East Coast Report

May is the beginning of the slower winter period for Tasmanian waters however there is still some great fishing on offer. With April seeing the end of the Brown Trout season for most Tasmanian waters its time to turn to the Rainbow fisheries that are still available to fish until the end of May. These waters include Dee Lagoon, Lagoon of Islands, Lake Rowallan, Lake Skinner, Mersey River above Lake Rowallan, Upper Mersey Lakes and the upstream sections of the two Weld Rivers. This time of year deep trolling with lead line is the preferred method for the lakes and still the possibility of fish on the dry fly in the North East stream.

The Weld River at Weldbourough is still open to Trout fishing until the end of May and offers some fantastic small stream fishing for those willing to scale down their gear and get twigging.
Tuna action on the upper East Coast has slowed somewhat, there are still a few Yellowfin off St Helens but are thin on the ground and the chance of a Bluefin or two with school fish around 20-30kg being caught off the Scamander coastline. The South East coast has started to fire with plenty of school Bluefin around 30-40kg being boated regularly and the start of the big barrels with Bluefin up to 118kg showing up already, this fares well for the coming months, prepare for some epic Bluefin Tuna action.
Offshore reef fishing is what the next few months is really about and already some decent catches are coming boat side. Rocky Carosi from Professional Charters has seen some great catches of Blue Eye Trevalla, Hapuka and Gemfish over the last few weeks using the new Shimano Dendou Marou Electric Fishing Reel. The electric reels allow easy fishing in depths of over 200m and Rocky has seen 22kg Hapuka, 12kg Gemfish and Blue Eye Trevalla of up to 18kg brought to the boat without the need for messy dropline gear or the torture of hand winding from 300+m.
Georges Bay has also fished well over the last month, reports of Garfish action building all the time, still some quality Bream on the flats in the Bay as well as Scamander River and even some Elephant Fish surprising some anglers soaking a bait in the channel.