Tony Ingram with his 3 kg salmon from Bancoora Beach (Picture: Col Simmons).
Off the Beach
Fishing the evening high tides at Bancoora Beach toward the end of last week, Col Simmons and Tony Ingram had no problem finding schools of Australian salmon to 500 grams or so. But, with no more hits on their 40-gram metal lures after dark, they switched to baiting up with pilchards that they’d cut into bite size chunks. These attracted a nibble or two, but with no connection.
However, as the tide began falling Tony hooked a good size fish which was initially hard to identify, but once in the torchlight they could see that it was a big salmon that later greeted the scales for a verdict of 3 kg.
Queenscliff
With the first of the large spawning squid due anytime now, Darcy Scott headed down to the Point Lonsdale Bite at daybreak, hopeful of picking up a good sample, but initially at least, there wasn’t much doing. And so, after chalking up three hours of fishing with no squid, and very few more places to try, he was just going through the motions.
So, even with little hope that the remaining squid marks on his GPS would be fruitful, Darcy persisted. And, eventually, up came a squid, a real a beauty as one might expect from the area at this time of year; and it was followed by another, then another: In fact, it was a red hot go with a squid on each drop, and what beauties they were.
Darcy finished up with a bag limit catch of ten squid averaging over 2kg apiece; a total catch of 24.2 kg, and that’s not something you’d see every day, or even every season, even in ideal conditions.
Also hopeful of catching a few squid, Andrew Phillips and Mark Sesar headed down off the entrance of Swan Bay where they’d tried last week for whiting, putting their unusually poor results down to the number of dolphins in the area.
The squid on offer here were not the XOS spawners that Darcy caught further down toward Port Phillip Heads, but with their respective bag limit catches, they did well enough.
Corio Bay/Bellarine Peninsula
Australian salmon are on offer from structures along the Geelong’s waterfront, and among those to catch them last week was Mick Lane who caught several to 40 cm that are destined to go into the smoker: These were caught while casting and retrieving a Madmicks, soft plastic Ribbed-Fish from the Limeburner’s Point Breakwater.
Others have reportedly been caught from the Alexander Thompson and Bellarine Street Jetties and the nearby wave attenuator.
With a break in the weather on Thursday, Andrew Johnson and Mark Sesar headed out to where they’d taken took a good catch of whiting off Leopold the week previous. The picked up six respectable fish right away, but after that, all was quiet, the bite shutting down about three quarters of the way through the ebb tide.
They would have felt a little shame-faced coming in with only six fish, so they sat out the remainder of the ebb, hoping to be in business as the tide began to rise: Not in vain as it turned out, for the whiting were back on the job with the flood tide, and they eventually finished up with bag limit catches, their bigger fish measuring between 38 and 42 cm.
Freshwater
VFA Fish Stocking coordinator, Rhiannon Atkinson, advises that up to 10,000 brown trout of 25-35 grams will be stocked into Lake Bullen Merri tomorrow (Wednesday July 27), at 1.45 pm. This event is to coincide with the boat ramp upgrade at the request of current fishing and boating minister, Sonya Kilkenny.
Those interested in attending, please contact Rhiannon by email rhiannon.atkinson@vfa.vic.gov.au or by phone 0407 987 016.
Werribee River
Marc Ainsworth of VFA and Better Boating reports the recent apprehension of four people, during a night patrol, who will face court after allegedly netting the Werribee River illegally: Quite an operation it would seem with the use of six trammel nets that measured between 24 and 102 metres.
The alleged offender’s catch filled two large fish bins – which weighed a total of 180 kg – containing 480 bream, 7 estuary perch and a flounder.