With the small swell and offshore conditions we have enjoyed recently there have been a lot of opportunities for fishing and boating over the last month.
Inshore Fishing
Large Skippy, King George whiting, Herring, and the occasional squid have made up for most of the catches over the last month for land based anglers. Anglers fishing smaller soft plastics and bait during the evening low tides on the local beach reef holes and rocks have been most successful. Beach fishing for Tailor and Mulloway has been relatively slow over the last month but expect this fishing to improve as we get closer into spring.
Offshore Fishing
Calm weather and small swells have made for some epic boat fishing conditions over the last few weeks. Dhufish have been in shallow water, with large fish being caught in 10-20m. Fishing soft plastics with elevator jig heads has been quite successful. Freshly caught cuttlefish has also been deadly effective. Anglers are also reporting decent action on other demersals including pink snapper, queen snapper, harlequin fish, and nannygai. Undersized Dhufish are still being caught in plague proportions so remember to reel smaller fish up slow in order to avoid barotrauma.
Squid fishing in Geographe Bay has been excellent with anglers getting their boat limits in a couple hours of fishing. Boaties venturing out to the Four Mile in the evenings have been doing well on Pink Snapper and smaller sized Dhufish. Anchoring up and getting a burley trail going has been the best way to bringing the pinkies in. Try using lightly weighted baits and jigs as often times the snapper will be hanging back in the burley trail and off the bottom.
Anglers fishing Flinders Bay have had fair success on King George Whiting and large Sand Whiting over the last couple weeks. Pink Snapper, Dhufish, and Samsonfish have also been reported by anglers target whiting so make sure you are fishing with heavy enough trace just in case!
Diving/Spearfishing
Haven’t heard too many reports as of late but with the calm conditions and good visibility, the few spearos that have been diving have been reporting seeing good numbers of Dhufish in shallow water. Keep a lookout for Yellowtail kings to be showing up along the coast as we move into spring.