Jack Paasse with a sample of his chinook salmon catch from Lake Bullen Merri on Sunday.
Dennis Calleja with the tiger trout, apparently in spawning mode.
Freshwater
Jack Paasse launched his Kayak on Lake Bullen Merri on Sunday, and – trolling various lures just out from the bank – he caught his bag limit of five chinook salmon, the largest weighing 2 kg.
Frank Benvenuto fished Wurdiboluc Reservoir on Sunday Afternoon, and his first cast with a mudeye, at around 3.30 pm, produced a brown trout of around 700 grams, and his second cast, another.
Frank put on a Strike pro Bob’N spoon on his other rod hoping to catch a decent redfin, but again hooked another similar size trout to the first two. In fact, he finished hooking, and then releasing, a total of ten browns, the biggest measuring 40 cm; four were caught on mudeyes, and six were taken on the spoon.
Ken Hinks of the Maryborough Angling Club with a pair of nice redfin from Tullaroop Reservoir (Picture: Kevin Wild).
Amber Wild of the Maryborough Angling Club with yet another Murray Cod from Lake Mulwala.
John Clements of the Lake Purrumbete Holiday Park had his share of VIPs from both VRFish and Victorian Fisheries Authority at the Lake over the weekend with John ensuring they all sampled the lake’s great fishing, especially for redfin and sent in quite a few pictures of their angling success.
Rhiannon Atkinson of the Snobs Creek Hatchery, advises that on Thursday, 02/06/22 – from around 1.30 pm – it is intended that 400-tiger trout (average weight 350 grams) are to be stocked in Lake Purrumbete, along with possibly 2000 to 3000 yearling rainbows (average weight 25-30 grams).
Those interested in attending please contact Rhiannon on mobile 0407 987 016, or by email Rhiannon.atkinson@vfa.vic.gov.au, in case there are any changes to this arrangement.
Maryborough Angling Club members Kevin and Amber Wild made the journey to Yarrawonga once more to fish Lake Mulwala, the level of the lake is being lowered to kill off the feral weed, and – from all accounts – the fishing was a bit slow. Never the less, they persisted and caught three Murray cod to 58 cm for their trouble.
Closer to home, Kevin and fellow Club member Ken Hinks took a run out on Tullaroop Reservoir where they took any amount of redfin, along with other club members including Stephen Eales and his 8 year old daughter, Lily.
Taylor Hunt of VFA with another nice redfin from Lake Purrumbete (Picture John Clements).
Ben Scullin, CEO of VRFish, also with a nice redfin from Lake Purrumbete (Picture John Clements).
Corio Bay/Bellarine Peninsula
Launching at St Leonards, Andrew Phillips and Mark Sesar headed down south to the Coles Beacon off the mouth of Swan Bay by around 7.30 am, hopeful of catching some whiting on the incoming tide.
Initially, they had a good bite going, but that initial promise petered out along with the tidal flow which eased off prematurely, shutting the bite down. By then though, they’d caught 30 whiting to 41 cm, and decided to go looking for squid a little closer in; a productive exercise at it turned out for they caught their respective bag limits and there were some good size specimens among them.
John Clements of Lake Purrumbete Holiday Park with a nice redfin.
John Clements with Jed, Cassie and Daniel Kelly from Warrnambool with nice feed of Redfin taken from Lake Purrumbete on scrub worms.
Andrew Johnson headed out off Curlewis on Friday, after several days of being afflicted by whatever winter ill is currently abroad, and tried for whiting off Curlewis.
Initially, there wasn’t much doing, but as the incoming tide picked up in the afternoon, they came on the bite and he caught 15 nice fish in quick succession before the bite shut down once more, persuading Andrew to call it quits.
Steve O’Keefe and Anna McLean fished at various spots within Corio Bay last week, taking respectable catches on each occasion using squid for bait. And on Friday, they headed down off the Queenscliff grass beds where they caught 36 whiting, a good many of these being well over the 40 cm mark.
Rod Ludlow of Beachlea Boat Hire reports that with good weather prevailing for most of last week, clients were really doing well on the squid, and – out in the deeper water – flathead, once again proved to be a dependable catch.
Whiting were slow said Rod, but there were some good catches made off Grassy Point over the weekend, and that news spread rather quickly by the number of boats anchored up here by Sunday.
Lachie Wombell with a nice pink ling, one of several taken by he and Bob McPherson off Portland (Picture: Bob McPherson).
Lachie Wombell with a school shark, part of a catch taken by he and Bob McPherson off Portland (Picture: Bob McPherson).
Offshore
With Simon Werner’s friend Mick Holland down from Bendigo on Friday to do some fishing, the good weather persuaded them to take a run offshore from Barwon Heads in search of tuna.
They caught three as it turned out, ranging in size from 12 to 15 kg; one on a skirted lure on the surface in 40 metres of water, and two on deep-running minnow-type lures in 55-60 metres of water.
Fishing in around 500 metres of water offshore from Portland on Sunday, Bob McPherson and Lachie Wombell were onto a good patch of pink ling, blue-eye trevalla, ghost cod and one or two other species that should keep them in fresh fish for a while.
Rob Loats, Chairman of VRFish with another nice redfin from Lake Purrumbete (Picture: John Clements).
John Clements and Anthony Foster of VFA with yet more redfin from Lake Purrumbete.
Jack asks:
My friend Dennis Calleja, caught a 2 kg tiger trout from Lake Bullen Merri over the weekend. The unusual thing was it had a big hook jaw, a ratty tail and a black belly. I thought these tigers and cheetahs were hybrid and therefore did not spawn?
Jack, thanks for the photos of Dennis with the tiger trout, and your question, that I passed on to Taylor Hunt, VFA freshwater research scientist who makes the following observations:
“Thanks very much for sharing these photos.
It does look like you’ve got a tiger trout. You are correct, they are sterile, however they can exhibit some sexual morphology such as a hooked jaw.
Like the Chinook salmon, they won’t be successful at spawning in Bullen Merri or Purrumbete due to a lack of suitable spawning habitat.
We are really impressed with how the Tiger trout have performed in both lakes since stocking and we’ve had excellent feedback from anglers.
I caught a couple of small 40cm fish last week. They were very aggressive!
We’ve seen fish to 2.5kg being caught out of Purrumbete and 2kg in Bullen Merri. I wonder how big they might get?”