Senad Osmic with the 7 kg gummy shark he caught from Corio Bay (Picture: Azi Osmic).
Corio Bay/Bellarine Peninsula
With the sweet smell of snapper in the air, Azi Osmic and son Senad, anchored up between the Mountain View Quarries and the Nine Foot Bank off Avalon where they baited up with fresh garfish.
Initially all was quiet, but come mid-morning, Senad’s rod buried over, reel growling to the tune of what turned out to be a gummy shark of just over 7 kg. It put up a great fight, an event witnessed by the water police who were also suitably impressed as they pulled alongside for a routine check.
The Clifton Springs boat ramp’s entrance/exit has silted up rather badly causing some groundings during the weekend’s low tides, but old hands Dennis O’Brien and Andrew Johnson made it through OK.
However, they found the fishing a bit slow in their usually productive spot off Leopold’s Pelican Shores caravan park.
They moved several times for only three whiting, and that might have been their lot had they not moved to Curlewis, hopeful that the tide change would improve their luck.
Well, it did that in spades; they finished up with their bag limit of whiting and were back at the ramp by mid-afternoon.
Readers would recall that Andrew’s son Tim picked up a nice snapper of 5.5 kg fishing the Wilson Spit the week previous. Well, Tim tried his luck again on Saturday evening, this time just off the junction of the Wilson Spit and Point Richards Channels.
Using silver whiting for bait he wasn’t having much luck, so he tried half of same, adorned with a squid tentacle, and it did the trick producing yet another snapper weighing 5.5 kg.
Tim Johnson with yet another 5.5 kg snapper from Corio Bay (Picture: Jenny Johnson).
Freshwater
Garry Ridgeway and Marty Blumel recently tried their luck off Hoses Rocks at Lake Purrumbete, where – fishing mudeyes with bubble float rigs – they caught a number of tiger trout and a nice rainbow of about a kilogram; but there was more to come.
At the approach of evening, Garry hooked what was clearly one of Lake Purrumbete’s trophy size brown trout. Unfortunately, it escaped at the verge of capture right at the rocks. But then, he hooked another, which – although visibly much smaller than the first – still weighed a respectable 3 kg.
Stuart asks:
Geoff, I believe there has been enough rain to raise the water level of both Lakes Murdeduke and Modewarre, so assume there must be something else going on with their water catchments. Do you have any information on this?
Stuart, possibly due to Covid, I’ve received no reply to your question from the Corangamite Catchment Management Authority. However, I was asked a similar question pertaining to Lake Modewarre in February 2017, which was answered by Donna Smithyman, Catchment, Manager, Corangamite Catchment Management Authority, Colac, which was as follows, and may answer one part of your question at least.
“In 1969 Lake Modewarre was very low and the then Geelong Water and Sewerage Trust (GWST) supplied water to the Lake, which was repeated periodically in the ensuing years.
In 1976, a further request to the Geelong Water and Sewerage Trust on behalf of the Lake Modewarre Reserve Committee was made, requesting that water be provided to Lake Modewarre.
This was denied, citing low storage levels in the Barwon system. Further to these specific requests up to 1976, the Geelong water supply system previously included a section of open channel that passed through the Lake Modewarre catchment, carrying water harvested from the Barwon River catchment.
This water was used to supply the Pettavel Basin and was transported via the Pettavel channel. To protect the channel from failures or prevent overflows to abutting private properties, at times excess flow was diverted out of the channel into Lake Modewarre.
The channel was replaced in the early 1990s with a pipeline to improve potable water quality and reduce water losses. As part of this modernisation, the channel and associated easements were transferred from Barwon Water to the private landowners.
Therefore, the opportunity to transfer water from Wurdee Buloc Reservoir to Lake Modewarre cannot occur due to the fact that there is now no infrastructure in place for such a transfer. Further, the Wurdee Boluc reservoir is managed and not part of a natural filling cycle.”