Geoff’s Fishing Report

Kevin Wild of the Maryborough Angling Club with a sample for the redfin to be caught lately from Cairn Curran Reservoir (Picture: Amber Wild).

 

Corio Bay/Bellarine Peninsula

Fishing out from Leopold’s Pelican Shores Caravan Park on Wednesday morning were Andrew Phillips and Mark and Tina Sesar. They were after whiting, but it took several moves before they began picking up fish in around 7 metres of water.

 

The fishing was slow, but moving in closer to shore they picked up another good bite that lasted until the end of the ebb tide giving them a total of 28 nice fish.

 

After that, they fished on the drift between Point Henry and Leopold for squid, a more productive exercise that eventually yielded bag limit catches.

 

So, cooling water temperatures that Andrew suggested may have slowed the whiting down, didn’t seem to have affected the squid.

 

Andrew Johnson and Dennis O’Brien went after the whiting on Saturday, and at anchor in just under 5 metres of water off Curlewis, they were well and truly into them and had 20 by the time another boat arrived and anchored beside them.

 

And, there was a seal; the occupant from the other boat shouting out that it had followed them in from 7 metres of water. Needless to say, the fish went off the bite so Andrew and Dennis headed elsewhere.

 

But after anchoring it began raining quite heavily, and while waiting out the rain, the seal – almost certainly the same one – popped up once more, but with no action from the whiting, it eventually headed off.

 

As luck would have it, Andrew and Dennis finished with a bag limit catch with most fish in the 35 to 38 cm range, but that was after returning to their original spot.

 

Mike Windsor of Clifton Springs Boat Hire reports that it was busy on Sunday and among those to catch fish was Simon Crouch who took a mixed bag of whiting, squid and leatherjackets while John Znidarsic caught 8 squid out from the harbour in 6 metres.

 

Rod Ludlow of Beachlea Boat Hire at indented Head reports that client have been returning with good catches of flathead from fishing on the drift in the deeper water, and inshore, squid have been the main catch.

 

Rod also mentions that  some good catches of whiting have been made from the Portarlington Breakwater, while from St Leonards Pier, garfish have been caught in good numbers.

 

Near and Far

Justin Burns doesn’t mind covering a good deal of ground in search of fish, and that he and wife Katryna have caught silver trevally to 50 cm from the Barwon estuary despite some discolouration from recent rain.

 

However, on Sunday Justin headed off to Apollo Bay where he caught some modest brown trout from the Barham River, but what was most interesting were the number of large tuna being brought in to be weighed near the boat ramp.

 

We know of the fishery in the Big Reef area off Cape Otway, but from all accounts, these were taken a good deal further out than that, some 70 km in fact, near the offshore drilling rigs in the Otway Basin.

 

Off the Beach

Ray Millman, and quite a few others, visited Jan Juc on Tuesday to find Australian salmon well and truly on the bite and Ray caught them at will casting a 40-gram chromed metal lure, taking enough for the table and to enhance his bait supply.

 

Ray persuaded his friend Callum to accompany him to one of his favourite night time spots, just north east of the Torquay boat ramp, and – as luck would have it – Callum caught two barracouta, but apart from that, all they caught were banjo sharks and skates.

 

With high tides in the late afternoon last week, Tony Ingram and Col Simmons fished Bancoora Beach, initially with cut pilchard, but there wasn’t much doing.

 

As the tide began to drop toward evening though, they began to pick up the occasional Australian salmon, which promoted a productive lure-casting exercise that produced several more including a couple around the 2 kg mark.

 

They fished on into the evening ebb, and as well as the usual unwanted species, did catch a respectable gummy shark of about around 5 kg on a fillet from one of the salmon, but that was before the side-drift picked up, persuading their retreat.

 

Freshwater

Kevin Wild of the Maryborough Angling Club reports that, as usual, Cairn Curran Reservoir has fired up for redfin as it usually the case mid-winter, with local fishing tackle proprietor Stephen Eales in demand for ice jigs and bobbers, stock-in-trade for local redfin hunters.

 

 

This entry was posted in Geoff Wilson's Fishing Report. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *