Carina Dawson with her gummy shark from Corio Bay (Picture: Stephen Goodfellow).
Rod Batten with his gummy shark from Corio Bay.
Corio Bay/Bellarine Peninsula
Local angler Stephen Goodfellow reports having friends over from Western Australia, and naturally, fishing was on the itinerary.
Among them, Carina Dawson who was entrusted with a $25 rod and reel in an outing off Clifton Springs, an outfit that the Goodfellows had bought for their daughter some years previous, and Carina soon put it to work on a decent fish.
Mind you, Carina had caught a variety of fish over in the West including sailfish and Spanish mackerel. However, this was her first gummy shark.
Gummies must be about for I was also sent a picture of a another one caught by Rod Batten. Rod was fishing for whiting in Corio Bay’s outer harbour when he added a metre long gummy shark to his tally.
Heading out off Curlewis after the whiting on Wednesday morning, Andrew Johnson and Denis O’Brien found the fishing slow, being continually forced to move because of the abundance of small fish.
Nevertheless, they persisted, eventually finishing up with a tally of 17 really good size keepers; a reasonable catch, but one that required a lot of work.
There are whiting to be caught within Corio Bay’s inner harbour as well, with Mark Richards and Darren Pidgeon picking up a dozen nice fish, and returning a good many small ones, on Sunday evening.
Finn McBarnacle with a fair-sized school shark taken from the beach at Torquay (Picture; Jesse Baron).
Queenscliff
Making an 8.00 am start off Queenscliff on Thursday morning, Stan Owen’s and Jason Treloar’s target was also whiting, but with the tide till running out and not much doing, they tried for squid off the entrance of Swan Bay.
They only caught a couple, but these were welcomed as an addition to their bait supply of pipis and mussels before moving out toward Coles Beacon awaiting the first kick of the incoming tide.
Well, by the afternoon high tide change they’d each taken close to their respective bag limit catches, returning a number of small fish. However, the biggest of their keepers were around the 40 cm mark.
Launching at Swan Bay on Sunday morning, Paul Raduka and Steve Kinney caught ten squid off the entrance on the last of the ebb tide before trying for whiting out toward Coles Beacon on the tide change.
They caught a dozen as it turned out, mostly from 33 to 36 cm. However, one of 45 cm that Paul caught might take a bit of beating.
John Gray with a 53 cm Murray cod from Lake Mulwala (Picture: Amber Wild).
Jason Gray with a 56.5 cm Murray cod from Lake Mulwala (Picture: Amber Wild).
Freshwater
Fishing the Barwon River upstream from Breakwater on Saturday afternoon were Paul Raduka, his son Oscar 9, daughter Layla 11, and Layla’s friend Gracie Stante.
They caught four estuary perch, all of which were returned. Three were caught on worms, while Oscar caught his on a soft plastic.
Kevin Wild of the Maryborough Angling Club reports that he, wife Amber, and several other club member fished Lake Mulwala for three days with strong winds making life difficult.
Nevertheless, they caught good numbers of Murray cod, no really big ones though, with Jason Gray picking up their biggest at 56.5 cm.
Closer to home, Kevin reports that Tullaroop Reservoir is still producing good size redfin with club members Tom Steele and Shaun Crombie, both picking up fish over the 40 cm mark.
John Clements of the Lake Purrumbete Holiday Park reports that Paul Austin, Ryan Warren, along with their uncle Jonny and friends Jeff and Brock, caught 115 redfin, 2 tiger trout, 6 chinook salmon and 6 eels.
Chris Zammit of the Greenvale Angling Club with a 2.5 kg brown trout he caught from Lake Purrumbete trolling a bibbed lure.
Chris Zammit of the Greenvale Angling Club also picked up a 2.54 kg brown trout on a bibbed lure.
Pablo asks:
Geoff, we enjoyed dining on a seven gilled shark I caught. My question is: Are the bigger ones a risk because of their supposed high mercury levels?
Pablo, the good news is that most fish in Australian waters have very low mercury levels.
In sharks, larger sharks in particular, the level is elevated but not usually high enough to cause health problems, although authorities warn women planning pregnancy, pregnant women, breastfeeding women and children under six, not to eat shark because of elevated mercury levels.
However, all high-end predators like tuna, marlin, swordfish etc, have similarly elevated levels of organic mercury.
Please send your reports to geoffw10@optusnet.com.au, on messenger, or by phone, 03 5248 1307.