Geelong

Anglers having a ball

GEELONG Neil Slater

slaterfish@gmail.com The lead up to May has seen some fantastic fishing. The Bellarine has had a hot whiting bite, and the gamefish have been a focus offshore.

Les had an epic salmon session with them biting in knee-deep water at North Shore.

Inside Corio Bay there have been garfish, pinkies, salmon, whiting and plenty of flathead about for both bait and lure fishos.

Land-based anglers have had a ball in the region with some spectacular captures lately. Mustafa Bahadir caught 13 solid whiting fishing from St Leonards Pier after dark, while other anglers have had similar success with calamari caught from the local Bellarine Peninsula piers.

Speaking of meritorious land-based captures, Darren Foster was minding his own business fishing the St Helens rock wall, when an 83cm kingfish decided to grab the chicken he was using for bait! That’s one heck of a landbased capture from St Helens, and could be attributed to the shellfish reef installed there not so long ago.

Australian salmon bob up at unannounced locations around the bay from time to time. They are a little hard to predict, so blind casting and trolling can sometimes locate them.

Les Cameron got stuck into a heap of salmon fishing from North Shore beach. Les was using a metal slice lure with a dash of green, and he said they were chasing what appeared to be anchovies as some washed up onto the shore. Les says he passed his rod to his son-in-law and he also got stuck into the salmon in an exciting session. Les says the water was boiling only 5-6m from shore in knee deep water – a great lure session!

Point Henry has been popular for those chasing flathead and pinkies. Andrew Orchard has been getting stuck into them using soft plastics fishing from a mate’s kayak and landing himself enough for a feed.

Other yak anglers fishing plastics have enjoyed pinkie

snapper, salmon, flathead and trevally fishing around the moored boats.

Larger snapper to 5kg have shown up out near the

shipping channel for anglers using baits around dawn and dusk. A change of tide can also bring the snapper on the bite, and top baits lately have been pilchards and fresh squid.

I took my 13yo son Max out and we managed to bag a few whiting to 37cm fishing out off Leopold. He milks the ‘food-providing hero’ tag a bit when he walks back into the Slater house, but whiting are awesome eating as we all know.

The whiting have really been going well in the stretch from Point Henry to Portarlington and over near Avalon, with anglers bagging out on fish up to 40cm.

Calamari have been available as well but they have been a little harder to find for some, while other anglers have found them and quickly bagged out. The trick here is, for whiting and calamari, to keep moving until you find the hungry ones as there are good numbers to be had.

There are similar stories from anglers fishing the whiting mecca of St Leonards, Indented Head and Queenscliff – i.e. good numbers for those prepared to move around until a hungry school is located.

There are lots of small flathead out off St Leonards in 15-18m of water, with the odd fish over 40cm making the constant tiddler de-hooking worth it.

Rabih Assafiri set out from Werribee with his brother Aiman and his mate

Abdul hoping to make the long journey offshore for a tuna. They tried for squid at Portarlington and Swan Bay but struggled. While drifting, they had a bait out the back and managed to snag a whiting. They tossed the pick out, and before long they were hauling whiting in left right and centre using squid and pipis for bait. The bag limit came pretty quickly and the wind picked up so they decided to head out to 15m of water and try for a gummy instead of going offshore. They sent down some salmon, calamari and mackerel for bait and were rewarded with an 8kg and a 15.5kg gummy shark, plus a bunch of other critters like wobbygongs and so on. A top day out!

Queenscliff boat ramp closed for stage 2 of the upgrade at the end of March. Expect it

to be closed for another 10-12 weeks. Additional ramp, pontoons, separate kayak ramp and extra-large car parks will be added so it should be a great facility. Head to betterboating.vic.gov.au for updates and info.

Those that have made it offshore have found tuna around the 15-25kg mark, and larger fish to 80kg have turned up at Apollo Bay at the time of writing, so pack the heavy gear if you’re going offshore. The tuna have been very hot-andcold though, biting their heads off one day and having complete lockjaw the next.

Kai Hamilton mentioned to his dad Ash that he’d like to catch a tuna, so they headed out off Ocean Grove after school for a mid-week flick. They had no time to troll due to fading light so they decided to find schools fast and have a crack on the cast. Ash’s mate Dan Eastwell spotted a shimmer on the water. With a stealthy approach they threw the kitchen sink at them, with Dan eventually hooking up on a Pop Queen lure. With Kai’s help it didn’t take long until the fish was boated and on ice. Kai got the smoked tuna wings he was after, plus a few

Peri from Trelly’s in Geelong with his Surf Coast mako shark.

Aiman with one of the gummies he caught with his brother Rabih and mate Abdul.

Kai and his dad Ash boated this tuna offshore with help from their mate Dan. How’s that for a land-based effort by Darren?

stories for the playground!

Anglers have enjoyed an epic kingfish bite in the Rip on occasions, with fish over 90cm jumping on jigs, live squid and sometimes trolled lures.

Not forgetting mako sharks, Peri Stavropoulos from Trelly’s Outdoors in Geelong caught a fine mako shark around the 50-60kg mark drifting out off the Surf Coast.

The lads sent out a thick berley trail and after a few hours had only attracted a few pesky blue sharks. Eventually a mako showed up and harassed the berley pot and engine. The mako eventually took a salmon head for bait, and the lads also boated a school and gummy shark to around 15kg.

My mates Dave and Grant headed out off Barwon Heads and sent some baits down in 50m. The lads managed to boat a feed of flathead plus hauled a massive 7-gill shark to the boat which was released. • 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).