Victorian Inland Charters client Dennis with a 38 cm redfin from Lake Purrumbete.
Corio Bay/Bellarine Peninsula
After a lean run on the snapper of late, Andrew Phillips and Tony Greck headed out to a formerly productive spot just north-east of Point Henry early last week, anchoring up with their lines out before daybreak.
A good move as it turned out, for they caught a snapper of 4.5 kg at around 5.45 am, closely followed by another of 5 kg.
They caught no more snapper after that, but at around 7.00 am they hooked what turned out to be a 7.5 kg gummy shark that tangled all of their lines – those they still had out – together, before they were able to bring it aboard.
Fishing for whiting off Curlewis on Friday afternoon were Andrew Johnson and Dennis O’Brien who initially experienced lean pickings, catching only small fish that they returned. But, after making several moves, found a better class of fish.
They caught 23 of these, not the numbers that are sometimes on offer, but quality prevailed over quantity with their bigger fish nudging 42 cm.
Rod Ludlow of Beachlea Boat Hire at Indented Head reports that whiting are still on offer, when weather permits. But, with silver trevally amongst them, some anglers – like Rod’s neighbour, Ian Ray – have been taken unawares with one of these feisty fish snapping his whiting rod.
Victorian Inland Charters client Mario with the 62 cm chinook salmon he caught while casting a Bent Minnow lure on Lake Purrumbete (Picture: Michael Evans).
Offshore
Charter boat Adamas’ deckhand, Simon Werner, reports having no difficulty finding good size pinkie snapper for clients on Friday morning, along with an occasional kingfish to 75 cm.
However, their attempts to tempt a pod of tuna they spied circling off Port Phillip Heads, first with lures, and then by trying to entice them into accepting unweighted pilchards, were unsuccessful.
Fishing offshore from Torquay in 30 metres of water on Friday evening were Kevin McLoughlin, Marcus Pearson and Brian Nolan who caught two gummy shark apiece, each around the 6 kg mark.
Joel, Mark, Brad, Will, Brian, Phil, Sam and Ben of Woodend’s Blackforest Tyre and Auto with example of their catch from Lake Purrumbete (Picture: Michael Evans).
Freshwater
Visiting Lake Tooliorook near Lismore on Friday morning were Martinus de Lange and Paul Raduka who found the bank unfishable because of the encroachment of weed. So, the jetty – although in disrepair – was their only option.
The Berkley Powerbait they were using for bait created no interest, but baiting up with a gudgeon from their bait trap, produced a brown trout of a kilogram for Paul, and anglers fishing from a boat returned with similar fish as well.
My enquiries indicate that the Jetty will either be repaired, or perhaps replaced with a pontoon, but that may not be for some time.
Fishing Lake Purrumbete on Saturday, Michael Evans of Victorian Fishing Charters had no trouble finding fish for two groups of clients from Blackforest Tyre and Auto, Woodend, celebrating their Christmas break-up.
The first group of four were greeted at daybreak with strong winds and showers, which was tough going, but the second group enjoyed more benevolent conditions during the afternoon. All did well on the redfin which were caught on live minnow from12 metres of water.
Trolling 26-gram Tassie Devils in the Traffic Lights colouration produced a bonus catch for the latter group, including a tiger trout and three chinook salmon to 45 cm.
Earlier in the week, client Mario’s catch included a 62 cm chinook salmon that took a Bent Minnow presented along the edges of the weed margins, during a lure-casting exercise.
Glenelg Bream
Garry Ridgeway and Geoff Clay visited the Glenelg River South Australia’s border last week, and with some inside info on where the bream were biting, began soaking scrubworms at Simson’s Landing, upstream from Nelson.
A productive exercise at it turned out, for they both finished up taking bag-limit catches of bream, the biggest measuring 38 cm.
Tassie topics
Last week’s report from Damon Sherriff on fishing in Tasmania attracted some comment that included the following:
Mike said
Thanks for reviving my memories of north eastern Tasmania last week where my grandparents had a small dairy farm at Scottsdale, and of the local streams, including the Brid River that you mentioned.
The Brid’s great claim to fame – up near where it rises at Springfield – was, and still is hopefully, its population of giant Tasmanian, freshwater crayfish (now fully protected) that my uncle would catch and put into our farm dams.