Chris Stamalos with the gummy shark and snapper he caught after launching at Clifton Springs last week.
Corio Bay/Bellarine Peninsula
With the whiff of snapper in the air, Chris Stamalos was well prepared, and with undying faith in the use of fresh bait, he first launched on the Barwon estuary where small, but legal-size salmon came on offer with the flood tide.
Then, after launching at Clifton Springs on dusk, he headed off to the old “chair” mark off Curlewis, where – with the sounder ticking over at 7.7 metres – he put the anchor down and waited.
For only a few minutes as it turned out before the growl of his reel heralded his capture of a 6 kg snapper.
With scarcely time to admire his catch, he was on again, this time to what turned out to be a gummy shark of about 4 kg.
Cruising off Avalon in calm conditions in a light easterly on Friday afternoon, and paying close attention to the sounder, Andrew Phillips and Mark Sesar found the unmistakable snapper signature they were looking for.
Out went the anchor, followed by lines baited with squid they’d caught a day or two previously while fishing for whiting, and – as luck would have it – by 6.00 pm they’d caught five snapper to 5.5 kg.
But that was before being blown off the water by the strengthening easterly, making for a rough ride back to the ramp.
Kevin Wild and Don Rayner with a sample of the redfin of offer from Lake Lonsdale.
Their trip on the whiting earlier in the week resulted in a bag limit catch of fish to 44 cm; the bigger fish coming just on as night fell, while fishing in 6.8 metres of water off Point Richards.
The squid they caught consisted not only of southern calamari, but also a couple of large aero squid, which were caught during a lull in the whiting bite, for which the presence of the squid was probably responsible.
Heading out on Thursday morning, also after the whiting, were Andrew Johnson and Dennis O’Brien who initially found slim pickings off one of their usually productive marks off Curlewis.
They moved a couple of times for the same result but decided to stick it out until the early afternoon tide change, whereupon they moved back to their original mark, where – to their delight – the bite was now on!
They ended up with their legal bags of fish and there were some beauties in the 40 to 44 cm range among them: all being taken in five metres of water off Curlewis on squid strips and mussels.
One of the bass Frank Benvenuto caught from the Werribee River last week.
Freshwater
Frank Benvenuto reports that even with the onset of cooler weather, there are still bass to be caught from the Werribee River, both above and below the weir, and on recent trips he’s caught and released several to 40 cm.
On one occasion, he’d also cast out a floating cicada imitation, put the rod in a rod holder at the water’s edge, then resumed spinning from the upper bank.
The mighty splash as a bass smashed the floating cicada lure had Frank scrambling the metre or so down to that outfit, but by that time, the fish had spat the lure out and escaped.
Gary McKay with a 3.6 kg brown trout taken from Lake Purrumbete on the fly (Picture: John Clements).
Shane Stevens with one of several tiger trout he caught from Lake Purrumbete using Bent Minnow lures (Picture: John Clements).
Fishing Wurdiboluc reservoir las week was Simon Werner who caught four nice redfin from the rock wall using small yabbies for bait.
John Clements of the Lake Purrumbete Holiday Park reports that redfin are still on the go, and that he and Steve Cooper cleaned up on scrubworms.
John reports that Shane Stevens from Ballarat caught a number of good size tiger trout on Bent Minnow lures, while Gary McKay caught a 3.6 kg brown trout on the fly.
With the prolific run of redfin at Lake Lonsdale, just past Stawell, Maryborough Angling Club members Kevin Wild and Don Rayner, along with other club members who fished separately, caught 50 odd redfin, the biggest of which measured 50 cm, with a good many over the 40 cm mark.
The most successful lures on this occasion were Beetlespin/soft plastic combinations and “Profishent” rubber vibes.
Fish Stocking Coordinator, Rhiannon Atkinson, advises that some 4000-tiger trout averaging 100 grams, are scheduled for release into Lake Purrumbete at 3.00 pm on Thursday.
Please contact Rhiannon to be advised of any updates should you wish to attend, either on 0407 987 016 or rhiannon.atkinson@vfa.vic.gov.au