Late season Southern Salmon 2015
- Lachlan Cross
- Jun 21, 2016
- 3 min read
Late season salmon
As a keen surfer and avid angler I have spent a lot of time on the south coast over the past few years. During 2015 I would have spent over 20 days both surfing and fishing on some of the most popular salmon beaches in the state. I fished mainly through spring with a few winter sessions yielding very little success as there seemingly were less salmon around.
Over that time I had a flick most days and only had 1 trip where I got a donut. Most fishing was lure based, 80% of the time sight casting to schools of various size. On some days there would 4 schools visible along the beach and they did in fact sit in casting range all day. Throughout the late salmon season we caught fish in various sizes from barely legal to up to 3kgs with fish around the 1kg mark most common.
In one more memorable session we had fish of 1-2kgs bailed up in the shore break by a hungry seal, for 25 minutes it was a fish a cast coming from a school that would have been 20 metres long and 5 metres wide.
Interestingly as the weather warmed up towards summer we found there to be more salmon hanging around than in winter, often surfing it was hard to escape the schools, which in turn shortened surfing sessions for obvious reasons.
From this season here are some tips I have compiled for your next salmon trip.
Read the water- learn to watch the water and find fishy areas or schools, it was amazing how many fisho’s would walk straight past schools and catch nothing all day.
Look for gutters that run into rips
Low sunlight is the best time to fish
Low swell does not increase fish activity, but it does make conditions far more fisherman friendly
Change lures- try and work out what the fish are feeding on and replicate the bait as best you can with lure choice.
Only take what you need- when you are salmon fishing take what you need, remember they are best fresh and do not freeze well
Share the water- surfers from my experience do not disturb the fishing much at all. I have surfed over a school, gone straight in and grabbed my rod and hooked up first cast, this would have been less than 2 minutes after I surfed across the school.
Be mobile and prepared to walk- sometimes you have to find the fish and this may take hours
Respect the ocean-the southern ocean is awesome, unless you are familiar with it you can get caught out in a bad way, be very careful around rocks and don’t wade into a rip, the beach drops away very quickly.
Respect the environment- The south coast is beautiful, don’t leave rubbish behind and if you find rubbish take it with you, As Fisho’s environmental groups are often calling for us to be banned or faced with tougher regulations so don’t give fuel to their arguments be responsible recreators in the environment.
Respect others- don’t start abusing surfers or other fishermen for infringing on your spot, surfers will often use a rip to get out the back and then they will be out your way. If someone is on to a school ask them if you can fish in close proximity or cast to the outside of the fellow fisho.
Thanks for reading guys, from early reports it looks like it could be a cracker season. I’ll be down there probably fishing near you at some stage, hope you can get on to a few. Tight Lines…
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