G’day folks, August is here, and it’s time to rug up! There has been good snowfall on the mountains, and those Sou-West winds have been sweeping that bitter coldness down onto our beautiful Sapphire Coast. While the frosty mornings have deterred most anglers, those who have braved the cold have managed to find some good fish!

Merimbula Lake has all but shut down. The water is cold, and incredibly clear. This has made it tough to tempt most fish species within the system; however, there are still a few flathead to be caught in the deeper water. You’ll have to persist with larger soft-plastic offerings and work them slowly with plenty of rest-time on the bottom. Tailor are a mainstay throughout Merimbula Lake, and provide good fun if trolling hard body lures around is your thing. If you have a sounder, work your lures around the bait schools, or the fringes of the ribbon weed edges. Your lure size should match the size of the baitfish stocks to get the best results, with Daiwa’s Double Clutch IZM 75SP proving to be a stand out.

The Broadwater and Pambula River has been fishing well and would be my pick this
month…especially if you are targeting Australian Salmon. You’ll find the salmon lurking from Shark Hole to Sever’s Beach. The shallow clear water will expose these schools, and by casting artificial offerings at them, such as, Ocean’s Legacy SLING SHOT 17g or Berkley Powerbait Minnow 4 inch soft-plastics will score results. For those anglers targeting the salmon on fly, sparsely tied clousers are doing the trick.

The Bega River has also been fishing well, with loads of good sized Dusky Flathead on offer. Most of these fish have been stacked up along the deeper rock walls within the system. These same areas are producing some school sized Mulloway, and lovely bream within the mix too! Soft-plastics like the Molix RT Fork Flex 4” have accounted for most of the Flatties and Jewies of late.

Clayton Badullovich found some nice Morwong and snapper whilst drifting bait along the Horseshoe reef in 40m of water.

If you’re brave enough to dip your toes in amongst the icey suds, you stand a pretty good chance of catching a good feed of fish from the sand this month. The salmon are on the move from estuary to estuary and are hunting the gutters during their travels. Fishing late into the arvo should see a few big tailor show up in your catches, with a good chance of some cracking bream. One of our Boss Outdoor customers was informing me of some beautiful bream coming from Tura Beach. These bream, were falling victim to beach worms and pipi bait. With the yellowfin bream traveling to the surf zones to spawn, targeting bream from the beach is a real viable option this month. Yellowfin Bream spawning hits its peak during August, so get out there and get amongst it.

Boss Outdoor team member, Aaron Leiper, is finding plenty of school Mulloway within the Bega River.

The Merimbula fishing platform, (main wharf) has been a great vantage point for intercepting the migrating salmon. Casting Halco Twisty 40g or TAKUMI 95/40 sinking hard bodies at the schools is a great option, but my favourite way to catch them is suspending a live-bait or a pilchard rigged on a 4/0 ganged hook beneath a float. This is an effective way to ensure you have an offering in the zone as they pass by…it also allows you to keep your hands in your pockets to keep warm! The wharf is also a great platform for targeting luderick, and the odd squid. It’s a great idea when squid fishing to have two contrasting colours at the ready. For example: one brown, and one pink…or one orange and one blue. Squid react to colour,
and if you manage to catch one or two squid with one particular colour, they may wise up to that shade. Offer them a different colour, and you may bring them back on the bite. I have proved this theory time and time again, so it’s worth considering. Yamashita 3.0 and Shimano Clinch 3.0 are a couple of squid jigs that are working well.

The rock platforms around Long point are producing Drummer, Bream, and Leatherjackets; although, the drummer haven’t been of great size this season. If you’re after larger specimens, I’d suggest exploring the coastline around Green Cape. Like always, bread berley will help attract the drummer to your chosen location, and using fresh cunjevoi or prawn bait should see you hoisting a few “pigs” onto the stones.

The snapper fishing has been a little hit and miss off Long Point of late; however, there are some cracking snapper on offer for those anglers who persist. Fishing with artificials, such as Nomad Design GYPSEA micro jigs (40 -60 grams) are producing the larger specimens; however, anchoring and setting a berley trail should see you bending a rod and lining the ice-box with the colour of pink. Further south around Eden has been more consistent, with most anglers fishing in depths around 40m scoring good results. Merimbula Bay is still producing good numbers of sand flathead, but the water off Tura Beach is currently producing a better class of fish.

Anglers drifting bait over the broken reef and gravel patches around the Horseshoe Reef have been picking up some Morwong, Nannygai, and big leatherjackets. This “bottom bashing” style of fishing is a great way to score a feed of tasty mixed reef species. A standard Paternoster rig is all you’ll require, with a cube of pilchard and/or squid baited on a couple of 3/0 to 4/0 hooks. If you are unfamiliar with tying this rig, Jarvis Walker offers a pre-tied Snapper Rig which will place you straight into the game!