South Coast fishing report

WITH the cold months of winter finally behind us the fishing is starting to improve as the water temperature rises and the bream, flathead and whiting are coming back on the chew.

In recent weeks I have spent a lot of time fishing St Georges Basin, and the Clyde River with much better results.

I recently spent the day fishing St Georges Basin and initially found it to be a little tough casting blade lures in 7 to 9 metres of water for a good few hours with only a couple of small Flathead as a result of the hundreds of casts I made. 

Blading is usually a great way of luring a few fish at the Basin but things were tough so I moved in towards the shallows to see if I could find some decent fish.  Casting light weighted soft plastics and shallow diving hard body lures in one to two feet of water was producing a few bream but nothing of much size apart from one 40cm whiting that took a soft plastic.

I then moved back out a little and fished the drop offs that pretty much surround the whole of St Georges Basin, I had the Hobie sitting in about three metres of water casting back towards the edges of the weed beds with soft plastics on a 1/16oz jighead and waited for the lure to hit the bottom before I began a slow lift and drop technique.

This was the technique that worked the best on the day and it seemed to be where all the big bream were holding, I managed a ripper 43cm Bream which weighed just over a kilo and was the biggest of the day plus a few more that were not much smaller along with some respectable flathead as well. Since that day similar results have followed fishing the same drop offs almost anywhere on the Basin and should improve some more as we approach summer where they will be a target for me on the flats with surface lures.

The Clyde River has been a bit tougher but the same technique is what I have been using to get some fish to the kayak.  Fishing the edges with soft plastics is producing some good bream and flathead along with the odd estuary perch as I move further upstream.

The oyster racks have been producing some excellent bream fishing over the last few weeks, the many racks closer to the bay bridge have been the most reliable and holding the bigger fish, and along the edge of the racks where it drops into deeper water has been a reliable place to score some good flathead.

The flats have been quiet in the Clyde river, but that should improve over the next couple of weeks.