Ken Hinks and Kevin Wild with a sample of their Lake Lonsdale yabby catch (Picture: Amber Wild).
Freshwater
Regularly making the 270-kilometer journey to Lake Mulwala, Kevin Wild and wife Amber, both members of the Maryborough Angling Club, invariably bring home the goods, so to speak.
But therein lies a contradiction because the Murray cod they target are invariably released to be caught another day, and such was the case during their last visit when they caught several using chicken for bait.
On their return, there was no let-up on the fish, taking a number of good size redfin from Lake Lonsdale in the Grampians, most of them being caught while out checking their yabbies pots, which also produced a generous catch.
Kevin also reports that the Midlands trophy was held at Lake Tullaroop, with Kyneton Angling Club taking out that title, but there were excellent catches of redfin and yellowbelly all round, which was the main thing.
p, that’s a yabby from Lake Lonsdale.
Last week, Garry Ridgeway and Alf Bluch visited Camperdown’s Lake Bullen Merri seeking the larger chinook salmon now on offer; their current size being directly attributable to their release as fingerlings, rather than first having been on-grown to yearlings in the hatchery before release.
Needless to say they weren’t disappointed, and – fishing with pilchard fillets suspended just above the bottom in around 12 metres of water – had no trouble at all in taking bag limit catches of chinook salmon to 3.6 kg.
Charlie Hung and Mark Sesar with a sample of their snapper catch from Corio Bay (Picture: Tina Sesar).
Corio Bay/Bellarine Peninsula
Early last week, Andrew Phillips and Tony Greck headed out to one of their favourite whiting marks, and by 7.30 am, were anchored up in 6.8 metres of water, just east of the Point Richards mussel farm.
And, using pipis and squid for bait, they were soon rewarded with their respective bag limit catches that included some impressive fish, the largest of which measured 45 cm.
After that, with the day still young, they broke out the squid jigs, and fishing on the drift with the light south easterly breeze, they also took bag limit catches of squid.
Seeking snapper on Sunday, the pair made an even earlier start, and by 5.00 am, they’d located what appeared to be an aggregation of their quarry between the Nine Foot Bank pile and the Wilson Spit. And, by daybreak, they’d taken their respective bag limit catches of snapper from 1.5 to 4 kg.
Also seeking snapper on the early morning shift last week were Mark Sesar, wife Tina, and Charlie Hung, who headed out into 8 metres of water off Clifton Springs to catch the morning tide change. However, they had quite a long wait before Tina initiated proceedings with a snapper of about 4 kg that took a squid head.
Daybreak produced a double hook-up with Mark and Charlie both bringing in good-size snapper, each almost certainly over the 5 kg mark, and both being tempted by baits of silver whiting.
All was quiet after that though, and by 9.00 am they were all but packed up to leave when the last rod to be wound in signaled a hook-up, right on the death-knock so to speak, with Tina bringing in yet another 4 kg snapper.
Mike Windsor of Clifton Springs Boat Hire reports that, among those to do well out from The Springs on Saturday were Colin Stokes and Dale King.
They fished just off the nearby mussel farm taking a mixed bag of whiting, pinkie snapper and flathead using squid and pilchards for bait.
At Indented Head, Rod Ludlow of Beachlea Boat Hire reports that whiting are still on offer with good bags of fish coming in from Grassy Point, south to the Governor Reefs, along with squid, which seem to growing in number.
Kevin asks:
Geoff, I saw this guy trolling on Lake Purrumbete with rod holders that pointed the rod tips down rather than up.
Later, I managed to ask him what advantage having his rod tips almost at water level was. He said it was to make his lures run deeper.
That wouldn’t be right, would it?
Kevin, the lower the rod tip is to the surface, the more line there is in the water, and to my way of thinking anyway, at some point, the added resistance of more line in the water would eventually negate any perceived advantage in depth that reducing the towing angle could provide.
However, the technique of flat-lining – that some erroneously refer to when surface trolling with rod tips elevated – is achieved in the manner you describe, and allows swimming action lures like bibbed minnows, to be trolled close into the stern with no loss of action.