The month of July is never the greatest month for chasing a feed of fish, winds are cold , water temperatures are low and the fish seem to go into hiding however there has still been some reasonable activity for those brave enough to venture out into the cold. Waters off the coastline from Eddystone Point down towards the Gardens have yielded very good catches of quality Flathead with bag limits of solid fish being caught. These quality Flathead have also been caught off St Helens Island and down the coast close to Paddy’s Island in about 20m of water.

Further out wide the small breaks in the weather have allowed a few anglers to head to the shelf where some good hauls of Blue Eye Trevalla, Hapuka, Gemfish and Ling have been caught as well as some quality Striped Trumpeter in on some of the closer reefs.

For those unable to venture far offshore the waters of Georges Bay have seen the Salmon schools continue to move about the bay feeding hard on small and chasing Garfish. Some of these fish are the big bruisers we have become accustomed to over the last few seasons and this year has not disappointed with fish pushing the 2.5kg mark. Lures such as 20gm Halco and Raider and soft plastics such as Yep Tassie Tackle 3” Flapper and DOA 4” Shads have been ideal. The jetty anglers have also fared well on the Salmon using similar lures and casting to fish moving past.

The birds don’t seem to work these fish so don’t expect them to give the location of the fish away. As the water throughout the channel is not relatively deep (2-5m) the fish seem to hug the bottom pretty closely so heavier weights on soft plastics and weighted flies need to be used or let your lure drop to the bottom before starting the retrieve.

A tasty edition to the bay during the last month has been the “Snotty Trevally” or Blue Warehou; these are a hard fighting fish, great fun to catch and are very nice to eat. Most fish have been taken by jetty fisherman both on the Beauty Bay jetty and the Kerwins jetty and a common technique is to use berley to attract the fish and then small Sabiki rigs with multiple flies, such as the Wasabi Bait Catchers, and a small piece of chicken breast on each hook.

Large Garfish are still being caught in good numbers and can be found mostly around the sea grass beds down along the red channel markers. A small float with a small #10-12 hook and a tiny piece of white squid bait is the perfect rig for the garfish. Whenever fishing for Garfish berley is as important as the bait and some fish pellet Berley mixed with a small amount of fish oil and sent in a trail down current will attract a school of Gars very quickly.

August will see the start of the 2011-12 Trout Season and with all the rain and snow over the last couple of months the Lakes and Rivers are all brimming with fresh clean water flow which should amount to some fantastic early season River and Dam fishing on the East Coast.