Skipper John Moore on Monday again headed north to the Tuross Head reefs, stopped in 60 metres and after about five minutes, client Michaela from Young hooked up to a monster 87cm snapper, which is really big for the NSW South Coast. Michaela hadn't done any offshore fishing before - but handled the fight like a professional.

These offshore snapper were of a similar size to the massive estuary snapper caught inside Tuross Lake earlier this month. 

After landing some nice pan sized reds, fellow client Neville from Melbourne boated a 73cm snapper, great by local standards - and normally “Fish of the Day”. Just a quick note, John said these fish were taken in over 60m of water, and would not have survived being released, as they had completely blown their stomachs and swim bladders.

Fellow charter skipper Nick Cowley reports kingfish remained hit and miss at Montague Island over the weekend with only one legal fish around 75cms and a few rats. A change of tactics saw him have two unreal session on gummy sharks with big numbers in the morning and afternoon, keeping a few and releasing a couple. Nick also reports water temps sneaking up to 18 degrees at the island, so he expects kingfish to improve.

Click here for last week’s FSC fishing report

In the local lake scene, Wallaga Lake seems to be the pick of the bunch with reports of good flathead catches, the usual bream and even legal-size tailor, and all of this while the lake remains closed to the ocean with very high water levels. 

Graham Herbert at Moruya reports schools of whiting have been hanging around the sand flats in the Moruya River but have been extremely hard to tempt on lures, but live baits like worms and yabbies have been catching a few. 

Flathead have been caught this week in the shallow sections of the river above the hospital rocks and also in the backwaters near Preddy’s Wharf. Perch are hitting the surface late at night under the bridge lights.

In the Tuross River, some jewfish have been caught using fresh squid for bait in the channel at the front of the boat sheds. Flathead are being caught around Horse Island on soft plastics. Bream, trevally and tailor are all being caught drifting the deeper channel near the boat sheds using baits like worms and prawns. 

Beaches have slowed down a little bit, but they are still producing some good salmon and tailor. Whiting, bream and flathead are also being caught up and down the beaches on worms and pilchards. Crayfish are around the rocks at the moment in good numbers and our cray pots are catching plenty. 

Offshore, drifting in 5 m off water just off Moruya has seen boats bagging out on some decent size flathead. Back in at roughly 35m has reportedly been fishing well for snapper, morwong and nannygai using California squid. Some Gummy sharks have been hanging around just off Potato Point and some small kingfish have also been spotted. Thanks Graham!