Fishing in South Australia from February to June
Fishing in South Australia can be an exciting challenge for everyone!
February: Tuna and sharks
Numbers of bluefin tuna continued to improve over the past month, with school-sized fish encountered through most of our bluewater grounds. Some nice samson fish have also been caught recently — especially on the deeper reefs wide of Coffin Bay, where there’s also been some nice silver trevally, red snapper (nannygai) and queen snapper caught. Bronze whaler sharks (pictured) have been active in our Gulf waters, and around the bottom of the Eyre and Yorke Peninsulas.
Yellowtail kingfish should increase in activity around our offshore islands over the coming month, in particular Rocky, Greenly and Wedge Islands. We should also see a few small to medium sized mako sharks out from Victor Harbor shadowing the schools of bluefin tuna.
March: Tuna & gummy sharks
School-sized bluefin tuna (pictured) have been caught around the bottom of the Eyre Peninsula through to Victor Harbor. Most fish have been 10–15kg in size, with a handful of better fish around 30kg. Some nice yellowtail kingfish have been caught underneath the tuna schools too. Some of the deeper reefs in the same areas have been offering some quality red snapper and queen snapper on baits.
The tuna are expected to thin out over the following month, but we should start to see better catches of gummy sharks through our inshore grounds, especially around the full moon periods. Blue crabs are on the improve and should be in full swing over the coming month.
April: Bluefin tuna action
A lot of action over the past month has centered around our offshore scene, with school sized bluefin continuing to feed around our offshore reef systems and islands. The grounds out from Victor Harbor and Cape Jervis have been offering up southern bluefin in the 10 to 15kg size (pictured). The bluewater grounds offshore from Coffin Bay and Port Lincoln continued to offer school bluefin along with a few kingfish, samsons and silver trevally on the reefs. Blue swimmer crabs have been crawling well up our Gulfs and inside our west coast bays.
The following month should see school bluefin starting to thin out and move eastward, but hopefully some large ‘barrel’ bluefin should start arriving in the southeast of our state.
May: Tuna and kingfish
Our run of school bluefin has continued on our bluewater grounds around the bottom of the Eyre Peninsula, Kangaroo Island, Cape Jervis and Victor Harbor, with bronze whaler sharks shadowing the schools. The Riviera Port Lincoln Tuna Classic was recently held, which saw 819 bluefin tuna caught over the two-day competition. Once again, school-sized fish of 8 to 14kg dominated the catch. Some nice kingfish (pictured), up to an impressive 35kg, have been caught offshore from Cape Jervis, Coffin Bay, Port Lincoln, and Elliston in recent weeks.
The following month should see some kingfish action continue on our offshore grounds for those who invest the time, along with schools of Australian salmon and some gummy sharks closer to shore.
June: Big bluefin tuna
The big ‘barrel’ bluefin have arrived over the past month down the southeast of our state, with quite a few tunas over the 100kg mark and a handful pushing 150kg. Most of the action has been centered around Port MacDonnell through to Robe. Kangaroo Island still had some bronze whaler action, but these sharks should taper off as the temperature drops. Pushing westward, there were samson fish (pictured) around the islands wide off Coffin Bay, along with a few mid-sized kingfish.
We should start to see some bigger gummy sharks pushing into our inshore waters and deeper holes over the next month, and it’s this time of the year we start to see some samson fish around the bottom of Yorke Peninsula.
Jamie Crawford – Seamaster Fishing Supplies