Swordfish incident a timely reminder

• NNLAA members Adrian and Jayden Slater, Kirsty Chalmers and Paul McKenzie with their catches from last weekend's trout fishing competition held at Bronte Lagoon.

Anglers have continued to enjoy some rewarding fishing with many out and about in the good weather over the long weekend.

Southern bluefin tuna fishing has seen some improvement statewide with some solid school fish landed and some bigger barrels also available.

Striped marlin are also a target off the East Coast which have been hovering around big bait schools along warmer current seams out wide.

The St Helens Game Fishing Club held its Club Classic over the weekend with anglers chasing all game fish.

Results were not available at the time of writing this report but keep an eye out for them next week.

Broadbill swordfish catches are still coming in and a reminder of how powerful and dangerous these beasts can be was posted on social media last week.

The IFISH crew caught one while in Tasmania recently and with a "green" or fresh fish boat-side young Jet Worsteling grabbed the "sword" or bill of the fish which then went ballistic, slashing him across the chest.

Swordfish and any bill fish use their bills to stab or slash at food or anything when they're threatened like anglers when caught.

Getting a fish in as fast as practical is key to releasing one but when dealing with big aggressive fish that have their own defensive weapons extreme caution is always needed.

In the freshwater, anglers fishing Great Lake continued to catch good bags of brown and rainbow trout trolling and Bronte Lagoon is offering the same rewards.

Toom's Lake and Lake Leake are worth a trip and will be as the water cools and the Western Lakes or 19 Lagoons has given up some chunky wild fish as well.

Wood's Lake has come on late this season and I'd keep in mind Lake St Clair , Lake Pedder and Lake Gordon before the seasons end.

Fishing competition at Bronte Lagoon

The New Norfolk Licensed Anglers Association held its 7th trout fishing competition of the 2026/27 season at Bronte Lagoon over the weekend.

Overall 57 trout were weighed in with a total weight of 39.064 kg and an average weight of .685kg.

 Female member Mandy Harrison won the average weight with a nice fish weighing .677kg which was closest to the average weight of .685kg.

Father and son Adrian and Jayden Slater dominated competition six with both winning the Senior and Junior Heaviest Trout awards.

Adrian's fish was a brown trout weighing 1.387kg cleaned which was also backed by a nice Rainbow Trout weighing 1.214kg.

Next best was Paul McKenzie with a solid Brown Trout that weighed 1.098kg, Glen Duggan had one at .917kg, Shayne Langford one at .884kg and rounding out the top five was Craig Waddington with a fish weighing .671 kg.

Jayden Slater was the only junior fishing the event and he nailed the best fish which was a superb male Rainbow Trout weighing 1.837kg.

Jayden's next best fish was a brown trout weighing 1.030kg and mum Kirsty Chalmers also weighed in some nice trout ,her best was a great rainbow that weighed 1.297kg .

Stephanie Fulton also had a nice brown trout weighing 1.026kg.

Adrian and Jayden Slater and Kirsty Chalmers had the best weekend by far weighing in well over 20 trout between the three of them.

There were seven healthy rainbow trout weighed in from members ranging from .717kg to Jayden's 1.837kg buck with only one lacking a little condition.

Overall the brown trout landed were all in great nick too with the average size of all trout up compared to recent seasons.

The NNLAA's 8th competition will be held on the second weekend in April with final details to be released closer to the event.

Tip Of The Week - Use old toothbrushes and cotton buds to clean lures, reels and rods of stubborn dirt in hard-to-get-at places.
Send in your fishing reports, pics and tips to valleyfishes@gmail.com 

Tight lines until next week.