Fishing | Snapper at Batemans Bay

I ventured out with my better half over the weekend to get a few fish, and the bay did not disappoint.

We headed out to some of my favourite snapper grounds in 30m of water, and surprisingly I couldn’t mark any fish or bait on the sounder and the water was also a little dirty.

So I headed a little further up the coast until I found some cleaner water and – instantly – started marking bait and good fish.

We used a range of plastics, pilchards and fresh slimy mackerels for bait.

Most anglers that know me know I’m 95 percent lure only, but I do have a soft spot for floating bait.

On this weekend it definitely dominated, landing four nice size 2-3 kilogram snapper in a very short amount of time.

We also got some very large mowong, and flathead were quite easy to catch on the sand with a simple bottom bashing rig.

Locally, cod fever has hit the region with many anglers opening their accounts for the season.

With already a handful of metre plus fish and several in the high 70- 80- 90cm coming out of the ’Bidgee already.

This would have to be one of the best openers in a few years for the river.

Meanwhile, there’s been a little bit of activity in the upper Molonglo with a few smaller cod taking smaller spinnerbaits and hard bodies, too.