The Sapphire Coast is running hot into autumn. Boss Outdoor Merimbula's weekly fishing report, published by host Jamari alongside Leif and Corey, has longtail tuna on the headlands, snapper schooling in 20 to 25 metres and crayfish stacking up in Twofold Bay — a rare week where almost every saltwater category between Bermagui and Eden is producing fish.
The headline catch is pelagic. "One of the most exciting things we have seen is the arrival of some longtail tuna," Jamari said. "There's been a couple caught off the pier in the last couple of days… We do get a run of longtail. They don't last very long. They're usually here for about three weeks to a month, max, and then they head up back up north."
The longtails are moving through a dense bait layer that is also holding frigate mackerel, bonito and yellowtail kingfish. "There's been a few kingfish caught in the Merimbula area, off the wharf, off Long Point," Jamari said. "Boats ticking liveys around the end of Long Point have been doing really well. Kings and longtail on the headlands, what more could you want?"
Water temperature has finally settled. "That water's finally stabilized a little bit. It's sitting at around 20, 21 degrees, pretty clear, and lots of current pushing down from the north. So, look, that water looks good, lots of bait. Obviously, we're seeing good fish."
Offshore, Leif phoned in the report directly from the deck, having just finished drifting plastics. "We just got into that normal 40-metre range and got our bag, no problems at all. The snapper were really good early, just flicking some plastics around in that sort of 20 to 25 metres of water," he said. "Casting them upstream or up-tide, or up-drift probably, and then letting them come down. They sink down, hit the bottom, and that's where you catch your fish."
The snapper pictures coming across the Boss Outdoor counter back up the report. "Plenty of fish over that 50 cm range, a couple over 60, and even one over that 70 cm mark. So, some absolutely remarkable snapper fishing," Leif said. There is also "plenty of morwong in the mix" for bottom-bashers willing to run a paternoster, with a 60 cm morwong the biggest in the week's catch photos.
Marlin are still biting, but the run appears to be ebbing. "Probably not the same sort of numbers that we've seen over the last month or two, I suppose, where we've seen boats catching double figures up into 10 fish," Leif said. "I don't think we've seen that this week, but still lots of boats catching one, two, and three fish out there." He advised pushing south to Eden or north to Bermagui for cleaner water.
Dive and cray season is now officially open for the shop. "We've been down to Eden today. Spent a couple of hours in Twofold Bay diving," Corey reported. "There's lots of treats to have on offer down here at Twofold Bay. The diving's been exceptional today. Lots of crayfish, abalone, mussels, and we even got a leather jacket. They're not monsters, but they're good size."
Jamari followed up with perhaps the strongest beach tip of the week. Eden's jewie beaches are firing. "The beaches there have been exceptional over the last week. We've heard of lots of catches on those beaches," he said. "Whether you're at the Quarry, in front of the Seahorse Inn, any of those beaches around the bay are going to hold mulloway. So, get out there at nighttime, get a livey out, or get a strip bait out off the beach, and you'll come up tight with a few mulloway. They've also been coming into the estuary system, too."
Back in Merimbula itself, the estuary fishery remains consistent. "Lots of trevs up and down the channel still," Jamari said, before pointing viewers to an on-camera feature — visible flathead lies on the sand flat between the jetty and the rock wall. "My guess is, in the early hours of the morning, if you can line up a high tide, they'll be sitting there. Once the sun comes up and the pelicans get on that flat, they tend to disappear, because the pelicans do actually eat them."
With squid also moving into the lee sides of the headlands on the cleaner water, the Sapphire Coast looks set for a rare multi-species autumn window. For anglers on the far south coast of New South Wales, Easter into early May shapes as one of the more productive weeks of the year.