Kayak fishing for estuary perch

Spring has arrived and with the weather warming up it was time to dust off the kayak and chase one of my favourite fish, the estuary perch.

Estuary perch live in the brackish waters of rivers and coastal lakes on Australia’s south-east coast. They’re aggressive lure taking predators and a whole lot of fun to catch from a kayak.

One of the most exciting ways to catch estuary perch is on surface lures, but with water temperatures still cool the fish weren’t active enough to smash our surface offerings. So we switched to soft plastics. I concentrated on fishing some of the deeper holes on the bends of the river. The fishing was slow, but over a couple of hours I managed to land two estuary perch and a flathead. My fishing buddy Greg caught a couple of flathead and a flounder, fishing the drop offs with soft plastics.

It was wonderful to be back on the water after again what felt like such a long and miserable winter. Conditions will only improve over coming months and I plan to make the most of it!