Port Albert

Snook, salmon and surf

PORT ALBERT Brett Geddes

b.geddes@bigpond.com

As usual, plenty of late spring wind has played havoc with anglers’ plans, resulting in abandoned trips or at best, trying to hide in sheltered waters. And when we did get calm weather days, the tides were unfavourable!

As you’d expect, on good days the waters have been busy with fish-starved anglers, and the 90 Mile Beach shark season is well underway. THE NINETY MILE BEACH

Surf fishing in South Gippsland is fast becoming a popular form of landbased game fishing. For over five years now, switched-on anglers have employed drones and game rods to target mainly big sharks. I’ve seen plenty of bronze whalers hit the beach, and I’m talking up to 10ft long and better. It’s so good to see nearly all of those sharks released, but there are plenty of school and gummy sharks as bycatch that will find a BBQ or deep frier.

The days of casting 14ft long surf rods from the beach are not over; it’s still great fun and can produce a lot of fish, but if you’re serious about trophy sharks then drones are all the go.

I also see some whopper hammerheads at times, and small white pointers around 6-8ft are fairly common. It’s nice to see them making a comeback. All surf anglers need to very mindful of releasing the protected whites, quickly and in good order.

SURFACE SALMON

Each year I so look forward to some of the best fun any of us can have. I’m talking about hooking salmon on surface lures. You don’t even need a popper or walk-the-dog lure – you can just use simple unweighted soft plastics. Most plastics we use are fairly buoyant, and you can work them really fast.

I make my own hardbody poppers, and after I get my ‘salmon fix’ and pull about 20 or 30 odd fish, I do something a bit tricky. Because I always use double hooks, they are very easy to remove because they don’t need split rings. So instead of hauling in salmon and fighting them all the way to the net for hours on end, I remove the hooks and just enjoy the spectacle of them chasing and crashing into my lure. They will even launch clear out of the water in their mad attack. So often they will really hang onto the lure for an amazingly long time, and even pull drag! It’s so funny to see when you know there are no hooks involved.

Just quickly I want to talk about eating Australian salmon. Most anglers treat salmon as a taboo species for the plate, refusing to even try them. True, if they are bigger fish over 1.5kg and they’re cooked like other species in the pan, or in breadcrumbs/battered, they’re not very good. However, in curry patties or fish cakes I reckon they are exceptional. My trick is to quickly zap the diced fillets in the microwave so they are just barely steam cooked and not dried out. This makes them easy to break up and mix with other ingredients, and surprisingly removes most of their ‘fishy’ flavour or smell. Try it!

I never use the same mix when making patties. I make up heaps of patties with all or some of the following: red or green Thai curry paste, onions, garlic, ginger, sultanas, fresh herbs (e.g. coriander, mint, basil and garlic leaves), pineapple pieces, grated carrot and zucchini, diced chillies and capsicums. Then you just add some egg and cornflour to bind it all, and finally a generous coating of panko breadcrumbs. I’m telling you, even very fussy fish eaters enjoy eating them.

SNOOK, GARFISH

AND WHITING

I got an interesting bycatch recently while I was chasing Welshpool perch on lures – I caught some big sea gars about 45-50cm long, and whiting up to 38cm. It amazes me how predatory those two species are at times, and it’s quite incredible how they can fit a sizeable hook in their mouth, let alone attack a 2-3” soft plastic!

On the same lures I also caught a few grass whiting around 32cm, and two big snook between 70-80cm.

LOOKING AHEAD

I’ll have plenty of news next issue on where to target your favourite species for the Christmas holidays, but for the month ahead it’s going to be prime whiting time. This is when the big 40-45cm fish move into the estuaries, so I’ll be almost targeting them exclusively. Hotspots will be around the Manns and Port Albert entrances and also the channels around Sunday Island. Welshpool seems to hold bigger whiting, but they are really spread out.

Rock and yank flathead should also be on your radar now, but you really need to work the last two hours of a dropping tide and the first hour of the incoming. Soft plastic lures work fine, but on some days a good old big bluebait will score you twice as many flatties. The trick for getting plenty of flatties is to keep the bait moving all the time, either drifting in the boat or, better still, anchor up and use a light sinker and let the tide do the work for you. Cast well up-current, and when your rig stops moving and rolling along the bottom you can bet a flathead has hold of it!

The squid numbers should also keep going up until Christmastime, so always have jigs on board.

Ever thought of chasing squid on the fly rod? It’s great fun. Neil Morrison created some squid flies to show the author how it’s done. Every year when the salmon are thick, the author gets his fix. They are such good sport. These fish were all caught on surface lures, and made yummy fish patties.

From page 88

you’re standing on the jetty there are obvious problems! The best insurance policy here is to upgrade your leaders to at least 10lb and fish a very tight, if not locked up drag. Have a longhandled net within easy reach at all times so that you can quickly surprise a big bream early in the fight.

I’ve had continued success in the Paynesville canals recently and once again I’ve been on foot and enjoyed plenty of action with bream to 40cm. Hollands has been a little slow, as it often is at this time of year, but I have still found a few trucks lurking in the snags.

Another area being overlooked these days but well worth searching is Duck Arm and while searching for big bream you may also find a few dusky flathead. THE RIVERS

Spawning season is in full swing and the two hotspots are the middle section of the Tambo and the upper reaches of the Nicholson. There are schooling fish in deeper water that are mostly 30-35cm but the bigger models as usual are on the edges of rock walls or in the better tree snags. Sandworm bait is by far the most effective, and live shrimp is the next best. The best lure method is a soft plastic on a 1/16oz or 1/12oz jighead.

As I predicted, a lot of bream spawned early this year and I won’t be the least bit surprised if they actually have two spawning runs this season because it just keeps raining. If we get increased flow rates in the rivers it may see bream stay in the upper reaches of these streams even into the new year.

The Mitchell River has once again been a little disappointing as far as bream are concerned, and that’s quite unusual with its high flow of good clean water. The highway bridge in Bairnsdale is still holding amazing numbers of small perch, and they have been there for months now. The odd bigger fish over 40cm has shown up around dawn or dusk. If I was after a big river bream I’d be heading for the Nicho and start right near the boat ramp on the bridge pylons, then head downstream and work all the rock walls deep and slow. WHERE TO

GET SANDWORM

I have some news to answer those people asking me where to source bait these days. After we sadly lost our best local source of live worm and shrimp when Bairnsdale Bait Supply in Mcleod Street shut down, we have all been wondering where to get our best bream bait. Right near the Nicholson River bridge a big flash new store has been open for over a year now, and it sells live worm and probably shrimp too. It may pay to pre-order your fresh live sand worm as it may disappear quickly during holiday times so give them a call on 03 5156 8288. I’m pretty sure you can also get the same bait at The Black Stump store in Johnsonville at the turn off to the Tambo River boat ramp. KING

GEORGE WHITING

Once again I’m hearing that the whiting are back for another summer, and the usual areas from Metung to Kalimna will be the main hotspots. Live shrimp is a gun bait and I reckon mussel works as well or even better than pipi baits. Strangely, squid strips don’t seem to work as well on our Gippy Lakes whiting as it does on fish in Westernport or Port Philip Bay.

For those willing to try whiting on lures your best bet is to try Hurricane Sting blades and work them with small constant hops and every so often let the lure pause for a few seconds. The best thing about that lure is your bycatch of snapper, bream and flathead, which will keep you very busy.