The spring winds have dominated again this week but there has been a couple of those spring days we all enjoy, sunshine and warmth in the air and fishable conditions.
Early spring is one of those times you just have to be ready to take advantage of the small windows that come along.
Several did this week and while still patchy the lack of traffic on the bay has made for some very good fishing.
Snapper have been the main target with plenty of bycatch like gummies, whiting and freezer filling bait fish, couta, yakkas and salmon.
Land-based as well has shown some improvement with a handful of reports: snapper, trevally, salmon, couta and even a few calamari off the jetties.
While I am a little reluctant to say the calamari is getting better the reports lately have shown an improvement.
The boat and kayak reports were more promising than the land but still not too many getting into double figures.
Some of the better reports of calamari have come from offshore in the deep water and not over the shallow weed beds.
Those caught offshore are all on the bigger side with mixed sizes in the shallow.
We also had a couple of reports of arrow squid in the bay in Cleeland Bight.
The best of the land reports is still off the beaches for calamari but a few more reports from the jetties will see more fishing when the tides are right.
Snapper reports are as you would expect and about the same as normal with only the weather holding most people back.
The size of the snapper and where they were caught came back to what and where you would expect this week.
Even the reefs of Kilcunda where they have been quiet so far produced the quality sized pinkies.
Still haven’t had reports from below the bridge in Cleeland Bight and although the other reports are getting somewhere near normal in the areas and snapper size, the numbers are still a little low with most only landing a couple for the boat.
Several good gummies caught this week from those chasing snapper and most were around the 6kg to 8kg mark.
There were the usual 100s of undersized ones swimming with the 100s of undersized pinkies and while it kept the kids busy it soon depleted the bait supplies.
The gummy reports came from along French Island, more towards Elizabeth Island and from offshore.
We also had a report of a school shark caught offshore that tipped the scales to almost 30kg.
There is plenty of bait in the bay, salmon, trevally, couta and yakkas and its always worth the effort to head out a little early for fresh calamari.
We are now back to opening seven days a week, 9am – 5pm Monday – Friday and 8am – 5pm on weekends.
As the weather improves, we will start to open earlier during the week and weekends.
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