Andrew Phillips with a sample of his, and Mark Sesar’s Sunday morning’s snapper catch (Picture: Mark Sesar).
Corio Bay/Bellarine Peninsula
Rigged and ready for snapper by around 4.30 am on Sunday, Mark Sesar and Andrew Phillips picked up a promising reading off the Mountain View Quarries at Avalon and were soon in business.
Their first fish, that later weighed 5.4 kg, was closely followed by another only slightly smaller, and after a lull in proceedings, they caught two more.
Come daybreak however, it was clear the bite was over, so they looked for other fish to fry, so to speak.
With calm weather, they headed back across the bay, beginning a drift for squid between Clifton Springs and Point Richards; another profitable exercise as it turned out for by 10.30 am they’d taken their respective bag limit catches and were on their way back to the ramp.
Also making an early start, Jason Treloar anchored up in around 8 metres of water off the Point Lillias aquaculture sites, the growl of his reel heralding the capture of a 4 kg snapper on daybreak.
Mike Windsor of Clifton Springs Boat Hire reports that there are squid to be caught, particularly down off Point Richards, and for land-based anglers, garfish have been caught from the Clifton Springs jetty
At Indented Head, Rod Ludlow of Beachlea Boat Hire reports that most of his clients seemed to be enjoying the improvement in the weather over the weekend rather than taking the fishing too seriously. However, he said that there are still whiting and squid to be caught by anyone willing to put in the effort.
Andrew Ketelaar with a good size gummy shark that he caught from the Tooradin Channel on Western Port.
Offshore
The wreck of the Canberra, scuttled in 30 metres of water off Ocean Grove as an artificial reef in October 2009, continues to attract fish, including shoals of bluefin tuna, as hard as they sometimes are to catch.
The tuna in turn seem to have attracted mako sharks, which have been somewhat scarce off our coast in recent years for whatever reason. However, early last week Jae Peters caught two here, one of 15 kg that he kept, and another of possibly 60 kg that he released.
Simon Werner of Adamas Charters reports that their clients did well off Port Phillip Heads fishing on the drift for mainly sand flathead, along with a few or the toothy variety, over the weekend, with their bigger fish nudging a kilogram.
One of Frank Benvenuto’s bass from the Werribee River.
Freshwater
Frank Benvenuto’s report on the Werribee River bass on January 10, created quite a bit of interest, but he reiterates the difficulty in accessing the most productive spots given the overgrown nature of the river’s bankside foliage, along with the occasional snake, factors that probably make much of these areas unsuitable for “family fishing.”
Frank re-visited the river on Friday evening, and – finding his favourite spots less productive than usual – went on the move, continuing to catch both bass and yellowbelly in a variety of locations, and on a selection of lures with Strike Pro bass beetles a standout.
Kevin Wild and wife Amber of the Maryborough Angling Club spent a few days at Lake Mulwala last week but found the fishing a little disappointing. Murray cod were on offer as usual, but most were a bit on the small side.
However, the fishing was pretty good closer to home with club members Brian and John Rivett, and Don and Robert Rayner, taking any amount of redfin from Tullaroop Reservoir, particularly with the attachment of “beetle spin” fish-attractors to their lures.
Geelong anglers Mark Greenwood and Tom Steel also made the journey to Tullaroop, and they were also rewarded with good catches of redfin.
Ray asks:
Geoff, night fishing with a companion at one of my favourite Torquay beaches last week, we caught and released three very large stingrays; quite an effort considering the biggest of these would have been close to 100 kg.
Two were common stingrays with normal length tails. The other though, was a much more difficult customer; it had an extremely long tail that it thrashed about, making the task of releasing it horrendously difficult.
I’ve never seen such a creature before. Do you know what it would be?
Ray, I’ve encountered two such rays, and attempts at identification suggested they were probably thorntail stingrays (Dasyatis thetidis), also known as black stingrays: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorntail_stingray.