The crew at The Sheriff would like to wish everyone a fantastic New Year and a happy 2018.. The prime fishing season for one of the prize fish that people come to Montague Island in January, February, March and April is just about to start. These dirty fighting, arm stretching,line pulling ,pound for pound in my opinion nothing else pulls like them the Mighty Yellowtail Kingfish season is about to start.. These fish are caught using various methods , live bait, jigging, trolling lures or casting poppers to fish busting up on the surface. Also from the end of January, February, March and into April, our Marlin season starts.. Striped, Black and Blue Marlin are on offer as well as Albacore and Yellowfin tuna are around as well as Mahi Mahi (dolphin fish). There is plenty of bait holding out along the shelf the water is pushing up to 22c which will increase over the next few weeks. Water is a brilliant blue . If last season was anything to go by, this one should be a cracker The water temp out at Montague Island lately has been between 20.5 and 21.5c...although the current has been stopping and turning around the opposite way overnight,or stopping totally for a few days, which turns the kingfish off the bite. None the less the reefs have been fishing well with plenty of Blue Mowong, Snapper,Red rock cod and we have also lately been picking up some tasty Long Finned Perch. Flathead have been in abundance out on the sand with every one been easily able to catch their bag limit to top of the box of fish at the end of the trip.. So if your heading down to the beautiful South Coast of New South Wales, and would like to go out and tussle with some of these fish, or have a snorkel with the seals out at Montague Island, or any one of the other tours we offer, Give Gail a call and she will take care of your inquires.. Looking forward to seeing you all soon.. Cheers Matt , the Skipper..

The Kingfish have arrived. !! With the weather last weekend cancelling out all chances of fishing last weekend, I ventured out on Thursday for a look. There was a massive school of kingfish on the North East corner of Montague Island... They were taking any bait from live bait, squid and jigs. Today we headed out with Tony and Jeanie from Canberra and Phillip from Sydney, the Kingfish didn't let us down... We caught 10 legal Kingfish, which were underneath the masses of undersized kingfish... They were caught on all baits ,live bait and jigs being their preferred choice. . A couple of nice snapper and Mowong were caught along the way.... The flathead proved hard to find this morning but I persisted and managed to find a school of them with fish up to 55cm.,. If your heading down to Narooma and would like to do a fishing charter , Montague Island Tour or a snorkel with the seals,Give Gail a call to discuss or book a trip , as to avoid disappointment as dates for January are filling up fast ..

Over the last week the northerly current kicked into gear a little and pushed down some nice clear blue water and moved the surface temp up to between 18 & 18.5 C... Last weekend was spent with a dive group from Sydney and Canberra. A great weekend was had by all... Diving with the seals, with plenty of large blue Grouper, Port Jackson sharks and large schools of sweep and yellowtail followed them during their dives . The fishing is starting to heat up out at Montague Island... With the warmer water and northerly current kicking in.. a couple of schools of small kingfish have shown up with a few legal sized fish amoungst them. Snapper, Blue Mowong and other reef fish in sure to be found on all the reefs around the island, and we should see some Longfin Perch starting to turn up out in the deeper water out the eastern side.. A good bag of flathead is also to found down on the sand flats of the southern end of the island.. Tuross Reefs.. The snapper fishing up off Tuross continues to fire.. Good size snapper averaging 1.5 - 2.5 kgs are the norm ... But lately there have been some big snapper amoungst them with one local boat catching 2 horses of fish for our region.. one going 87cm and the other 78.!!! There is also a few Gummy sharks getting around the edges of the reefs with some XL flathead as well... Gamefishing.. A few Yellowfin tuna have been caught by the commercial fishers in the last week, but with the weather we have had for the last 3 or 4 days has kept everybody inshore... The weather is looking good for the weekend and the boys are keen for a look... We will keep you all updated with the offshore news admit comes to hand for all those interested... Cheers Matt