Impressive catches in estuaries

GEELONG Neil Slater slaterfish@gmail.com

The water in the region cools over April, and we often see a surge in whiting inside Corio Bay. The whiting have fished well all year, so an increase would be busy alright.

The Barwon River in Geelong has seen a few redfin around the 30cm mark caught on single-tailed soft plastics up around Queens Park and Breakwater. However, it was Adam from Trelly’s who broke the internet with a 53cm bass he caught from the Barwon using a 4” paddle tail soft plastic rigged on a jig spinner. That’s a cracking bass!

Hugh Hanson has been fishing out at Wurdee Buloc after a picture. Matthew said he had sighted what appeared to be kingfish schools cruising around Corio Bay for a few weeks prior, but this was the first one he had landed after many hours casting and changing lures. The kingfish were in close chasing garfish, which gave Matthew his chance.

I would expect the kingfish to taper off as this month progresses. We can expect bream, mullet and trevally to provide sport for land-based fishers, while salmon will also patrol Corio Bay a little more often.

Corio Bay has had a stellar snapper season this year, with strong numbers of pinkie snapper to 55cm being caught on soft plastics and bait. North Shore fishing platforms, St Helens, Geelong waterfront and Limeburners have all produced snapper for landbased anglers. For boaties, try Point Henry, the spoil grounds inside Stingaree Bay and off Leopold.

Pike have also been a fairly consistent bycatch for anglers targeting snapper on plastics. I’m not much of a fan of pike because they come up like a wet sock, shed scales, want to bite you and stink a bit, but someone told me they go OK on the plate.

Flathead seemed to have increased in size and numbers over the past few years. Better fish around 50cm seem more common. Tasty rock flatties have been a welcomed bycatch for anglers fishing plastics for snapper out off Leopold, with quality fish either side of 50cm. Chris Pitman from Drysdale Bait & Tackle has caught a few 50cm flatties out off Clifton Springs using the new Asakura Clamer mussel lure.

Whiting have been a little scattered off Clifton Springs, but it’s still worth a trip as the calamari have been biting well here. Around the Bellarine, Portarlington has had good patches of both, but St Leonards has been the stand-out for whiting, with a few lucky anglers picking up their bag limit captures of 40cm fish.

Further south around the a fair bit, bagging a few redfin up around 35cm using vibe lures. Hugh reckons the visibility is pretty good, and the reservoir is nice and full.

A few feisty kingfish have been spotted, hooked, lost and landed inside Corio Bay, which has added to the excitement. Matthew Harris was casting a Texas-rigged Silstar Slapstix soft plastic off Limeburners when he saw a bust-up. Expecting salmon, he had his lure pounded around 2m from the rock wall and then it took off! The fish bolted under eight other anglers’ rods, forcing Matthew to increase the heat in an attempt to keep it close.

After a 5-6 minute fight, Matthew hand lined the fish out of the water – a 74cm kingfish which he released

Coles Channel and Swan Bay, anglers have been catching quality whiting, with all baits doing well, especially squid. My work colleague Adam Jordan said he wrestled a few pike out of Swan Bay and noticed the shallows were full of big whiting that would not take any bait. He said they were onto his berley, but refused all baits he threw a them!

Leopold Angling and Aquatic Club held a members whiting competition but due to the weather, only a few fish were weighed in. Luckily the BBQ was pretty good!

Out wide off St Leonards has seen some solid gummy shark captures over 10kg, with the odd 20kg monster amongst them.

The Barwon River estuary has been producing plenty of silver trevally over the last few months.

Jak Bergman fished up the Sheepwash and grassed a ripper silver that went 40cm. It was caught on a piece of chicken on slack tide.

There have been some whopping kingfish over a metre caught out off Barwon Heads by anglers dropping knife jigs and live squid down over the reef areas in 10-20m of water.

Smaller kings around 75cm have been caught by anglers trolling skirted lures for tuna, plus trolling over shallower reef areas near Black Rock and Torquay, which are known haunts of kingfish.

Tuna have also been going off their collective heads, with solid fish from 10-30kg