Geelong

Superb springtime saltwater sessions

GEELONG Neil Slater

slaterfish@gmail.com

Breaking out of a very wet winter and early spring has seen the local lakes at capacity and rivers running high and brown. The Barwon in Geelong has been brown for what seems like ages, which makes lure fishing difficult.

Carp and redfin should fire up this October, and bait fishing for them will be your best bet. Worms, sweet corn kernels and bread are the go for carp while worms, shrimp and live minnow are prime bait for redfin. A few more insects on top of the water could bring on a surface bite from the local estuary perch so pack a few small surface lures and flick them about. If the water does clear up a bit, try single-tailed soft plastic grubs or minnow lures for redfin and estuary perch.

Wurdee Buloc Reservoir near Moriac has seen a few solid brown trout caught by fly fishos on the south bank, and bait anglers on the wall. The water here is slightly discoloured but it’s still worth throwing lures about for trout and redfin. A few redfin are always being caught here, mostly on heavy spoons that a) keep close to the bottom on retrieve and b) can cover some distance when casting.

Stony Creek Reservoir near Anakie remains clear and near capacity. There can be some trout working the surface here dawn and dusk, so it’s worth throwing a few flies about. Stony also has some XXL redfin, so I recommend that you pack a few lures that run deep, such as soft plastics and heavy spoons.

October is regarded as opening month for snapper fishos, as snapper invade Port Phillip and Corio Bay. There have been some ripper captures down Victoria’s west coast, so let’s hope that translates to another great season. However, this winter has been a cold one and bay water temperatures are a full degree lower than

David has been doing well on the calamari around St Leonards lately.

the same time last year (at the time of writing). Plenty can change of course, but I wouldn’t mind betting they come into the bays a little later than normal.

Having said that, if you’re keen on making the news instead of reading it, try lobbing a pilchard out on the edge of the shipping channel in Corio Bay during a tide change and see if any show up. Dawn and dusk are prime times also. If a tide change falls around first and last light, then definitely give it a go.

Late September saw an influx of XOS calamari from Point Lonsdale to St Leonards. These larger models will take most squid jigs but they can be a little more canny than your average-sized inker on occasions. If you find them but cannot get a bite, try a skewer-style jig baited with silver whiting, garfish, small (but legal length) salmon, mullet or tommy rough. This sort of presentation will often tempt even the fussiest calamari. Keep your jigs just above the weed, and drift around until you find a few.

David Le has been fishing around St Leonards, both from his kayak and the pier, and doing well on the calamari. David has been using jigs that are quite large – 3.5 to 4.5 sizes – and fishing both the incoming and outgoing tide as the squid have been quite unpredictable.

Works were finally completed on both Portarlington and Queenscliff boat ramps at the end of August. Just going by pics, they look fantastic and finished well in time for the warmer weather. For more info, head over to the Better Boating Vic website.

Barwon River estuary has been flowing high and brown for a while due to all the rain we’ve had lately. However, clean salt water does inundate the estuary during the run-in and the first part of the run-out tide, which the saltwater species prefer.

Twelve-year-old Mitchell Neiwand fished with his dad

Mark from the jetty near the mouth and caught seven salmon, a whiting and a nice trevally around 35cm. Mark says they pilfered some of mum’s chicken breast from the fridge and cut that into strips for bait. Mark says that he and Mitchell are new to fishing and don’t always know what they’re doing other than having a ball together.

Nathan Wright has also been fishing the Barwon River estuary from his kayak and catching some whopper silver trevally. Nathan wasn’t certain of the size of the bigger specimens, but estimated them to be around 50cm, which is a cracking silver. Nathan said one of his mates kept one that measured in at a staggering 57cm! Nathan says he caught all of his silvers casting soft plastics, vibes and hard bodied lures. These fish go like stink, so they’d be a great light tackle target.

Out in Bass Strait there has been a solid showing of gummy and school sharks around the 8kg mark. Drifting in 40m or anchoring over the shallower reef areas has always been best tactic when chasing these sharks.

Tuna turn up randomly along the Surf Coast to the Rip at this time of year, and Bruno Lombardo managed to boat a ripper that pulled the scales down to 141kg when fishing with Luke Slater (no relation) and Leigh Cherry out off Anglesea recently. Bruno says they worked hard to find fish from Barwon Heads to where they found a bait ball being worked over by dolphins in around 50m off Anglesea. They were trolling nearby when their Nomad 200 lure was taken, peeling 300m of 24kg line from their Talica reel on the first run. After an hour and a half fight, they had the beast subdued boatside. Bruno says they managed to drag the big tuna through the rear door of their boat, but it was only when the beast was on the deck that they all celebrated!

The Lorne Aquatic Club commodore, Keith Miller, says the club had its August whiting competition where there were good numbers of boat and pier-based entrants. The comp was dominated by pier-based anglers, which apparently is becoming commonplace!

Keith reports that other captures off Lorne include gummy and school sharks, flathead, trevally and pinkie snapper. The occasional blue morwong and nannygai have also been caught. The Lorne pier has been producing good catches of salmon, trevally, snapper, grass whiting, warehou and the odd King George whiting.

Catch a few around Geelong, Bellarine Peninsula or Surf Coast to Lorne recently? Send in a report to slaterfish@gmail.com with “FMG” in the subject field or give me a call on 0408 997348. Please include where (without giving away your secret spot!), when, what on and who caught the fish. Pictures are always great, but please make sure they are at least 1MB (file size).

Fish HARD – die happy!

Bruno and his mates Luke and Leigh with a ripper tuna that weighed in at 141kg, caught out off Anglesea.

Nathan and his mates have been catching some solid silver trevally from the Barwon River estuary.