Nick Powell with his extra-large southern calamari from Queenscliff.
Queenscliff
We began looking for the big female calamari at Queenscliff in September, but they might be a little earlier his year.
That’s judging by Nick Powell’s catch from Queenscliff on Saturday’s incoming tide that included a pearler with a mantle measuring 50 cm.
Nick’s bag limit catch came from depths of 4 to 5 metres and were caught on 3 and 3.5 inch jigs, the most productive colours being red foil and white.
Darren Zammit of the Greenvale Angling Club with the 4.55 kg brown trout he caught from Lake Purrumbete (Picture: John Clements).
Freshwater
Camperdown’s Lake Purrumbete continues to produce trophy size brown trout and among the successful anglers at the weekend was Darren Zammit of the Greenvale Angling Club.
Trolling a Tassie Devil spotted dog on Lake Purrumbete, Darren had just crossed over a drop-off into 27 metres of water when he hooked a 73 cm, 4.55 kg (just over 10 pounds in the old money) brown trout that put up a great fight on his 3 kg line.
Fishing nearby Lake Bullen Merri, Scott Hamilton and Wes Brewer picked up tiger and rainbow trout to 1.5 kg while trolling lures.
And, when that no longer produced any action, they fished with pilchard fillets suspended just above the bottom which produced several chinook salmon, again around the 1.5 kg mark.
However, the gusting northerlies made staying connected with their berley trail something of a challenge, but they were happy enough with their mixed bag of fish.
Fish Stocking
VFA fish stocking coordinator, Rhiannon Atkinson announces that the first lot of chinook salmon fry – which are only a few grams in size – are scheduled to be released from a single truck into Lake Bullen Merri on August 19.
However, with the current low water level at Lake Purrumbete, we will push the stocking of these fish back to late September, future date to be confirmed.
The following week, on Thursday, August 22, the remaining tiger trout are scheduled to arrive at Lake Bullen Merri at around 3.00 pm on Thursday August 22nd, some 350 fish at a total weight of approximately 35 kg.
Following that, another 2500 tigers are to be stocked into Lake Purrumbete 45 minutes after the Bullen Merri stocking
Should you wish to attend any of these fish stockings please contact assistant fish stocking coordinator Julian Lucas julian.lucas@vfa.vic.gov.au .
Catching them two at a time, Ray Millman with double header of salmon on the one lure
Off the beach
Ray Millman has been covering quite a bit of ground in search of salmon lately trying various beaches from Jan Juc to Moggs Creek where he visited last Tuesday morning on the low tide change.
Here, the salmon were ferocious, but somewhat on the small side. However, what they lacked in size they made up for in numbers, at one stage Ray caught two at once on the 30 gram flutter jig he was using.
Corio Bay/Bellarine Peninsula
With last week’s northerlies, Derrick Hargreaves Harley Griffiths headed out off Avalon to catch the incoming tide change at around 10.00 am, and hopefully, a good catch of whiting.
Well, there were whiting to be caught, but at least half their catch – although of legal size – were a bit on the small size by their reconning, so they kept on the move hoping to find some bigger fish.
However, the ratio of small fish seemed to remain constant, nevertheless, they finished with a legal bag of whiting, and there were a few good size specimens among them.
Offshore
Adamas deckhand Simon Werner reports that while his clients have been content to bottom fish for the usual species, anglers prepared to put in the hard yards out in 65-70 meters of water have taken tuna to 40 kg or so.
Having tried to find them for clients out here and been attracted to likely areas to fish by the surface activity of dolphins, seal and birds, the only glimpse of tuna they got was on the sounder screen around 35 metres below the surface.
Barwon Heads
Heading down to The Sheepwash last Tuesday morning to catch the low tide change, Stan Owen and Jason Treloar were hopeful of catching a good size silver trevally or two.
They had no more crabs for bait that proved successful on the bream the week previous, but they did catch several good sized silver trevally on the pilchard fillets and pipis they were using for bait, along with a mixed bag that included mullet, salmon and a couple of small tailor.
Conway Asks:
Geoff, if the gravitational pull of the moon revolving around the Earth causes the tides, why do tides also occur on the opposite side of the Earth to the moon?
Conway, to the best of my understanding, the Earth and moon revolve around a common centre of gravity that always lies within the Earth because its greater mass.
This reciprocal rotation allegedly causes the second tidal bulge – to which you refer – on the opposite side of the Earth to the moon due to the centrifugal force caused by these rotating bodies.
Please send your reports to occytrapper@gmail.com or by phone to 03 5248 1307.