For anglers planning on heading down along the West Coast when the next weather window allows, the tuna fishing has still been good. The main areas of interest have been out from Portland and Apollo Bay. Fishing out from Portland and heading East has been the area some good reports have been coming from – with mostly small school fish on lures like 5 – 6 inch skirts. Colour ranges through black/pink/silver/blue have been the best.

Out from Apollo Bay most of the fish have been out wider in water around 60m deep or so. With the presence of bait, there have been many reports of large fish and ‘barrels’ in the area.

James from Unreel Fishing Charters has been getting into the tuna out from Portland recently when the weather allows. James has been putting customers onto a good amount of school sized fish, with a handful of larger fish pushing the 40kg mark mixed in also.

Customers Cip, Lee and Mark fished out from Apollo Bay last week spending time in search of some more ‘barrel’ tuna. While the boys didn’t do any good in the barrel front – they did manage to land solid school tuna for their efforts. The fish have again been a long distance out – at around 100km from the closest ramp.

Redbait and pilchard patterns in both hardbodies such as Pacemakers and 6 inch skirts have been the better options.