FINALLY there seems to be a return to “normal” autumn fishing offshore, with great catches of snapper and mowies on the reefs to the north of Dalmeny through to Tuross, and kingfish at Montague Island.

The northerly current finally started to trickle on Sunday with quite a few legal kingfish taken on squid and live baits.

Most of the action was at the Fowl House to the west of Montague Island. The live bait have been hard to catch with very small slimies offshore from the Narooma Surf Club, and plenty of yakkas at the island - but they were very fussy, the key has been to lay down plenty of burley and the yakkas can be hooked in the resulting cloud.

There have also been very large slimies - up to 1 kg - just outside the school of yakkas.

A couple of commercial fishers and charter boats noticed that the large slimies were being pushed into the shallow water less than 18mts, and were rewarded with some good catches of kingfish. When the remaining boats in the area came into the shallow water the kingfish did a quick exit.

On Monday the northerly current picked up to a steady 2.5 knots and the kings really fired in the shallow water, with legal fish taken in water as shallow as 10mts.

There were still plenty of undersize fish, but those who persevered were rewarded with plenty of legal kings.

The challenge for the day was to try and stop the kings before they hit the reef, this is where the calibre of your tackle is really tested. Kingfish are also called “Bandits”, this name comes from their ability to steal baits and then take tackle into the reef, also from the mask that they seem to have on their face.

Close examination of kingfish stomach contents this week has shown that the kingfish have been feeding on small threadfin leatherjackets, it appears that they have had enough of these leatherjackets and are now happy to feed on their 'normal' diet of squid and livies.

Offshore both black and striped marlin were caught on Saturday and Monday, with fish around 80 - 100kg taken.

The hot spots were the 12 Mile off Bermagui and the Tuross Canyons.

Narooma Sports and Game Fishing Club ANSA Convention

THE Narooma Fishing Convention was an extremely successful event, attracting around 100 anglers from both intra and interstate clubs.

Two anglers from the USA were amongst those that fished the competition. The weather was great with little wind and the rain held off until Sunday morning, although some stout hearted fisher persons got soaked to the skin by a huge thunder storm early Sunday morning.

Although the number of fish caught was down on previous years there were quality fish landed in all categories.

A full list of category winners will be placed on the Club’s Facebook page, as well as on the clubs Eurobodalla tourism webpage.

At daybreak on Friday anglers hit the water, with some taking advantage of breakfast at the clubhouse. At one stage there was around 20 boats fishing around Montague Island and competition was fierce.

Some anglers  that took out category awards were Glenn Wade (Narooma) with a 78kg marlin, Nefi Kempt (South Sydney) a 4.16kg kingfish, Pat Lucock (Canberra) landed a 1.49kg flathead and Gavin Mitchell captured a nice, award winning bream off the Taylor’s boat ramp.

Gavin, one of the more enthusiastic fisherpersons, fished most of the night from the boat ramp to hook his award winning bream at 3am in the morning and then went out fishing at 5.30am with a charter boat from Lighthouse Fishing Charters, captained by Waza, when he also landed a category wining flathead. 

Catch and release categories were extremely well represented as were the junior and sub junior events

There were 10 clubs fishing the convention with the champion club award being taken out by Narooma.

The Narooma Club again extended its friendly hospitality at the meals, raffles and awards presentation events, and a great time was had by all. The raffles provided fun and frolics and many top class prizes were won.  These included game fishing rods and reels, surf fishing rods and reels, coolers, fishing tackle, accommodation vouchers, charter fishing trips and much, much more.

The prizes were donated by both our local and intra state sponsors including Kingfisher Marine, and we are extremely grateful for their generous support which undoubtedly contributed to the success of the convention. – Terry

Boys do well at Tuross comp

NAROOMA angler Jake Mikolic and his friend Jakeb Booth entered in the Tuross Flathead and Bream Comp on the weekend.

Jake won biggest bream in the comp, winning a massive prize pack and the title of best fisherman in the family.

Jake and his dad spent the weekend camping and fishing the Tuross River with his friend Jakeb and his dad.

Jakeb came second with a 33cm bream, also winning a massive prize.

A little bit of an extra buzz for Jake was catching his first jewfish. Well done mate, no wonder his arms are sore!

Not to mention these boys came first and second with their bream in the entire comp there was no junior category.