Trophy trout: Tim Beusmans 3.94 kg brown trout from Lake Purrumbete
Freshwater
Lake Purrumbete continued to fish well last week while the surrounds of nearby Lake Bullen Merri were under threat from fire.
Down-rigging a Tassie Devil at 12 metres or so with a clip-on weight on Sunday morning, Tim Beusmans once again proved he has the key to catching trophy size brown trout from Lake Purrumbete with a beauty of 3.94 kg.
Michael Evans of Victorian Inland Charters (South West) fished Lake Fyans on Saturday, managing to extract several lively redfin, both while trolling lures and casting soft plastics into the shallows, particularly around the weed beds and bull rushes: His best redfin weighed 1.9 kg, and which was closely followed by another beauty of 1.85 kg.
Michael also caught several rainbow trout to 1.5 kg, and sighted several much larger specimens chasing dragonflies while trolling a variety of shallow-running lures in close proximity to where the water flows into the lake: He suggests that fish congregate here waiting for easy prey.
John Clements of the Lake Purrumbete Holiday Park – who is currently fishing for barramundi on the South Alligator River in Kakadu National Park – reports that redfin were still the main catch from Purrumbete last week with Terry Lindsay from Geelong and Jason Eastman from Ballarat among those to catch them.
Fishing the Lake with soft plastics was Norm Armstrong who managed several respectable redfin, while Rod Shepherd also caught them on lures before the wind came up on Saturday.
Jigging 3” Magbite Snatchbites in 15 metres of water at his “go-to” spot, Rod caught most of his bigger fish early on, but from 10 am, the fishing slowed down with only the occasional smaller fish coming aboard.
Two up: Michael Evans with his two largest redfin from Lake Fyans (Picture: Victorian Inland Charters).
Bellarine Peninsula
With strong winds and rough seas stirring up the bottom over the last few days, Jason Treloar tried his luck from inside the breakwater sheltering Portarlington’s harbour on Monday morning.
Not in vain as it turned out, for at around 8.30 am, his rod wrapped over, the reel growling to the tune of what turned out to be a snapper of about 5 kg, which – fortunately for him – attracted the attention of a nearby angler who was able to net it for him.
Mike Windsor of Clifton Springs Boat Hire reports that legal size pinkie snapper, along with flathead and squid, were the main catch last week with Gerard Miles and Danny Walker catching all three species over the Curlewis Bank.
They also tried for whiting, but those they caught were small, with the ever-present, but undersize pinkie snapper taking their baits.
Whiting though, were on offer for Andrew Johnson and Dennis O’Brien who eventually found a good patch off Curlewis on Friday afternoon in about 4.5 metres of water.
Initially there wasn’t much doing, but after making several moves, they picked up 30 fish to 41 cm following the mid afternoon tide change, using pipis and squid for bait..
Rod Ludlow of Beachlea Boat Hire at Indented Head reports that prior to the heavy weather over the weekend, he had quite a few boats out, all without exception, returning with squid, which have been plentiful over the past few weeks; most being caught between the Governor Reefs and Grassy Point.
George Gereige with a sample of his, and Bob McPherson’s whiting catch off Portland at the weekend.
Rod Shepherd with a sample of his redfin catch from Lake Purrumbete.
Deborah says:
Geoff, I read with interest your somewhat dismissive answer to a question on jellyfish in Corio Bay, 20/02/18, and have decided to respond: Jellyfish are becoming a plague worldwide by clogging fishing nets, power plants, and decimating aquaculture projects.
I refer you to the publication “Spineless,” by marine biologist Juli Brewed who explains how overfishing, coastal development and climate change have contributed to a jellyfish explosion worldwide.
Deborah, I did a double-take on Spineless because I have a book; a formal treatise on marine invertebrates bearing the title Spineless, by marine biologist and photographer, Susan Middleton. Unlike Juli Berwald’s book on jellyfish – also entitled Spineless – it is unencumbered with ideological baggage and was published in October 2014: Juli Berwalds book was published three years later in November 2017.
While some postulate that jellyfish plagues, like climate change, have occurred because of human activity, documentation from Captain Cook’s first fleet noted “swarms” of jellyfish being present in Port Jackson; so we humans may not be totally responsible after all. https://theconversation.com/humans-cause-ocean-wrecking-jellyfish-plague-or-maybe-not-5141