Rodeo champ, Ty Parkinson with one of the snapper he caught while fishing Corio Bay with Darcy Scott on Thursday morning. (Picture: Darcy Scott).
Corio Bay/Bellarine Peninsula
Originally from Tamworth in NSW, Ty Parkinson is currently a world champion rough-stock rodeo rider with many accolades.
These include “All-Round Cowboy” at the 2019 International Professional Rodeo Association, held in Oklahoma City; the list goes on.
His introduction to Darcy Scott last week – a local angler of considerable repute – while visiting a family of cattle-wranglers at Ballan, put pressure on Darcy to take Ty fishing, and – hopefully – produce the goods.
As luck would have it, on Thursday morning, Darcy found the snapper near the Wilson Spit, and – from 5.30 until 7.00 am – the pair took bag limit catches of fish to 6.5 kg before they were done there.
With the day still young, a quick run across to the east side of Point Henry produced 30 thumping, elbow-slapping, King George whiting.
The upshot being that Ty remarked that this was his best day’s fishing.
And that’s no bull, given that in repeated interviews with USA’s Rodeo News, Ty has said that relaxation helps him be a better cowboy, a better competitor, and that fishing is his favourite way of relaxing.
Anchored up in their favourite snapper spot off Point Wilson by 5.00 am on Sunday were Jackson Smith and Jonathan Tucker, and using some of Johnathan’s freshly caught squid for bait, Jackson caught their only snapper of possibly 6 kg.
On the move again they sighted a shoal of salmon at Point Henry and had a good deal of fun catching any amount of those on light tackle.
Early last week, Dennis O’Brien found a good patch of whiting in 3 metres of water off Curlewis after making several moves over unproductive ground. He eventually finished up with a bag limit catch of fish to 42 cm.
He tried again the following day, but they’d obviously gone off the bite because he caught only 7.
On Thursday, Brian and Jenny Cumming fished south of, and just a little wide of the Prince George Light off Portarlington, probably hoping for a snapper, but what Brian hooked turned out be a gummy shark measuring just on 1.4 kg.
And, not being familiar with cleaning such a creature, enlisted the help of his Indented Head neighbour Jeff Richards, an old hand at the game, who finished up with a feed of flake for his trouble.
Rod Ludlow of Beachlea Boat Hire at Indented Head reports that indeed, gummies turned up some numbers over the past week, several of his clients catching them and engaging Rod’s fish cleaning skills as well.
Squid and whiting are also on offer said Rod, but flathead remain the main catch, particularly for those fishing on the drift in the deeper water.
Oscar Ford with the bluefin tuna he caught off Port Phillip Heads from a Jet-Ski (Picture: Cranbourne Fishing World).
Offshore
There are tuna of varying sizes off Port Phillip Heads, and that’s no secret. Sometimes they are amenable to offerings presented by anglers, at other times, not at all.
Most are caught from boats of various sizes, but taking a slightly different approach last week was Oscar Ford who set about fishing for them from his jet-ski.
Not in vain either, for an early morning start for Oscar paid off with a solid hook-up on what turned out to be a 13 kg bluefin tuna.
Don Rayner of the Maryborough Angling Club with a sample of the yabbies to be caught from Tullaroop Reservoir at present.
Freshwater
Covering quite a bit of ground last week, Paul Rahman fished Bostock Reservoir at Ballan, and after finding a comfortable spot on the bank, began a lure-fishing exercise with Fish Arrow soft plastics.
As luck would have it, he caught a total of possibly 35 redfin. And, there were some good ones among them, including one measuring 47 cm.
And, on another occasion, he and wife Selin tried their luck at Wurdiboluc Reservoir where it took some time to find a spot sheltered from the fairly stiff breeze.
Once again, casting out and retrieving Fish Arrow soft plastics, they had quite a few tentative strikes, but only managed one hook-up, and that was on a rainbow trout of 1.5 kg.
Kevin Wild of the Maryborough Angling Club reports that members Stephen Eales and Ken Hinks have had no trouble taking redfin to 40 cm or so from Tullaroop Reservoir.
But what is now a big attraction is the number of yabbies in this water. Among those in the know was Don Rayner who, in only three lifts of his yabby nets, caught just on a hundred large yabbies.
Jackson Smith with his snapper from Point Wilson on Sunday.
Mordialloc
George Vlahogiannis continues fishing the Mordialloc Pier, hopefully adding to his tally of snapper, which are currently somewhat scarce, but – like any wise fisherman – George has more than one string to his bow.
Casting a lure in the evening produced a good size tailor, followed by a similar size salmon, and then a snook; a triple-treat, and of which he sent in a photo.
Giorgio asks:
Geoff, I must be doing something wrong. After reading about the snapper catches in your report, all I can catch are flathead a few small pinkies: Any tips?
Giorgio the best tip I can give you – provided you have good quality bait and tackle – is to be in your spot early, preferably before daybreak.
The evening is a good time to fish as well, but the sea breeze is often up by then, making fishing uncomfortable.
Also, being on the water an hour or so before either tide change, may also be productive.