August is the depths of winter but there is still plenty of options if the weather is suitable.

From trout in the sea run rivers, salmon off the beaches or silver trevally in the Moyne River keen anglers can still get their fix even at this cold time of year.

Mulloway are still turning up as a pleasant by-catch for lure anglers in the Hopkins River. Most fish are in the 60-70cm range with a few smaller fish in the 40-50cm range. These smaller mulloway are also showing up in the Moyne River and in beach anglers bags.

These tiny mulloway seem to be prevalent at many locations elsewhere around the coast at the moment, hopefully evidence of some good spawning in recent seasons. It’s believed most of our mulloway are spawned in the Murray River mouth /Coorong region so hopefully some improved flows in this area the last two seasons are having this positive impact on mulloway stocks.

If you catch any of these small mulloway carefully release them and hopefully we will experience some good fish in the seasons to come.

Come August the SBT run and gamefishing season should be winding to a close.

But once again with any form of decent weather people will be out looking and who knows what might turn up.

Tuna have been caught as late as August in some seasons.

In June the South West Alliance Gamefishing Challenge was held out of Warrnambool, despite most boats having to launch out of Portland due to those ongoing ramp issues. $2,600 was raised for a local cancer charity with the crew of 2013 ‘Bardup’ in taking out the champion boat tag and release section.

One meritorious capture was Brodie Carter and Shane Sander’s 109kg mako taken on 10kg line.

Marty Ellul and Luke Smith had a good mixed bag of snapper and gummy sharks recently, including an 81cm snapper which is a very good specimen for this area during this time of year.

Once again August isn’t renowned for such captures but winter bags like this prove if the weather and the sea is OK, it is always worth a look.

On the freshwater scene the south west hasn’t received the massive rains that areas further east have had so the rivers are still running fairly clear.

Good brown trout and some serious redfin have been taken by anglers trolling in the Merri River, whilst Jo Rowland has been taking some good trout in the Moyne River on minnow style lures.

Remember in August, due to Fisheries Victoria sea run classification, river brown trout can be targeted in specific areas during what would normally be the closed season.

Trout are always a good winter option