Good hauls at home and away | Fishing & Diving the Capes

Two juniors at Down South Camping and Outdoors were lucky enough to get up there over the holidays with both boys landing and losing (sharked) some great fish.

Some of the action included landing a nice sailfish on one of the new Rapala X-Rap magnum xtreme 160 (these lures can be trolled up to 20 knots) along with some good mackerel.

Byron's catches included some great bottom fish with some awesome red emperor and rankins landed.

South coast inshore/offshore

"Big Snapper" is all I can say with some monster fish caught recently off of the southwest coast with a few in the 13 to 15 kilogram range (that is 30 pounds) fish landed.

Dhufish of varying sizes continue to hit the decks of boats with a couple of nice fish landed quite close to shore.

Catches of red snapper/bights red fish have been good with some 60 centimetre fish coming in which is close to their reported maximum size and are an awesome table fish at any size.

Trolling around the rocks out in Flinders Bay with some shallow diving lures or metals should produce some nice sized snook (short-finned sea pike).

These fish are both excellent to catch on light or medium gear often putting on great aerial displays and to eat (seasoned with some lemon pepper, panko crumbed and shallow fried and dipped in kewpie mayonnaise).

Shore based

There are plenty of skippy taking shelter in the reef holes that will snaffle a soft plastic worked through the hole if you can get past the herring.

Be sure to use a good quality leader for these guys (like Black Magic and Jinkai) as they are dirty fighters and will head for the reef whenever possible once hooked.

Free Diving

All reports from those who have made the effort to get in the water when they have had a chance are that they have been rewarded with some good fish in fairly shallow water and a few crays for those in the know.

Until next month, happy fishing and diving.