THE kingfish went ballistic at Montague Island off Narooma on Monday with lots of fish, several going 1m and bigger.
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Wazza & Simon of Lighthouse Charters say the last three days fishing have been nothing short of awesome, “Kings, Kings, lots of Kings and bigger Kings!”
They sent in a photo of one of the 25 landed by William and the boys from Sydney while fishing with Lighthouse Charters on Monday morning.
“Just over 95cm and tipping Robbo’s lie detector scales at an honest 7.4kg,” Wazza said.
So there were many happy punters over the Easter weekend.
Part-time Dalmeny resident Ben Podger was stoked with his big fish including one that went just over the metre mark.
The big fish apparently still preferred live yakkas but squid was also working.
Even the kids were getting into the action with 7-year-old Oscar Stepanek very happy with his 9kg kingie on Monday – Mum reports: “Dad was more than happy to help him get it in the boat.”
The commercial sector has also been at it at Montague Island, offloading boxes and boxes of kingfish at the co-ops so look for fresh kingfish at your fish market or restaurant.
There have also been some interesting shark catches including big bronzie and tiger with the water still over 23 degrees.
There have also been some marlin catches with Gary Pinter coming all the way from Victoria for one day of marlin fishing off Narooma scoring a nice striped for his dad Steve assisted by Nick Karac.
Meanwhile the estuary fishing also remains excellent with Ryan Jennings of Narooma sending in this “lil'l lizard” up Wagonga inlet in his secret spot.
“It measured 86cm - he was a fat puppy as well - no scales unfortunately.”
Speaking of big flathead - Tania Hextell and Ray Rosskelly were fishing up the top of Wagonga Inlet on Easter Saturday for mullet using a small hook and bit of peeled prawn.
They spotted a very large flathead in the shallows and decided to cast over the bait and hey presto they hooked up to the big girl.
They measured her at 90cm before carefully releasing her back into the inlet.
Amazingly, Tania and Ray also scored a nice big mud crab on the same fishing line and it ended up in the pot over the campfire.
Narooma News and Fish Files editor Stan Gorton also got out on Easter Sunday for some shallow bank fishing on his favourite river south of Bermagui, getting a nice fish approaching 60cm.
Rob Shaw of the Bermagui kayak group was also it again in of his local rivers on Easter Sunday getting a couple of nice underwater shots.
This time of year is excellent for flathead fishing in the shallows as they seem to come up and bask in the autumn sunshine – I’m talking very shallow in less than 10 or 20cm of water and baitfish being chased is a sure sign they’re feeding.
Bream also often lurk in the shallows and hard up the back is a great spot to cast a plastic.
Narooma News fishing report: Great Easter fishing
By John Moore
FINALLY an Easter where the winds were light and the rain stayed away. All that was needed now was for the fish to start biting.
The weekend was off to a relatively slow start, those fishers who were patient were rewarded with a few kingfish on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, then on Monday Montague Island showed why it has the reputation for the best kingfish fishing in Australia.
Early Monday morning there was a run of kings in the 65 to 70cm range, everyone was happy catching these fish as they were the size we had started to become accustomed to, then around 9.00am the larger fish made an appearance. Kingfish up to 1mtr tested the tackle of many fishers, with more lines breaking than kings were landed for the inexperienced fisher. The kings were only taking live baits, those fishers who didn't have live bait were frustrated with the action all around them.
More than 70 boats fished out of Narooma over the weekend, it was unfortunate that on Sunday a large inflatable boat spent the crews lunch time tied up to the floating jetty, thus causing an inconvenience to boats trying to offload crews to get trailers. Sometimes you have to wonder?
Kingfish weren't the only fish around over the long weekend, with good catches of snapper, mowies and flathead being taken wherever you could get away from the dreaded Chinaman Leather Jackets.
A few 50+kg marlin were taken over the last week, most were reportedly caught on the 'Shelf' between the Kink and Tuross Canyons, with boats trolling lures, then working live baits into and around bait balls.
Tip of the week: Big hooks catch bit fish, smaller hooks catch all fish.