Eastern Beach (Lakes Entrance)

Eastern Beach is the stretch of Ninety Mile Beach east of the Lakes Entrance township, and it is where surf anglers go when the main beach by the footbridge is full of towels. It is known for salmon, tailor and mullet, and the gutters get deeper the closer you get to Lake Tyers. Lakes Entrance's surf beaches also produce flathead, snapper and gummy sharks, and bigger sharks for the specialists. Spring brings gummies on the high tide and salmon chasing metal slugs along the coast. It is a long, open beach — the fish move, the gutters move, and the walk is part of the deal.

Walk the beach at low tide and look for the dark, deeper gutters close to shore before you set up. Use a long surf rod — at least 12 to 14 ft — and a paternoster dropper rig, because distance to a decent gutter is everything here. Salmon and tailor are taken on metal slugs cast into the white water or on pilchard and squid baits. Gummy sharks come after dark and on the high tide on fresh squid, mullet or tailor fillet. For families, a light rod with a running sinker and small squid strips or sandworm in the shallow wash finds mullet, flathead and smaller salmon, especially with a little berley.

Australian salmon are the most reliable fish, with tailor and mullet in the same water. Gummy sharks are the prize after dark, and flathead, snapper and silver trevally turn up from the gutters. Larger sharks, including bronze whalers, are part of the Lakes Entrance surf scene for people who target them deliberately. Salmon have a 21 cm minimum and a combined bag of 20 with Australian herring, tailor a 23 cm minimum and bag of 20, and flathead other than dusky a 27 cm minimum with a combined bag of 20. Snapper are 28 cm minimum, with a bag of 10 of which no more than three may be 40 cm or longer.

Use the access from Eastern Beach Road: follow it onto the Hummocks to the second Eastern Beach car park. Choose your days: an offshore northerly is the pick for casting distance, an easterly is usually a write-off, and a rising tide helps too. Avoid days with a strong side current and heavy weed, which make the beach nearly unfishable. Bring a sand spike, a headlamp for the gummy session and a bucket for the walk back. Fresh bait outfishes frozen on the sharks.

Drive out along Eastern Beach Road from the eastern end of Lakes Entrance to the beach car parks, then cross the dunes on the formed track to the sand. The walk over the dune is short but soft and steep in places, so this is not a wheelchair-friendly beach. There are no facilities on the sand; the town's toilets, shops and tackle are a few minutes' drive back. There is no fee. Kids will enjoy the beach in calm weather, but surf fishing here is better suited to older children who can manage the swell and the walk.

Eastern Beach faces south-east onto open Bass Strait, so it takes swell from the south and south-east and the gutters reshape constantly. A northerly or light offshore wind cleans the water and flattens the break; an easterly onshore usually means poor fishing and weed. A moderate swell carves good gutters, while a big sea turns the whole beach to white water. A rising tide works to your advantage, with dawn, dusk and night the productive windows. After a long calm spell the beach can go flat and featureless, and walking to find a real gutter pays off.

Eastern Beach is an open surf beach with rip currents that move with the swell; the deep gutters that hold fish are the same channels that feed rips, so do not wade deep to cast and watch the water behind you. Treat it as unpatrolled: help is a long way off once you walk away from the car park. Big seas dump on the steep sand and can knock you over; if the beach is all white water, go back to the lakes. Fishing towards the bar on the rocks is dangerous in windy or slippery conditions — if you go there, wear a lifejacket (AS 4758 level 50S or greater for adults). Carry a headlamp and tell someone where you are for night sessions.

Follow Eastern Beach Road onto the Hummocks to the second Eastern Beach car park, then cross the dunes to the sand. The gutters get deeper as you head east towards Lake Tyers.

Salmon, tailor and mullet are the regulars, with gummy sharks after dark on the high tide, plus flathead, snapper and silver trevally. Larger sharks such as bronze whalers are caught by anglers who target them.

A rising tide around dawn, dusk or after dark, on a day with a northerly or light offshore wind. Easterly onshore days, strong side currents and heavy weed usually make for poor fishing.

Treat it as unpatrolled and remote once you leave the car park. Rip currents form in the same gutters that hold fish, so do not wade deep, keep an eye on the swell and never fish it alone at night without telling someone.