Murray Scott with a snapper from Corio Bay’s outer harbour (Picture: Darcy Scott).
Murray Scott with both hands full (Picture: Darcy Scott).
Corio Bay
Among those to catch snapper during early last week’s good weather were Murray and Darcy Scott, and on one occasion, Darcy’s partner Allie Gerbert: All took bag-limit catches from the west side of the Wilson Spit.
After Andrew Phillips and Mark Sesar picked up some promising signals on the sounder north of the No 5 Point Richards channel marker, they too – all too soon – reached their bag limits of snapper to 5.5 kg, and returned the following day for a similar result.
Fishing much the same area with his good friend David Jacobs, Tsuyoshi Murase was immediately at action stations when at 7.00 am, the squid head he had on for bait was taken by a snapper measuring 73 cm; his biggest yet.
Darcy Scott with another good sample (Picture: Murray Scott).
Launching at Clifton Springs early last week in search of whiting, were Garry Ridgeway and Lindsay Robinson.
Initially, things were a bit slow, which initiated a couple of moves, but – eventually – a good bite kicked in and they took their respective bag limit catches, their bigger fish nudging the 40 cm mark.
Baits used were mussel and squid.
Rod Ludlow of Beachlea Boat Hire at Indented Head reports that whiting and squid are still on offer, although perhaps not as abundant as they were the week previous.
The best whiting, said Rod, both in size and quantity, came from the Governor Reef and surrounds, and flathead of course, are still plentiful out in the deeper water with clients catching any number on the drift.
And speaking of flathead, Simon Werner has continued to catch them to 57 cm while wading the shallows at Beacon Point, casting soft plastics.
Tsuyoshi Murase with his 73 cm snapper (Picture: David Jacobs).
Off the beach
Fishing the very low evening tides off RAAF’s Beach, Ocean Grove early last week, Tony Ingram and Col Simmons picked up several pinkie snapper, the largest around 40 cm, and – unexpectedly for here – a couple of good size salmon.
Freshwater
John Clements of the Lake Purrumbete Holiday Park reports that the lake has been fishing well with chinook salmon to 3 kg, brown trout of similar size and larger, along with tiger and cheetah trout to 1.8 kg.
Redfin have also been taken said John, particularly of an early morning and evening, many falling victim to Berkley pumpkinseed soft plastics.
Among those fishing the lake early last week was Jack Paasse, who – in the mid-afternoon – began fishing mudeyes under a bubble float, almost immediately hooking a very large brown trout.
Unfortunately, it fouled a clump of weed before leaping from the water and snapping his line.
But, persisting as before, Jack caught a brown trout of 2.5 kg – noticeably smaller than the one he’d just lost – along with a tiger trout.
Also fishing Purrumbete was accomplished angler Roger Tolland, who – as usual – had no difficulty taking a bag limit catch of chinook salmon from just over 20 metres of water.
Roger’s strategy being to berley heavily with poultry pellets and pulverised fish scraps with baits of either whitebait or pilchard fillets, suspended a metre or two above the bottom.
John of the Kyneton Angling Club with a 61 cm yellowbelly taken from Cairn Curran Reservoir (Picture: Kyneton Angling Club).
Chinook salmon agreement
Concerns have been repeatedly raised by knowledgeable anglers over the length of time that chinook salmon hatchlings are held in Snob’s Creek hatchery before being released into Camperdown’s crater lakes.
This, it has been suggested, deprives them both of their initial, and critically important growth period and delays their adaptation to the challenge of preying on available biota after being raised on processed food pellets.
Concerned anglers holding that view would welcome the following announcement expressed last week by VFA fisheries manager John Douglas:
“As previously agreed at a meeting with LPAC and CAC on 23 October 2019, we are currently stocking a mix of fingerlings and fry into lakes Bullen Merri and Purrumbete …”
“To accommodate some anglers concerns that we have received, it is proposed to maintain this strategy in the upcoming 2022-23 stocking year with fry into Bullen Merri (50,000) but with the modification of stocking both yearlings (20,000) and fry (20,000) into Purrumbete.”
Hopefully, liberating fry and fingerlings, rather than on-grown yearlings, points the way to restoring the trophy chinook fishery experienced in the late 1970s and early 80s when specimens of 10 kg or more were recorded.
Late copy:
On Sunday, Kyneton Angling Club member “John” caught the biggest fish for the Midland Shield for the second year running, with a 61 cm yellow-belly that he caught while fishing close to the bank using a yabby for bait.
Maryborough Angling Club was the outright winner with 3300mm of fish, all yellowbelly, the biggest measuring 37 cm, Kyneton came second, thanks to John’s fish. Castlemaine and Bendigo Flyfishers also participated.
Conditions were challenging with rough water, gusting wind and rain and an air temperature of 10-15 degrees