Fresh Water Season Open!
There are a number of locations stocked with trout every year, including a mix of fingerlings, yearlings and ex-broodstock making for some great fishing opportunities in the South-West for fishers young and old.
Be sure to visit our How To Catch Freshwater Trout page for all the best trout tips and techniques as well as our Freshwater Stocking article for a list of stocking locations so you can make the most of your trout season.
Albany Catches
Picture: A nice top water bream. In case you missed it, check out our Winter Bream article here. (@jakefishstagram).
Big schools of salmon continue to turn up along the beaches east of town with Bluff Creek and the Bremer Bay stretch producing good catches of 4kg to 7kg fish. Salmon were also occasionally caught in their ones and twos at Nanarup, Sand Patch, Lowlands, Mutton Bird and Shelleys. Cables continues to fish well for bread and butter species including sand whiting, herring and tarwhine, while king george whiting have been picked up irregularly from the shore at Little Beach and Two Peoples Bay.
Small boat fishers who worked the inshore waters of King George Sound, Gull Rock and Ledge Beach did reasonably well on king george whiting. Squid have been picked caught in better numbers through the inshore areas east of Albany. A good mix of reef species including pink and queen snapper, breaksea cod, skippy to 1.5kg and small-to-medium-size dhufish were caught along the coral in 60 to 85m of water. It did not seem to matter whether the boats fished out from Albany, Cheynes Beach or Denmark with crews reporting catches of the aforementioned species out from all three general areas.
Judging by most accounts, the shelf has been rather hit and miss with some able to set their drift correctly and striking hapuka and blue eye trevally and others struggling to bring up a single fish. Several mulloway were caught in the Kalgan this week. The croakers were not big, but the punters were pleased to see the prized fish back in the system nonetheless. Black bream in the mid 30’s can be sought in both of the local systems as well as those out east and west.
Esperance Catches
Picture: Nice sambo caught by Jethro (Photo courtesy of Jethro Bonnitcha).
Salmon continue to turn up at Fourth Beach, Salmon Beach, Fourteen Mile and Roses. Alexander and Thomas are producing skippy between 500g and 1.5kg, salmon and the odd gummy shark. The Taylor Street Jetty is worth a visit with plenty of herring, garfish and squid hanging around the structure while the Bandy Creek Boat Harbour has been providing some good sessions on king george whiting.
The small boat and dinghy fishers are coming in with some nice hauls of sand whiting, herring and squid. Big concentrations of nannygai have been found wide of the islands together with queen snapper and breaksea cod. Samson fish and yellowtail kingfish have been located in a range of depths and areas.
