Hello everyone

This year we have seen the early arrival of what has now become the infamous Salts Bay Salmon fest, an event which has now been occurring for the past 4 years. As in the past years, these fish gather outside the heads during April and May then around July they will move into Salts Bay for around 8 weeks before they travel back down the coast. This year really has got everyone talking , not only did they turn up about 6 weeks early they have now entered the lake in several  large schools as far South as Summerland Point and Speers Point at the northern end of the lake. Two weeks ago,  Patrick’s team was playing soccer at Swansea oval around 11am, as I was looking across the channel all I could see were birds and Salmon working everywhere.  So straight after the game we headed home launched the boat drove about 100m and both hooked up to fish around the 3kg mark and this continued for the next few hours. We followed the school all the way to the back of the islands where there must have been every seagull from 100 miles working huge schools of fish. Last Thursday Pat had his birthday so I took him and 3 of his mates over to Salts Bay for a Salmon fish and the salmon didn’t let us down. Within the first 5 minutes I had them all hooked up and I couldn’t help myself  so I had a quick cast and it made it 5 fish on at the same time something I wont try again as I then spent the next hour re-rigging. One thing is for sure, it’s an afternoon the boys will remember for years to come as we probably caught 30 plus fish and if I had a dollar for each smile they had I would be a rich man, what a birthday.

 Last Saturday we ( the Running Bear ) headed out to the shelf in search of Yellow fin tuna along with a few of the Newcastle Fishing  club members.  We trolled for the first couple of hours with no success so we tried our luck fishing the bottom in around 300 fathoms. This was an opportunity for us to do something totally different and use our electric reels and maybe take a feed home for a change something we rarely do while game fishing. After a lot of rigging preparation at work through the week it was time to send the first baits to the deep and about 5 minutes later we landed on the bottom ( around 500m down ) and to my surprise you could see a few small bites so we pushed the up button and waited to see what we had which turned out to be a few deep sea Perch ( rock cod ) so we loaded the baits up and sent it down again. As soon as my bait hit the bottom I could see a couple of better bites then it loaded up and away we went bringing it back up from the depths and to a few cheers from the vocal crew and finally after about 15 minutes up came a 15 kg Bass Grouper to a lot more cheering. Next drop I was on again and once again it was another one around the same size which really had us excited so we move back up for another drop and then it was Duncan’s turn to load up on something big.  After about 25 minutes this big bloody shark about the 200 kg mark surfaced in a not so happy mood and decided to tangle itself in both lines and bust us off. Not sure what shark it was,  but talking to a few of the boys it may have been a 7 gill or cobbler shark in 300 fathoms, either way he wasn’t coming on board.

The other boats out there had no success either except for 2 Marlin which were dropped by Mick on Head Hunter and Dave on board the Package both saw their fish in the morning  with water temp around 20.5dec which is still pretty mild for this time of year. The other report to come from out wide was for the crew on Outrage owned by Chris O’Toole. They fished Sunday night and managed a 35 kg Broadbill and this is the second fish for Chris and the boys over the last few months and is a fantastic result so it just goes to show you never will know until you try.

There are still plenty of Bream throughout the lake and Channel however catches are now starting to move more down towards the southern end as the water temp falls, but it hasn’t slowed the Mulloway down. Robbie Irons landed 2 around the 4 kg mark and lost another around the 20 kg mark while Ray Lettice also managed 2 around the 3 kg mark. I also had a report of a fish caught around the Swansea Bridge in the early hours of Sunday morning which was estimated 20 kg plus so don’t be surprised what you get . Mixed in with the Salmon there have been a few big Tailor and a couple that I saw on Saturday night would have been around the 2.5 kg or better mark. There are also good numbers of Whiting around both on the sand flats and in the lake particularly in the deeper water. Swansea channel has been alive with Luderick ( blackfish ) although most of the fish are around the 30 cm mark there are a few larger fish mixed in and weed is still a bit hard to find but if you look harder enough you will find it.

On the beaches there have plenty of Salmon and the odd Tailor while off the rocks catches of both Drummer and Ludrick have started to improve with some Luderick are around the 1kg mark.

For those wanting to chase some of the big green eye squid that are about should come into the shop and get themselves some of the new Yozuri squid jigs we have just received. They aren’t on the cheap side but they do catch squid so after getting one or two of these big tasty treats, they have already paid for themselves. Next month will see the arrival of the new Shimano range of squid jigs so we are also looking forward to that.

Regards Jason