WESTERN AUSTRALIA Esperance

ESPERANCE Murray Johnson

ALBERTON ALBERTON MARINE 39 Johnson Street Alberton P: (03) 5183 2344 F: (03) 5183 2219 W: albertonmarine.com.au BENDIGO BENDIGO MARINE & OUTDOORS 160 Midland Highway Epsom P: (03) 5448 3988 W: bendigomarine.com.au MELBOURNE BL MARINE 612- 614 Plenty Road Preston P: (03) 9478 1420 F: (03) 9470 4638 W: blmarine.com.au SHEPPARTON BOATS AND MORE 207 Numurkah Road Shepparton P: (03) 5822 2108 F: (03) 5821 2908 W: boatsandmore.com.au MORWELL CRAWFORD MARINE 71-77 Chickerell Street Morwell P: (03) 5134 6522 F: (03) 5134 6455 W: crawfordmarine.com.au ECHUCA EADES XTREME MARINE 24 Sturt Street Echuca P: (03) 5482 2333 F: (03) 5482 2133 W: xtrememarine.net.au BRAESIDE JV MARINE WORLD 878 Springvale Road Braeside P: (03) 9798 8883 F: (03) 9798 7554 W: jvmarine.com.au

Esperance fishing has started to improve as the typical spring fishing patterns get underway. The days are getting longer, water temps are on the rise, and the weather is improving a lot.

Larger pelagic species such as kingfish and samsonfish have been moving in shallow, and anglers are making the most of this and targeting them on light gear. Samsonfish up to 35kg have already been caught so far, and one of the best lures for them lately has been the Oceans Legacy’s Long Contact Jig in blue/purple. The kingfish have been taking stickbaits and knife jigs, and they’re also MELBOURNE being caught on both live and MELBOURNE MARINE CENTRE dead baits. 92 Hallam South Road Hallam

Demersals have been P: (03) 9703 2003 firing as well. Nannygai have been schooling up in dense W: melbournemarine.com.au schools and big sizes, and have been caught on a mix of lures, MORNINGTON PENINSULA jigs, soft plastics and bait. MY MARINE Oceans Legacy’s 130g Long Cnr Nepean Highway & Contact jigs in pink/purple Ponderosa Place Dromana have been effective lately, and P: (03) 5987 0900Berkley Gulp 6” Paddle Shads in pearl white are catching W: mymarine.com.au their share as well.

Anglers fishing MORNINGTON PENINSULA for nannygai have also NAUTICAL MARINE encountered some large 141 Hotham Road breaksea cod, harlequin and Sorrentobig blue groper. The inshore fishing has P: (03) 5984 1666 been going really well, with E: info@nauticalmarine.com.au anglers making the most of W: nauticalmarine.com.au the nice weather to get out and target bread-and-butter TOORADIN species. So far this year we’ve P&J MARINE SERVICE CENTRE P/L had the best King George whiting fishing that Esperance 101 Tooradin Station Road Tooradin has seen in years, with anglers P: (03) 5998 3107 regularly bringing home E: pjmarine_services@bigpond.com their bag limit. In the deeper patches, King George up to 1kg have been caught. Black Magic Whiting Snatcher rigs GEELONG PORTSIDE MARINE CENTRE have been very popular for the 36-38 Geelong Road Portarlington King George, partly because P: (03) 5259 1110 the KL hooks always pin the E: info@portsidemarinecentre.com.aufish in the corner of the mouth, and you don’t drop the fish. W: portsidemarinecentre.com.au Inshore fishers have also been getting good bags of MELBOURNE sand whiting up to 35cm in THE MARINE SHOP 6 Holland Drive Melton P: (03) 9747 0588 F: (03) 9747 3999 W: themarineshop.com.au MELBOURNE TRIPLE M MARINE 117 Northgate Drive Thomastown P: (03) 9465 8787 F: (03) 9466 1418 W: triplemmarine.com.au

shallow water. Fishing the sand patches west of town has been most productive for these.

Mixed in with the sand whiting, anglers have been frequently pulling up flathead up to 1kg, and there are a some squid cruising around with the whiting as well. Squid up to 45cm hoods are getting caught, and with the dirty water at the moment the most productive squid jigs have been Yamashita Live Search with the rattles in them. You should work them erratically for the best results.

Esperance Jetty has provided a brilliant platform for anglers of all ages to target a range of species. The most common captures lately have been large squid, good numbers of herring, and weed flathead. Large skippies are also getting caught in berley trails at night.

Moving on to beach fishing close to town, Chapmans Point has been producing mixed bags of large salmon, sweep, sand whiting and skippy. Salmon Beach has consistently produced salmon up to 5kg, as well as a lot of smaller

Oli Stevensonn caught this salmon on the new Ocean’s Legacy Dreamcast stickbait. Image courtesy of @olistevensonn fish around the corner at Fourths Beach. Anglers venturing out of town have been rewarded with some great captures of late. Gummy sharks are starting to show up in good numbers, with anglers catching multiple gummies in one night. The gummy shark hotspots so far this year have been Roses Beach out west, Warton Beach out east, and also Alexander Bay out east. Mixed in with these gummies has been some large salmon in big numbers, skipjack trevally up to 4kg, and a few small school mulloway. Coming into later spring we’ll see the gummies come in nice and shallow for breeding, and that’s when the large 20kg fish will be caught. The preferred method for targeting gummy sharks is a simple paternoster rig with snelled 7/0 hooks at the top baited with an octopus tentacle, and on the bottom a small Black Magic KL 3/0 with half a salted mulie. The 3/0 KL is large enough to withstand large gummy sharks. The lakes around town have had a good flush-out with all the rain we’ve had over winter, and large bream up to 45cm have been getting caught in less than 1ft of water, grazing in areas that they previously didn’t have access to. The go-to lures for these bream are small jerkbaits, such as the new Berkley Protec Jerk 60 in brown trout. • Established in 1986, Southern Sports and Tackle specializes in the supply and servicing of fishing equipment. They have an extensive knowledge of the local area and provide all brands, whether you’re fishing from beach, jetty or boat. Come and chat to the friendly staff at Shop 16, The Team member Lachy Warren with a nice Boulevard, Esperance or harlequin fish. Image courtesy of @lachy_warren phone 08 9071 3022.

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