INFORMATION PROVIDED BY CATCH PRO TEAM MEMBER – MATÉ BITUNJAC

Clyde River

The Clyde River has been providing good fishing over the past couple of weeks, with plenty of different species involved. The Gar fish have started showing up, and the Mullet have been plentiful.

Bream

Anglers fishing for Bream are doing great in shallow water of about half a meter, the Bream being in great condition and commonly being up to 30cm in size. Small soft baits in most colours have been working well, with the winning technique being moving and hopping them slowly over the sand, especially effective when combined with bait strips of mullet. There are larger bream to be caught in deeper water, yet they aren’t as prolific as the bream in the shallows. Bream hitting the top end of that 30cm range seem to be handing around drop offs of 8 meters or deeper.

Flathead

Flathead are starting to be caught in good numbers and in great condition. Much like the Bream, most Flatheads are coming from shallow water using plastics and baits, being moved across the sand to attract a bite.

Jew Fish

The Jew fish have switched on in the last two weeks. There haven’t been many of them yet, with their size being around the smaller mark at 85cm. This didn’t stop one lucky Angler from pinning one particularly nice fish of 120cm! To catch Jew fish, all of the normal baits are being used, with one Angler being particularly successful with plastics in natural to fish imitation colours. Fisherman’s advice is to fish between Nelligen and Chainman’s bend at this time of year. If you’re new to targeting Jew fish, one hour each side of the tide is the best time to get your line at, as this is when the water is slowing up.

Bateman’s Bay Coast

It has been a trying few months for those wanting to fish inshore, the fish won’t play the game and the wind has been relentless. The water temperature is at 17 degrees with plenty of baitfish around.

Snapper

The best results for snapper have been from 65 meters and deeper North of the bay, finding structure and fishing on the outside of it. If you are having trouble getting the Snapper to bite, use smaller and lights hooks/lures/baits and make sure you are within a few meters from the bottom.

If you find yourself catching a lot of Barracuda, there is a good chance that the Snapper are close by or even underneath them. In this case, success has been seen by moving just outside of them, which has resulted in some nice fish from 1.5kg to 2.5kg. Mate Bitunjac’s best results over the last few weeks have been with the colour blue in the Seducer Micro Jigs and the Baby Boss, while Joel in Canberra has been getting great results using a pink and a blue Kabura fishing 70 meters in depth.

Flathead

If you’re looking for flathead inshore they are around in good number, with some nice Tiger Flaties amongst them. Fishing off Mossy Point, they seem to start biting at the 41 meter mark, but the real nice fish were holding at the 65 meter point. It was difficult to get the Flatheads to take anything at times, the reason being they seemed to be full of little one inch long Pilchards, so full in fact that they would regurgitate them when you got them in to the boat. This must be why the blue coloured smaller lures or soft baits were working for the Flatheads and Snapper. ‘You have to match the hatch’ as they say in Fly Fishing, it also runs true with Lure and Softbait fishing too!