Your up-to-date fishing report from the team at Tackle World Moruya
Moruya River
The river is fishing well and most anglers are getting results early in the morning or late arvo. Anglers are getting mixed bags with tailor being the stand out, closely followed by salmon and bream. Whiting and flathead are still around however not in big numbers. The front of the system is the place to be this week with the large schools of tailor and salmon chasing the bait fish into the entrance of the river and feeding aggressively, making it easy to find these schools and target them using simple metal slices or a hard body such as a Daiwa double clutch, Jackson athlete or a Rapala shadow rap, but if you’re more interested in chasing the big flathead I would suggest heading up stream fishing the drop offs using a Bottom magic or Prolure deep crank bait on a run out tide as these fish will be laying there waiting for an opportunity to pounce on an unsuspecting bait fish, and while you’re up the back of the system maybe try your luck for an estuary perch or a bream as these fish actively feed on top water lures. The Sugar pen and Pygmy poppers are getting the best results as are the Bent minnows!
Tuross
Tuross has again had good results this week and again I put it down to the size of the schools of tailor and salmon out on the beaches pushing the bait into our local systems. Most anglers have found a variety of fish around the front of the system, that is bream, whiting, salmon, tailor, flathead and jewfish. With the fishing being this good I’m betting there’s going to be a lot of traffic on the water so try and find a quiet spot and I bet you’ll get the rewards.
Things to try while on the water this week might be fishing deep with Jackson bottom magic lures or blades and if your into fishing shallow I would be tying on a Prolure Matt black or AYU and slow cranking right up in the edges. If you’re a bait user then the old salted pilchard and sand worms should produce a few results for you!
Beaches/Rocks
Tailor are everywhere and they are on fire and wow there has been some quality fish landed from all beaches from Tuross right through to Broulee! Arma metal slices are the key when chasing these fish - they cannot say no to one of these racing passed their noses and not only tailor love these lures, the salmon are competing against them to see who can grab a hold of them first. The break wall in Moruya has really been the hot spot chasing these guys with at times multiple hook ups with groups of fisho’s yahooing and smiling ear to ear. There has been talk of the odd king fish being landed, however no keeper fish, only fish around the 60cm mark. The sharks have been active still at night off the break wall with one bronze whaler measuring 10 feet in length. The mullet are still patrolling the beaches and are very hard to get to take a bait so try using a small worm bait under these schools of mullet as the big bream are following these schools around. The rocks around Tuross, Bingie, Congo and Moruya have seen large squid and multiple hook ups of squid so throw them squid jugs out and get a fresh feed while these tasty fellas are around. The divers have been cleaning up on Bream, Drummer, Salmon, Tailor, Lobster and Abalone at the around local headlands but please remember your bag limits and Marine park regulations.
Reef fishing
Pedro and the surf club are fishing well for snapper, morwong, gummy’s, bronzes and kings. Well small kings (60cm) but still king fish all the same. The guys getting the results this week were using squid and pilchards on a flasher rig. The trick was to cut strips of squid and put one strip per hook on a flasher rig and left in the rod holder until the rods loaded up and reels were screaming. The depth of water this week was not consistent for anglers with some anglers getting good fish in 9 metres of water right out to 70 metres of water so maybe move regularly until you get the bites then repeat your drifts over proven ground to increase your hook-up rate.
The wind sock has been the place for flathead this week with everyone I spoke to bagging out in under an hour.
Squid are in numbers of South Head, Congo, Bingie and Tuross, so get those Ika jigs out and catch a fresh feed for Easter and if you can use one of these and try to convert it into a king fish as these the kings are smashing these baits!
Our freshwater report is proudly sent to us by Adam Monday – our fishing guru in the mountains!
Last Saturday I hit the road early and headed for Providence Portal after recent reports to hopefully sight some fish moving up. We walked from the portal upstream into the tree lined country flicking along the way, we only sighted 4 fish with the largest Brown being around the 2lb range. We spoke with several anglers throughout the day who all had zero success - one couple had only netted 1 pan sized Rainbow over the entire week using bait, one fly flicker I know had netted several very small browns over the week, fishing daily whilst camped at Dennison.
The portal is open and flowing strong - meaning Tantangara is dropping, even with these inflows Eucumbene has dropped this past week, shutting the fish down and leaving muddy banks to contend with. The fishing at Tantangara had also shut down due to the fastly decreasing water level. Big change from the previous weeks.
Yens Bay and the Buckenderra end of lake Eucumbene has had the best results, yet slow and mostly small fish.
Moving around Lake Eucumbene to find areas with the breeze/wind pushing in will be the better areas to target. Constantly swapping out your offerings and changing up your technique throughout the day will better your chances of netting a fish.
Eucumbene is at 25% capacity and now steady. Tantangara is at 29% capacity and now steady.
Lake Jindabyne
Is 79% capacity and now falling. The overnight temps in Jindy are hitting single digits, which is cooling off the surface temps bringing the fish higher up in the water column. Fishing the deep waters is only required on the clear sunny days when the shallower sections are crystal clear and quiet.
Rapala CD-5, F-7, XR-4, CR-6 are perfect for flicking from the banks and trolling. Lures with bright orange or gold work well and often produce conditioned fish due to the gold fish that are in the lake, these bright colours mimic these bait fish. Fly fishing has been tougher for most, pre sunrise hours seeing most of the success. Kalkite end and waste points have been fairly productive for boaters. Land based anglers have had the best success around the township end. Targeting the area of the lake where the Thredbo river flows in, is always an ideal area especially after rains and leading into winter and spawning run. Mud eyes and Berkeley Powerbait under a float/bubble is seeing smaller Rainbows and Brown Trout landed during the afternoons - 3pm onwards. The calm sunny days are perfect for Polaroiding the edges for those cruising fish.
Moonbah River
Is a stunning waterway but like all streams in the area it’s running low and needs rain. This stream mostly produces small fish to around 1.5 lb on dry flys or small spinners. You do have to cover ground to produce the goods!
Nils Master & Celta spinners are the go to spinners for this little waterway and for shallow running minnow style lures “check out the Jackson lure range” using a very slow roll, occasionally bouncing off the bottom, usually gets their attention. Being a small crystal clear stream always cast ahead of yourself so you don’t spook unsighted fish, casting along the undercut banks and tussock-lined edges might entice those hidden fish.
Thredbo River
Is a stunning location where you need to be in the zone and willing to put the efforts in spending the day covering ground in search of some string pulling action.
It’s a fly and lure fisho’s ideal location for presenting your offerings. Stealth mode is required due to its gin-clear waters. You can honestly have sessions without netting a fish even though you can see them holding on the bottom and then on other days several fish have been netted. It’s one location where persistence and presentation pays off.
Fish the faster waters and target the undercut banks and shadow lines “keeping your shadow off the water”. The spawning run isn’t too far off, the odd fish will start moving upstream.
Murrumbidgee River
Via Yayouk Rd Adaminaby, this section has been on and off, I think it just depends how much ground you cover and the hours put in. A couple of guys staying on the river over the past week have been presenting dry fly’s early and late evening which seen them landing good numbers of small browns with only 3 Rainbows netted, they also reported running double wooly buggers when the suns high which netted a few more pan sizes between them. “As long as your catching, size doesn’t matter. If you’re thinking of fishing this area, hike deep downstream from the bridge and then work your way deeper throughout your session, keeping your eyes peeled for fish along the way.
In the shallow and fast running sections “check out Jackson lures Cyarl range of lures” Celta’s and small soft plastics are also ideal. In the deeper sections running minnow style lures up to 75mm with a running depth up to 1.2m is perfect. Daiwa Double Clutch in 60mm and 75mm, Ecogear ZX35 and ZX40’s, ZMan Grubz in 2.5inch with 1/12 to 1/8 jig heads “rig weedless for less snag ups” Jackson Lures plus Bullet Lures in 3cm & 5cm models.
Tight lines and I hope to see you on the waters soon.
Have a great Easter everyone and if you’re travelling, please be careful! And remember “every day’s a good day for fishing … “
Team Tackle World Moruya
