Sophia Jankowski 7, with her squid (Picture: Warren Jankowski).
Corio Bay/Bellarine Peninsula
With the installation of a new sounder on his boat, Warren Jankowski – along with his 7 year old daughter Sophia – took it for a test run off St Leonards on Saturday.
With everything ticking over smoothly in calm conditions, they headed down south to the Coles Beacon off the entrance of Swan Bay, a good spot to break out the squid jigs, and within 30 seconds of them hitting the water it was clear Sophia had hooked a pearler.
It was by far the biggest of the five squid they caught in a fairly quick session, and – in addition to that – it was caught on a brand new rod and reel that hadn’t been used before; then – after checking out the colony of seals that call the Coles Beacon home – they headed back in.
Also making an early start off St Leonards was Rob Rizzo and son Ricky who tried for whiting, but they were a bit scarce, so they too brought out the squid jigs.
A good move as it turned out for they caught fifteen, including some really good size specimens, before heading back home around mid-day.
Rod Ludlow of Beachlea Boat Hire at Indented Head also affirms that that squid catches have dominated over the past week or so and, both in size and quantity.
Jeff Richards and Brian Cumming found a good patch on Thursday in the vicinity of Dead Man’s Stick on the Prince George Bank, from where they caught several, including a two that would have weighed a kilogram apiece, but no whiting.
On Saturday, Jeff and Chris Hateley went out in search of whiting once more, but fishing over the popular St Leonards mark known as Bourke Street was something of a disappointment because the fish there, though numerous, were small.
Moving further south, they anchored up in 4.5 metres of water in front of St Leonards Yacht Club where they picked up several bigger fish, all either just on or slightly over the 40 cm mark.
In fact they caught nine of these beauties before the wind came up from the south creating an impossible wind-against-tide situation from which they really had no option but to retreat.
Ricky Rizzo with one of the squid he and father Robert caught off St Leonards last week (Picture: Robert Rizzo).
Freshwater
Kevin Wild of the Maryborough Angling Club reports that he and wife Amber have had no trouble picking up golden perch (yellowbelly) from Cairn Curran reservoir using worms for bait, but they’ve been a bit on the small side with a good many under the legal size of 30 cm.
Kevin also mentions that club members Greg Streets and Leone Jones made the journey to Green Lake near Horsham where they had no trouble taking respectable catches of redfin, both on bait and on lures.
John Clements of Lake Purrumbete Holiday Park reports that fishing has been slow, never the less, several brown trout to just on 3 kg were taken by Chris Farrugia of Oaklands Junction and Mike Georgiou of Melbourne, both of whom were fishing with mudeyes under floats.
Others to be successful include Matt and David Ford from South Australia who caught several chinook salmon around the 1.5 kg mark on fillets of pilchards suspended just above the bottom.
Patricia asks:
Geoff, I’ve fished for luderick in NSW, I would continue doing so, but nobody I’ve spoken to fishes for luderick around Geelong. Can you catch them here?
Patricia, I’ve caught luderick from the Sheepwash in the Barwon estuary over a good many years, mainly in the winter, and you would probably catch them now seeing the river has cleaned up after the recent fresh.
Those that I caught, all bar one, were taken from a dinghy between Sheepwash Road and the Sheepwash boat ramp. Most were a kilogram or better and were taken either on fresh abalone gut or live sandworm fished on the bottom.
While I do understand that luderick are traditionally caught on green weed suspended beneath pre-weighted floats, those baits worked for me.
The best times to catch luderick were either side of a tide change, the high tide change in particular, especially as the current begins running off in the late afternoon some two hours after high water at Port Phillip Heads.