Narooma News fishing report: Kings from the deep
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With Montague Island and local beaches turning on some fantastic winter fishing at the moment, hard decisions have to be made!
Beach fishing continues to be excellent, with salmon and tailor up to 3 kilos being taken from Tilba, Corunna and Brou beaches.
Reliable sources recommend the use of pilchards attached with gang hooks. Your local tackle shop experts will be more than happy to show you how to rig these up.
Montague Island has produced more sore muscles than a marathon this week, with Kingfish being taken in water up to 100m depth.
Most local Fishers can’t remember catching kings in depths like this, and it will add a few more places to check for kings in the future.
During the week a fish believed to be a slender tuna of about 3kg was caught while ‘Aquanaut' was trolling for bonito.
An ichthyologist (good scrabble word for fish identifier) from the Australian Museum is currently checking for a positive identification. The Slender Tuna is not an uncommon fish, however it seems to be little known in our waters.
Live bait has been a little patchy recently, with slimies and small yakkas being caught by the very early starters in front of the Narooma Surf Club.
For those Fishers starting a bit later, the weedy reefs around the Montague Island landing point are producing large yakkas.
Kingfish and bonito don’t seem to have a preference at the moment for a particular live bait, good quality squid has also accounted for plenty of kings.
Tuna fishing continues to be a bit patchy at the moment, with only the occasional yellowfin tuna being landed.
Offshore sea surface temperature charts indicate that ‘tuna’ water is just out of the reach of most trailer boats at the moment, but be prepared for the action to start.
The water temperature was looking like it was going down last week when the temperature dropped to 18.7 on Friday, by Sunday it was back up to 19.8c. We would normally be expecting the offshore water temperature in June to be around 15c.
Estuaries remain fairly quiet at the moment, the Tuross waterways are producing plenty of flathead though, only problem is that the vast majority are undersize.
Fishing Tip of the Week: When jigging offshore for either kingfish or bonito, try and vary your jig size and jigging speed until you find what combination is working on that day - then try and replicate it.
Fishing Soap Box: A very nice 20’ Haines was the latest casualty of the Mill Point boat ramp on Sunday, with damage to keel and outboard.
Fishing Joke of the Week: Fishermen don’t tell lies, they just get their lines tangled.
- John Moore
A case of mistaken identity: Geelong Star
A MIDNIGHT encounter 50km out to sea on Friday night led one group of game fishermen, including the author of this article, to speculate they had located the controversial factory trawler, the Geelong Star.
A mystery ship drifted alongside their fishing boat for their entire 40km swordfish drift in the pitch black from the Narooma southern seamount to Bunga Canyons off Bermagui.
But at first light, they raced up to the ship, only to find it was the container ship named Hohebank.
This mistaken identity stems from the fact the Geelong Star is not required to have her Automatic Identification System or AIS turned on, so only the Australian fisheries authorities know where she is.
We contacted the Small Pelagic Fishery Industry Association in attempt to get some answers.
Spokesperson Tim Powell said the Geelong Star moved around quite a bit looking for schools of fish and avoiding marine mammals.
And he said the vessel has to comply with fish and move on rules to avoid any impacts of localised depletion.
The vessel had been fishing off Bermagui and further south a few weeks back, but has now been fishing in waters south of Tasmania on this current trip, he said.
Mythical monsters; debunking the metre myth
THE weather might be cooling off but that doesn’t seem to be slowing the reports of big flathead getting caught.
The latest big fish, caught and released by Chris Hollins near Mollymook at the end of May, is truly enormous.
At first glance the fish looks well over the hallowed metre mark. But even after whispering her a few sweet nothings and some gentle massage, the fish refused to relax and stretch out any further.
The big flathead measured a whopping 97.5cm and an estimated 7.5kg.
Chris was fishing from his kayak in a river near Mollymook, slowly retrieving a 40mm shallow diving lure.
Despite the animated stories of anglers around campfires and barbecues, flathead measuring over a metre long are exceptionally rare.
A series of studies led by Charles Gray in NSW highlight this point.
In 2003 a total of 4,327 dusky flathead were caught and examined as part of a study on age, sex and length in commercial catches.
The largest fish measured ‘just’ 96cm.
A second study published in 2008 caught and examined a staggering 7,783 dusky flathead from NSW estuaries including St George’s Basin and Tuross. The largest fish this time was 98.5cm.
Dusky flathead are reputed to grow up to 1.5 metres and judging by the specimens hanging proudly above the bar at pubs and clubs along the east coast of Australia, this was certainly the case once.
A quick look on the internet for more recent evidence however has revealed only two fish over a metre pictured with a measuring mat or ruler, and both fish are only a few centimetres over.
Flathead don’t change sex as was once commonly believed, instead it is only the females that grow larger than 50cm.
If we as anglers want to be able to tangle with fish over the magic metre, releasing all of the big fish above 80cm will certainly help - given another year or two of growth, they might just make it!
- Graham Fifield
700 brown trout anglers checked
A SIX-week high profile compliance operation in the Snowy Mountain resulted in 700 trout fishers being checked.
DPI Fisheries officers and NSW Police and Roads & Maritime Services (RMS) boating safety officers inspected the anglers as part of Operation DPI India 15 from May 1 to June 9.
A number of people were issued written cautions and penalty notices under the Fisheries legislation for a range of offences including taking or possessing more than the bag limit of fish, either not purchasing of carrying their recreational fishing fee receipt, possessing fish illegally taken, using excess rods and the mutilation of fish.
Another FSC abalone bust
FISHERIES officers have apprehended two Victorian men who were found in possession of a commercial quantity of shellfish near Merimbula on Monday, June 1.
Fisheries officers observed the men, aged 43 and 53, acting suspiciously adjacent to waters in Merimbula. They were found with a large quantity of shellfish in their vehicle.
Upon further investigation they were found to have 83 abalone and 776 whelks in their possession, which is considered a commercial quantity.
The legal possession limit for abalone is two per person and 20 whelks per person.
Unfortunately the abalone were shucked, however the whelks were alive and returned to the water by fisheries officers.
The men are now facing several charges with maximum penalties of up to $44,000 or 12 months imprisonment, or both.
Anyone who suspects illegal fishing should report it to the Fisher’s Watch Phoneline on 1800 043 536 or online at www.dpi.nsw.gov.au
Narooma Sport and Game Fishing Club news
THE men’s prize for the monthly comp held on the weekend goes to Gavin Mitchell, with three kingfish, two bonito and a flathead caught on board Ken Ribbons’ boat It’s Magic.
Les Waldoc was the runner up with five kingfish, three snapper and one bonito caught on The Sherriff and beaten by only 2.5 points.
There was no women's winner but Lana Wheat took out the juniors with a nice size bream.
John Cathor and Chris Raabe bagged out on kingfish on Sunday, it seems there is still a lot of fish out there so send me photos and stories.
A big thank you to Charlie Bettini for a great night of trivia on Saturday night, won by Warwick Huntsdale’s table, with my table winning the table quiz.
As usual the Narooma Sport and Game Fishing Club rooms, situated on the inlet near the restaurants, will be open for fish stories, drinks and snacks from 4pm till 9pm on Friday. Visitors are most welcome to come along and have a chat with the members.
- Jan Hemmingsen
Bermagui CC Social Anglers' Club news
THE social get together of members of the Bermagui CC Social Anglers for their monthly barbecue, which was followed by the AGM, was so well attended it once again proved its popularity, everyone enjoying the day immensely.
President Fran thanked the cooks, Ron and Ian, members for their co-operation and invited Geoff to take the chair for the election of officers for the coming year.
The popular vote returned Fran and Dawn, with newly elected Brian and Cherie.
Weighmaster Ian was re-elected and incidentally, took out the heaviest bag prize ahead of three other keen anglers. Raffle winners – Dawn Kenyon and Elaine Reid – congratulations all.
Members please note – the Christmas get-away is planned for the weekend of November 27, which is always very successful.
Next month’s get-together with the fishing comp over with weigh in at 12.30pm is July 10-12. A casserole lunch is the order of the day on Sunday, so see you there. - CAUGHT UP