Paul Raduka with one of the mulloway he caught from the Sheepwash last week.
Brenton Leith with yet another mulloway from the Sheepwash.
Up the river
With favourable tides on the lead up to last week’s new moon, Paul Raduka and his mate Brenton, headed down to the Sheepwash at Barwon Heads where, fishing from the bank, they were hopeful of catching a mulloway or two.
They caught three as it turned out, all on fresh squid. And, although they had no scales, the biggest – at over a metre long – was a serious catch.
I was forwarded a photo of a similar size mulloway that an un-named angler caught from the Point Lonsdale Pier on a chunk of pilchard last week, so there must be a few about.
Darcy Scott with Sunday’s snapper from Corio Bay.
Andrew Phillips and Mark Sesar with a sample of their catch taken offshore from Point Henry (Picture: Tina Sesar).
Corio Bay Bellarine Peninsula
On Friday evening’s outgoing tide, Darcy Scott fished the Swan Island grass beds off Queenscliff, and – true to his usual form – picked up a bag limit catch of whiting, some over the 40 cm mark.
With the fillets neatly packed away, Darcy made good use of the heads off the Mountain View Quarries on Corio Bay early on Sunday morning as they were perfect baits to thwart the juvenile pinkie snapper so abundant of late.
Nothing happened until the high tide change at 7.00am when his reel growled off to the tune of what turned out to be a 5 kg snapper. That was followed by a gummy shark of about the same size. And, with barely enough time to catch his breath, Darcy had another snapper dead to rights, or so he thought, but with a final flip of its tail, was gone.
Lachie Wombell with a gemfish and blue eye trevalla that he caught offshore from Portland at the weekend (Picture: Bob McPherson).
An angler with the 1.10 metre mulloway he caught from the Point Lonsdale Pier last week.
Making a daybreak start off Point Henry, with Mark and Tina Sesar on this occasion, Andrew Phillips was back on the whiting trail, initially with little promise.
However, after a series of moves the trio hit pay-dirt, and using pipis and squid for bait, they each took their respective bag limit catches of 20 whiting, the biggest measuring 43 cm, along with several flathead to 50cm.
Mike Windsor of Clifton Springs Boat Hire reports that whiting remain the prime catch, Peter Clark picking up a bag limit catch offshore from The Dell while Andrew Johnson and Dennis O’Brien took bag limit catches, both on Saturday and Sunday, east of the mussel farm off Point Richards.
Rod Ludlow of Beachlea Boat Hire at Indented Head also reports that whiting have been good, along with squid, of which some clients brought in bag limit catches, on Saturday in particular, with the occasional gummy shark being taken out in the deeper water.
Kevin Wild with nice Murray cod from Lake Mulwala (Picture: Amber Stone).
Michael Evans of Victorian Inland Charters with a trophy size brown trout taken from Lake Purrumbete on Monday morning (Picture: Victorian Inland Charters).
Freshwater
Visiting Lake Purrumbete last week, Garry Ridgeway and Lindsay Robinson performed the effective tactic of suspending whitebait a metre or so above the bottom, which produced not only several chinook salmon, but a brown trout of 3.2kg and a rainbow trout of 2.2kg.
Others to do well on Purrumbete included Andrew Kompa of Werribee who caught brown trout from 1.5 to 2 kg downrigging Tassie Devils at 9 metres.
John Clements of the Lake Purrumbete Holiday Park reports that genuine trophy size brown trout are still on offer; Uri Korvut of Williamstown being one of 3 anglers with tales of misadventure after a mega brown straightened out his hook after a lengthy tussle.
However, redfin remain the main chance on the lake said John, with Jason Eastman of Ballarat and Brian Jones of Camperdown picking up their share of fish to 800 grams using minnow for bait.
Anthony Connell with a Bermagui striped marlin that was kept after being gut hooked after taking a live slimy mackerel (Picture: Anthony Connell).
Bermagui
Anthony Connell, Sam Melia, Brendon Borg and Tony Cressy spent last week at Bermagui as part of their annual pilgrimage to either there or Port Stephens in search of marlin, depending on information received.
As it turned out, Bermagui was a good choice for they hooked a number of marlin in a live-baiting exercise, nine of which were brought to the boat, all, save for one gut hooked striped marlin were released.
However, the fish of the trip, a blue marlin that they estimated to be at least 250 kg, escaped after a protracted battle when the circle hook in question, snapped off at the barb with the fish tantalizingly close to the boat.
Anthony Connell with a black marlin prior to release off Bermagui (Picture: Anthony Connell).
Daniel asks:
Geoff, I caught a large snapper from Corio Bay’s outer harbour recently with two toadfish in its stomach: Are snapper are immune to the toadfish’s poison?
Daniel; like people, fish may develop individual and sometimes risky food preferences. While it is unusual to find toadfish in the stomach of any fish it’s not unheard of: One October, while fishing inside Port Albert, my companion and I caught two large snapper, each with a partially digested toadfish in their stomachs.
Their heads were crushed, but otherwise they were intact, the snapper seemingly unaffected by the toadfish’s poison. However, I was told of the capture of a distressed snapper – also at Port Albert – that was taken from the surface of the water in a landing net. It too had obviously attempted to swallow a toadfish that had inflated in its throat.