us I highly recommend some later afternoon cubing as well. There is sure to be some solid fish lurking around as well and late after cubing is just the trick to catch them.
The last few season has seen some good tuna fishing right along the north coast including Port Stephens, Foster, SWR and Coffs Harbour. The key is watch those sea surface temperature charts and focus your efforts around ocean fronts where there are substantial temp breaks. The beauty of having a trailerboat is the fact that we can move up and down the coast with the fish. That trip to Port is a classic example we saw the break and ran up from Sydney just to fish one day. Now while a lot of people say that is a long way to go for one day’s fishing I say it was bloody awesome catching heaps of tuna!
On the marlin front there has been some great reports filtering through of small blacks pushing down the coast. Traditionally this is a good sign that we will get a good run this coming season in southern Queensland and NSW. Fingers crossed that everything comes together because it has been a long time since there has been a good run of little blacks in NSW, especially at SWR and Port Stephens.The giant black marlin season is about to commence and while early reports have been few and far between lets home the fish is better than it has been for the last few years.
Spring kings.
This is my favourite time of year for catching kings. The deeper water reefs are still producing good numbers of fish on the jig, but at the same time as the water temp starts to increase the kings are also starting to stack up on the inshore reefs. I have been hitting the Peak and the Twelve Mile off Sydney for mixed results, one day I took the boys from Amara Boats out and pulled a few nice fish then the very next day Anthony and the crew from Boab Boat Hire came out for barely a handful of kings. The fish fire one day then dead the next.
Over the next month I will trolling livies over the inshore reefs searching for the big hoodlums so I will keep you in the loop with what I find. Jigging is still certainly working offshore as well so it is still worth a shot. Admittedly at this time of year the fishing can be a bit hit and miss but there are some solid kings lurking for those that are willing to give it a shot.
Trevor Hogan has already reported that few snapper are showing Port Phillip Bay so chances are there will be a good season coming. This season I suspect that a lot of anglers will be casting soft plastics about in the Bay so it will be interesting to see whether the fishing is productive as the soft plastic is in NSW. I for one am certainly welcoming the warmer weather coming and the fishing opportunities it will bring. So don’t talk about it get out there and go fishing
Cheers al mcglashan |
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