Albany Catches
Picture: Check this King George out- it went 60cm! Caught by one of our Albany fishing clinic instructors and our passionate Albany rock fishing safety spokesman, Andrew Jarvis. (Photo courtesy of Andrew Jarvis)
The reef fishing grounds due south of town appear to be full of potential – it’s just a matter of finding a day suitable to make it out to the marks. The boats that hit up the 60m to 80m depths during the past week found schools of small to medium size pink snapper. Plenty of skippy were also mixed in with the snapper schools. Queen snapper, breaksea cod and red snapper were mostly found along the coral while the few who ventured out to the edge of the shelf and beyond were rewarded with bigger red snapper as well as hapuka and blue eye trevalla.
Most of the King George whiting caught from the inshore waters this past week were in the 33cm to 42cm category. There were also loads of sand whiting, skippy of mixed and the odd flathead caught in these parts. Squid have been hard to come by. Big schools of salmon were hanging around Bluff Creek and Cheynes Beach together with heaps of herring and big skippy. Surf fishing reports from the local beaches were a little thin with mostly herring and sand whiting being caught from the beaches that were accessible. An estimated 6kg salmon was caught in the Kalgan past Honeymoon Island last week. The salmon was apparently very silver in colour and in good condition, which suggests that it had only recently made its way up river. Vibe and blade style lures have been working well on black bream in both of the local systems. Mulloway have been rather scarce during the past couple months.
Esperance Catches
Picture: Yellowtail kingfish are a great sports fish, and one of the most internationally renowned white fleshed fish used in sashimi dishes.
Both the Taylor Street Jetty and Jane Street Jetty are fishing well for garfish, squid, small herring and the odd King George whiting while Bandy Creek Boat Harbour has mostly been producing the latter two species. Salmon were reportedly thick at Roses Beach, Fourteen Mile and Salmon Beach some days last week. A customer of Southern Sports and Tackle landed approximately 60 salmon during a single session at one of the local beaches recently.
Dunns has been good for skippy while Thomas River has mulloway and gummy shark. The small boats targeting bread and butter species within a mile or so of the coast have been coming home with some nice hauls of sand whiting, squid and snook. A couple of boats that fished several miles beyond the islands found big schools of 3kg to 4kg nannygai. Samson fish to 30kg and yellowtail kingfish in the 6kg to 8kg range have been encountered near the islands.
