We were blessed with awesome fishing conditions over the weekend with calm seas and little to no wind.
It was a welcome sight for all anglers, with the majority taking advantage of the conditions.
SALTWATER
The shark fishing has well and truly ramped up for those fishing the bottom grounds both off Warrnambool and Port Fairy.
Tommy Powell landed his PB gummy, that weighed in at 23.64kg, off Warrnambool in a last minute dash fishing with his uncle Sam Powell.
The boys got three tuna on the way out for some fresh bait and sashimi.
These bigger models are definitely a real possibility for this time of year, so if you've ever wanted a big shark like this one, now is the time to get out amongst them.
Adam and Nate from the Tackle Shack fished off Port Fairy on Saturday and were rewarded with some excellent school and gummy shark.
Adam has never been offshore down here, so it wasn't a bad way to kick off his account.
They also landed five school tuna on the way back in, which just topped the day off.
The shark were caught in 65m of water on fresh cut baits, such as couta and mackerel.
The tuna were landed straight off the water tower, which is a common area to look for them in the afternoon.
It's not unusual for these fish to randomly pop up after not being sighted throughout the day.
So, that's something to keep in mind if you are heading off Port Fairy and you don't turn a reel in the morning that you can come back later in the day and have a troll around.
In other tuna reports, Portland has again been producing some excellent school tuna fishing for all.
Halco Laser Pro 160's and 190's have been landing a lot of fish, along with my personal favourite, the Zerek Speed Donkey.
Of course, you can't chase tuna without having a couple of skirts in the spread and skirts, like the Billmark Long Nose Bullet and Little Ernie's, have been catching their fair share.
Not only do these lures account for plenty of school fish, but they are a brilliant lure on the larger "barrels" that are around at the moment.
Port MacDonnell is the happening place at the moment for most anglers looking to tangle with one of these beasts.
Over 100 boats were there on Saturday and Sunday in search of a reel screamer.
Although there were a lot of boats, there were only 12 or so fish landed between everyone, which isn't great odds.
As a customer put it to me, there were 500 or so lures in the water both days and only 12 fish caught, so are they starting to slow down?
There's no real way to know until the bites completely dry up, which is anyone's guess.
These bigger models are definitely a real possibility for this time of year, so if you've ever wanted a big shark like this one, now is the time to get out amongst them.
ESTUARIES
The Glenelg River turned it on over the weekend for those fishing the third round of the Vic Bream Classics tournaments.
Loads of bream of good quality were caught by anglers, casting all manner of types of lures.
The main spots where numbers of fish were caught were from the Estuary to Simpsons Landing and Sapling Creek.
Myself and Adam Brown fished as Team Richardson Marine's Tackle Shack and focused from Sapling Creek down to Sandy Waterholes.
We used a mixture of Zman Slim Swimz and Daiwa Bait Junkies in dark colours and finished up 10th.
Another local team that did well was Team Tornado, which consisted of Michael Hunt and Peter White, who finished in 6th place.
These boys found most of their fish upstream of Sapling Creek, casting the same types of plastics.
There were lots of fish on the Garmin fish finder for us all weekend between two and six metres of water but the ones that were in the 2.5-3.5 metres were definitely the easier ones to catch or get a bite out of.
Other teams caught lots of estuary perch and mulloway right throughout the system but mainly from Taylors Straight to the mouth of the estuary.
The Hopkins River is also producing some very nice perch on lures.
Young guns Mason Hunt and Jack Kelson caught some nice perch on Sunday in the Hopkins, casting soft plastics.
Barry Johnson has also been laying into the perch recently also on soft plastics and the odd hard body as well.
Like the Glenelg, there is plenty of fish being sighted on the fish finder and this is only going to become more frequent once the fish set up for their spawning run.
Typically, when they school in big numbers, they can become very hard to get a bite from, but lately, they are quite easy.
Just remember that when you are targeting perch, you should not grab them around the gills like bream; otherwise, you'll find yourself yelping from the pain of their spikes.
This weekend sees some big swell and fairly strong winds, which will make things pretty difficult for offshore fishing.
The region's rivers will definitely get a belting and should continue to fish really well.
Until next week, tight lines and best of luck.
