Portland angler Hugh Johnstone and Luke Driscoll with their bluefin tuna. After being gilled and gutted, it weighed 80 kg. (Picture: Bob McPherson)
Ben Bremmer with the tuna he caught off Portland on Wednesday (Picture: Andrew McKenna).
Corio Bay
Fishing from the rocks at St Helens on Friday evening were John Welsh and his 7 year old grandson Declan Fitzsimmons.
Using pilchards for bait, they were hopeful of catching a legal-size pinkie snapper or two, but all they caught initially were those pesky banjo sharks, but – eventually – Declan hooked a decent pinkie.
But its capture involved a tug o’ war with a fish-thieving seal.
Eventually though, the fish was wrestled from its jaws (minus a few scales) enabling young Declan to claim his prize. .
Fishing to the east of Point Henry on Saturday afternoon were Andrew Phillips, Mark and Tina Sesar. Hoping for whiting, they were using pipis for bait and their shells for berley, but the bite was slow to begin with.
With the sun setting though, it was a different story, their catch rate picking up along with the size of the fish – including one that measured 45cm – until the bite shut down on dark, by which time their final tally was 47.
Andrew Johnson and Dennis O’Brien struck a good patch of whiting out in 6 metres of water off Curlewis, but – as has often been the case of late – hoards of undersize pinkie snapper moved in. However, moving into shallower water saved the day, the pair each finishing up with their respective bag limit catches.
Mike Windsor of Clifton Springs Boat Hire reports that visiting anglers have also been catching whiting. Among them, Joe Racioppo and Mitchell Rodda from Shepparton who caught 12 whiting using fresh squid for bait – of which they caught nineteen – just 300 metres out from the boat ramp.
John Welsh and his 7 year old grandson Declan Fitzsimmons with their pinkie snapper (Picture: Brad Andrews).
Mark Sesar with a sample of his and Andrew Phillip’s whiting catch (Picture: Tina Sesar).
Rod Ludlow of Beachlea Boat Hire at Indented Head also reports that both whiting and squid are present in good numbers around the peninsula and among those to catch them was local angler Jeff Richards who fished with Ken Shae and Brian Cummins on one occasion, and Chris Hateley on another.
As well as taking some impressive catches of squid, they took good catches of whiting to 40 cm and better in one of Jeff’s favourite marks near Dead Man’s Stick, along with several “golden flounder,” a fancy name for leatherjackets now used in the commercial fish trade, or so I’m told.
Chris Stamalos with the 16kg gummy shark he caught offshore from Barwon Heads on Saturday night.
Offshore
Chris Stamalos has catching gummy shark down to a fine art and doesn’t mind fishing after dark.
On Saturday night he caught one of 16kg from 37 metres of water offshore from Barwon Heads; a great fish, but smaller than two of 17 and 19kg he’d caught previously from the same area, also after dark.
Leonie Jones with a 70.6cm Murray Cod she caught from Lake Mulwala on Saturday (Picture: Amber Stone).
Boof Lorenzen with a 97 cm cod that he caught from the Murray River near Lake Mulwala (Picture: Amber Stone).
Freshwater
John Clements of Lake Purrumbete Holiday Park reports that redfin are still the main catch with Terry Shepherd of Bayswater and George Gillies of Winchelsea getting their share of fish to 700 grams or so using live minnow and soft plastics.
Michael Evans of Victorian Inland Charters found brown trout to just on 3 kg for his clients with the usual approach of deep-trolling with lures, while Jeremy Richardson caught a similar size fish while trolling a Daiwa Double Clutch.
Also fishing Lake Purrumbete with their preferred technique of suspending whitebait just above the bottom last week, Garry Ridgeway and Peter Baumgartner caught 9 chinook salmon, each around the kilogram mark.
Dasch Wiebusch 12, with a 42 cm redfin from Sugarloaf Reservoir, and the Jackall lure he caught it on (Pictures: Mick Kollaris).
Twelve year old Dasch Wiebusch of Geelong was fishing with his grand parents at Sugarloaf Reservoir (near Yarra Glen) last week when he caught a 42cm redfin on a Jackall lure cast out from the bank.
Scott Addinsall and Eric Guthrie with the snapper and school shark they caught offshore from Portland over the weekend (Photo: Bob McPherson).
Portland
The tuna fishery off Portland has attracted a good many anglers from all points of the compass, but Portland locals get their share as well with a previous tuna comp winner Hugh Johnstone, and his friend Luke Driscoll, picking up one that dressed out at 80kg (probably 92kg whole), for the current tuna competition.
Andrew McKenna and Ben Bremmer of Connewarre also had big tuna in their sights and a double hook-up on Wednesday in 60 metres of water off Cape Bridgewater yielded an opportunity.
Unfortunately though, one of the fish was cut off by a dolphin, but the other finished up in the cool room they’d hired to preserve their catch; its dressed weight of 86kg suggesting it could possibly have weighed 100kg when caught.
George Pogony with the bream he caught (and released) from Fraser Island in Queensland last week using mullet strips for bait on the rising tide.