VIC/TAS FISHING MONTHLY AUGUST 2018 by Fishing Monthly

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Lure Expo Award Winners • Great fun on garfish • Fathers’ Day gift list

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August 2018, Vol. 13 No. 10

Contents WEST COAST West Coast

Portland 18 Warrnambool 20 Cobden 21 Apollo Bay

CENTRAL Geelong 22 Port Phillip West

Port Phillip East

Port Phillip North

Mornington Peninsula

Port Phillip Bay Offshore

Western Port North

Western Port South

Phillip Island

EAST COAST Lakes Entrance

Marlo 38 Gippsland Lakes

Corner Inlet

Bemm River

NSW SOUTH COAST Bermagui 42 Eden 42 Mallacoota 43 Narooma 40 Merimbula 41

VICTORIAN FRESHWATER Robinvale 54

From the Editor’s Desk... MELBOURNE BOAT SHOW The FM team spent a few days at the Melbourne Boat Show – you would have seen the content we were producing on various social media channels – from the launch of a 10 year warranty for Evinrude outboards through to the release of the new Stacer Revolution hulls, there was a real buzz at the show and, from what we hear, there’s plenty of new rigs on the water that will be ready for the warmer months. GONE FISHING DAY DATE CLAIMER I know I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s time to mark it on the calendar in ink – 14th October is national Gone Fishing Day. It doesn’t matter what you’re catching or where you’re catching it, just make an effort to get out on or by the water on GFD and show

www.gonefishingday.org.au

after hours around the campfires. Make sure that you scan the QR to watch the interviews of all of the winners of the awards at the show. GARFISH THE MOST POPULAR If I was to ask you what the most popular article of all time is on the

Australian lures and lure making, with amazing creations being presented every year to the visitors. Check out the ridiculously life-like Chilton Tackle Co Barra for instance. Aussie lure makers are going places! Congratulations to Victoria’s Kuttafurra Lures and their creator, Aaron Young for winning the Best Bibbed Lure category. Aaron makes the journey up each year and definitely enjoys the atmosphere as much as he enjoys himself

website, I bet you wouldn’t guess the answer. What is it? Garfish. An article by Lee Rayner about how to catch garfish has been found and read over 200,000 times since publication. So this month, we feature Jarrod Day’s take on assembling a feed of these tasty little critters. They may be small, but they are definitely popular. We hope you enjoy this month’s issue.

Get Online with Gone Fishing Day at gonefishingday Gone Fishing Day

that you love it. Like the Gone Fishing Day Facebook page for further updates. LURE SHOW WRAP UP The Lure Show also happened last month in Ipswich, Queensland. We know that not a lot of you had the opportunity to get to the show, so we’ve taken the liberty of covering the Best of Show winners in this issue. The Lure Show is a fantastic display of

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Mildura 54 Snowy Mountains

Albury/Wodonga 56 Wangaratta 57 Shepparton 58 Bendigo 59 Ballarat 60 Eildon 62

Central Gippsland

Horsham 66

TASMANIA WRAP

BOATING AND KAYAK

REGULAR FEATURES Back to Basics

Chappy’s Hotspot

Dam Levels

Fun Page

Science Meets Fishing

Tasmanian Lake Levels

Tournament News

Track My Fish

Trade and Services Guide

Victorian Tide Times

What’s new fishing

What’s new boating

SPECIAL FEATURES Great fun on garfish

Sub-Editors: Bob Thornton Nicole Penfold Cordelia Adams Field Editor: Kelly Hunt Publishers: Steve Morgan Matthew Drinkall Advertising: Ph: (07) 3387 0800 Fax: (07) 3387 0801 Copy and materials should be sent direct to: ads@fishingmonthly.com.au

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Fishing Diary Angler: Ben Weston Location: Port Welshpool, VIC Date: 26/11/2017 Conditions: NE 8 kts, turn of tide Black Magic Tackle: KL 7/0 hook 40lb Supple Trace Note: “If it’s a big ﬁsh you’re after.. look no further than Black Magic. It has never let me down .”

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GARFISH

Goin’ garrin’ for great fun and a decent feed WESTERN PORT STH

Jarrod Day jarrodday@iprimus.com.au

The humble garfish is a readily available species year-round and doesn’t often get the kudos it deserves. Often underrated, what they lack in fight they make up for on the table and as a prime fresh bait when seeking highly prized species such as snapper, mulloway and the like.

numbers it can be difficult to fish with multiple rods as the school can be quite significant in size. For the most part, they are easily accessible for land-based anglers fishing from the many jetties around the bay and they really take very little effort to catch. If you are looking for a specific pier to try, Queenscliff, St Leonards, Altona, Brighton, Sandringham, Beaumaris

Garfish are quite easy to catch and can provide a ton of entertainment for the entire family.

When fishing in a boat, always try to situate yourself over shallow reef and weed. Garfish are great fun to catch for anglers of all levels of experience and, best of all, you never just catch one – more often a whole bunch. LOCATIONS Garfish frequent every piece of water in Port Phillip Bay including the Yarra, Paterson and Werribee rivers. They’re around every rocky headland, pier and jetty around the bay. A schooling fish by nature, garfish move about and occasionally where you caught them one week, they might not be there the next. However, when they are about in

Bay, Seaford, Frankston, Rye, Rosebud, Sorrento and Portsea piers are all worthy locations. These piers always attract garfish, both at night and during the day, but it’s during the high tides when they are more abundant and close to these piers and jetties.

When fishing during the night, it pays to use a light stick on your float to see the bite.

Garfish have a very small mouth so it pays to use small hooks.

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AUGUST 2018

area they are usually thick in numbers. Berley is the key, but it’s important that you don’t overdo it. Use too much berley and they won’t look at your bait, too little and you won’t get the desired result. In an ideal world, berley should be thrown into the water by hand at regular intervals and this will keep the trail consistent, bringing them into casting range. There are many different types of berley to use. Over the years I have targeted and caught garfish, the Bait Mate premix with added fish oils has been the most effective. Combining a fine pollard with fish oil creates an extremely fine trail that brings the schools of fish in from far and wide. Given its light

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When the gars are about in numbers, some piers and jetties around the bay get overrun by anglers and at times it can be standing room only. If you’re planning on taking the family, you might just have to get there early and grab a spot. If you’re heading out on your own, you might want to try exploring nearby areas by walking around and fishing from the rocky headlands. Doing this is often more productive as the fish won’t be as skittish as they are near a pier full of anglers. BAITS ‘N’ BERLEY Garfish have an extremely small mouth and seldom take large baits. Their lower jaw extends past their top jaw, so big baits are often passed up for something more manageable. While their diet mainly consists of eelgrass and algae, they also eat various types of water insect and small crustaceans. Anglers

targeting garfish these days use a verity of baits including dough, pieces of peeled prawn segments and Chinese silverfish. Though these can be quite big baits, cutting them down into the smallest of pieces works best. The smaller you can cut them up, the more hook-ups you’ll have. Being a schooling fish, when you attract them to an

weight and small diameter, the premix can easily flow with the current as well as create an oil slick on the surface. The smell in the water really gets them going and providing you continue to cast baits into the trail, you’ll be sure to catch them. GARFISH GEAR Given the fact that the majority of garfish you’ll

All the tools for the job, a range of floats, split shot, hooks, bait and berley.

GARFISH catch might only weigh 100-200g, light tackle is a must. There are two main outfits to use for gars, and the first has been around for the best part of over 50 years. Some thirty years ago down at Portsea Pier, my old stomping ground, on any given Saturday or Sunday, a dozen or so regular ‘older’ gentlemen would be sitting on their 20L white buckets with 16-20’ telescopic poles in hand. Once their float bobbed under the water surface, up would come a flickering garfish right into their hands and into the bucket in the blink of an eye. The old-fashioned

“Wog Pole” did the trick and is still widely used today, but is becoming less popular. A standard light 702

don’t need to be too complex. Garfish are a mid to topwater feeders, so you need to suspend the bait just below the surface. This

the small gars to pull under the water and bites might go unnoticed even when the fish tugs on the hook. The buoyancy of the float

Port Phillip Bay has some surprisingly big gars around at the moment.

They might be small and slender but garfish are a lot of fun to catch.

It is best to use a pencil style float, due to their minimal buoyancy, as it allows easy bite detection.

Nibble Tip works a treat these days with a small 1000 size reel, 6lb braid and 4lb leader. Any heavier leader and the freely floating bait will look unnatural as it sinks, so go as light as you possibly can. Rigs are simple and

is achieved by using a float, but not just any float. Often I see a range of floats being used for targeting gars and I believe some anglers miss a lot of fish by using the wrong float. Big bulky oval or round floats make it too hard for

could dislodge the hook. A pencil float is just perfect, given its smaller profile. After being weighted correctly with a few split shot sinkers, the pencil float can easily be pulled under the water with limited To page 10

AUGUST 2018

GARFISH From page 9

effort and prevent hooks from dislodging from the fish. When you are rigging up it is also important to use the right hook. Remember a garfish’s mouth is very small, so use small hooks and when they inhale the bait, small hooks can go right down

allowing the fish to hook themselves without angler assistance. This is a huge benefit, as it will prevent you from pulling the bait away from the fish or pulling the hook out of the fish on the strike. TECHNIQUES While there really

bright sunny day could see them feeding lower near the bottom. It all depends on the day and how they are reacting to angler’s offerings. The trick here is to watch other anglers that are catching them and note the distance between their float and hook.

Frankston Pier is a garfish hotspot.

With the right weighted float, the split second you see the float dip below the surface, that’s the instant you should pull up on the rod tip to firmly set the hook. Knowing just how much will be the difference between hooking a fish or pulling the bait out of its mouth, so a little gentle flick will be enough. Gar fishing is a whole lot of fun and because the action is fast when they are about, they quickly become addictive. Best of all they are quite easy to catch and can provide a tonne of entertainment for the entire family.

When garfish are about, you can easily catch quite a few. Once you have this right, you should be on target. The next key is knowing exactly when to strike. As mentioned earlier, bulky floats will prevent you from seeing the bites.

Fishing early morning or late evening is best for garfish.

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Science meets fishing

Current status of popular coastal fish stocks GEELONG

Ross Winstanley

Each year the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics publishes ‘Fishery status reports’ which update the latest ‘evaluation of the biological and economic status of fish stocks’ managed by the Australian Government, alone or jointly with the states. Released in September 2017, the latest report describes the current state of several stocks of interest to Victorian saltwater anglers. COMMONWEALTH SCALEFISH AND SHARK FISHERIES The key species taken by Commonwealth-managed trawl, gillnet, trap and hook fisheries are managed under Total Allowable Catches or TACs set by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, AFMA. These TACs are reviewed each year by scientific assessment groups and management advisory committees. These bodies are made up of CSIRO, state and independent fisheries scientists, AFMA managers and commercial and recreational fisher members. For the past two years I have been the recreational fisher member of the South East Resource Assessment Group and I can speak to the quality of the monitoring and science underpinning the TAC-setting and review process. The detailed monitoring arrangements for the trawl fishery include a Vessel Monitoring System which tracks the location and trawling activities of every boat, independent on-board observers recording catch and discard data, in-port monitoring of catches (species, weights and sizes)

and detailed shot-by-shot skipper logbook records. In combination, the resulting information enables trends in stock abundance to be assessed and adjustments made to keep the fishery operating at productive and sustainable levels. The TACs are set conservatively after making allowances for deaths resulting from catches by state-based fisheries, discarding of by-catch, and catches taken in surveys. For species where assessments are less certain, ‘discount’ factors are applied, further reducing the final TACs. CONTINENTAL SHELF STOCKS Of the 37 scalefish and shark stocks currently assessed across the southeastern fisheries managed by the Commonwealth, two of interest to Victorian anglers are judged to be overfished: blue warehou (i.e. ‘snotty trevally’) and school sharks. This means their stocks are assessed as being below 20% of their unfished levels. TACs and other management arrangements are in place to rebuild overfished stocks over a period of years. Table 1 summarises the current status of the continental shelf stocks of most interest to Victorian anglers. Blue warehou: commonly known also as ‘snotties’ or ‘haddock’, blue warehou juveniles are popular among anglers fishing from piers in Portland, Apollo Bay and Geelong. Adult fish are taken by anglers fishing offshore from western Victoria. They are also a popular target species for Tasmanian recreational, line and gillnet fishers. The current management objective is to rebuild the stock to 20% of the original unfished level. Targeted fishing for blue

warehou is prevented under a low TAC set to allow landing of by-catch caught incidentally while targeting other species. In 2016/17, only 16t of the 118t TAC was caught. Despite the remedial management measures in place and annual catches remaining below the TAC, the stock continues to be classified as overfished and there is no evidence to indicate that it is recovering to an acceptable level. Elephantfish: There are no concerns about the elephantfish stock; catch rates are high and the total catch is below the limit set for the fishery. The overall recommended catch limit for 2016/17 was set at 306t, allowing for catches by state fisheries and a TAC of 92t by Commonwealthmanaged fisheries. An upsurge in catches and popularity among recreational fishers in Western Port Bay during the 1990s led to the introduction of a three/day bag limit, later reduced to one/day. In the light of the healthy stock status, local fishing charter operators and some anglers have been keen to have the bag limit relaxed in order to encourage participation in this popular seasonal fishery. Flathead: tiger flathead and other ‘toothy’ species make up the majority of commercial flathead catches off Victoria and the main target flathead species for anglers ‘bottom bouncing’ in our coastal waters. The TAC for 2017/18 has been set at 2712t in recognition that the trawl and Danish seine fisheries are operating within sustainable limits for flathead. Gummy shark: after a century of targeted commercial fishing, under the current management regime the stock is in a

sound condition and the catch is below the limit set for the fishery. Estimates indicate that annual ‘pup’ (ie breeding) numbers are well within the target set for maintaining the stock. In the absence of sustainability concerns, the TAC for 2017/18 was set at 1774t. Recreational catches of gummy sharks in Victoria’s two bays have increased in recent years. Silver trevally: most of the silver trevally taken by anglers are an inshore species. Of the offshore species, the 2016/17 catch was just 53t of the 588t TAC. CONTINENTAL SLOPE STOCKS Blue-eye trevalla: this is the main target species for anglers fishing over the continental slope off western Victoria. Using current assessment techniques, the stock is assessed as being in a sound and stable condition and catches in most years are within the recommended levels. New research indicates blue-eye trevalla may consist of several sub-stocks in the region. This, along with a review of assessment and management approaches, is being considered by scientists and managers in 2018. While the 2016/17 catch of 432t exceeded the 410t TAC, annual adjustments to fishery-wide and individual commercial quotas ensure that Commonwealth and state-managed fisheries continue on a sustainable basis. The TAC for 2017/18 has been set at 458t. Gemfish: the stock occurring off our west coast is of most interest to Victorian anglers who line-fish on the continental slope off Portland. Western gemfish are in a sound stable condition (unlike the overfished eastern gemfish stock, which is subject to a rebuilding strategy). Recent

TABLE 1: 2017 ASSESSMENTS OF CONTINENTAL SHELF STOCKS Species Blue warehou Elephantfish Gummy shark Silver trevally Tiger flathead

Stock size overfished not overfished not overfished not overfished not overfished

Comment No evidence that the stock is rebuilding Catches and catch rate are inside recommended ranges Catch is within the recommended range. Pup production is at/above target Catch rates are in the recommended range Catch rates are in the recommended range

Once caught only by commercial fishers, blueeye are now popular among offshore anglers. catches have been below the TAC and the spawning stock size is increasing. In 2016/17, only 73t of the 247t TAC were landed. Pink ling: popular among anglers fishing over the continental slope off western Victoria, the western stock of pink ling is in a stable productive condition. Landings by Commonwealth trawl, line and gillnet fisheries in 2016/17 totalled 912t and the TAC for 2017/18 has been set at 1154t. SOUTHERN BLUEFIN TUNA Southern bluefin tuna: Years ago the global stock was assessed as overfished and an agreed multinational stock rebuilding strategy is in place. However, current estimates show that the adult stock is well below 20% of the unfished biomass or stock size. While the worldwide TAC should allow the stock to rebuild to above this level, there are significant reservations based on unaccounted catches, which could reduce the probability of the stock rebuilding. Those unaccounted

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catches include unreported commercial fishing and recreational and indigenous fishing. Conditions placed on the Australian Government’s approval to export the species include improvements in accounting for catches by recreational fishers by 2018. The AFMA Commission has agreed to setting Australia’s TAC at 6165t for the 2018 season. As part of this decision, the Commission recognised that the commercial sector’s Australian Southern Bluefin Tuna Industry Association has voluntarily agreed to set aside 250t of the 500t increase on Australia’s 2017 national catch allocation to begin to account for the recreational catch. Anglers wanting to find more details about these or other fish stocks subject to Commonwealth management can obtain more information from: • Fishery status reports, 2017 at: www. agriculture.gov.au/abares/ publications#k=#s=11 • www.afma.gov.au/ fisheries/southern-easternscalefish-shark-fishery/

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Science meets fishing

Trawl catches of quality snapper off Victoria GEELONG

Ross Winstanley

From time to time, Victorian anglers have been concerned about commercial catches of snapper by trawlers operating in nearby State and Commonwealth waters. Snapper have been a small part of what is now the Commonwealthmanaged South East Trawl (SET) Fishery’s catches for more than 100 years. Some by-catch of snapper is an unavoidable part of the sector’s 10,000t+ catch of a range of species occurring on the same grounds. It’s what happens to the by-catch that concerns anglers. The Victorian Government manages the State’s commercial snapper fishery, which lands about 100t annually, mainly from Port Phillip Bay, and the recreational fishery, which lands about 500-600t. Victorian and Commonwealth Fisheries authorities operate under an agreement known as the Offshore Constitutional Settlement (OCS). This agreement sets down which jurisdiction will manage which fish stock; under the

OCS agreement, snapper is a State-managed resource. Victoria manages recreational fishing in adjacent State and Commonwealth waters as well as the bays and inlets. In the past, under Commonwealth rules, SET fishers have been required to discard any catch of snapper if they exceeded specified ‘trip limits.’ Most, if not all, discarded snapper are returned to the sea dead. This management measure aimed at discouraging trawl fishers from targeting snapper but had the perverse effect of forcing some of the infrequent catches of snapper to be discarded dead, despite their commercial value. Although the Commonwealth manages trawl-caught snapper, the South East Trawl Fishing Industry Association (SETFIA) and its members are mindful of its importance and sensitivity as a popular recreational species. So in 2013, SETFIA set out to find a way of minimising discards while also limiting commercial by-catch by Commonwealth-managed vessels. The Association initiated a trial off eastern Victoria involving strict ‘move-on’ requirements

on SET vessels that caught snapper, allowing for all unavoidable by-catch to be landed rather than discarded. Under the agreement, SETFIA is able to grant an exemption to the 200kg trip limit provided the skipper can make a case that the snapper were caught unintentionally. Skippers must call and apply for an exemption before landing the snapper. They are questioned about snapper catches on other vessels in

the area and their own recent history of snapper catches. Only skippers who have passed a TAFE-accredited course on this management rule are eligible to apply. When an exemption is granted, the area is closed to further exemptions for a week, prohibiting other vessels from moving into the area to target snapper. All landings under this exemption are pre-reported to the Australian Fisheries

Management Authority (AFMA), providing officers with time to meet and inspect the vessel or follow up later to ensure that the catch was, indeed, unavoidable. All vessels have satellite tracking which enables AFMA to monitor their movements and fishing locations. This move-on trial resulted in reduced SET snapper catches and was hailed as a success by all parties involved. In February

Although the Commonwealth manages trawl-caught snapper, the South East Trawl Fishing Industry Association (SETFIA) and its members are mindful of its importance and sensitivity as a popular recreational species.

2015, this led to a formal co-management agreement between AFMA and SETFIA for the management of trawl caught snapper in waters adjacent to Victoria. SET snapper catches since the co-management arrangement started have been lower than in previous years. Only about 75t of snapper have been landed during the 4.5 years the arrangement has been in place. Average annual landings have dropped from 60t before the trial to 17t following the exemption arrangement. Having two jurisdictions (Victoria and the Commonwealth) managing straddling fish stocks is far from ideal. However, the management of snapper is an example of how well it can work when government and industry stakeholders co-operate. Skippers in the Commonwealth-managed trawl fishery will continue to make every effort to avoid catching snapper. SETFIA’s With permission, this article is a slightly rewritten version of one published on 17 November on the trawl industry association’s e-newsletter at www.setfia. org.au/snappcess.

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National 4X4 Outdoors Show, Fishing & Boating Expo The National 4x4 Outdoors Show, Fishing & Boating Expo will feature thousands of 4x4, fishing, boating, camping and

CFX Outback Stage will provide show visitors with endless entertainment and an excellent assortment of tips, tricks and advice from some

of the Action Arena returns with the All4FMX Show and Cam White Pro BMX Team wowing crowds in one the show’s longest

The family-friendly event will again cater for every interest and budget, with the sheer volume of activities on offer, exhibitors and the vast amount of products being showcased. There will be something for everyone, be it 4x4 aftermarket gear, camper trailers, boats, fishing tackle, wet weather gear, tents or expert advice from those in the know. outdoors products from the industry’s leading retailers when it returns to the Melbourne Showgrounds again for 2018, from the 17-19 August. The family-friendly event, will again cater for every interest and budget, with the sheer volume of exhibitors and products being showcased, ensuring there will be something for everyone, be it 4x4 aftermarket gear, camper trailers, boats, fishing tackle, wet weather gear, tents or expert advice from those in the know. Featuring more than 30,000m2 of the latest and greatest outdoor products and services, the National 4x4 Outdoors Show, Fishing & Boating Expo will be a one-stop for everything possibly needed on your next outback jaunt, with a host of special show-only deals on offer throughout the event. Back by demand will be the popular show feature, Waeco CFX Outback Stage. Not to be missed, the Waeco

Base Camp offers families the chance to truly experience the great Australian outdoors set up as the ultimate interactive campsite. of the biggest names in the industry, including how to best use the Dometic range of products in a twice daily show called ‘Mobile Living Made Easy’. The Catch and Cook Stage will provide visitors with sessions from the likes of Paul Worsteling, plus demonstrations on how to serve up their next big catch along with some taste testing exercises to satisfy event the fussiest of eaters. The action and excitement

AUGUST 2018

Ground. The Amarok V6 4X4 Proving Ground will team up with Four Wheel Drive Victoria to provide a purpose-built track, giving visitors the opportunity to push the new Amarok to the limits on a variety of surfaces, such as a sand trap, water crossing, and compact rock segments. Base Camp also returns offering families the chance to truly experience the great Australian outdoors. Set up as the ultimate interactive campsite, show-goers will be able try and test the latest wares in anticipation for their next trip, including swags, tents and much more. New to Base Camp is a

The Amarok V6 4X4 Proving Ground will team up with Four Wheel Drive Victoria to provide a purpose-built track.

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AUGUST 2018

Variety is the spice of winter fishing life PORT PHILLIP BAY WEST

Alan Bonnici alan@fishingmad.com.au

Port Phillip Bay West has consistently been fishing well this past month. Whiting, squid, salmon, and flathead are around in big numbers and you should expect to catch plenty of them at this time of year. Hopefully, you’ll also manage to find the odd school of pinkies and fingers crossed some active gummy sharks. I have been receiving frequent reports from local anglers and a few close mates who are consistently hitting bag limits on both whiting and squid in areas between Port Melbourne and Werribee. I encourage you, where possible, to cover ground if the bite gets quiet and venture out to areas such as Black Rock, Mornington, Geelong and Queenscliff, which have

also been fishing very well. Remember to keep a keen eye on your sounder and nature’s signals such as breaking surface water and lively bird activity. The flathead fishing in Port Phillip Bay has been wonderful this past month and I have managed to catch many flathead drifting around on my kayak in locations around Werribee, Point Cook, Altona, and Williamstown. I managed to catch a couple of large flatties over 65cm flicking soft plastics like the Savage Gear motor oil pro grubs and Berkley Gulp turtleback worm. This was all part of an exercise to create a comprehensive instructional video guide on targeting flathead with both lures and baits, so scan the QR code hereby to see watch it! Fishing around Melbourne can be tough going at times. It’s a highlypopulated and competitive

Nick Keeling got a surprise landing this 51cm snapper all the way up the Maribyrnong River.

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landscape and we don’t have an abundance of fish species like other states. A fishing report released on social media generally means that a spot will be cram packed with anglers the next day. I’m always fascinated by what style of fishing techniques and what fish species appeals to different anglers. A good example of this is how I have a couple of mates who week after week fish at the same few locations targeting the same fish species, with the aim of mastering their technique. Despite the repetitive nature of what they are doing they absolutely love it, in fact, they can’t get

enough of it! Fine-tuning the smallest details such as an adjustment to a casting technique or a tweak to bait presentation is enough the build anticipation for weeks. My fishing journey has taken a very different approach, and I’m intentionally targeting as many fish species as possible using various fishing methods, and forcing myself to learn new techniques and new strategies. In recent weeks I have taken this to another level to keep things interesting, one-day targeting squid, the next day bream, then trout then flathead and so one. Each

of these species requires their own unique setup and approach. Well in advance I prepare a mental strategy to force me to explore new locations and target different species. For me, it keeps fishing exciting and allows me to travel to an array of beautiful destinations around Melbourne and Victoria. It has been a great way to test new techniques, trial different products and meet other anglers. This past month has been both extremely challenging and rewarding at the same time. I have battled cold windy conditions, but managed to catch some amazing fish including a beautiful large brown trout from Moorabool Reservoir that took a yellow Savage Gear 3D Prey Minnow and a brute of a bream in the upper reaches of the Maribyrnong River that took a Savage Fathead Crank. Nick Keeling got a pleasant surprise this month while venturing well up the Maribyrnong River with good mate Puneeth. Both were having a great day enjoying some needed winter sun, catching their fair share of ‘Nong bream while flicking the banks with lures. The guys wondered past Avondale Heights when suddenly Nick’s Ecogear SX40 hardbody lure was annihilated by something a little too big to be a bream, and to Nick’s delight, it was a 51cm snapper! This is a very interesting catch by Nick for a couple of key reasons. Firstly, finding snapper this far upstream is very uncommon, and Nick suspects this was a lone

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The author took this pair of lovely lizards drifting in his kayak.

snapper lost in its travels, and the other reason is that he managed to land the snapper on light bream gear while the snapper bent and broke both the trebles of the SX40. The salmon fishing has

While the conditions have been cold, Dell Reyal has been staying away from the bay and seeking out new rivers in search of monster carp. His efforts have paid off and Dell sent through this photo of a

more articles. That’s all from me this month, please share your recent fishing experiences around Melbourne and Port Phillip Bay so they can be added to next month’s article. Contact me by

CREATE YOUR ADVENTURES Watch out for bird activity if you’re looking for salmon. been a little hit and miss around Port Phillip Bay so far. Last month I wrote about keeping your eyes out for bird activity, which is a great sign of schooling salmon. Glenn Moss kindly sent me the photo taken near the Altona boat ramp, which represents this

15kg monster mud marlin that he landed using a tinned sweet corn as bait in a dam he located heading towards Melton. You can only imagine how many eggs a carp with a belly as big as that is holding, but this is a fun form of fishing and one hell of a catch.

email – alan@fishingmad. com.au. Also check out my website www.fishingmad. com.au, and social media pages Facebook – facebook.com/fishingmad. com.au, YouTube channel – youtube.com/c/fishingmad and Instagram – instagram. com/fishingmad.com.au.

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Dell with a ‘mud marlin’ taken from an urban lake on tinned corn. perfectly. There were active birds and schools of salmon everywhere. The reports came far and wide that night of people bagging out on salmon that day around Altona, Williamstown and Port Melbourne. I’m hoping to get amongst the salmon fishing in coming months and will be actively watching out for nature’s signs to point us in the right direction.

It’s hard to believe that this month’s article chalks up my one-year milestone of writing for the magazine. They say time flies when you’re having fun and it sure has gone fast. It’s been a pleasure covering all things fishing for Port Phillip Bay West and connecting with local anglers in the fishing community. I look forward to writing many

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Scan the QR Code to see the author’s guide to targeting flathead on lures and baits. AUGUST 2018

Focus on squid in the cold windy weather PORT PHILLIP EAST

Lee Rayner info@fishingfever.com.au

They forecasted a cold winter and, so far, the weather experts have been spot on with some icy mornings and cold, clear days, not to mention some wet and windy ones too. On the fishing front the calm conditions have made it absolutely perfect for the squid and needless to say these have been the main focus for anglers. MORDIALLOC TO BLACK ROCK It’s funny how at this time of the year the landbased fishing is often equally good and in some cases even better than fishing in the boats. The past few weeks have been no different with lots of great fishing opportunities on offer for the landbased fishers. Mordialloc Creek has been producing some great mullet over the past weeks. The best fishing comes

when there has been a little bit of colour in the water, while out on the pier it has been a squid and garfish fiesta with great numbers of both species being taken on a daily basis, especially around dawn and dusk. Out in the boats it’s a similar story, with anglers chasing and finding great numbers of squid and garfish all the way from Mordialloc right up to Beaumaris and Ricketts Point. Then on top of this there have been plenty of pinkies holding on the hard reef areas such as the Parkdale Pinnacles. For the land-based crew Beaumaris Pier and its surrounding rocky shoreline has been producing excellent numbers of calamari on a daily basis and best of all, you don’t need to just fish the pier to get them, as a lot of good reports are coming from anglers fishing all along the rocks either side of the pier. Further around at Ricketts Point and up to

Black Rock the pinkie fishing has been really good with numbers of 30-40cm fish on offer for both lure and bait anglers. Land-based squid anglers have also had plenty of action along the rock wall and walking path past the northern city end of the marine park, as the calamari move into the shallow reef areas here on the late afternoon high tides. To the north of the track you will find the Half Moon Bay car park and boat ramp, and it’s off here that a lot of boats are fishing for the pinkies of an afternoon and evening and finding plenty of fish. Once it gets dark landbased anglers have also been getting into some solid numbers and sizes of pinkies while fishing landbased off the retaining wall that surrounds the car park, and let’s face it; what could be better than being able to sit in the car with the heater on while watching your rods?

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SANDRINGHAM TO ST KILDA With the cold weather comes the good pinkie fishing in this part of the world. Land-based anglers are getting into the pinkie snapper off the end of the Sandringham Breakwall and the Hampton Rock Groynes, and while there are fish to be caught on any evening it’s the rougher onshore blows that really make this area come alive, as the fish push into the shallows to feed under the cover of low light and stirred-up water. Another great idea is fishing directly off the beach near on the northern end of the beach near Green Point; in this area the shoreline is a bit deeper with some rock and reef nearby, which tends to attract the pinkies at night. Further north Brighton

Breakwall has had a steady procession of anglers fishing along the front edge for pinkies while others have been targeting the inside of the wall, where a bit of berley has seen some trevally and pinkies being taken and a few squid getting in on the action also. Another great option here is to fish the outside bend of the wall where it turns. In a northerly wind you can use a fine branstyle berley that will carry to the north and berley up some of the great garfish that are on offer at present. ST KILDA TO PORT MELBOURNE As the water cools right off this month the fishing can be quite good in this part of the bay, with good numbers of pinkies on offer for the land-based anglers along all of the piers. As

an added bonus, during August we tend to get a fair few northerly-based winds, which makes this part of the bay the perfect location to fish as its an offshore wind, so you can fish in a howling gale if you want, and – even better – any berley will carry out into the bay, which in turn allows it to attract more fish to your area. For the boat fishers it’s well worth putting in the hours around the old Princess Pier on first and last light, where fishing with a good berley trail and lightly weighted baits can see you into some great action on the pinkies and even some late season big snapper. So there you have it for August – sure it’s cold but there is some great fishing on offer, so rug up and get out there.

FISHING NEWS

A better way to attach braid to leader FG knots have all but revolutionised the way that anglers attach braid to leader. In the early days people did it with modified Albrights, and sometimes those would let go. Do it with an FG knot, however, and the connection is well nigh indestructible. It works with anything from big GT popping rods down to barra rods down to the bream end of the spectrum. There’s a problem though – the FG is a reasonably complicated knot to tie if you don’t know how to do it properly. T h a t ’s where the FG Wizz tool comes in. It puts the perfect amount of pressure on the braided line. Designer Ray Fewell said he originally wanted to learn to tie the FG knot because it allows for longer leaders without fear of getting caught on the rod guides when casting, which had happened to him several times. “Everything I saw on the internet suggested there had to be a better way to achieve the result,” he said. “I had several versions before coming up with the FG Wizz. It looks simple but it is made with precision to

ensure that it’s reliable and ties a neat, uniform knot every time, regardless of braid and leader weight.” If you’ve never tied an FG knot before, or you’ve given the knot one awkward try before deciding to return to the inferior Albright, check out our YouTube video on the FG Wizz at youtube.com/user/ FishingMonthly. In the video, Fishing Monthly Managing Editor Steve Morgan tries out Ray Fewell’s FG Wizz.

the tool without ever having used it before, and in the process discovered just how simple it is to use. The FG Wizz dismantles to a compact and convenient size, is solidly made and works for braid/ leader joins of all sizes. To find out more or to place an order, visit www.fgwizz. com.au. - FM

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AUGUST 2018

Don’t make excuses – just get out there! PORT PHILLIP NE

Wayne Friebe wfriebe@bigpond.net.au

The cold and windy winter weather has continued for the past month on the bay, and unlike the same time last year, we have had plenty of rainfall and extended periods of strong winds. Some morning frosts on the calmer days have also made early starts a bit of challenge for the dedicated anglers. Traditionally, us Victorians like to think of all kinds of excuses not to go fishing on the bay in winter, and with plenty of other fishing

options further afield, and other activities on offer as well, I don’t really blame them. But if you’re like me and you love spending time on the bay over winter, there’s plenty of fishing options for all anglers. The annual spawning migration of snapper is only just around the corner, and while many of the snapper diehards out there are thinking about getting everything ready for the upcoming season, there are still plenty of resident reds in PPB if you’re willing to put in the hours. Bite windows are normally short-lived, but the quality of the winter reds can more than make up the

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difference. This winter we have enjoyed a prolonged late run of winter snapper out from the wider marks around Mornington and Mount Martha, and this is normally a feature around the changes of seasons in late autumn. Smaller pinkie snapper and school-sized fish have also been reported by those anglers fishing the inshore areas and reefs, both at anchor with baits, and fishing lures from a drifting boat. Be prepared to endure some undersized fish, and also to return these juveniles back to the water unharmed. Anglers’ interest in the

Winter sunsets are certainly worth rugging up for when they turn out like this one from last month.

A ripper run of winter gars has been a feature over the last month. This bag was taken from Mornington Pier by Harry Bould. deeper snapper marks have also been enhanced by some reliable fishing for gummy sharks, especially in our local areas, and also further south. A few nice snapper have been taken by these anglers as well, but it’s great to see such quality fishing for gummies in PPB this winter, not just next door in Western Port. Anglers have been reporting that fillet baits of salmon and slimy mackerel have been best, and fresh trevally is also a great gummy bait. Be prepared to put up with a fair bit of by-catch, but the rewards are worth it when it all comes together. The wider

marks in 18-21m out from Mornington to safety Beach have been very reliable, as well as a variety of marks further south as well. The squid fishing has still been very good after a slower start this year in our local areas, but has slowed in recent times with the wind and rain. Expect the fishing to improve as the water clears, but be prepared to fish darker colored jigs slower and closer to the bottom for the best results in the meantime. Some great ‘bread and butter’ fishing has been the real feature of the past month, and has bought back

plenty of happy memories of my ‘jetty rat’ days growing up on the shores of Western Port. Numerous anglers have reported some ripper garfish being taken from the piers and rocks. This run of gars is in line with similar fishing at the same time last year, and is certainly keeping anglers busy on the clear and calm winter days, with big bags of fish up to 40cm on offer. The use of berley is crucial to keep the fish on the chew, and it doesn’t hurt to keep a larger bait or lure in the area at the same time, with some big salmon hanging around the gars, especially from the larger piers. Plenty of salmon have been taken right along the eastern shoreline over the last month, with anglers trolling lures and spinning from the shore as well. Big schools of salmon have been in residence around the Mornington area since the summer months and have been popping up regularly close to shore and around the pier. The back beaches

Some big winter whiting have been around over the last month at the southern end of the bay.

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have been producing some nice fish as well, particularly by anglers casting lures and following the schools of fish down the beach. Whiting reports have been little slow so far this winter, but I expect this to change in the coming months as water temperatures increase. Those fish that have been reported have been big, but smaller numbers of fish have been taken. The bream fishing in Patterson Lakes has been excellent of late, and they have been taken mostly on soft plastics fished slowly on the bottom. The bait anglers have been doing very nicely as well. There has been plenty of freshwater action in Devilbend as well, with some nice trout, redfin and even a few perch on the move as well. The weather might be cold (and pretty ordinary at times), but there’s still plenty on offer on PPB in winter for those anglers keen to have a crack.

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Anglers get a break from the typical winter wind MORNINGTON PENINSULA

Julian Frank

We’re almost through winter now and usually the weather is pretty average at this time of year, with most days being windy, wet and unfishable for most anglers. This year we seem to have caught a break with clear, sunny or overcast days, occasional rain, but none of the usual

southerly fronts pushing up. Even though the fishing has died down a little and it’s very cold, our local waters have been producing some fantastic fish. MOUNT MARTHA A few land-based snapper are on the cards at the moment, and fish are still being caught out wide on the mud. Squid will do the trick with a little berley to draw the fish in. You can often expect to

find a number of barracouta showing up in the shallows, with big schools swimming through on late evenings feeding on small baitfish and shrimp. You’ll also find a number of cowanyoung (‘horse mackerel’) amongst them. Both are great baits to start stocking up on for any upcoming gummy trips or for snapper season. The easiest method we find to catch these is with small strips of pilchard or squid unweighted with a

An average-size calamari for Blairgowrie taken on a red jig.

Bernard Abrams landed this donkey off Rosebud on a squid strip.

small circle hook. There have been reports of a few whiting kicking about that can be caught land-based off the beaches in the evening, and although the squid have started to thin out a bit there are still good numbers around and some cracker sizes to them. ROSEBUD It has been a typical year on the snapper front with many boaters still finding and landing fish out between Rosebud and Rye. I guess this is no surprise though, as we always have resident fish that remain inside the bay all year round. Although the bite has been a bit spread out the late mornings seem to be the go with fresh squid

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being the best bait. BLAIRGOWRIE TO PORTSEA Land-based the piers have been fairly busy lately. Plenty of anglers are fishing for squid and taking good catches into the night. Bait fishos can expect flathead and salmon in the early mornings and during the day, and occasionally there have been trevally amongst the salmon. Plenty of salmon have been taken in the evenings around Sorento Pier on both lures and baits. The best lures have been soft plastic minnows. Lipless crank-style baits and some metals have also worked well. From Portsea Pier we have had great reports of garfish that have been hanging around. It’s certainly been a while since we have

for the best results and work around the slack water. BACK BEACHES Gunnamatta is still the hotspot for salmon. Some better-size fish have moved

in closer and are readily taking baits and lures. High tide has been the best time to fish. Rye back beaches have also been good spots for a few of the local anglers, particularly if you want to get away from the crowd. Most of the fish being caught have been within the 1.2kg mark with the odd 2kg model. For more local knowledge, information and up-to-date reports drop in to see the staff at the Compleat Angler in Rosebud.

The author with a nice salmon at Gunnamatta.

Gummies providing great eating and entertainment OFFSHORE

Gerry Morsman

I’m noticing a trend while going through reports and I told myself I wasn’t going to follow suit and write the same thing, but it’s getting too bloody cold not to, so here we go: it’s cold. It’s a shame that this puts so many anglers off, because the fishing is as good as ever. You just need to change a few things up and fishing offshore is a good start. The

colder, so make sure to bring plenty of extra terminal tackle like hooks, swivels, sinkers and leaders. I can almost guarantee there will be a couple of bite-offs due to the seven-gillers’ serrated teeth. Some people like to eat them and if that’s you then I suggest you get out there now because there is no shortage of them. If you haven’t seen or caught some of the big offshore salmon, I recommend you give it a try. There are plenty around and you can’t miss them, as

Aaron Habgood with a good snapper. water out there has been around 15-16°C, so most of the warmer weather fish like snapper and whiting have made their way out of the bays and onto the offshore reefs. Yes, there is generally always somewhere to hide in the bays and there are still some cracking fish to be caught, but those who are willing to head out offshore and give it a go are coming home with a good feed almost every time. The people who haven’t packed their boats up for footy season are definitely reaping the rewards. Even on the so-called bad days of fishing, you can always rely on a good feed of flathead and if you’re lucky, you’ll come across the tiger flathead which are just as beautiful on the dinner plate. By all reports you are in with a good chance at them at the moment as they have been around in great numbers; the best method has been drifting with small squid strips. The gummy shark fishing has been sensational as per usual and it is by far my favourite thing to do in the colder months. They will fish well all the way through the year and seem to get better through the colder months when everyone has given up. There have also been a lot of sevengill sharks around as the water gets

they usually have a flock of diving birds over them and the water seems to be boiling with Australian salmon up to 4kg as they chomp baitfish in a feeding frenzy. Hardbodied lures, metal slugs and plastics have all been getting the job done. By throwing them straight

into the schools, you will usually only need a couple of winds back on the reel before you hook up and once you do these fish are great little Aussie battlers. Some like to eat them, but with the amount of good gummy sharks around I’d much prefer them in chunks and on a size 8/0 big bait circle hook. How awesome is tuna in our own backyard? Some of these tuna are well over 100kg and the school fish are in great numbers. I’m not sure why they are here in such good numbers either; maybe it’s because there is so much bait due to recent changes, or maybe the currents have aligned perfectly for us. Whatever it is, I’m loving every bit of it and love hearing the stories from mates out there giving it a crack and trying to boat that Melbourne trophy. All reports suggest that they are in around 60m of water. Although they have been on the surface and feeding, fishos say they have been very hard to catch, throwing all kinds of lures at them with no luck. A good mate told me that unweighted pilchards have been the go and if he reads this, I’m in trouble for opening my big mouth. But hey – I’ve got a job to do, mate. You know who you are and I owe you a beer. Who doesn’t like a feed of fresh flake? It also makes you pretty popular with the in-laws too, which is quite handy. Gawaine Blake has been getting out and doing very well. He turns left at Seal Rock, finds a nice drop-off on the sounder

Gawaine with a gummy shark. and anchors in around 30m of water. Gawaine said, “Most people while targeting gummy sharks offshore will just drift and while that has proven to be a successful method, so has anchoring up just like we do in the bays. Gummy sharks have a great nose on them, so if you have a nice fresh bait down there, they are sure to sniff it out and come to you.” Don’t give up on the snapper yet, fellow fishers. Here is proof that there is still some hungry snapper around: Aaron Habgood has been having a field day on them. He reports there are plenty of fish offshore around the Barwon Heads area. As I said earlier, the water is still around 15-16°C out there. Snapper tend to start getting on the chew in our bays when the water gets to about 17°C, so it’s nothing like winter snapper fishing in the bays, which is very slow fishing. The good thing about fishing for snapper offshore is that you never know what you might get as by-catch and having a bait rod down means constant action the whole time you’re

works best for you. Luke Gardiner headed out near Seal Rock in around 35m of water and landed a decent gummy shark. When Luke heads out he brings nothing but a bag of pilchards and a little bit of local knowledge. He finds some nice reefy area and uses small chunks of pilchard to catches barbers perch and parrotfish, which he uses as bait. This has proved to be dynamite bait for Luke and a lot of other offshore and inshore anglers. Andrew Palling and his boys have been following online reports and noticed

There are huge amounts of plate-sized pinkies out there and they are very aggressive late in the afternoon and early mornings. Slow pitch jigging for them is a must-try. out there, which is pretty uncommon in a lot of fishing circumstances. Mark Keaveny likes to drift while fishing for gummy sharks offshore and has had a lot of success throughout the years using this technique. He often finds the schools of salmon for bait or big chunks of arrow squid. There are many ways to catch these hard-fighting and amazing table fish. You just need to find out what

how good the fishing is offshore. The boys wouldn’t give up asking their dad to take them out there, which none of them had tried before and by all reports there will be no turning back. Why would you after the day they had? The trio landed two nice gummies and a ripper little mako shark. How cool is that this time of year? Great stuff, fellas – I’ll send my address for a piece of that mako.

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When fishing on reefy ground offshore you never know what you might catch. This cuttlefish took a liking to a big parrotfish chunk bait and was hooked on the author’s big bait octopus circle hook, providing more bait and a nice feed all in one.

This offset circle design is the perfect deepwater bottom fishing hook with paternoster ‘dropper-style’ rigs or normal boat fishing with cut baits. When using this hook, anglers do not strike on the bite, rather the fish is allowed to run with the bait and as the line comes tight, the hook will roll into the corner of the fish’s mouth. This is a great hook to use for ‘lazy’ rigs fished from a rod holder as fish simply hook themselves.

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There is plenty on offer at the end of winter WESTERN PORT NTH

Jarrod Day jarrodday@iprimus.com.au

Can you smell it? That’s the sweet smell of the spring air approaching. I know it may be weeks away, but the good news is that we are getting closer to it and that means snapper.

but it’s the prime time to be catching Australian salmon, pike, snook, calamari and garfish. Recently, the garfish have been plentiful, especially along the Quail Bank and the top of the Middle Spit. Just south of Eagle Rock a weed bed runs southwest of the north cardinal marker. This area has been producing

also target garfish at this time of the year, but it pays to be a little adventurous with your fishing location. Hastings Pier yields some good fish on the high tide, but you will need to berley to bring them in off the nearby shallows. Alternatively, you can find your way to the beach near the Crib Point Refinery jetty and fish from

The Tankerton area is a top location for calamari. In saying that, August is when we start targeting snapper. This is the time of year that they begin to enter the port and I’d bet down that some reds are already in the port and making their way up to the Top End. For the past ten years I have reported that early season catches of snapper tend to occur in the north of the port and they always do. Long Reef (adjacent to Hastings) is one such location, closely followed by Joes Island and then Bouchier or Boultins channels. Each August/September, reports of snapper come from these three locations, so if you’re keen on an early red, head north and try your luck.

some good quality garfish on the high tides. A little further south another location known as ‘Sunken Island’ is also another garfish hotspot and has been for quite some time. Fishing for gars in Western Port can be a challenge due to the tidal influence, but providing you fish an hour either side of the high tide change, you’ll still be able to fish with a float setup. As the tide strength increases, try fishing a paternoster rig with two droppers each containing a no. 12 hook. Use a light sinker – something like a 1oz bomb – and send it out the back about 2m deep. The pressure of the water will lift

Fishing the reef around Joes Island is good for a mixed bag of species. August is also a top time of the year to be out collecting baits to use for snapper. The water temperature may be cold, 32

AUGUST 2018

the rig higher in the water column and if you’re using berley, you’ll continue to catch gars all tide. Land-based anglers can

they are the most universal bait for snapper, now is a better time than any to catch them to use as bait for when the reds show up in numbers. That is, if you can refrain from eating them yourself. Pike and snook are also plentiful at the moment and barracouta should be by the middle of this month. These three species might not be high on an angler’s priority list of species to catch, but once again they make great oily baits for gummies and snapper. Catching pike, snook and ‘couta can be done by trolling. A 90-100mm diving lure trolled along the edges of the Middle Spit in around 5m of water tends to be productive, but you can also work around Crawfish and Eagle rocks and have a fair chance at catching silver trevally and salmon. Those working the high tide in these areas seem to have more success than if fishing the low. Land-based fishing has been a little slower over the past few weeks, with most successful reports coming from the Warneet Jetty. Yellow-eye mullet, silver trevally and the odd

There has been no shortage of calamari throughout the Port. Photo courtesy of Shaun Furtiere.

Trolling around Eagle Rock can provide you with some good fresh baits ready for snapper season. there on the high tide for the same result. Calamari have been extremely thick in numbers all winter and have shown no signs of slowing up. One local charter operator has been putting his clients onto some memorable calamari by fishing along the edges with plenty caught. Tyabb Bank, Quail Bank and the Middle Spit have all been productive locations as well as along the western side of the north arm right down to Crib Point. White and red coloured jigs have yielded the most catches. Anglers fishing from the Stony Point Pier during the night have also been catching some nice calamari. A baited jig has been the most effective technique on the top of the high tide. With so many calamari in the port and the fact that

salmon have been caught and are a lot of fun for the kids if you’re looking for something to do locally. Just remember, it pays to take some berley to bring them on the bite. The next few weeks are really going to change the way anglers think with the snapper re-entering the Port on their annual run. If you are going to head out and

try your luck, it pays to use fresh bait and fish the top end. Do your homework and look at recent fishing reports from social media pages and your local tackle store to get a good idea on exactly where to go. Though you might have an unsuccessful trip from time to time, when you do hook up it will be a solid red at this time of the year.

The Tyabb Bank has a very healthy population of calamari at the moment.

Snapper are due to come back on the bite WESTERN PORT STH

Jarrod Day jarrodday@iprimus.com.au

The reds are arriving and this month it’s a good idea to get ready to head out in search of that big red. This early in the season the size of the snapper tends to be much larger. It’s not uncommon to catch a 6-8lb or larger

water. You’ll see the most action by positioning yourself on the edge of the channel. Towards the end of August, fishing in the deep water around Observation Point can be very productive. The depth ranges from 13-15m and a significant amount of snapper hold in this location, but it doesn’t really fire up until the end of August/ beginning of September. In the past week I have

Snapper are beginning to move into the Port. Fishing around Corinella is your best chance at catching an early season fish.

Johnny Zhu displays a solid handful of winter whiting. Photo courtesy of Shaun Furtiere. red as they head into the system to begin spawning. While the hoards of fish move up the western and eastern entrances, some break off and move up the north arm to the top of the port while others head up to Corinella and around the back of French Island. Corinella is another early season location where plenty of snapper are caught right throughout the season. Known as Spit Point, this shallow sand spit juts out from French Island and is a well-known early season snapper hotspot. It pays to launch at Corinella and work up the Channel, sounding as you go to find the fish. Once you do, set anchor and deploy baits back into the current. You have a fair chance at a solid gummy here, so use good quality baits. The mouth of the Tenby Point channel also produces good fish on the first few hours of the run-out tides. During the high, the fish get up onto the shallows searching for food and, as the tide abates, they drop back into the deeper

heard of only a few snapper reports from the Corinella/ Elizabeth Island area and these will only become more frequent as the month wears on and more anglers hit the water. Snapper aside, the whiting fishery is still going strong with quality fish coming from Coronet Bay, Dickies Bay and inside Cleeland Bight. Kayak anglers tend to do quite well launching from the beach at Coronet Bay and paddling out around 500m into 5m of water. There are myriad sand patches and weed beds at this depth that hold whiting all year. However, the fish are quite scattered, so if you’re working this area, it pays to use a little berley to bring them to where you’re fishing. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can work down towards Reef Island. The closer you get to Reef

Kayak anglers have been doing well fishing out from Coronet Bay and around Reef Island.

strong around Phillip Island. Cape Woolamai and Anzacs Beach have been producing salmon ranging from 500g1.2kg and they have been consistent with each high tide. The morning high tides have seen greater numbers of fish move in close with blue bait and pipis the top baits to be used. Though these two beaches have been crowded with anglers at times, it pays to go off the beaten track and explore other nearby beaches. Further south to Anzacs Beach, known as the Colonnades, this beach also fishes extremely well and is rarely visited by anglers throughout the winter salmon season. This beach can be found at the end

The whiting off Coronet Bay might not be the biggest the port has to offer but they are around in fair numbers. Island, the heavier the reef becomes and you’ll have a very good chance of catching a few rock flathead. There are also plenty of calamari in this area, so it pays to have a squid jig on hand too. Working the edges of the weed from Coronet Bay right down to Dickies Bay is where you’ll see most of the whiting action. The fishing methods are the same but you’ll just have to look for the sand patches before setting the anchor. Land-based anglers have also been doing well from under the bridge to the end of the entrance. Fishing during the high tide has been productive for both whiting and calamari, although the whiting have been more productive from under the sand dunes adjacent to Woolamai. The bottom along this stretch is sandy and always produces quality winter whiting. If you are after calamari however, fishing from Cleeland Bight at the end of ‘the cranny’ is extremely productive. Baited jigs are the most productive technique; use a silver whiting for bait. It’s imperative that you fish the top of the high tide and around an hour into the run-out. Another productive location for land-based

calamari has been the San Remo Jetty, but it’s not the easiest jetty to fish from. The tide can rip through here at a rate of knots, so getting your timing right is imperative. The best fishing is around an hour either side of the high tide change. A bait jig will work best.

of Tampa Road on Phillip Island and has more than adequate car parking. In fact, right around the Phillip Island coastline, all the surf beaches are fishing well for salmon. The technique is quite simple; use berley and cast out a paternoster rig. Blue

Fishing the surf beaches around Phillip Island has been extremely productive for salmon. Keeping on with the landbased theme, this time of year really doesn’t get any better, as there are so many locations to fish from and so many fish to catch. While we might only have a few weeks left of winter, the run of salmon is still going

bait and pipis are the top bait choices. By the end of the month there will be less salmon with the increase in water temperature. If you’re thinking of doing a little surf fishing, the time is now, before they are all gone. AUGUST 2018

Get the baits ready for snapper PHILLIP ISLAND

Craig Edmonds

The best thing about this time of the year is that the worst of the weather is generally behind us

with spring just around the corner. While most are now just starting to gear up for the season and picking up some new items for the tackle box, the smarter ones have been out over the winter

collecting bait already and have a freezer full of fresh snapper baits. It has been a good winter for bait collecting with calamari, ‘couta and salmon plentiful at times. We have had quiet patches,

A fair calamari for the table.

but this is normal and more to do with the winter weather making fishing difficult, if not impossible. If you are still to start collecting, do yourself a favour; head down to the shops and purchase a small vacuum sealer to do your bait. They are inexpensive, and it makes a huge difference to the quality of your bait once you come to use it. While you are out looking at new rods and reels, think about your terminal tackle – it’s amazing how many stories I get each season of fish lost to cheap hooks and swivels, most of the time from people using very expensive rods and reels. It’s also a good time to have a look at those rods that have been moved around the shed a dozen times over the winter. Check that they haven’t broken or cracked a guide. Fighting the fish of a lifetime is not the time to discover your gear has a problem. While much of the fishing has been restricted to land-based anglers, there has been the odd break in the weather to put the boat in the water. It’s just a little on the cold side. This season I have seen an increase of fishers standing on the surf beaches, which has naturally lead to an increase in reports. I’m not sure why,

Anything is possible offshore on those calm winter days. towards the Powlett from Cemetery Beach, while the numbers have been better at Woolamai. One thing that has been different this year is that many of the reports from Woolamai have been to the right in the shallower water and not in the deep on the left. Evenings and

especially when fishing on the shallower banks and gutter edges. Calamari were patchy compared to the last couple of seasons, but still if you put in the time you will have had plenty of meals and no shortage in the freezer for baits. From the land I have had reports

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except that schools of salmon that have been seen swimming in the surf this winter have definitely been better than over the last couple of years. The reports of salmon seen in the surf have been good, both on the island beaches and at Kilcunda. Kilcunda has been the place to be heading for bigger salmon back

tide changes during the day have been the best at Woolamai while early mornings regardless of tide have been best at Kilcunda With so many small crabs around this winter, surf poppers have been a must. The smaller hook, 2/0 or 4/0 snapper snatcher rigs have been just as good. Lures have accounted for plenty of salmon,

from all of the jetties and at times the reports from Newhaven Jetty have been better than from the normal San Remo Jetty. It’s probably because of the weather being a bit cold. Evening has been the best time to chase the calamari from everywhere. I have had the odd report from during the day, but To page 35

Anglers are exploring a new squid fishery 2.5 size jigs in either bright colours or black. A major key to success is to explore the area. Once you’ve hooked a squid have repeated casts in this same area – this will usually lead to multiple squid being caught from the same area.

LAKES ENTRANCE

Steven Pryke

The Gippsland region is in the heart of the winter blues with crisp, cold mornings. Ice is a common sight and with challenging conditions anglers have to pull out their ski gear if they’re keen to hit the water early in the morning. Cunningham Arm has settled down into its winter patterns with schools of trevally, luderick and King

the action with anglers gathering each day in search of quality fishing. Anglers have mostly targeted these

fish with traditional bait fishing methods, either with a paternoster float rig allowing them to set a bait at a certain level in the water column baited with prawns or pilchard fillets. Cunningham Bridge has been highly fished recently with large schools of squid turning up. Traditionally the Gippsland Lakes don’t have a squid fishery, but with the Lakes Entrance bar being at its deepest ever, these squid have ventured into the lakes system in search of food and areas to spawn. Anglers have taken full advantage of this unknown fishery; the bridge and shoreline banks consistently have anglers targeting these squid. Anglers have mostly used

The Cunningham Arm is an ideal area for the shore-based anglers. With squid like this around, it’s going to become a popular spot. LAKE TYERS The top end of Lake Tyers is still producing consistently, with the odd flathead on the chew and schooling bream around. Anglers have struggled at times lately but are making the most of

From page 34

they have only come from the hour before or after the tide. Boating was better for fishing recently and drifting Cleeland Bight has been the best option. Few anglers have fished in the evenings for calamari from boats. Those heading out in their boat have been adding a calamari session into a day’s fishing while looking for other fish. Only a few reports have come from the Ventnor beaches but some good catches have come in from Cleeland Bight after about 3pm when we had the late afternoon high tide. It hasn’t mattered if

A good offshore catch with pinkies and a gummy shark.

higher in the Nowa Nowa Arm. Small soft plastic grubs are highly effective worked slowly down these drop-offs. Deeper water blading has also been highly productive once you’ve locating schooling bream. Small

for a fish lately and have a great pic, please send it to stevenprykefishing@ gmail.com with a short description and you could be in the next edition of Victoria & Tasmania Fishing Monthly.

you were in a boat or on the land. The sizes of the calamari were inconsistent and everybody said their bag contained one of a different size. Anglers have been using a mixture of baited and artificial jigs. Whether it came down to the condition of the water or colours is anybody’s guess; one day the pick was white, the next black. If you want bragging rights for the first snapper of the season, now is the time to think about heading down to the jetty for an overnight session or brave the cold and drop the boat in. I start getting reports mid-August, then there will be a gap in the reports

through September and they will fire up again in October. It can be difficult at this time of the year with plenty of rubbish fish still around and plenty of weed following a storm, but if you are prepared to persevere and put in the time, you will generally be rewarded. What often happens is those who target the early snapper as a by-catch come home with a decent-size gummy or even that elusive mulloway. The tricks to fishing the early season are quality berley, fishing tide changes and fresh bait. Don’t be afraid to use bigger baits, either.

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metal blades in natural greens and olives worked tight to the bottom with small hops will usually pull up results, even on the tougher days. HAVE YOU BEEN FISHING? If you have been out

Quality sounders are extremely handy. This image was taken from the top of Nowa Nowa.

Large duskies are still on the move – the shallow mud flats are ideal areas to start the search for the fish while they warm up in the shallows. George whiting gathering around our local wharfs. The Ferrymen Café wharf has been the centre of

marine electronics and cover plenty of water. This effort will ultimately end with anglers putting a few fish in the boat. Steep, rocky edges have been a favourite with bream anglers lately. Schools have been working the rocky edges

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enough, cast some more. Working rocky points, timber, and banks is a good way to start. There isn’t any shortage of structure in the lake, so the fish can literally be anywhere – it’s just time on the water. The more you’re out there,

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Darren Weda has his finger on the pulse when it comes to Lake Eildon cod. He has put in the effort and he gets the rewards. Check out this 1m+ beast of a greenback. fishing that has really taken off. With huge numbers of Australia’s favourite native getting stocked yearly, you can see why this is Australia’s new trophy cod fishery. PRIME TIME With the cod closed season now being lifted, if you’re after a trophy fish, winter and spring is by far the prime time to fish. It’s freezing cold and tough fishing, but the rewards are there for those who put in the effort and 1m+ fish are a real possibility for those who try. THE GEAR The swimbait craze is alive and well and a dedicated rod to throw these

some of the lighter stuff. Braid like the Siglon PEx8 in 40-60lb is ideal. BAIT AND LURES There is a wide variety of ways to catch these fish and it’s always good to mix it up and have a variety of lures. Lucky Craft Real California 200s are good on the swimbait side of things. Big paddlers (surface lures) are also a must as they create lots of noise and disturbance on the surface makes it easy for fish to zone in on. Spinnerbaits also work well and are a lot more snag-resistant but the fish love ‘em. BEST METHOD Just cast and cast and cast. When you’ve had

the better chance you’ll have at hooking a fish. MOTHER NATURE Here a couple of things remember – there is a slot limit for Murray cod, which is 55-75cm. These fish are too good to kill; most who target them do it for the sport and get reward in seeing them swim away. It can be a very dangerous lake when the wind turns no matter what size a boat you are in, so always check the weather report before going out. HOT TIP As I mentioned before, you can never put in enough casts. That is one of the keys. If you can get in that frame of mind, that’s half the battle.

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Bream elusive while the drought rolls on GIPPSLAND LAKES

Brett Geddes b.geddes@bigpond.com

The one guarantee we get in fishing is that there are no guarantees! I’ve written plenty of reports and done enough winter fishing to know that even the best of us can crow too early. Last month I wanted to predict such a rosy picture and promise everyone bags of big winter bream. That’s what happens every year at this time, right?

Wrong! The large schools of winter bream are yet to congregate and even the flathead have disappeared or shut down. It’s fair to say we are in the midst of a nasty drought here and it’s impacting on our fishing. The news is definitely not all good and I’m going to tell you how it is for this report, so let me share with you the ups and downs of the Gippy Lakes. BREAM IN HIDING During the last month or so the bream have slowly but surely shut down or shot

Jason Deenan released another ripper Lake Wellington bream caught on a blade lure, going 43cm and 1.35kg.

through. Almost everywhere that lure anglers have fished over the last month including the lower Mitchell, upper Tambo, Hollands Landing, Toms Creek, Metung, Paynesville and Duck Arm, all of the better bream have been caught on soft plastics close to the bank. However, catch rates have taken a severe dive and none of us can really work out why. In years gone by July and the middle of August have always delivered some of the hottest bream fishing for the year, but this season has been fairly disappointing. For lure anglers each trip has seen some of us put a modest tally of around eight or so fish together and at least some of those bream have been nice sizes between 38 and 43cm. We’re up on quality but way down on quantity. The biggest surprise of all is that the bream responding to blade lures fished in the deep have mostly been very little fish. It seems the majority of the bigger bream are taking soft plastics right up hard against the river edges, but their numbers are well down on previous winters. In fact the bream fishing has been so tough and disappointing that it has caught most of us totally off guard. That includes bait anglers as well. We were all thinking that this winter was going to be one of the best on record and I have absolutely no idea what has

Bigger bream have been caught on soft plastics over the last six weeks. To overcome the cold, the author has had to rug up and beat those frosty mornings. gone wrong! I can only put it down to one of those bizarre unknowns that we anglers will never understand, let alone predict! During a recent trip to Seacombe I spent six hours searching all my favourite areas for a big fat donut. On some days better anglers can find a few goodsized bream but it’s a far cry and dismal comparison to years gone by. The last two winters provided

excellent numbers of fish with exceptional tallies of bream mostly caught on metal blades. Not this year, however. What the next month will throw at us, nobody knows. With the rivers basically still not flowing and most of Gippsland in drought, all of us are praying for rain. SOME GOOD NEWS It’s not all bad news, because a few dedicated anglers have still caught

some really nice bream. The Stratford Angling Club held a competition recently and one of the members decided not to take the boat out; he simply threw in a line from the jetty at Hollands Landing and weighed in five ripper bream between 40 and 45cm, all caught on sandworms. Some nice estuary perch are still being caught under the highway bridge at Bairnsdale in the Mitchell River. With the whole Gippy Lakes so salty now, a big surprise to us all was the arrival of squid. I’ve never heard of calamari being caught at Kalimna and near the township of Lakes Entrance before but I’ve seen heaps of pictures and reports with anglers bagging out on these welcome arrivals. LOOKING AHEAD Looking into the future my crystal ball is a tad foggy at the moment, but I just know those bream are now looking for any sort of freshwater for the breeding season ahead. I’m tipping all the upper reaches of all the big rivers will now become the main focus for lure and bait anglers. Another trend over the last three years, for the months of August and September, has been the great fishing at Paynesville. Bream and mullet usually turn up in big numbers around all the jetties, with trevally and tailor close behind.

Several species are coming back on the bite MARLO

Jim McClymont mcclymont@net-tech.com.au

Finally we have had some rain, giving the farmers relief from the drought that has nearly ruined some. Although not a lot of rain has fallen, the rivers are beginning to run a little faster. With moving freshwater throughout the system and with freshwater now running out to the ocean, luderick and estuary

Cameron battling the kingfish.

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perch are coming into the estuary and moving up the rivers and into the lakes. The black bream that have been dormant have started to bite again and with salmon and tailor coming in with the tides anglers are starting to enjoy fishing again. The surf beaches fish well all year long and are still producing good captures of salmon and tailor. Fishing offshore from Cape Conran when weather permits is producing some good mixed bins of flathead, gurnard, barracouta, pinkie snapper, morwong, salmon and gummy sharks. I recently arrived back from my annual fishing trip to New Zealand to fish in the 49th International Yellowtail Tournament, which I fish with a group of friends (our team is named Orbost Anglers). We fished under our local game fishing club, Orbost Sport and Game Fishing Club, with several other game fishing clubs from Australia. The trip for the tournament has been organised by good friend To page 39

Cameron landed the biggest kingfish caught by team Orbost Anglers this year.

Winter bream and luderick are going strong BEMM RIVER

Robyn Sturgess

Recently the entrance has remained open. The water level has dropped significantly, which has caused an excellent

flush-out for the system, enabling great schools of fish to come through. Salmon are in abundance as they chase baitfish on the rising tides up and down the channel. Bigger bream are well and truly back on the bite

peeled for the navigation beacons. On these crispy, frosty mornings it’s fantastic to head to the surf beach and pick up a salmon or two for lunch. The Bemm River Progress Association is conducting an exciting winter promotion. They’re holding a raffle for a boat, motor and trailer package. Tickets are $10 while the value of the prize is $8000. There are only 1000 tickets available and yes, you can purchase multiple tickets. Proceeds go towards

building better facilities for our community. The Bemm River Progress Association has a Facebook page with the details of how to purchase your ticket. • For on the spot and up to date fishing reports check out Robyn’s website: www. bemmaccommodation. com.au or ‘like’ us on Facebook – Bemm River Holiday Accommodation Phone: (03) 5158 4233/ Mob. 0427 584 233 Email: bemmaccomm@ bigpond.com.

The bigger bream are back on the chew lately.

A happy angler with some decent luderick. From page 38

Terry Titchner for the past 42 years and Terry hasn’t missed a year to date. Over that time many of us have also been going often and have become good friends. We have an enjoyable time in Russell

where the tournament is held and run from, and with so many Aussies returning each year the local residents make us feel very welcome, greeting us on arrival, and they’re probably pleased to say goodbye. This year one of our

taking various baits and lures. Flathead are about, but still quiet due to the cold weather. One of the better targets at the moment is luderick, especially on the sandworms that are available locally. As the currents settle in the river, we are starting to see the fish moving upstream to

find their location for spawning in the spring. Some of the better places to fish are the mouth of Swan and Mud lakes, the western side of the side of the river mouth and the Mahogonies towards Pelican Point. Please note that now that the water level has dropped it’s easy to run aground, so keep your eyes

team members, Terry Lynch, decided to show his family where we go every year and invited his wife Heather and daughter and her three children with us. While we fished the Lynch family explored the Bay of Islands and

had a wonderful time seeing the sights, with the exception of eldest grandson Cameron who fished with us to learn the tricks from his poppy. Cameron landed the biggest kingfish caught by our team this year.

Luderick are one of the better targets right now.

Winter squid are occupying many anglers CORNER INLET

Will Thompson allwaysangling@bigpond.com

The water has finally dropped to its coldest and that means our summer target species will have to wait a month or two until we can catch them again. In the meantime, the humble calamari is keeping anglers more than occupied. Calamari is one of Victoria’s favourite eating species and winter is one of the best times to chase them. There are plenty spread around between Port Albert and Corner Inlet. The sizes are very mixed, anywhere from 15-25cm hoods with a few over 30cm. However, over the next month or two

we will start to see some really big calamari inside the estuaries. Size 3.0 and 3.5 jigs have been by far the most effective with the best colours being King George whiting, especially in the Yamashita brand, and the gold and red foils and white are all being exceptional. Squid that are spread around the usual haunts are being caught anywhere from 2-4m of water. Another favourite pastime has been chasing Australian salmon. Mcloughlins Beach right through to Manns Beach inlets have been where all the action is happening. Most of the time the salmon have been close to the entrances and the sizes have been averaging 30-40cm but every now and again there has been

a run of big salmon over 2kg. Try using soft plastics in the 3-5” range, which has been the best method to catch them. Heavy jigheads, a minimum of 3/8oz, are needed to combat the extremely fast running tides of the entrances. Metal slugs of around 25-40g have been working

well and can be trolled, cast or jigged to try and find where the salmon are. There’s also a few nice trevally mixed in as well. • For more information, contact Will at Allways Angling in Traralgon on 5174 8544, you will get expert advice and great deals on fishing bait and tackle.

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Great offshore fishing NAROOMA

Stuart Hindson

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The last few weeks have seen some cracking weather along this part of the coast, making the trip to the tuna grounds offshore that much more pleasurable. Some days, a 70km run is needed to get there. Having ideal conditions and more fishing time is

plenty of SBTs caught on the cube after catching one on the troll. This is a great method sometimes; as long as you are prepared with cut cubes ready to go, you can keep them under the boat. It doesn’t always happen, but when it does you are in for some serious fun. It’s not uncommon to catch 15-20 bluefin when it happens and on a variety of methods. A mate of mine got

to how long these fish will be here, but I’d expect the next 2-3 weeks to be the same if the conditions stay like they are now. Closer to shore there have been sporadic catches of kings and bonito at Montague Island, but certainly no numbers to them. If you’re there on the right day, you will get a feed; it’s just a bit unreliable at the minute. The fish that have been

WITH

Gemfish are great eating and certainly a welcome by-catch when fishing the deep canyon walls for blue-eye trevalla. certainly advantageous to everyone. The best part of it all is the SBT run is in full swing, with plenty of fish abundant right along the coast. I’d almost say they’re the best numbers we have seen for at least 6-7 years,

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22 bluefin the other day and left them biting. They caught them on cubes, jigs, soft plastics and poppers; the lads were in the right place at the right time and the tuna were obviously fired up. Sure this doesn’t happen all the time, but it

caught have been mostly on jigs and a few on trolled deep diving minnows as well. If you’re after the bottom dwellers then you will be happy as there are plenty of flatties on the inshore grounds with the 40-45m line straight off

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You gotta love 75kg of pure SBT on spin tackle just prior to tagging. though there haven’t been too many jumbos caught. Most have been in that 40-70kg bracket, which are still quality fish. Most of the tuna are falling to trolled skirts and bibbed minnows, but the last week has seen

does show there are plenty of fish to be caught at the minute. There have also been some albacore to 18kg mixed in with the SBT and I heard of a 61kg yellowfin caught while cubing as well. It’s like a lottery as

Dalmeny a good place to start. The same area has also produced a few gummy sharks, so it’s definitely worth a look. The beaches continue to fish well for salmon and To page 41

NSW South Coast

Merimbula estuaries have cleared up nicely MERIMBULA

Stuart Hindson

Those fishing offshore are having a great time as bluefin mania hits town. Both locals and visiting anglers are getting amongst them with some solid models being caught. The best SBT I’ve heard of went 81kg and was taken by a visiting angler – a solid fish on 24kg stand up tackle. This same crew got another three fish to approximately 60kg, but chose to let them all go, which is great to see. Other boats also got amongst them with a local crew getting 20 odd fish for the day, although they

be good. There have been a few reports of big albacore mixed in with the SBT, with a couple of fish nudging 18kg. At that size on the right tackle, you’re in for some serious fun. Closer to shore there’s been a smattering of kingfish around Tura Head, but not in any numbers. The fish that have been trolled up are averaging 8kg, and these brutes have fallen to bibbed minnows trolled deep on downriggers. Those after a feed are getting snapper, but they have been difficult to locate some days. Once you find a patch it’s full on, but finding them has been the key. The close in reefs have been

Lake has trevally, bream and salmon in the channels. They have responded well to soft plastics, with the salmon taking any sort of metal slug wound flat out. It’s good to see these pelagics entering the system once again, they are great fun on light tackle and ideal for the kids new to fishing. Up in the main lake tailor are plentiful, with a few flatties and trevally around the shallower margins. Cast your offering towards the weed and hang on, some serious fun can be had! At Pambula it took a while for the water to clear after the recent rain, but now it’s gin clear again. The lower sections of the Pambula River have been good for

There’s some decent size black bream to be found on the windier banks, and casting smaller hardbodies has produced some great results. All techniques will work, but casting smaller slugs on light gelspun line is a great way to kill a few hours. I quite often head to North Tura doing this and catching a dozen or so sambos is the norm. It’s good fun and easy. Rockhoppers after a feed

should have no problem, with drummer, blackfish and the odd bream all succumbing to well presented baits. Short Point has fished well, especially for drummer, with cunjevoi and cooked prawns gun baits. If you’re after salmon, then you

won’t have many dramas getting some action. Cast lightly-weighted pilchards past the wash zone and hang on, it won’t take long to get connected. Better ledges for the pelagics include Tura Head and Long Point.

Smaller blue sharks have been around in numbers this season. were a little smaller, with the average around 40kg or so. Apparently it didn’t matter what you threw in the water, they would just eat it! The lads even got a few on poppers, soft plastics and jigs on heavier spin tackle, and said it was loads of fun. After getting their arms well and truly stretched, the boys left them feeding and headed home. Now that’s good fishing in my books! The fish have been wide, around 30-40 miles offshore, so weather conditions certainly need to From page 40

Brou Beach just north of Dalmeny is a standout. This 7km piece of sand has ample gutters along its length; it’s just a matter of finding one that has fish in it. It’s a great beach to cast metal lures, as you’re covering the area and locating the fish, not waiting for them to come to you. You can expect tailor as well. If you’re soaking a beachworm or pipi as bait then bream are certainly on the cards,

better with Whitecliffs, Long and Lennards islands all producing at times. Anglers using the freshest of baits have fared best, with squid strips all the rage at present. A few switched on anglers are getting great results on micro jigs as well, with green being the preferred colour, but the leatherjackets have caused them a bit of grief with lost tackle. In the estuaries August is usually the quietest month of the year, but there’s still some nice fish to be caught. The lower sections of Merimbula

trevally, the odd flathead and salmon. Casting soft plastics has been popular and successful, with the flooding tide best. Traditionally, the next two months is when this system fires and all things so far indicate that this will happen again this year. On the beaches, like everywhere else along the coast, salmon are in huge numbers. All beaches are holding fish, with Tura and North Tura prime places to start. It really will depend on how you want to target them – there’s that many spots.

especially in front of the Brou Lake entrance. This area is excellent for bream and don’t be surprised to see some big winter whiting from the same area. The key here is to fish light and use a little berley – not too much or the stingrays will become a nuisance. On the stones the pelagic action has been slow except for salmon, but that’s to be expected at this time of year. Give it another 6-8 weeks or so and it will pick up for sure. Smaller rat kings and tailor will be

the main species targeted. If you want some fun then the salmon action won’t disappoint you at all. There are stacks of them with all the headlands producing at times. Casting metal slices has been popular with some of the sambos nudging 3kg. At that size they are a handful on any tackle you throw at them. If you’re after a feed then blackfish, drummer, groper, bream and some decent snapper will all be available, especially after heavy seas. The golf course

Bridget Baxter caught this estuary perch on a Megabass Siglett surface lure in a brown colour while fishing on the Glenelg River just up river from Hutchesons Campground.

rocks in town, Dalmeny headland and Mystery Bay to the south of Narooma are all top rock ledges and worth a look. Those fishing lightlyweighted baits like cunjevoi, cabbage, cooked prawns and bread will catch plenty with a little berley helping things along, too. If snapper are your target, whole rigged pilchards or fresh squid should get you the desired results. The southern end of High Rock at Mystery Bay is definitely the ledge to fish.

In the estuaries things have slowed up considerably, especially at Wagonga Inlet. With the water a cool 14°C, this is to be expected. The main species to target are the pelagics like salmon, tailor and trevally, which can still be caught in the cold water. Look for white bait schools on the sounder or working birds and work your lures or metal shiners around them. Some days it’s good, other days like a desert. If you put the time in,

you should be rewarded. The closed estuaries like Mummaga and Corunna lakes have seen some okay flatties getting caught on smaller soft plastics fished very slow. The bites are timid, but they are there. Lighter leaders will certainly get you more bites. You also have a good chance at bream using these same softies or blades. The deeper sections of both lakes in the 4-5m range are the places to start. AUGUST 2018

Prime fishing options for the end of winter EDEN

Kevin Gleed captainkev@wildernessfishingtours.com

With winter there were very few tourists about but the fishing options available made it worth a visit, particularly if you enjoy chasing southern bluefin tuna. It’s a long trip out to where the fish are at around 50km, but if you pick a good weather day you can be sure you are going to come across fish, as there are plenty out there. The big fish are up to 80kg, with the average fish around the 40kg mark. Fish are being caught on trolled skirted

lures, with good catches also coming from anglers berleying up and fishing a cube trail. These fish are only passing by and how long they stay in the area is anyone’s guess. Tiger flathead are still being caught with the water temperature around the 18°C mark. The fish are still on the bite closer to shore with good numbers of sand flathead also being caught. It’s time to chase the snapper and the bigger fish are generally caught over the next few months. Snapper should be on the go soon once the cuttlefish shells are being washed up on the beaches.

Flathead are still around, but getting them to bite can be a challenge.

Some good gummy sharks are also being caught. You need a bit of luck finding an area with fish, but as with all fishing, if you can catch one, you can be sure there are more in the area. Salmon are being caught on all the local beaches, with plenty of good gutters around. You only need a bit of wave action to stir things up and the salmon will be on the bite. Fish are being caught on both lures and fresh baits like pilchards. The local estuaries have all the winter species on the bite, with plenty of silver trevally around. The trevally really love the colder water. They can be caught all year

round, but they are at their best over the winter months. Yellowfin bream are still being caught around the mouths of the estuaries. With the black bream on the bite they can be found in numbers further upstream. This month really sees the dusky flathead fishing slow down. If you’re chasing a feed, work your lure slower than you would in the summer months and look for warmer water, like those northern facing bays that might be just a bit warmer than other locations. A little rain has fallen but a good wet is needed to fire things up once spring arrives.

Salmon run has been great fun BERMAGUI

Darren Redman djsxstreamfishing@bigpond.com

When it’s cold with westerly winds prevailing, how can we take advantage of these conditions? One way is to chase salmon from the beaches. While it’s cool of a morning, most days warm up mid-morning and this is a good time to start walking the sand. With

offshore winds, seas are usually calm along the coast, allowing anglers a chance to sight cast to these fish. You could sit back, soak a bait while you wait for a passing school or – my favourite – walk the beaches with a light spin stick and a handful of lures until you locate a school. Whatever you choose, salmon are just great fun. Off the rocks the cool weather doesn’t seem to have affected the groper

and drummer that are everpresent along the coast. A well-presented piece of red crab will often have the desired effect on the groper while cabbage weed and cunjevoi will result in a nice bag of drummer. The odd silver trevally can be found there as well while passing schools of Australian salmon will keep the lure enthusiasts entertained. There are a few tailor mixing in with them to provide a bit of variety. While the estuaries

A typical winter beach catch – just add berley.

SEASON

IS HERE!

Every Saturday 4.30pm on 42

AUGUST 2018

are generally pretty quiet, anglers working some deeper water with lures in Wallaga Lake are finding warm pockets of water where the flathead are holding, however a lot of effort is needed to extract them. Around the bridge pylons there are some very nice schools of luderick, which are responding nicely to green weed. In the same areas garfish are lurking, providing anglers with another option. It seems every year in August schools of luderick, trevally, bream and whiting will congregate around the Bermagui Bridge towards the later part of a falling tide. These fish will generally have a bite time as the tide starts to push in, where a well-presented nipper will often produce a strike. However how long this bite time lasts will vary daily and the only way you will find out is to go and have a go. Usually at this time of the year we see offshore winds where either reef or bottom fishing becomes an option around the inshore grounds. One area in particular that is good for this form of fishing is south around Goalen Head and Arragunnui. Cliff formations in this

The beach fishing for salmon has been great recently. area allow protection from the offshore winds where anglers can try a few different methods for a diversity of catches. Sounding out lumps of reef in as little as 20m of water, by anchoring up on these and berleying, anglers are having some reasonable fishing with a variety of species. Using cut or whole pilchards, strips of tuna or other cut fish baits

either floated or sunk back in a berley trail is often a very good way of attracting some of the larger snapper that inhabit these reefy areas. This is good light tackle sportfishing, with some of the fish occasionally reaching double figures. There are also a lot of other cold water fish that will respond to the berley where they provide To page 43

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NSW South Coast

Cold, windy weather makes it hard to get out MALLACOOTA

Kevin Gleed captainkev@wildernessfishingtours.com

If you had any doubt that winter had arrived, the past month would have let you know in no uncertain terms with rain, freezing cold days and a rough, windy ocean. The offshore fishing saw a massive broadbill caught early in the month. This fish was over 435kg – a true beast of a fish. With the weather conditions over the past month being as they have been, there has been little From page 42

plenty of entertainment on light tackle. Species like silver trevally, sweep, wrasse, and the odd school of salmon will also come into the trail. It isn’t going to be thick and fast fishing but, it’s better than nothing at all and quite often you will come home with a reasonable feed of fish. If conditions are good, you can look at the outer reefs in these areas where the snapper can also be obtained along with

to report, as very few boats have managed to venture offshore. If weather conditions allowed a trip offshore, southern bluefin tuna can be caught, as they are being caught in numbers further to the north. With the cold weather and constant swell creating gutters on the local beaches, the salmon have turned up in force. They will be around until the water warms up and that will be well into spring. The best way of getting amongst the salmon is to walk from gutter to gutter tossing metal lures.

When the fish are around in numbers, once found they will bite at anything that comes by their noses. By keeping on the move you will find fish quickly. For those fishing into the night, gummy sharks are being caught. To find gummies, fish in the same gutters where the salmon have been caught during the day. Use salmon for bait and you will be in with a good chance of catching a gummy shark (just remember to rug up or you will freeze). Recently the fishing in the lake for black bream has fired up. As usual the

jackass and blue morwong, plus most of your other reef fish like nannygai, ocean perch, leatherjacket and a few pigfish. When the weather is extremely good, some of the locals are making use of their electronic reels and fishing the deep water from the Twelve-Mile east to the Canyons. Here they are finding species like Tassie trumpeter, hapuka, blue-eye trevalla, ghost cod, gemfish, ling and a few other gourmet species from the deep. A lot of arrow

squid are also around lately and a few of these are being tempted from the deep with the addition of a squid jig on the line dropped for the other species. Back close to the shore the grounds out from the beaches are producing reasonable numbers of sand flathead within reasonable proximity to Bermagui, although expect several to be released before one of size is kept. Usually after a few hours you can obtain enough of these tasty fish for a meal.

fishing has been at its best in the deeper water, with fish being caught on a variety of soft plastic lures and blades also catching fish. The fish have been caught in both the Top and Bottom lakes. As winter moves on they will be on the move heading up towards Gypsy Point. Flathead are being caught in the same areas as this is where the whitebait are schooled up; where there is bait, the fish won’t be far behind. Silver trevally come to life in the colder water and they will also be found near the whitebait. They are constantly on the move and don’t mind a small soft plastic or a blade and feature in the catch while chasing bream. Good size tailor are also still trapped in the lake, with fish to 70cm about. The best way to get fish is to fish with big poppers. They attract big fish and there is more lure for them to chew on, therefore less chance of them chewing through the line. Some good-size snapper around 35cm are being caught and once again these fish are only going to keep growing with no way of heading out to sea!

Lauchy with a great bream caught on a blade.

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BLACK MAGIC

MASTER CLASS

W I T H PA U L L E N N O N

Using the right tackle to catch bigger snapper One of the best things about winter along the Mid North Coast of NSW is the snapper fishing. While quality reds can be caught all year round, it’s the winter months that are the most productive. This is especially the

If you’re serious, get there well before the prime time, so you’ll be anchored up and in position. This will give any reds spooked by your presence time to readjust and you can get a good berley trail going; this is something snapper respond very well to.

a ledge or bommie if the current is going to wash your berley away from where you’re casting. With the berley going the right way snapper can often be whipped into a frenzy with baits often getting smashed immediately after hitting

The author with a 14.6kg NSW record red caught in less than 10m of water. they fish sinkers way too heavy for snapper in this depth of water. If you can get away with it, a totally unweighted bait is all you

need, however depending on current you may have to go up to a pea-size sinker. This allows the bait to slowly work its way down

something you’ve just got to deal with. If you go too heavy, you won’t get the bite and if you go too light, you’re going

As the sun sets or rises big reds come out to play. case over shallow reefs in less than 30m of water, with quality reds up to the magical 20lb mark on offer. While bait fishing for reds is nothing new, it has taken a bit of a backseat over the past decade to soft plasticslures, so much so that many anglers have never tried or forgotten how to use bait for reds. It’s something I do a lot of and while it’s a simple form of fishing there are a lot of mistakes and things you can do wrong that pretty much instantly write off your chances of having success. The number one hard rule is that snapper are not a gentleman’s hours fish; if you’re not prepared to be out there before the sun comes up or to be coming home in the dark then you will miss the prime time. When it comes to fishing the shallow reefs in 10-30m of water dawn and dusk periods are critical and when 80% of snapper are caught. 44

AUGUST 2018

A few blocks of pilchards cubed up and a handful thrown over every few minutes is all it takes. This will in turn attract plenty of baitfish around the boat, which will further amplify the berley’s effectiveness. Position yourself up current of the area you want to fish; it’s no good anchoring on one side of

the water. I find the best baits to use are fresh squid, cuttlefish, pilchards and slimy mackerel fillets. It’s important to make this bait look as natural as possible and also to have it wafting down through the water column around the same speed as the berley. This is another common mistake anglers make as

Gathering some quality bait will greatly increase your chances.

Working the berley pot as the sun sets – dusk periods are critical for snapper fishing. the water column and if there’s no action within five minutes of casting, wind up and throw out again. The perfect hook for this is the Black Magic C points in a 5/0-6/0 depending on bait size. These hooks aren’t too big to catch pan-sized snapper, but strong enough to hang onto that 20-pounder too. They are also the only hook I’ve used on snapper that consistently penetrate through the super-hard top jaw molars – an area that for most hooks usually results in a bent tip and no fish. The best areas to target big reds in the shallows are usually super nasty terrain and getting steamrolled by the odd big fish is

to get blown away just about every time. I find a good compromise for bait fishing is 30lb braid with 30lb leader. This will give you a good cast and keep you in the game when that trophy fish comes along. I use Black Magic 30lb FC leader as its abrasive resistance is as good as it gets and it’s able to deal with being scuffed through the reef far more than other softer leader lines. The ideal outfit is a 5000-6000 size reel paired with a 7ft rod rated 20-30lb with plenty of grunt to try and put the brakes on these things before they find the reef.

News

Helping fish thrive through the wet and the dry This year, helping to sustain native fish populations will be a priority for water planners and environmental water holders. The Murray– Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) has released its recommendations on how water for the environment should be used so that it best meets the needs of native fish, waterbirds and plant life. The Basin Plan sets out to achieve a sustainable environment across the one million square kilometres of the Basin—not just at the individual catchment level. It’s also looking to secure a sustainable future for communities and industries in the Basin. In the past few seasons there has been significant fish breeding in parts of the river system, especially the Darling, the Murray and the Murrumbidgee rivers. These fish are maturing and will need to be able to move up and down the rivers to find new food sources and opportunities to produce the next generation of fish. As a result, we are placing a priority on sustaining those populations and their ability to migrate. Where conditions have been dry in the northern catchments for some time, we

state and local authorities in the Campaspe and Goulburn Rivers recently, with silver perch and even lamprey moving throughout the Murray River and its tributaries. This management of water adds up to plenty of

fish that are just entering the juvenile to adult stage across the Basin. If you are casting a line into your local river, you can expect to see more fish moving through the system in the coming years, thanks to carefully delivered flows at the right time, in the right volumes

to support the environment. You can find out more about the 2018-19 Environmental Watering Priorities in the Murray–Darling Basin on the MDBA website: www. m dba.gov.au/ m anagi ngwater/environmental-water/ priorities. – MDBA

Operation Rayon nets results Gunbower Creek near Cohuna on the River Murray. recommend maintaining river flows at least at a low level so fish, and the invertebrates they rely on for food, have somewhere to live. This will build on the benefits of a recent 23-gigalitre environmental flow that successfully delivered water from the Border and Gwydir rivers in the north to the Barwon–Darling and on to the Menindee Lakes. We will continue to witness the benefits of this flow to fish and their habitats over the coming months as plants, insects and other river life get a boost along the 2000km of river networks that received a welcome drink. If dry conditions continue in the north, we anticipate more

events like this may be needed to ensure fish populations, especially Murray cod and golden perch, are maintained until the next wet period. In the southern system we expect to see more moderate conditions, which means water will be available for water managers to assist the species that have grown in the past few years. Making sure rivers connect with each other and with the floodplains and wetlands is also critically important to enable young fish to migrate up and down the river system. This connectivity is essential for moving food and nutrients from the floodplains to the rivers. There was successful watering by Commonwealth,

Operation Rayon was successfully conducted over the recent Queen’s Birthday long weekend of June 9-11 with Fisheries officers reporting a high level of compliance. Senior Fisheries Officer Charlie Cooper said the operation focused on anglers fishing for southern bluefin tuna out of the ports of Portland, Port Fairy, Warrnambool and Apollo Bay. More than 250 vessels fished out of the ports each day over the long-weekend providing a boost for the local regional economy. “Approximately 350 fisheries and marine inspections were conducted by seven staff over the three day long-weekend. Mr Cooper said 16 offences were detected resulting in ten infringement notices and six official warning being issued,

Operation Rayon was conducted at the port of Portland. as well as six southern bluefin tuna seized. Mr Cooper said some people are choosing to fish without a current Recreational Fishing Licence, those found without a current RFL risk a fine and their catch being seized. He congratulated anglers on their behaviour saying the

overwhelming majority of people are doing the right thing and complying with licensing and catch limits. Anyone with information relating to illegal fishing is encouraged to ring the illegal fishing reporting number on 13FISH (133474). – Victoria Fisheries

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Go Behind the Scenery

Tasmania

Trout fishing and more – the Wild West Coast TASMANIA

Kelly Hunt

We turned around twice and it’s August already. The time has seriously

flown by and we are looking towards a new summer season. Yes I know we have some cold weather to get through still, but it’s technically the last month of winter.

STRAHAN AND THE HARBOUR The Wild West… You’ve heard me speak of it before and that is for good reason. I love the place. Our mining hubs were formed from the earth here by brave people who wouldn’t take no for an answer. The terrain said no and the weather said no, but they persisted. Thanks to that persistence we have the beautiful township of Strahan. Strahan is basically four hours from Launceston or Hobart and both roads to town are magnificent drives. The reason you come is for the fishing and the scenery.

to organise and plan a trip. Strahan makes the perfect home base for the area. It has some great accommodation options and some great pubs if the weather turns bad. The little fishing and mining town is located on Macquarie Harbour. Few people know that Macquarie Harbour is Australia’s second largest harbour after Port Phillip Bay and covers an area of approximately 260km2. The West Coast region is a major tourist destination and the entire area is a fisher’s haven, having the waters of the harbour to fish along with the coastline and a number of readily

The temperature starts to warm up and so does enthusiasm to fish! August in Tasmania is traditionally focused on trout fishing. The regulated trout season starts on the sea runners that come up each year. They come up the harbour chasing the whitebait schools on their yearly migratory run. Some will think that August is a little early for this, but with the seasons the way they have been, I would take a weather window over a thought bubble. There is nothing like being on the water up the Gordon looking for monster trout, so beat the crowds and create the memory. The most common methods here are trolling and spinning deep diving minnows. When the fish are in against the edges you can also use soft plastics. If you want to start a very long conversation, you can ask the Gordon River veterans about the best colour to use. You will get as many different answers as the vocations and backgrounds of all these anglers. Fishers come from all around to fish the Gordon each year. Their selections of lure type and colour is amazing. The safe bet is to just get something in the water that has good action and work the water depth where the fish are. This is again where a good sounder and GPS can come in handy. I have been down here at times when the fishing has been very slow and frustrating. We saw fish holding deep on banks and logs, so we dropped heavy

first Saturday of August and is a weekend to look forward to. The trout fishing in Tasmania has been growing from strength to strength recently. There was a steady decline in interest, but some

AUGUST 2018

accessible rivers within ten minutes of Strahan. A little further away is the Gordon River with all its amazing history and beauty. Once you put in at Strahan you are roughly 17nm from the mouth of the Gordon River. A good seaworthy boat is a must as is a good GPS. The weather can come in foul and fog can make navigation very tricky. Once in the river mouth the fishing begins in earnest and the possibility of a lifetime trophy is huge. There are some really big resident brown trout in these waters, but the Holy Grail is the massive

state this month. Get a coffee and perch in your favourite chair as we talk fishing around the state. The fishing action available this month is worth hearing about!

A silver sea-runner from the lower reaches of the Forth River. jigheads down with bigger soft plastics. We would then head upstream and drift down current over the top of these fish. It took a couple of runs, but eventually we had some really good fish in the net. This is the thing with this magical body of water; it can be slow and very frustrating but by persevering you have the opportunity to catch the trophy fish of a lifetime. The big sea runners and browns are often complemented by large Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout. These have escaped from the

Jacob Beamish with another searunner from the Henty River. Just as it was for the early miners that settled the place, the weather can be fairly rough. For this reason you should consult the weather very carefully. Look for the wind speeds as well as the first and second swell heights. This coast is exposed to a lot of open ocean that has many thousands of kilometres to build up powerful swell. That swell can be spaced very far apart on days that look lovely and calm so be careful. The upside is the area has a variety of great fishing and spectacular scenery for those willing

young anglers have really injected some energy into the pastime. However, it’s never all about the trout fishing in Tasmania and we have lots going on around the

Eythan with a West Coast sea-runner from the Henty.

commercial fishing in the harbour. It often amazes me just how far up the river system these fish can be found. The gear you will need is pretty simple. Just use trout gear with one exception – it needs to be upsized. If you fish your local lakes and rivers with a

2500 sized reel on a rod suited to 1-3kg, leave that in the rack at home. You are going to need a 3000-4000 sized reel on a rod that has a nice soft tip to stay connected, but has some lifting power for big fish in flowing water. Rods in the 2-4kg range or even 3-7kg aren’t out of place.

OFFSHORE Strahan is also the access to some sensational sea fishing. Instead of heading down the harbour to the Gordon you can wheel around to the right and find the entrance to Macquarie Harbour, Hells Gates. This is just another spectacular place to navigate and spend time at. The entrance is perfectly safe when approached with caution and a good amount of respect. There can be some solid tidal flows here at times, so be warned. If there is any swell involved, you need to be doubly cautious. Once you’re out on the open ocean you can look back and see the rugged coastline and its raw beauty. The water quality here is superb and the fish revel in it. At this time of year you can see schools of bluefin breaking the surface as you head out to the striped trumpeter grounds. It pays to have a selection of rods and reels to cover everything you may encounter off this amazing coastline. In amongst your bottom fishing rods and reels I would

have an 8ft rod suitable for casting with a 6500 sized reel loaded with 50lb braid. On those days where the weather screams ‘hit the shelf’ you will come across hungry schools of tuna. Having a rod you can cast a stickbait or big plastic with is a lot of fun. We have used 5/8oz jigheads with 5-7” Berkley Jerk Shads to great effect. These southern bluefin really play up on this gear and are a great deal of fun. The other setup to have on board is an outfit to tackle a mako shark. There are heaps of these tasty bad boys off the West Coast and it pays to be prepared. You can pack an overhead rod and reel if you want, but often one of your big bottom fishing setups is up to the task. You will just need a couple of big wire traces with a good hook attached. A mako can turn up while you are playing with the tuna or come up to see what the fuss is about when fishing for trumpeter. Many To page 47

Go Behind the Scenery From page 46

times we have been floating about working over a patch of ground in 100m or so and a mako pops up. They must just see the lines going up and down and sense the commotion of caught fish. The ability to grab a rod with a trace on it and swiftly bait up is crucial here. If you have some blood from your catch so far, tipping that in the water can hold the mako’s attention while you get set. The lack of a designated berley trail can have them disappear as quickly as they appeared, so the blood can help. If you are going to spend the time on the water and burn the fuel, you may as well capitalise on every chance to catch a fish. The stripy trumpeter are thick off the West Coast. Many will get a little fixated with a mark or the best spot. While it’s great to have a mark as a starting point, that is all they ever are. Wind, tide and weather will all be different and the fish also have tails and fins –

Daniel Paull with one of the five swordfish they have tagged this season. they swim! Off the West Coast of Tasmania there is so much bottom that holds striped trumpeter it’s amazing and the best thing you can do is get some time in front of your sounder holding onto the steering wheel of your boat. Get out to around

100m of water and start to prospect about, but put some structure to it. Don’t just sound around aimlessly. Run straight lines until you find something of interest. By something of interest I mean just a little ‘fuzzle.’ Fuzzle is the technical term for a little bit of bottom rubble. I just

made up the word. The seafloor off the West Coast isn’t going to have big deviations in bottom contour. The thing you’re looking for on the sounder is a little bit of up and down and hopefully the sounder will show a little colour line difference. Once you find this, do a deliberate

common from the beach at Macquarie Heads. Ocean Beach, 6km due west of Strahan, offers some fantastic beach fishing when the sea behaves. This stretch of sand is said to be Tasmania’s longest with 34km of unbroken beach. So surely armed with a surf fishing rod and some bait you can catch a fish of some description. When I was younger we used to fish it quite a lot and one such session is etched in my memory. We had only just cast out and set the rods into the PVC tubes that we used to keep rods up high and out of the sand, when mine just hit the beach with a thwack! I was puzzled and picked it up and wound up the slack to find the reel start to scream line out. When I looked up

I saw an Australian salmon that looked like a small tuna jumping out the back of the breakers. Then I noticed a school sharks on the surface well out the back and I started screaming, “Look a shark!” My fishing cobber yelled out, “Yes, I know – I think I’m hooked up to it!” It was a great session and we landed both fish and went on to land a few more salmon. These were the biggest Australian salmon I had ever caught and remain so to this day. The school shark was a good one and tasted very nice. Strahan is also a good starting point for a trip to the Henty River along Ocean Beach. You are best served to attempt this with 4-wheel motorbikes or 4WD vehicles ,but there are some small creek crossings to navigate.

Having some experience is advised. Some of the bigger creek crossings can involve quartering out to sea in your pride and joy until the waves help in steering you around and quarter back into shore. However, this isn’t for everyone. On the 4-wheelers we would often take a couple of sets of dry clothes, as you’re bound to get wet more than once. The river mouth itself changes a great deal due to sand and water movement and can run along the beach a long way before breaking to the sea. You never really know what you will find until you get there. The whitebait will be trying to get up into the main body of the river no matter what and this is what excites the sea-run trout. The bigger resident browns can also get in on the action further up.

FROM THE SHORE The area isn’t all about the boat fishing – Strahan has some land-based options. Some of the most sought-after fish in the harbour are the escapees from the fish farms. These large rainbow trout and Atlantic salmon can be caught casting lures from the many headlands jutting out into the harbour using sliced and minnow-style lures. This often results in tremendous sport. I’ve heard stories of fish up to 9kg being caught within sight of the Strahan township. These fish may not be the wild trout experience you’re looking for, but they steak up nice and BBQ a treat. Popular methods include bait, spin and – in certain areas – a net. Sea-run trout are also

Tasmania sweep across the area one way and then another. You may start to see more and more on the sounder screen and pick up some bait or fish arches. This is a place to have a drop and see what may be down there. While you have been trundling around sounding the bottom your crew will have been bored and whinging. Now it’s your turn to give some lip. If they don’t have the lines ready and baited up to go over the side on your command, give them heaps. It’s tricky to put baits down 100m+ and having the gear at hand ready to plunge the bottom when the call is given helps a lot. It may take a few drops and drifts to get an idea of what is happening and if there are fish there or not. You need to have at least four drifts on a spot to test its worth. One drift for no fish isn’t enough and if you do that all day, you’ll miss a lot of fish. If you do pick up a prized stripy trumpeter

Some big salmon can come from a beach gutter and this one from Taane is a ripper.

COASTAL RIVERS Trout season opens this month, but some of the highland waters of the lakes are still too cold and for good reason. If you prefer to stay a little warmer, there are a number of rivers on the North West Coast that fish very well and open for the season. Spoilt for choice is a term that comes to mind in regard to river fishing on the coast. Let’s start with the Inglis River that flows through the seaside town of Wynyard. This river has been flying under the radar for years. Not only does it give up some good sea runners when the whitebait are on, but it holds some very nice resident brown trout. The locals know that fishing the

water rushing over rapids up the end of River Road is worth a look. There are some good sections of bank up further, but be mindful of access and always ask before you cross a paddock. Ulverstone has the Leven River run right through its middle splitting east Ulverstone from west. The sea runner action here is as good as it gets anywhere if you know where to look. Those with a boat can pray for light rains during August and take advantage of early whitebait getting up on the flats past the train bridge. In the right conditions you can watch multiple trout push the whitebait and send them scurrying in a shower looking to hightail

on a drift, take note of where you started that drift, the angle of that drift and where the fish was caught. This will allow you to try and recreate that drift for the same result. Have a couple of sinker weights handy, as holding the bottom in swell and a bit of breeze can be tricky. We always set out to fish in the best conditions, but it’s a long way to go and not have a bit of variance to fish the conditions. It’s the same with bait, as all fish can be finicky. We like to think we will always find them hungry, but this isn’t always the case. Squid, as you know, is the go-to bait for many anglers for this type of fishing because it’s easy. Sometimes the fish aren’t interested in squid and want some fish flesh of some type. ‘Couta strips with the skin on and some stripy tuna strips are often deadly. This is why it can often pay to take some of these fish from other trips and freeze them down in handy containers ready for such missions.

Mathew Howard loves going after some big sea-runners out west.

it to safety. Casting a lightly weighted soft plastic with a light wiggle tail is normally deadly. You can high stick it a little to keep it high in the water and just jiggle it with a slow retrieve. There is nothing more exciting than seeing that bow wave come at your lure and strike. The Forth has always had good whitebait runs and for that reason has often been a focus for early season trout fishing. The bulk of this action takes place over the stones at the river mouth or over the shallow mud flats at high tide. The bait look for the easiest path against the water flow and wander all over the river estuary fighting against the current. The trick is to find the places where the trout lie in hiding to ambush them when they come past. To page 48

AUGUST 2018

Go Behind the Scenery

Tasmania From page 47

The shore anglers should look for a point or place where they can see the water stall from the current. Once the whitebait enter the river proper they are more concentrated and the action on the edges of the river is very exciting. The little baitfish swim their little hearts out against

the bank and logs trying to dodge the bully brown trout as they try and gorge themselves on them. When the water flow slows and the tide is about half in, the action can be spectacular. The bait thickens and can get stalled in mini sections of log and have to turn around. The trout learn where these

spots are and have a field day. It can be easy to get the bite but tricky to get the fish out of the logs and up the bank once hooked. If you don’t do any good on the fishing then the little village has a pub that is great for a meal and a few beers to celebrate the next attempt. Devonport is the

termination of the mighty Mersey River, but it also comes down past Latrobe and Bells Parade. This river holds a heap of trout and can be found by varying methods. Much the same as the previous rivers, you can approach them by boat or from land. There are some good access points and information on these

ST HELENS SEES SOME ACTION In a great turn of events the waters off St Helens have been fishing very well and everyone looks forward to this to continue in August. St Helens had lost its crown as the game fishing capital of Tasmania as nearby Bicheno and Eaglehawk Neck to the south wrestle for the title. Traditionally St Helens had been the destination for many serious game fishos and the town swelled with news of fish off the coast. This has changed over about a five-year period and other areas have arrested the spotlight. This has made the local St Helens fishers smile quietly, as they know a secret. That secret is that nothing changed and the quality fish and fishing was always exceptional. A few more charter operators have taken up at Eaglehawk Neck while a few have retired who worked out of St Helens. Without the Facebook posts of the charter operators and the associated sharing that goes on, I don’t know how people would know where fish get caught. So with more posts coming out of Eaglehawk Neck you get more people heading there to chase tuna. More boats on the water mean more fish caught, meaning

more Facebook posts. More Facebook posts mean more people getting excited to go fishing and heading to Eaglehawk Neck. It’s like a social media snowball. There you have my theory about why I think St Helens has been forgotten about a little, and there is a positive here. If you like fishing away from crowds and fishing without seals to damage your catch, St Helens is prime! The fish are there and they’re quality fish as well. The proof is in the fish that have come off the back of Merricks Reef and Pulfers in recent weeks. The fish have been school sized all the way up to the 100kg jumbos we all crave. Don’t forget the biggest rod and reel bluefin on Tasmanian record comes from the waters off St Helens. It’s a wonderful fishery out to the 100m line and beyond the shelf. There is a lot of quality water out there teeming with magnificent fish. A key to fishing St Helens is the size of lures you can run. Down the Neck you have bottom contours and reefs to hold bait and the bait is a certain size, so the lures can mimic that, but off St Helens you are looking to create a bit of surface commotion to draw the tuna in the water to you. The boat looks like a bait ball from underneath and the boat

SOUTHERN SITUATION The bream have been filling up the river systems and estuaries over the last month or so on their pre-spawn movements. The recent rainfall has been enough to cloud up the water clarity in Browns River, which has actually made

the fishing improve. There have been some cracking bream caught in and around the mouth of the river lately. Reports have been of fish anywhere from 30cm up to 40cm+ to the fork. These are sensational bream in anyone’s opinion.

Nathan Huizing knows where to find the big southern bream. 48

AUGUST 2018

Chris Whittle with a fantastic fish caught on 15kg line from St Helens. We often forget that Tasmania has the premium southern black bream fishery in Australia. A variety of techniques have been successful, including bait fishing (prawns and crabs), soft plastics and hardbody lures. While fish can be caught at all times of the day, the run-in and high tide are usually most productive. A little known tributary of the Derwent, the Jordan River, has also been fishing well with bream appearing in good numbers! While the majority of the inland trout waters remain closed due to spawning during July there were some sea-runners caught late in the month. This will only improve in August as the bait thickens up. The major flooding that hit southern Tasmania gave a lot of river systems a real good flush out. This has meant anglers

fishing the recovering waterways can expect to see an increasing amount of whitebait and pilchards making their way up these rivers. Following this bait will be more early season sea-run trout. Some hotspots include Bridgewater, the mouth of the Jordan River, Otago Bay and the Huon River. Watch for the fish to break the surface chasing the bait and pushing them out of the water in a panicked spray. There continues to be a large amount of Atlantic salmon caught from the ‘great escape.’ Local angler Josh Christian recently had some success while fishing up the Derwent River around Otago Bay, managing to land two solid fish between him and his mate. Other spots worth looking at include Browns River, North West Bay River and Captain Cook To page 49

can be found on the IFS website, www.ifs.tas.gov. au/anglers-access-program. Here you can read about everything you might need to know to maximise your chance of finding fish. This river is a very good early season fishing destination with plenty of activity. In recent years this river has had major flows and flood

that has reshaped its banks and riverbed significantly. The river will have been recovering slowly and some of the features that make this waterway a great place to fish will be returning. The days in August will be starting to get longer and the fading light after work appeals to many in the Mersey.

wake looks like feeding fish. Your lures also need to create some serious commotion and smoke trails to get those fish excited to bite. Fish bite for two reasons – because they are hungry and because something ripping through the water ignites a response in their tiny brain to chase and hit it. Get a couple of bigger lures in your spread and run them on the short corner and long corner. These are the positions that will have them causing the most commotion and surface disturbance. Some 8-10” lures are perfect. Another forgotten item when fishing off St Helens is the teaser. A teaser often has mirrors and wobbles in the water causing fish to wonder and come up for a look. They are of great value and raise the probability of success. Just make sure you have good rope to tie them on, because mako sharks love them! St Helens has other attractions than just bluefin. If the weather really comes good and flattens out, the swordfish and blue-eye fishing are exceptional. This makes a lot of sense, as a healthy shelf bottom full of fish and food-rich currents is always going to be a great spot to try for a broadbill. Mason Paull and his son Daniel have had a sensational season with five tagged and one keeper. This is an amazing score card and is testament to their knowledge

and ability to learn on the fly. They pick up new ways to fish smarter and be more successful for each new outing. It’s also a testament to the fishing grounds that their chosen port to fish out of is St Helens. They have acquired a great deal of experience fishing off the waters of St Helens and know full well what a great place it is to fish. They do very well on the mako sharks, which are abundant in the area. August sees the water cool to a temperature the mako sharks aren’t fond of, but when it heats up again they are thick off St Helens. Blue-eye, gemfish and hapuka are all fish that can be found off St Helens in good numbers. The bottom fishing is awesome and if you can get the weather right, it’s no problem in August to find fish. If you travel to St Helens and you end up with an ordinary weather forecast, all is not lost. The bay fishing is really good and other options include Ansons Bay and the Scamander River. These three options have some of the best estuary fishing you will find anywhere in Australia and will fill in a day with plenty of fishing action. All in all St Helens is a fabulous fishing destination with plenty to offer everyone. I hope to see you there soon.

Eythan Purton with a nice West Coast brown.

Go Behind the Scenery From page 48

Creek. While they aren’t the fussiest fish in the world, lures such as 60-80mm hardbody minnows and Gulp Minnow Grub soft plastics have been working very well. The bluefin tuna are still in reasonable numbers around Eaglehawk Neck. The school-sized fish aren’t

in massive numbers but in big enough schools to keep the anglers interested. Crews are having good success on larger fish in the 80-130kg range. This time of year is about finding a good weather window and putting in some solid time on the water to find the hungry fish. Many crews

are reporting a lot of bait on their sounders and good fish with it. The key here is to not blink. Don’t get frustrated and leave the fish you see on the sounder sitting off bait. The skill is to keep your lures running in such a manner that raises those fish. Keep a trolling direction that

runs the lures over the fish from different angles, trying to get a reaction. Deep divers are good; just remember at 6-8knots a lure that has deep diver on the box is only a sub-surface lure. If you want to get that lure down to the bite zone, try running three deep divers out long at 3knots. Charter operator

Tasmania Stuart Nichols cracked a good fish over the 100kg mark last week, with the fish falling to a Halco Laser Pro in king brown colour! The humble sand whiting continue to present in good numbers off most beaches in the lower Derwent. Kingston Beach, Bellerive Beach and Blackmans Bay Beach are

all productive spots to try. Whiting only have small mouths, so a small long shank hook is needed. A variety of baits will work, but it’s hard to go past a small strip of squid. Also make sure to keep regular contact with the bottom and watch carefully for subtle bites!

Inland Fisheries Service

Native fish survey looks at Clarence galaxias IFS

Tim Farrell

Anglers know about trout, salmon and blackfish. What about the other native fish that occur in our freshwater systems? One of the most common groups of native fish are the galaxid family (Galaxiidae). Tasmania has 15 species from this family with 11 listed as threatened. We monitor the most at risk including the Clarence galaxias (Galaxias johnstoni). Clarence galaxias occur in in the area between Bronte Park and Derwent Bridge. You can find them in a few headwater lagoons and marshes that are free from brown trout. We recently surveyed four waters in this area. Numbers of galaxias sampled were low in Clarence Lagoon and Wentworth Hills. At Dyes Marsh, no Clarence galaxias were found. Small river trout had pushed up stream and entered the marsh that may have affected the Clarence galaxias population. At the last site of Tibbs Plains, water levels in the marsh were low and we did not find any galaxiids.

We plan to monitor for the Clarence galaxias again March 2019. LAKE LEAKE, KALANGADOO BAY BOAT RAMP UPGRADE The local community at Kalangadoo Bay have upgraded their boat ramp. Stakeholders and individuals who made cash and in-kind contributions were: Sustainable Timbers Tasmania, Inland Fisheries Service, Todd and Janet Lambert, Australian Recreational Fishers Party, Craig Woods, Mack Saunders, Ian and Sandra Taylor, Kalangadoo Store, John Hughes, Michael and Karen Byrne and Mark Tapsell. Contractor, Paul Evans, also deserves a special mention. Paul was tireless

in his efforts, working magic with his machine and delivering a truly splendid job. A fantastic community project and a great result for recreational fishers. The IFS will be stocking Lake Leake over winter in preparation for the 2018-19 season. ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL CONVICTION On 6 June, Paul Nicholls appeared in the Smithton Magistrates Court. Mr Nicolls was facing seven charges relating to the illegal taking and possession of whitebait. In November 2017, our officers found Mr Nicholls at the Duck River. He was fishing for whitebait with an illegal net after the season had closed. Mr Nicholls pled guilty to, and was convicted

on, all charges. He was fined $3,000 and ordered to pay $82.15 in court costs. This is the seventh person to be convicted in relation to the illegal taking of whitebait this year. There are more still to go through the courts. This shows that those who do the wrong thing are taking a very big risk. If you witness or suspect illegal fishing, please let us know. You can send us an email at infish@dpipwe.tas. gov.au, or call our Manager of Compliance and Operations Stephen Hepworth on 0438 338 530. We need your help to stop illegal fishing. CARP MANAGEMENT PROGRAM WORKSHOP 2018 The Carp Management Program (CMP) held its yearly Workshop on 10

May in Hobart. We looked over the past year’s work and started planning for the coming year. The Workshop provided an update for the new Minister responsible for Inland Fisheries, Sarah Courtney. The Minister offered her support and the team appreciated her words of encouragement. The day involved presentations and discussions of different aspects of the data collected during 2017-18. This gave an understanding of how the CMP is progressing, the findings for the season, what we did well and what can be done to complete the eradication of carp from Tasmania. Key findings were: No carp were detected in Lake Crescent or downstream in

the River Clyde; Carp are contained to Lake Sorell; No spawning or small carp were found in Lake Sorell; The fishing effort was the same as last year but caught less than a quarter of the number of carp – this suggests the population has fallen greatly; Studies of the ‘jelly gonad’ disease which causes sterility is now affecting over 50% of male carp caught; 41,450 carp have been removed from Lake Sorell since 1995; and, less than 0.2% of the original population remain – we estimate this means less than 50 carp. Some things identified to watch in the coming year were: Be prepared for spawning conditions in spring 2018 - rising water levels combined with warm settled weather - if the conditions are good, carp will push inshore to marsh areas. This makes them easier to catch in nets and traps. We could catch the last carp left in the lake. If all goes to plan through the coming spring and summer, we may be able to consider a limited opening of Lake Sorell to the public late in the 2018-19 angling season.

HYDRO TASMANIA WATER STORAGE INFORMATION Water Storage Information as at 12th July 2018 Lake/Lagoon

Metres from full

Comment

Trevallyn Pond..................................0.53................................................................... Lake Mackenzie................................3.03................................................................... Lake Rowallan..................................4.58................................................................... Lake Parangana................................2.13................................................................... Lake Cethana....................................0.49................................................................... Lake Barrington................................1.09................................................................... Lake Gairdner...................................0.85................................................................... Lake Paloona....................................1.33................................................................... Lake Augusta....................................1.55................................................................... Arthurs Lake.....................................1.47................................................................... Great Lake........................................13.67................................................................. Little Pine Lagoon.............................0.21................................................................... Shannon Lagoon...............................0.08................................................................... Penstock Lagoon..............................0.00.......................................................Spilling Woods Lake......................................1.23................................................................... Lake St Clair.....................................1.17................................................................... Lake King William.............................3.04................................................................... Lake Echo.........................................7.04...................................................................

Dee Lagoon.......................................0.00.......................................................Spilling Pine Tier Lagoon...............................0.00.......................................................Spilling Bronte Lagoon..................................0.38................................................................... Bradys/Binneys/Tungatinah..............0.17................................................................... Laughing Jack Lagoon.....................4.24................................................................... Lake Liapootah.................................0.52................................................................... Wayatinah Lagoon............................0.00.......................................................Spilling Lake Catagunya................................0.00.......................................................Spilling Lake Repulse....................................0.00.......................................................Spilling Cluny Lagoon....................................0.09................................................................... Meadowbank Lake...........................0.00.......................................................Spilling Lake Burbury....................................4.01................................................................... Lake Margaret..................................0.00.......................................................Spilling Whitespur Pond................................6.91................................................................... Lake Newton.....................................4.48................................................................... Lake Plimsoll....................................1.43................................................................... Lake Murchison................................2.66................................................................... Lake Mackintosh..............................2.91................................................................... Lake Rosebery..................................0.62................................................................... Lake Pieman.....................................2.63................................................................... Lake Pedder......................................0.89................................................................... Lake Gordon.....................................24.35.................................................................

These levels are provided for an indication of lake level only and can vary from day to day. For more up-to-date lake level information please visit www.hydro.com.au/home/Tourism+and+Recreation/Lake+Levels.htm AUGUST 2018

WHAT’S NEW FISHING DAIWA FREAMS LT

One of the more popular reels in the Daiwa spin reel range receives an overhaul in 2018 with Freams experiencing the LT makeover to elevate it to a new level of strength and performance. With the LT principles of Light and Tough the foundation of the new Freams LT this is a reel that is loaded with Daiwa’s finest spin reel technologies to deliver anglers a reel that is classic in looks yet light years ahead in design and performance. Air Bail, Twistbuster II, MagSeal, Air Rotor, an ultra light aluminium spool featuring Long Cast ABS, a redesigned line keeper, High Grip I-Shape knobs, and a super sized ATD drag provide unmatched design and performance enhancements, while the heart of the reel, LT’s new Tough Digigear delivers unmatched refinement, strength, and power. Revamped, restyled and reborn, the new Freams LT has set a new standard in value, performance and design possibilities, and will be available in six different sizes, ranging from the finesse, shallow spooled, 2000S, through to the big daddy in the range the 6000D-H. www.daiwafishing.com.au

REPAIRS ON THE GO

Two of the latest outdoor accessories released by EJTodd are Gear AidTenacious Tape and RevivX Water Repellent Spray. Tenacious Tape by Gear Aid is an allpurpose, weatherproof repair tape that fixes rips, holes and gashes in almost all outdoor gear. It stays put no matter how bad the conditions are, and leaves no sticky mess. Tenacious Tape repairs camping gear, sleeping bags and mats, tents, clothing, vinyl rafts, down jackets—whatever needs a quick patch. You can make your raingear shed water like new again with ReviveX Durable Water Repellent Spray. This breathable DWR repels water, oil, and stains, and is ideal for use on raingear, tents, nylon jackets, pants, waders, and gloves. You can either restore the DWR treatment on waterproof breathable garments, like eVent, NeoShell, and Gore-Tex jackets, or add DWR to gear that isn’t pre-treated, like down jackets. The continuous, air-powered sprayer dispenses every drop in a wide, even application, and can even be sprayed upside down. www.ejtodd.com.au

X-RAP MAGNUM XTREME

The new shallow running X-Rap Magnum Xtreme trolls true at over 15 knots, allowing you to cover more water and trigger the speedsters of the deep. Sleek flat sides create a tight rolling action while its tail keel adds stability at all speeds. You can troll the X-Rap Magnum Xtreme fast or slow through reef terrain or around rocky outcrops, amongst skirted lures or other Rapala lures in your spread. Designed with Rapala’s Magnum level of strength, each X-Rap Magnum Xtreme comes complete with through-wire construction, heavy-duty split rings and VMC 9626 3x strong treble hooks. For more information on this and other new gear from Rapala, along with catch photos and videos, check out their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/rapala.australia. You can also find them on Instagram (@ rapalaaustralia), YouTube (www.youtube.com/ user/RapalaVMC) or visit their website. www.rapala.com.au 50

AUGUST 2018

NOCQUA PRO POWER KIT

PRODUCT GUIDE

The Nocqua Pro Power Kit, brought to you by Hobie, is the first truly portable fishfinder battery for powering your sounder, GPS, and other outdoor electronics. Lightweight, durable, and water resistant, the Nocqua Pro Power Kit utilizes the same battery technology developed for light systems, with openended connections to easily power your electronic devices. The Pro Power Kit (#72025010) comes in two capacity sizes, 4.4Ah and 10Ah, to power every adventure. While not a perfect fit, they can be stored in Hobie mountable Fish Finder Battery Holders. For more information on these and other Hobie accessories for sounders/GPS, visit Hobie.com.au. For all the latest news on upcoming events and new releases, visit their Facebook page at www.facebook. com/HobieCatAsiaPacific. Price: SRP $224.95 www.hobie.com.au

SHADOW RAP JACK 5 DEEP 5 Rapala VMC Australia has added the new Shadow Rap Jack Deep 5 to the ever-popular Shadow Rap family. This 5cm lure certainly packs some punch. It consists of full through wire construction, and VMC hooks strong enough for predators far bigger than the bait would lead you to believe. It will also stay in the zone for longer thanks to its slow rising, deep diving action. With a weight of 6g it can cast a mile, making this bite-size lure such a versatile option for a variety of different species from bream and trout through to flathead, sooty grunter and mangrove jack. Available in 15 of the coolest fish catching colours, the Rapala Shadow Rap Jack Deep 5 is due to hit tackle store shelves in August 2018. www.rapala.com.au

NEW MUSTAD GLOVES

Mustad has released three new gloves: Landing Gloves, Casting Gloves and Sun Gloves. The Landing Gloves are designed to help you land fish without damaging your hands. These are heavy-duty, reinforced gloves designed for offshore fishing, however, in Australia anglers chasing raspy-toothed fish like flathead and Murray cod will appreciate the build of these gloves. Specifically designed for handling fish, the gloves feature a flip top on the index finger, Velcro wrist strap and heavy duty padding in all the right places. The Casting Glove is designed to be used while casting big lures on big tackle offshore. A mesh matrix top fits like a second skin and allows sweat to evaporate. There is extra padding in high stress areas. The Sun Gloves are UPF 50+ rated and lightweight. They feature reinforced grip pads so that rods and reel handles are held securely while the thumb, index and middle fingers are cut off to allow for a better feel. A strong Velcro wrist strap ensures a perfect fit. These gloves are available now in sizes M, L and XL. www.wilsonfishing.com.au

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PRODUCT GUIDE

WHAT’S NEW FISHING DAIWA RYOGA 1520

An ultra strong, alloy frame and side plates is the foundation of the Daiwa Ryoga 1520 baitcaster, providing an immoveable foundation for this stunning reel, regardless of what’s thrown at it. Integrating many of Daiwa’s most famous technologies, the Ryoga once again takes baitcaster design to the next level with Magseal, ATD, Hyper Mesh Gear System, Speed Shaft, Magforce Z and Zero Adjuster combining to deliver a level of refinement and power rarely seen in heavy duty baitcasters. A G1 Duraluminium spool, swept handle, and clicking star drag further enhance performance and features, and combine with the new High Grip I Shape knobs to provide unmatched cranking power, balance and control. Flawless in design, stunning in looks and style, and unparalleled in performance and power, the new Ryoga 1520 is the pinnacle of heavy-duty baitcaster design and the ultimate big bait reel. www.daiwafishing.com.au

MUSTAD WORM BINDER

Mustad has just released two Worm Binders, a single and double. Constructed from tough, waterproof 500D tarpaulin, these Worm Binders are sealed with a waterproof zipper for the ultimate in safety for your gear. Zip locked inner plastic pockets for lure storage (10 in the single version and 20 in the double) allow anglers to carry more than enough rigs, hooks, plastics, spinnerbaits or chatterbaits for any fishing session. The bags also contain plastic accessory pockets for things like jigheads, snips and small leader spools, while a larger mesh pocket can also store gloves, larger line spools and other accessories. The plastic pockets are held in place with a rust-proof nylon split ring, ensuring longevity in this traditional weak area, and there is also an elastic small tool storage area inside the binder. Outside there are two Velcro straps for attaching the binders to backpacks, tackle bags or boats, and the handles are finished off with soft neoprene for the ultimate in angler comfort. www.wilsonfishing.com.au

NEW LURES FROM JOLLIP

Australian lure company Jollip Lures has refined its Jaboa 55 diving crankbait, which is designed primarily for bass and yellowbelly. “This lure has evolved significantly since its initial design, and we have added saltwater colours to the range with a narrower bib and beefed up trebles,” said designer Joey Urquhart. “The deeper bib dives to 8ft and the narrower bib dives to 6ft.” The Jaboa 55 will catch a range of species, from jacks and barra to bass, yellowbelly and cod. Another new model is the River Rodent Fizzer, which is 100mm long and features twin blades that work at a slow and fast retrieve. This lure works at its best with a short, sharp retrieve, creating lots of noise and bubbles. “It’s hand crafted from timber and assembled using only the best components,” Joey said. “You can instantly feel the quality of the build and know it’s going to be up to the task of taming those river monsters.” Price: $20 (Jaboa 55), $35 (River Rodent Fizzer) www.jolliplures.com

REDINGTON BEHEMOTH

The Behemoth reel combines the most powerful drag in its class with stunning aesthetics that push the limits of fly reel design. The Behemoth’s unique, un-machinable, die-cast construction is coupled with a durable, interlocking, large-arbor spool design that both looks and functions like a premium reel. A super heavy-duty carbon fibre drag package brings the utmost in drag strength, reliability and performance to the family. Sized for your favourite 5wt trout rod and all the way up to the saltwater ready, big-game sizes. Features include: large arbor design that speeds retrieve and reduces line memory; oversized drag knob for easy adjustment; easily converts to left or right hand retrieve; deep V-spool for increased backing capacity; twin moulded, softtouch ergonomic handles; included nylon reel case; and a lifetime warranty. The Behemoth is available now in black or gunmetal. www.jmgillies.com.au

GAMAKATSU LONG SHANK BLACK

Gamakatsu are the benchmark in high quality, chemically sharpened Japanese steel hooks, and they have now added a black colour to the existing long shank red. Long shank hooks are versatile and perfect for worms, pipis, prawns and cut flesh baits either fished from a boat or land as well as mud eye in the fresh. They are perfect for kids starting out as they are available in a wide variety of sizes, and they are also easy for anyone to get fish off quickly, often without touching the fish at all. In addition the long shank offers protection from toothy species such as leatherjackets, a wharf staple for many young anglers. Beach anglers are also extensive users of this hook style for whiting and bream, while boat anglers will find them effective at catching yellowtail and slimy mackerel allowing a quick turnover from de-hooking a fish to getting another bait in the water. This new colour is available in sizes 12 up to 2, and in pre-packs and 25 packs. www.frogleysoffshore.com.au

OKUMA LRF RODS

LRF rods feature Okuma’s patented UFR technology (Unidirectional Fibre Reinforcement), which uses an outer layer of longitudinal fibres around the blank. This increases the lifting power and also the maximum strength of the rod by up to three times that of a standard blank. Other features include quality Seaguide XO guides, with SS316 frame and SIC inserts for long, smooth casts, full grip design for comfort and use in rod holders, comfortable reel seat design, hi-vis yellow tip section and slick looking black and gold highlights. The result is a series of strong and durable rods that cast lures well and offer excellent feel, while also having the sensitivity to transfer well to bait fishing applications. There are seven models, covering everything from skinny water bass and trout missions with the 5’ 1-3kg, through a selection of line ratings in 6’ to 7’ rods and a 7’4” 2-5kg model that’s perfect for long casts on the flats. Price: SRP $89.90-99.90 www.okuma.com.au

Please email contributions to: nicole@fishingmonthly.com.au AUGUST 2018

Gift

FATHERS DAY GUIDE GARMIN ECHOMAP SAMAKI RED 1 SNAPPER SHIRT PLUS

The new Garmin ECHOMAP Plus features powerful sonar capabilities, preloaded charts and mapping, and built-in WiFi. The Plus series features a bright, sunlightreadable 4”, 6”, 7” or 9” display. The 7” and 9” units have a new keyed-assist touchscreen, providing quick access to the features you use most. Thanks to built-in Wi-Fi, anglers can take advantage of the free ActiveCaptain mobile app. You can use the app to access, update and purchase maps and charts on a mobile device anytime, reference the ActiveCaptain community for marina and other points of interest details, and more. The app provides notifications directly to the plotter/combo, software updates, off-vessel planning capabilities and more. Once the unit is turned on, the maps and charts will be instantly available. All units have built-in CHIRP traditional sonar and CHIRP ClearVü and SideVü scanning sonar. The 7” and 9” Plus models also provide support for all Garmin Panoptix allseeing sonar transducers. The entire range is preloaded with BlueChart g2 HD cartography. Price: $499-$1599 www.garmin.com/newmarine

COSTA REEFTON

Black Magic has added the exciting slow pitch Flipper jig to their range. Their original design stands out with a dramatic spoon-like scoop on one side of the jig. They fall with a wide and sweeping side-to-side flutter and retrieve with a large darting action, giving them a strong visual presence which will be attractive to a wide range of species. Flipper Jigs come in four striking colour options with lumo spots or stripes. There are two strong hooks attached with Kevlar thread, and the available weights are 60g, 80g, 100g, 150g and 200g. Flipper Jigs are available now from Black Magic dealers nationwide. For more information, photos and videos, visit the Black Magic website or check them out on Facebook (www.facebook. com/blackmagictackle), or Instagram (@ blackmagictackle). www.blackmagictackle.com 52

AUGUST 2018

With the weather cooling it’s perfect timing for the arrival of ZMan’s BeanieZ. Constructed from quick-drying 100% acrylic, these comfortable beanies feature four topseam knit construction and embroided ZMan ‘Z’, in a one size fits most cool weather headwear option. These beanies are a quality Richardson Sports product. Richardson Sports is a company who has served the team sports market both in the US and internationally since 1970, and its products are known for their quality and reliability. Today Richardson is recognised as a leader in the sports product industry, delivering performance-inspired headwear to millions of athletes around the world. It makes sense then that they should make headwear for the largest recreational sport in the world: fishing. The new ZMan beanies come in two shades, charcoal and grey, and are available now. Price: SRP $19.95 www.z-man.com.au

SUGAR DEEP 90 BARRA TUNE

BLACK MAGIC FLIPPER JIGS

ZMAN BEANIEZ

One of Costa’s latest models is named after a popular fishing destination: Reefton. With 12 different river systems less than an hour’s drive from town, it’s no wonder New Zealand’s Reefton is world-renowned for its freshwater fishing. These size large frames are the perfect companion to explore any body of water. They will stay put on larger heads under any condition, thanks to their co-moulded temples, Hydrolite nose and temple pads, and cam action spring hinges. All Costa lenses have 100% UV blockage for maximum protection and 100% polarization to kill reflected glare. Their 580 lens technology effectively blocks the harshest light waves in the visible spectrum, and enhances the portions that help you see more clearly into the water. Costa’s Bio Resin frames now come available in four new colours, including two new brilliant matte teak finishes. To check out the full range of Costa sunglasses, plus their range of apparel and accessories, visit the Costa Australia website or look them up on Facebook. www.costadelmar.com.au

Samaki’s new Red Snapper shirt is striking and full of colour. It features hungry snapper in a baitfish-filled rockery, chasing down a Samaki Boombait. This shirt is made from lightweight fabric that features UPF50+ technology, providing the highest level of protection against the harsh sun. The soft touch, 100% polyester material is comfortable on the body and has the added feature of being breathable, keeping you cool and dry. Samaki designs are brought to you by Australian anglers who love to design Australian species. Red Snapper shirts are available in adult, youth and kids sizes, ranging from a size 2 through to a 3XL, allowing the whole family to get in on the action and out onto the water. For more information, including the location of your nearest stockist, visit the Samaki website or like them on Facebook and Instagram. Price: SRP$59.95 (adults), $49.95 (kids) www.samaki.com.au

Japan produce some of the most lifelike lures in the world and the Bassday Sugar Deep 90 Barra Tune is no exception, except this time it’s been tuned for Aussie conditions. This realistic 90mm jerkbait is available in seven fish-attracting colours, covering everything from clear to dirty water, making them ideal for inland dams as well as rivers, streams and estuaries. The Bassday Sugar Deep 90 Barra Tune has heavy-duty construction and extra strong trebles. It has a life-like appearance and can be cast accurately, quickly diving to a depth of 2.5m. This versatile lure can be used with a slow, steady retrieve producing a sharp wobble or a fast erratic stop-start retrieve which will have the lure darting about, imitating a dying baitfish. It also works well in heavily fished waters or on days where the fish are timid, as its neutral buoyancy lets you pause it near structure and it will suspend right in the strike zone. The Barra Tune will be perfect for barra, threadfin salmon and other species as well as flathead down south over flats. www.frogleysoffshore.com.au

Guide

FATHERS DAY GUIDE LOWRANCE FISHHUNTER

BIG WILLY BAIT PUMP

The Lowrance FishHunter castable fishfinder is designed for anglers fishing from the shore or a kayak. It sends realtime sonar data via WiFi to view on your smartphone or tablet, and doesn’t require a cellular or internet connection. FishHunter Pro features a tri-frequency transducer, offering four ways to view sonar data including Fish (fish symbols), Raw (arches), Bathymetric and Ice Fishing Flasher views. You can troll it behind a boat to create bathymetric maps. Incorporating five tri-frequency transducers, FishHunter 3D offers five functional views including 3D Fishing and Ice Fishing Flasher, as well as a Directional Casting View that pinpoints fish depth and location relative to the transducer. FishHunter 3D can be trolled to create bathymetric or structure maps. FishHunter’s antenna ensures constant WiFi connectivity for the highest signal range. FishHunter Pro provides a 150ft depth and 160ft WiFi range, and FishHunter 3D offers a 160ft depth and a 200ft WiFi range. The rechargeable battery lasts for 10 hours of active use. Price: SRP $173.90-$218.90 www.lowrance.com

Pumping worms and yabbies is a great way to get the freshest of fresh bait for your day’s fishing. Having the right tool to get the job done is an important step to success and one that needs careful consideration. The Wilson Big Willy Bait Pump gives users an extra long 39” shaft meaning you do not have to bend so far down when pumping. This is a great asset for those who want to collect bait comfortably and easily. Stainless steel and brass construction mean that this pump will go the distance, giving you years of faithful service and opening up your fishing options. Available at all leading tackle stores, the Big Willy will become a vital part of any bait collection trip. For more information on this and other bait collecting products from Wilson’s, visit the Wilson Fishing website. You can also catch up with the latest news, catch photos and videos at www.facebook.com/LWilsonAndCo. www.wilsonfishing.com.au

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11.

DAIWA DUCKFIN LIVESHAD

12.

The Duckfin Liveshad has a very effective design, which delivers outstanding action that resembles the swimming movements of a real fish. By applying 3D design and modeling around the realistic natural baitfish shape, this premium grade soft bait is one of the most accurate lifelike shads available on the market today. Suited to fast and slow retrieves, the Duck Fin tail creates a strong rolling and swinging action. Combined with its enticing swimming action, the lure’s streamlined shape, fins and large tail make it a very lethal lure. Features include: realistic patterns; 3D eyes; UV active prevents fading; fins for stabilization; and large Duckfin tail. The special soft material is also tough, and can endure multiple takes from predators. There are two models, a smaller size that measures 150mm long and weighs 28g, and a larger model that measures 200mm long and weighs 64g. They are available now in tackle stores around Australia. Price: from SRP $19.99 www.daiwafishing.com.au

HOBIE BARNACLE +

The Hobie Barnacle + is a durable floating speaker with Bluetooth connectivity, a built-in microphone for taking hands-free calls, and the capacity to hold 1000 songs, so you don’t have to use your phone. It mounts to any smooth surface using an industrial suction cup base, and is perfect for the kayak, SUP or tinny. This new speaker is designed to go where other speakers can’t; it’s 100% waterproof, and can be submerged to a depth of 6ft for up to an hour. It also floats! No matter how it is dropped in the water, the Barnacle will always surface with the speaker facing up, keeping your tunes afloat and jamming. As well as being waterproof, the Barnacle is sand and dust proof. Its all-terrain design is sealed tight, and is engineered to withstand the most demanding elements. No matter how dirty your speaker gets, you can freely wash it off in water and you’re good to go. It also has built-in 4GB memory, produces surprisingly bold sound, and has a battery life of up to five hours. www.hobie.com

LIVETARGET BAITBALL 11 SPINNER RIG

The LiveTarget BaitBall Spinner Rig is one of the latest LiveTarget lures to be released by Australian distributor EJ Todd. With three different wire-frame sizes, the LiveTarget BaitBall Spinner Rig is a versatile lure which can be fished at any depth. The three teaser bodies and willow blade create a vibration and flash which call in nearby predatory fish. When bass or cod see the BaitBall, they will strike the primary target body, which is strategically placed away from the teaser fish in the BaitBall. The LiveTarget BaitBall Spinner Rig is available now in six colours to match various water conditions. There are three sizes – small (11g), medium (14g) and large (21g). For more information head to the EJ Todd website, or for news, photos and videos check them out on Facebook (www.facebook.com/ EJ.Todd.Australia) or Instagram (@ej_todd). www.ejtodd.com.au

PLANO WEEKEND SERIES

For 2018, Plano’s successful Weekend Series includes three distinct, reimagined models that work as hard as you do. These models are called the Weekend Series Tackle Cases, Weekend Series Softsider Tackle Bags and Weekend Series Speed Bags. Each one is available in Plano’s popular 3600 and 3700 sizes to build – or integrate seamlessly into – any tackle management system. And they look better than ever in brand new, classy and clean tan or grey colour schemes. In addition to standout new aesthetics, these bags feature upgraded, no-fail zipper pulls and tactical-inspired MOLLE exterior webbing for easy attachment of fishing tools or accessories. Best of all, these handsome and durable standout performers are available at very reasonable prices that any working angler can afford. For more information on this and other Plano tackle storage solutions, visit the JM Gillies website. You can also get all the latest news and catch photos on the JM Gillies Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ jm.gillies. www.jmgillies.com.au AUGUST 2018

Lure fishing is the winter go-to MILDURA

Rob Oswin

Over the last month there have been consistent reports. Numbers of fish being caught on bait have been slowly going down considerably, while fishing on lures has remained the best approach to catching perch and cod alike. Smaller cod and even cod up to the magic metre are still being caught, mostly on hardbody lures. Lighter colours such as light greens, pinks and yellows have been much more effective than darker colours lately. Once the cold winter weather set in there were fewer and fewer people on the river, which has been

A decent golden perch caught recently. great for those who have been out, giving them just about a free reign on the river. The fishing for cod has been good due to the cod

attacking lures of just about any size. There have been plenty of fish being caught anywhere from Wentworth right through to Red Cliffs

with the Merbein Common producing some excellent fishing. There have even been some reports of catfish being caught around the willow trees around Gol Gol. The fishing can be expected to slow down rapidly over the next month. This comes after the annual event of the bardi moths having flown and with the added effect of the continuing decrease of the water temperature. Reports of golden perch have slowed right down and it can be expected that the numbers of perch will remain low. With there being fewer anglers on the water and the fishing becoming slower, it’s a great time to ensure everyone who is on and around the river is being safe, as fewer people

Smaller cod, and even cod up to the magic metre, are still being caught. around means more room for fishing, but also less chance for others to be in the area in the unfortunate case there is an accident on the river. It’s also an excellent time to catch up on maintenance of your

boat and gear and to top up on any lost or damaged tackle and lures. Remember to stay safe. It doesn’t get much better than sitting around the fire after a long day on the river.

Brave anglers fish the frosts ROBINVALE

Rod Mackenzie codmac@bigpond.net.au

For as long as I have been fishing for Murray cod the arrival of the first few frosts has been a sure sign to start casting the shallows. It’s been my observation over the years that as the icy chill paints the ground a brilliant white, large cod

shift their hold from deep water snags to those in just a few metres of water. Possibly this is a prelude to the pending breeding season, as these fish now hold on the opposite bank to what you might normally fish. While the cold, frosty weather heralds some excellent cod fishing opportunities, it also frightens away the fairweathered fishos. There has

Redfin are always a chance in the Kerang Lakes.

been little traffic in our local waters over the past month with just a few brave souls cashing in on the cold water cod bite. Around Swan Hill in the Murray River several nice Murray cod up to and over a metre have been landed on bait and lures. The chill has taken the sting out of the perch bite, with just a few large fish reported on bait. The frosts have also seen a few Murray crays moving in our local waters – a good sign for the future of these prickly crustaceans that took a pounding in the first black water event. The Kerang Lakes are a little quiet, but it’s fair to say some good-sized redfin can be caught on fresh white bait or small soft plastics and blades during the winter months. Some days a few solid golden perch are caught in the mix. The fishing around Robinvale has been very quiet with just a few reports of golden perch on bait.

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Even the carp population has closed ranks in the icy flows. MURRAY CRAY CONFUSION Locally it seems there is still some confusion regarding the rules and regulations surrounding the Murray cray open season that started on 1 June. The May 2018 media release from NSW Fisheries states “In the Murray River, fishing for Murray crays is permitted between the Hume Weir and the Tocumwal Road Bridge, including Lake Mulwala, and in the Murrumbidgee River between the Gundagai Road Bridge and Berembed Weir, excluding Old Man Creek.” All other sections of the Murray River and NSW waters below these points are closed to fishing for Murray crays. Size and bag limits for the open waters are pretty straightforward and are as follows; the minimum legal size for Murray crays is 10cm and the maximum size is 12cm. The measurement is made of the carapace (head section), not the entire crayfish length.

Tim Polis and the monster Murray cray he caught upstream of Tocumwal in the Murray River. In addition to size limits, there is also a daily bag limit of two Murray crayfish per person per day that applies when anglers are on or adjacent to inland waters. An absolute statewide possession limit of four Murray crays per person applies. Murray crays must

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Frosts often herald the start of some excellent big cod fishing action; all you have to do is brave the cold.

be retained by anglers whole or in carcass form, however female crays carrying eggs or with young attached must be released immediately and unharmed. Anglers require a valid recreational fishing licence to take Murray crayfish, unless exempt, and can only take them by hand or with permitted equipment. Since the open anglers have enjoyed some very good captures upstream of Tocumwal including Lake Mulwala and above. This season anglers are reporting not only good numbers, but some of the biggest Murray crays they have ever seen. If there is still any confusion surrounding the Murray cray open season, contact your local tackle store or go directly to the NSW Department of Primary Industries website.

Look to Snowy Mountain lakes for your trout fix SNOWY MOUNTAINS

Rod Allen

Winter in the Snowies is a great time to rug up and get amongst the terrific lake fishing this time of year offers. With river season still closed, anglers are heading to the impoundments to get their trout fix. Lake Jindabyne has been a standout fishery right through June, with bags of mixed species being common and some anglers completing the ‘grand slam’ of Atlantic salmon, brook trout, rainbow trout and brown trout in one day. Jindabyne has slowly been receding since the start of May. At its current level and lower the lake reveals its weed beds and rocky structures, which help you to concentrate your efforts around these areas early in the mornings. Low light or overcast days with lures, bait or a wet fly can be very productive. Atlantic salmon to 7kg and brook trout to 4kg have recently been liberated into Jindy, and targeting these fish with lure or fly is great fun. Add the by-catch of well-conditioned rainbows and browns and it makes it fairly hard to go past this picturesque lake. Flat line trolling or casting lures in deep water from

This is the view anglers are blessed with when they approach Guthega Pondage. Eucumbene arm to Taylors Bay has also been very reliable for casting lures or flies, as the weed beds are in reach from the banks and the fish look to fatten up prior to and after their spawning migration. Bait fishing the lake’s margins with the humble scrubworm or PowerBait has been accounting for many fish, especially around Widows Corner and the Clay Pits. Lake Eucumbene has been consistently dropping for months now, and although it may make for an uncomfortable muddy foreshore, it can also be an angler’s best friend. The lake’s yabby beds are being

us trout lovers. Searching the margins with lure or fly, or by flat line trolling and bait fishing the deeper bays will commonly reward the angler throughout most days. Tangy’s fish can be a bit shy on still, glassy topped blue sky days, and that’s when the polaroiding the edge can be your best shot. Walking very slowly, anticipating and finding a trout is nearly as fun as actually catching one, and when you do, don’t rush it. Wait for the opportunity to present your unweighted worm, fly or lure well in front of the trout’s path while keeping a low profile

as close to a sure thing as possible is when the lake is rising. The best baits are scrub worms, grubs and PowerBait. The best flies are Buggers, Simpsons, Craig’s, black pheasant tail nymphs, Midgeballs and pupa flies. Your best lures will be Bullets, Rapalas, Wobblers and Celtas. Lesser fished alpine lakes such as Guthega, Island Bend and Rainbow Lake have been sensational over the last few months, with some amazing above average size fish taken by the stealthy fishos who polaroid the shallows and the rock shelved margins.

banks usually do very well targeting these patches with soft plastics or slow fished vibes. Fly fishos with tandem rigs of Buggers or Tiahape Ticklers on intermediate lines fishing a slow figure-of-eight retrieve or even no retrieve are having very memorable sessions once they find one of these destroyed yabby beds. Eucumbene’s browns have stacked on an amazing amount of condition over the last month on these yabbies and when you hold one there’s no mystery as to what they’re eating. Flat line trolling has been outstanding, with many boats bagging out in a few hours on the same This is a fairly typical Snowies brown for winter. Lake Tantangara is no doubt a beautiful place to visit, and it’s fishing has been a highlight since Easter with consistent water levels. Now that it’s beginning to rise, some even more exciting times lay ahead! Tangy’s fish are all wild and it has been self-supportive virtually since it was built, so no supplement stockings have been necessary, which makes it a real drawcard to

from the skyline to prevent the fish detecting you. If you think the fish has or is going to pass your offering without noticing, impart a subtle twitch to gain its attention. Tangy in my opinion has the most reliable evening fishing in the whole of the Snowies, and it’s commonplace for the lake’s edges and soaks to come alive with activity before and after dark, and

The fishing can be a little spasmodic, but when these trout are out and about they can be like rabbits, and on a good day you will be fishing to many sighted trout. When it isn’t on, the scenery more than makes up for any disappointment in the fishing. • For more info, tips or queries, drop into The Alpine Angler at 647 Snowy

n Trout HatcMountains her Hwy, e d a Valley, y G

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The Haven, The Clay Pits, Curiosity Rocks or Hatchery Bay should find you some salmon. Prospecting a bit closer in around the structure and weed beds of Wollondibby, Widows Corner and Hatchery Bay is a good way to find the brookies and resident browns and bows. Large-profiled flies such as Buggers, Matukas, Hammils and Mrs Simpsons are the go-to wets and streamers. Kalkite from the

exposed and on windy days the waves pound and destroy them, washing them out of their homes. At this time of year the yabbies are in a dormant or hibernated state and are virtually helpless and at the mercy of the waves where they either get mopped up by the browns in that dirty water or pushed up onto the bank where the birds pick them off. Land-based anglers who identify the tell tale signs of blue claws littered areas of

lures as Jindabyne, which are Bullets and Tassie Devils. Bait fishing with scrub worms or wood grubs under a bubble float or unweighted around drop offs and rocky outcrops early mornings, evenings and on overcast days will reward the dedicated with some lovely fish. Those who prefer gentleman’s hours can also expect to do well with a scrubby or PowerBait fished a little deeper on a running sinker rig.

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Anglers’ hard work and effort will be rewarded ALBURY/WODONGA

Connor Heir

Over the past month my focus has been primarily on walking the banks of the Murray River around the Albury/Wodonga area. The river has been quite low for some time now, and this has created some amazing fishing opportunities for anglers.

Kuttafurra lures. This lure has accounted for many of my cod not only recently, but has been a highlight for me all season. As well as Murray cod, golden perch have also been playing the game as well. Earlier in the month I was picking up many of them right in close to the banks, so close in fact that they were eating the lure almost at my feet. Although

Golden perch are always welcome as by-catch when chasing Murray cod. Although I have not caught fish any huge fish recently, there have been several anglers catching Murray cod of monster sizes, and well over the magic metre mark. I have been managing to pick up numbers of smaller cod, averaging around the 60-65cm mark. While these aren’t huge fish, it’s still great fun to be out fishing and to get a few numbers on the board, considering it can be difficult to fish the structure properly from the banks. The majority of my fish lately have been caught on hardbodied diving lures and surface lures, such as particularly Joe the Rat by

often caught when chasing cod, the golden perch are always welcome to join in. They are an awesome fish, they fight very hard and eat so many different styles of lures, from big cod lures down to small trout minnows. Earlier in the season, I was even picking them up off the surface, which is not a common way to catch golden perch! As well as fishing the river, I was lucky enough to join my friend Kyle in fishing a competition at Mulwala for the day. This was an awesome opportunity, and I managed to catch a 67cm cod off the surface using a Thirstyfurra

Rat. It was a slow day for us in terms of fish, but we both managed to catch fish, which is definitely better than not catching anything at all. Anyone who has fished Lake Mulwala will agree how beautiful it is, and even though fishing can be slow there, it is still an amazing place to visit for its beauty alone. The trout fishing in the Albury/Wodonga area hasn’t kicked into gear yet, but when authorities release water from Lake Hume into the Murray River it should fire a few trout up in the river, remembering that the Murray River is always open to trout fishing, as is Lake Hume. I have heard of a few trout being caught in the river lately, but they have been caught with a lot of persistence and hard work. For the remainder of the Murray Cod season, I will keep persisting with

Surface luring in Lake Mulwala will be productive this month. fishing the Murray River and hopefully crack my PB this season. If not, I will still have fun being out doing what I love most. The fish I have been catching have taken a fair bit of time on the water to catch,

Golden perch have been taking lures intended for cod in the Murray River.

Walking the banks of the Murray has been productive for the author.

and I have walked many kilometres for them, but with persistence you will see results, especially during this time of year. The cold weather can be difficult and tough going, but rewards are

certainly worth all the time and effort. So if you can handle having cold hands, and be persistent and stay keen, you will certainly be in with a chance to catch a very memorable fish.

Mulwala impossible to predict YARRAWONGA

Tony Bennett codclassic@bigpond.com

Without doubt, predicting what could be happening in and around Lake Mulwala fish-wise at present is nigh on impossible. This month the lake should be filling after being drawn down to below 20% over winter to kill off the ever-increasing weed problem. How the cod will resettle back in their home snag is anybody’s guess. If history repeats from the last drawdowns, end of cod season should peter out quietly with action expected to return to normal come the cod season opening on 1 December. The major change for those heading out for their final fix before season’s end 56

AUGUST 2018

will be the change in techniques needed to snag a fish. Over the past couple of years it has been ‘Fishing Basics 101’ where it wasn’t hard to throw either a swimbait, wakebait or surface lure in, around or over the weed beds. Plenty of young whippersnappers have made their social media name doing this, and they are now going to have to learn to fish deeper timber without weed. Spinnerbaits, diving hardbodied lures and crankbaits are sure to become flavour of the week once again. Looking back, once the lake became too low to launch a boat, it was only those with kayaks who had a bit of fun. Many went emptyhanded but there were a few anglers who stood out from the rest and cracked the low lake code. Brad Murray and Josh Millard had an amazing

couple of weekends landing five 1m+ cod measuring up to an incredible 124cm! Matt ‘Spida’ Rogers was another who figured out how to find them with 15 landed over two days with. A 110cm cracker was his best. Below the weir Cain Peatling came up trumps with a super 109cm cod but that was about all that was caught in the general Yarrawonga township area through the month. Further downstream between Yarrawonga and Cobram there were some monsters caught with a 132cm beast being a standout. Be warned – a couple of big fish don’t mean the fish are ‘going off’ as promoted by some. Winter fishing is tough with catch rates being low. The positive of winter cod fishing is that the cod you do come across are generally

bigger than usual. The cray season continued, and most returned with their daily bag limits after putting a bit of effort into working pots. For those pursuing this favourite pastime, the average return has been about 20 undersize or female to one legal. As the fishing slows down, organisation for the 2018-19 fishing competition season ramps up. If you are keen to get your name added to the Golden Dollars, Cod Classic, Dash 4 Cash, His and Hers Partners Classic or Cod Nationals mailing lists, shoot me an email at codclassic@ bigpond.com. The big news on the Cod Classic front is a tagged cod with a potential reward of a new Toyota Hilux Ute on offer. Keep your eyes peeled for some more details soon.

Matt Rogers with a 90cm Lake Mulwala drawdown cod.

Check out Hume this August WANGARATTA

Robbie Alexander

It’s almost the end of the closed trout season in Victoria and almost the end of the hardest time of the year to write fishing reports. It’s no secret that winter can be a difficult time of the year to write about in North East Victoria. That’s not to say that there are no fantastic fishing opportunities around this area in winter; it just means that it’s hard for me to mix things up when most reports come from just a small handful of places. One place that I rarely mention in my fishing reports is Lake Hume. The reason for this is because Albury/Wodonga is a very large place and I mostly assume that someone else is already talking about it, reporting on it, or it’s just blatantly obvious. A giant lake of over 3 millionML near a rural city with close to 100,000 people – obviously it will have fish in it! In saying that, many people from other parts

Albury/Wodonga region this August. Lake Hume is a water storage on the Murray River east of Albury/Wodonga. It’s large, clear, surrounded by farmland and packed full of fish. This giant lake isn’t known as an amazing trout fishery, and recent comparison tests between Lake Eildon and Lake

few 10lb brown trout are caught in Lake Hume. The best spots are in front of the dam wall, and in front of the pines in the open section of water in front of the small township of Bellbridge. From the Bethanga Bridge down to the weir wall is an excellent trolling run. Just a quick warning

Wayne Gardner fishing a picturesque trout stream early in the season. The streams reopen on the first Saturday in September.

A lovely small stream rainbow trout. The countdown is on for the new trout season to open in September.

Sandy Hector trolling for trout in Lake Hume on a cold winter’s day. You can see the weir wall in the background. of the state might not know about Lake Hume, so here is something that might lift your spirits if you’re heading to the

In saying this, Lake Hume has produced some of the largest trout in the region over the years, and every year during the cooler months I see photos of very large trout that have been caught there. The best times of the year to target trout in Lake Hume are from May to October, with the best

Hume confirmed why. It’s the suitable trout habitat during the hot summer months; put simply, Lake Eildon has much more of it.

time within that timeframe being August to September. The best lures to target the trout in Lake Hume are larger winged lures such as Tasmanian Devils, small to medium-sized shallow diving minnows, and (a bit of a secret weapon for the monster trout) a mediumsized swimbait or jerkbait in redfin colours. Lake Hume is stocked regularly with trout during the colder months, and some of these trout grow quite large. Once they get large, they start feeding on the resident baby redfin and from there they grow from large to monster-size very quickly! Each year a

– yes, Lake Hume holds some truly massive trout, but it’s not the sort of lake that you can go to and catch

numerous small dams in Wodonga, Merriwa Park Lake in Wangaratta, Harrietville Dredge Hole in Harrietville and no doubt a few others. These small ponds were all stocked for the winter school holidays and will all still have more than enough trout to warrant an August fishing trip. News just in… I just found out that Lake Buffalo was recently stocked with 3000 trout, while Lake William Hovell was stocked with a massive

10,000 trout. This is excellent news for both areas and should lead to some fantastic trout fishing for years to come. The reason I was eluding to this was because I caught a couple of 10cm brown trout in Lake William Hovell recently, so I did some research. The trout in both lakes will be small for now, but trout are very fast growing fish so it won’t be too long before we see these fish reach a decent size.

Bank fishing in the Wangaratta area during August can often result in a few carp being caught.

Stanley Dam is easily the best family-friendly waterway to take the kids fishing. It really is the sort of lake that should be left aside for kids and people with mobility issues. It has clear water, easy access and is pumped with yearling rainbow trout each winter.

a heap of them. Don’t go there expecting to catch eight or nine trout in an afternoon because it just doesn’t happen. In fact, I’d compare Lake Hume’s monster trout to Copeton Dam’s monster cod… they’re in there if you’re willing to persevere. Away from Lake Hume, Lakes William Hovell and Dartmouth will be popular with trout anglers during August, so too will the many family friendly trout fishing lakes that litter the region. There’s Stanley Dam, Lake Sambell, Allans Flat Waterhole, Fosters Lake in Glenrowan,

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Tough in rivers at end of winter SHEPPARTON

Nick Brown teamriverrats@hotmail.com

The local rivers have been very hard going in recent weeks and months. This is expected in our region, with winter traditionally being the quietest time for fishing. The standard cold conditions have also been met with some higher river levels, which has made it very hard to access the river. Anglers have had to fish the flowing water. These flows should settle down this month, but the water will still be very dirty and banks still hard to access. The environmental flows made it very hard for those chasing crayfish, with hardly any reports of crays being caught in the Goulburn River. There were a handful of reports of crays taking worms and holding onto the hooks in the Broken, but nothing has been reported at legal length. There has been the odd yellowbelly and cod caught on spinnerbaits in the Broken River in the middle of the day. Some locals are still trying their luck using surface lures. Just like the bait fishing, it has been tough going.

In months to come we should start to see some warmer conditions, which should kickstart the spring fishing season. While we are limited to what we chase in the coming months, there are still plenty of yellowbelly to chase in the Broken River and also the Goulburn once it cleans up. We are yet to have many decent river rises in the Broken River, so if we manage to get a decent rise, make sure you get out on the water, because the yellowbelly go nuts in the Broken from late August to November when there is a river rise. LOCAL CHANNELS The channel system should be back to normal height at some stage in August with the water boards again filling the channels in the lead up to irrigation season. While the lower water levels made fishing harder in July and early August, there’s still a reward for those putting the time in. Recently I’ve found if you don’t get a hit or land a fish in the first 20 minutes, they’re just not on the chew. This means trying a few different locations until you find the fish. Once you do you can get a bag of four or five in a short time. As well as changing locations

I found different techniques worked best on different days. I fish religiously with either a TN50 Jackall with a Bassman beetle spin or a Bassman jig rigged with a green or silver 100mm Squidgy also rigged with a beetle spin. I either focus on dropping the spinner near the pylons, slow rolling close to the bottom or a slow lift followed by letting the lure drop to the bottom again. Every day there seems to be a different technique needed to land fish in the channels. I have also spent time on the channel banks with my fouryear-old son bait fishing using worms or corn chasing carp. There hasn’t been a lot of success, which I guess is a sign of the lowered carp numbers in the system. WARANGA BASIN The winter months have been very productive in the basin with plenty of reports of all types of species being caught including trout, redfin, cod and yellowbelly. It can be a huge surprise if you’re chasing redfin on a light spin rod and a legal size cod hits your lure or bait. Anywhere around the Harrimans Road ramp area has produced good fish once they’re located on the sounder. Most reports say the fish have

been in the 15-20ft mark. There will be more inflows into the basin in coming months, so with the freshwater comes food for the fish and this can turn anyone’s luck around when fishing the basin. Small spinners, lipless crankbaits, plastics or trolling hardbodies will work a treat in coming months and those bait fishing will also have success once you locate the fish. The inflows of water are great, but unfortunately the closer to spring we get, the more chance of windy days we have. Make sure you do some research on the wind forecast before heading to the basin, as it can be a very dangerous place when the wind blows up. SHEPPARTON LAKE Shepparton Lake got another boost in the past few months, with Fisheries releasing 500 rainbow trout into the lake. There have been a heap of fish released into the lake over the last couple of years and it’s helped keep the lake fishing well all year round. For those wanting to chase the rainbow trout in the lake, I would suggest floating PowerBaits or worms around the grass hill area or down towards the boat ramp. Lure

Ayden Brown (the author’s son) enjoying bait fishing roasting marshmallows while he bait fishes. fishers tend to have more luck casting small spinners or trolling vibes up and down the rowing lanes. Coming into spring the yellowbelly will become more active, so throwing spinnerbaits and lipless crankbaits in any open water on the weed edges will work well. KIALLA LAKES This is Kialla’s quietest period – just before the springtime boom. There has been the odd fish caught, however anglers are putting in big hours for minimal fish. It will get better as the month goes on and hopefully with a few warmer days the yellowbelly will jump on the bite again. The only report I have had from the lake

came from bait fishing the edges near the playground. Cast a huge bunch of worms about 6-8ft from the bank and constantly move the baits around the willow trees or sandbar. In spring time casting spinnerbaits or Jackalls from the bank will be the best bet and those fishing from a kayak can cast or troll the same lures. LOCAL STOCKING UPDATE There was a significant rainbow trout fish stocking program in our area in July with the following local waterways receiving fish: Shepparton Lake, 500; Mooroopna Rec Reserve Lake, 100; Bartlett Lake Tatura, 100; Longwood Dam, 200; Numurkah Lake, 200.

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The winter rainfall has been below average BENDIGO

Roger Miles codhuntertours@bigpond.com

The Bendigo region has received some much-needed rainfall over the last month. Unfortunately the amount of rainfall the region has been receiving is below average. The ground has started to green up, which is a welcome sight compared to the brown ground of summer and autumn. There are some positives and negative results from this below average rainfall. The positives are that currently water clarity is still good in our local river systems. The negative is the lack of inflows into the river systems and our impoundments, which will have a negative effect on the fishing in the long term. LAKE EPPALOCK Water levels are currently steady and the water clarity remains good. The next three months of rainfall will determine what water levels are going to be reached in Lake Eppalock. At this stage the long-term forecast is for below average rainfall. On a positive note the Coliban catchment has received some average rainfall and water levels are slowly starting to rise in the Coliban reservoirs. At this stage there are few anglers fishing this location. If you fish during a weekday, you will often have the lake to yourself. This a welcome change compared to the summer months when the lake is typically very busy with boat traffic. Lately redfin are making up the majority of anglersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; captures. The best concentrations of redfin are currently being located in deep water with depths greater than 10m holding the best concentrations of redfin. The most productive techniques for the redfin have been trolling deep diving hardbody lures, casting soft plastics and jigging ice jigs. On a positive note there have been a few good reports of trout being caught at Lake Eppalock. The majority of these have been caught by anglers trolling winged styles lures like Tassie Devils. Small numbers of trout are also being caught by anglers trolling minnowstyle lures. The numbers of golden perch and Murray cod being caught at this location have been

This quality redfin was caught on a Jackall ice jig at Lake Eppalock.

LODDON RIVER The water clarity is currently patchy in the Loddon River depending on what section of the Loddon River you are planning to fish. Currently the water clarity is best in the sections at Serpentine and Bridgewater. It has been a very frustrating season at this location when it comes to water clarity. With the poor conditions in both Cairn Curran and Laanecoorie, the water clarity deteriorates every

time a flush is let down the river. When the flows reduce, the water clarity will improve again. Recently low numbers of fish are being caught in the Loddon River. The occasional Murray cod has been caught by anglers casting surface lures, swimbaits and lipless crankbaits. Small numbers of golden perch have also been caught. The most productive method for these has been trolling mediumsized hardbody lures and heavy spinnerbaits.

low and we wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see an increase in the catch rates of these native fish until the water temperatures start to increase. CAMPASPE RIVER Water clarity is currently very good in the Campaspe River. At this time of the year water clarity can change quickly after any heavy rainfall. The fishing is currently slow, but if you put the time in there are still some quality fish being caught. Small numbers of redfin are currently being caught in the Campaspe River. Casting lipless crankbaits and small hardbody lures and bladed spinners along the edges of weed beds and cumbungi-lined banks has been working well. The occasional quality golden perch and Murray cod are still being caught in the Campaspe River at the present time. Anglers need to be patient when targeting the native fish at this time of the year. Anglers need to put a lot of presentations into fishholding structure before they can stir up a fish. The retrieval speeds of lures are also critical. A very slow retrieval speed is important at this time of the year. CAIRN CURRAN The water levels remain steady at this location and the water clarity is still poor. Redfin are making up the majority of captures at this location. Bait fishing with small yabbies and worms has been productive on the redfin. Casting soft plastics and jigging soft plastics and ice jigs has also been working on the redfin. The reports on native captures at this location have been low. The reports on trout captures at this location have also been low. Hopefully in the next month we might start to see water levels again rise. When this does occur bait fishing around the edges of the lake with worms, corn and gents is a good option to target the resident trout population. AUGUST 2018

There’ll be no winter blues for Ballarat anglers BALLARAT

Shane Stevens

While the temperatures have certainly dropped in and around the Ballarat region, this hasn’t dampened the spirits of many anglers who have hit the waterways. The good news is that the fish have been biting for those who have ventured out, with most of our local waters producing the goods. Moorabool Reservoir has seen many anglers walking its extensive shorelines casting lures and flies catching plenty of quality brown trout around the 1.5kg mark. On a recent fishing day held by members of the Ballarat flyfishers club, in absolutely atrocious weather conditions there were a few notable catches of brown trout, with Doug Kimberly catching and releasing a lovely well-conditioned trout of approximately 3lb. I managed to snag a beautiful golden-coloured brown trout of approximately 3lb as well on a Shrek Fly Pattern near the dam wall. Moorabool will continue well for anglers who are prepared to put in the yards and cover plenty of shoreline casting lures, plastics or flies. For the guys who like to fish bait I would suggest the humble old garden worm fished on a lightlyweighted running sinker rig. This will bring some of these brown trout that are foraging along the shorelines for food undone. I mentioned last month that Lake Bolac would be on the radar for many anglers who remember back to last winter when the rainbow trout went absolutely ballistic, with big numbers of fish around the 3lb mark initially being caught trolling lures. They then changed their feeding patterns to bait, which consisted of salted white or blue bait and PowerBait in every colour available. I made a few trips down to Bolac trying to emulate last year’s results, however while the fish are definitely there, they’re not biting like last year. On our first trip we trolled lures for over three

hours without a touch! The water is a lot lower than last year with the average depth around the 5ft mark and discoloured with algae, which may be the reason the fish didn’t eat our lures. Our plan B was to try some bait fishing from the shore, so we loaded our rods up with PowerBait and bang – we didn’t have to wait long. My fishing mate Brian Rivett caught a lovely rainbow around the 3.5lb mark, and other anglers along the shore had been catching quite a few on PowerBait, as well as pilchard fillets, glassies and salted white and blue bait. I tried a pilchard fillet that was given to me by a fellow angler, which was most appreciated. I cast the pilchard out and it had hardly hit the water when it was eaten by the best rainbow trout I’ve caught in Australia

Anglers who like to cast plastics from the shore as I do at Wendouree during the winter months should catch their fair share of good ones in the months to come. I prefer to fish on the windward shoreline. When there is a fair bit of chop and if raining it’s even better; the trout come in real close and they can be caught anytime of the day. Tullaroop Reservoir continues to fish well as it

A bit of Moorabool Reservoir gold – a lovely brown trout prior to release caught on a Shrek Fly Pattern.

Billy Stevens nailed this lovely Newlyn Reservoir brown trout while using a mudeye for bait. Photo courtesy of Heather Oliver.

fish have definitely quietened down. It’s probably about time, as they seemed to have been on the chew all year. I have driven around Wendouree on many occasions in recent weeks and haven’t seen a boat on the water, and I haven’t been out myself. I have concentrated on other waters. Ben Young has been nailing some magnificent brown trout over the past weeks fishing land-based casting Ecogear Power Shad soft plastics with excellent results. Ben normally drops the kids off to school and sneaks a little session or two in. Ben has snagged a couple of magnificent brown trout – a beautiful hen of 62cm followed up by a buck in the high 50s.

– just over 3kg. I have spoken to quite a few other anglers from that trip and other trips that I have had since; we all agree the fish are on one day at Bolac and not the next. It’s hit and miss, and if you get the right day, you can catch some absolute beauties ranging from 1.5kg through to 3.5kg and they certainly know how to fight. Hopefully with more rain and cooler weather the water will clear up and the fish will come on the bite like last year; we wait with anticipation. At Lake Wendouree the

www.adrenalinflies.com.au 60

AUGUST 2018

Ben Young nailed this lovely marked Wendouree brown trout on an Ecogear Power Shad soft plastic. Photo courtesy of Ben Young. has done over the past few months, with many anglers putting in the miles and catching some lovely brown and rainbow trout. The trout have been getting caught all over the reservoir, not in just one spot; I have tried quite a few different areas with excellent results.

few hours and you will be rewarded for your efforts. My father Billy Stevens likes to sneak out and have a fish at Newlyn with a mudeye for bait suspended under a bubble float. A northerly breeze suits him best, as you don’t have to walk far to be able to fish; there isn’t as much ribbon

Lake Bolac is producing the goods. The author’s PB rainbow trout of 3kg was caught on a pilchard fillet.

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Tullaroop will continue to fish well moving forward over the next few months. All angling methods will work; it’s just a matter of making the effort and heading out. You can’t catch them from the comfort of your loungeroom. Newlyn Reservoir is probably being overshadowed by a few of the other waters in the district at the moment. The fish are there; it’s just a matter of putting in a

A lovely pair of rainbow and brown trout caught from Tullaroop Reservoir by Jackson Lesko on a Rapala Rip Stop 90mm lures. Photo courtesy of Colby Lesko.

Jackson Lesko has been getting amongst some lovely browns and rainbows casting Rapala Rip Stop Lures in the 90mm size. They’re pretty big lures, but these Tullaroop trout have big appetites. It doesn’t appear to matter what time of the day you fish Tullaroop, they are on the bite. I know Jackson has been fishing at first light and I have been fishing during the day. We catch rainbows and browns on fly and lures. Other anglers fishing bait have been catching their share as well.

weed on the north side. He has been catching some lovely browns around the 2.5-3lb mark on mudeyes as mentioned. Other anglers have been casting lures over the weed beds and catching trout up 5lb as well. On the right day the trout in Newlyn will be smashing through the small baitfish called smelt; it’s a matter of getting your lures or flies in front of the feeding fishing and it’s game on. They can be very challenging and also very rewarding when they are on the chew.

2018

BIGGEST EVER TROUT OPENING ON GOULBURN

CATCH A TROPHY TROUT

From Saturday 1 September 2018 The Goulburn River and Eildon Pondage will share in 2,000 massive rainbow trout to 4kg, to be stocked at 11 sites for trout opening. They’ll have a combined weight of 7 tonnes, which is the biggest ever 24-hour stocking event in Fisheries’ history! Come celebrate trout opening, get amongst the action and swing by the FREE Goulburn Fishing Festival or Ballarat Fishing Festival on that day too from 10am till 2pm. www.vfa.vic.gov.au/fishfest

Authorised by the Victorian Government, 1 Treasury Place, Melbourne. AUGUST 2018

Cracker trout are still going strong at Eildon EILDON

Daniel Piazza

With the water surface temperatures a very chilly 8-10°C, the Lake Eildon trout stocks are far into the spawning program. Over the recent months there have been some cracker brown trout being caught on winged lures. Pink, purple and white are the colours that are responsible for many of the catches. It’s still worth having a diving lure to run through the schools of baitfish that are in abundance in the lake. After all to become more successful at fishing the lake we must think about the circle of life, and understand and identify

the different types of food sources that a target species likes to eat. If you’re in search of trout, make your way closer to the feeder rivers, as this is where the majority of the stocks are likely to be holding and searching for an easy feed. As I have reported in recent issues about fishing the wind rows that come from the points of the lake, these areas are like a back water in a river; they give the fish a little bit of slack water and they move freely in the area without fighting against the lake currents. This lets them have a little rest and feed up for the next run. The surface action on the lake is really getting the exposure it deserves and

The author’s nephews Leo, Victor and Albert and their cousins Riley and Paige with a decent catch of browns.

anglers are braving the cold winter condition to catch one of the many big cod in the lake. There are heaps of cod in the lake and us anglers all have our wild and wacky methods of catching them. If you’re new to the lake and are starting to collate lures for your outings, start basic with a few StumpJumpers that dive around the 6m depth, a couple of good quality locallymade Primal Spinnerbaits and a few Zerek Fish Traps that come in three sizes. These are quite effective on days when the fish aren’t playing the game. Simply get it to the bottom while on a steady drift. Two winds on your reel to get it off the bottom and you’ll be in the money seat in no time. Murray cod are everywhere

and any spot is as good as the next, but Goughs Bay seems to be best if you’re a big cod chaser. Don’t be fooled by the many photos of the one-hit wonders that catch these fellas, as they are hard to catch and the anglers that chase these big girls don’t give up their consistent catches and methods for finding them. It’s simply time on the water and figuring out what works for you and your style of fishing. Redfin are still there over the cooler months. Once again, pick your trees and work the area as if you’re prospecting for gold. Find out what they like on the day early on and the many fat nugget redfin will be served with a bowl of chips and a slice of lemon.

Frosts arrived and thankfully so did the fish! BONNIE DOON

lining for trout, his results have been outstanding. One weekend Damian produced seven cod to 93cm and 18 trout to 6lb. Pink and blue Tassies leadlined in 30ft of water produced his best figures. As for his cod captures, a 7m+ Oar Gee in black and blue has been catching all of his cod. If these numbers don’t make you get out there and have a crack, I don’t know what will. MURRAY COD What a fishery Eildon is becoming! On a recent trip with a couple of mates we were lucky enough to

Daniel Brady

Anglers are being rewarded for braving the early morning frosts, with numerous reports coming through of some great captures of quality trout and some monstrous Murray cod. The northern end of the lake is now sitting around the 11°C mark and is expected to drop to about 8 or 9 over the next month or two. This means the bigger fish will start to fire! DELITITE ARM With the lake currently sitting at about 63%, the Delatite Arm is fishing as good as ever! With trout and Murray cod the primary focus for many, the shallow flats and steep rock walls are sure

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1800 651 691 eildonpondage.com

AUGUST 2018

To page 63

Mitch King and the boys with an Eildon Murray cod.

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land a good number of cod, all on lures and all in the Delatite Arm. We landed 12 fish to 104cm. The biggest fish came at night on a Kuttafurra Rat. Most fish were caught fishing the steep rock walls along both sides of the arm. Spinnerbaits and chatterbaits in blacks and purples yielded the best results. Mitch King managed to land his first cod ever on this trip. Hopping a black Mumbler along a rock wall he was smashed by a nice 78cm cod that

to produce some cracking results. Local anglers Ryan and Sean McKelvey fished the Crockett Bay Area for a beautiful bag of rainbow trout. Trolling Rapala CD5 sin 4ft of water the lads fished hard to the timber and were rewarded with a bag of fish by 9am. Ryan reported the more timber the lures hit, the more fish they caught. FORD INLET With still enough water to get up and into the timber, the trout have been actively feeding around first light and I made the most of this opportunity to get a nice feed of rainbow trout. Using my electric motor I moved around the shallow flats and submerged timber throwing lightly-weighted plastics to feeding trout. The Berkley Crabby in pumpkin seed gave me the best results on a 1/20oz

jighead. It was a great way to spend the morning and I urge everyone who is keen to throw a few lures around to give it a crack! However, not all is lost if you’re not one for throwing a few lures around. Tim Ward drove around to the entrance of Ford Inlet. Land-based and with the boys in tow they landed four redfin to 44cm. Tim reported all were in real healthy condition and scrub worms were the bait of choice. PEPPIN POINT It never ceases to amaze me how many fish are caught around Peppin Point! From land-based to boat and from bait to lures, the fish don’t seem to mind! Old mate and gun fisho Damian Waack has been trolling a spread of lures for a spread of results. Trolling both cod lures and lead

Alex Burford with a lovely trout caught up on the shallow flats around Bonnie Doon. As the water rises, fish like this will become more frequent.

Pondage is still open for trout EILDON RIVERS

Gary Constantine

The recent environmental flows of 8000ML and above going down the Goulburn River seriously got me wondering why we close the Goulburn River for trout spawning at all. These high up and down flows are detrimental to the spawning of trout, and mean more pressure on the stocking programs. If by the powers that be are targeting the native species of plant life, then why do we close the Goulburn River? A true environmental flow would be what goes into Lake Eildon then goes down into the Goulburn River at this time of year. The pondage has been stocked again recently with

Ash with a 65cm brown trout he caught in Snob Creek on a home-made fly.

local dough and PowerBaits are going to be the best chance of landing one. Eildon Pondage has had quite a current going through the old river course lately, so the best areas to target have been off to the sides where things are more settled. Lemon twist PowerBait and the gold Kroc have been working near the Eildon Pondage Caravan Park, while down on Bourke Street local dough, the sherbet and rainbow PowerBait and the crab pattern Kroc are the way to go. At this time of the year the flyfishers normally have quite a bit of success using Woolly Buggers, imitation eggs, mudeyes, and caddis

around 2000 rainbow trout ready to catch and over 100 ex-brood stock as well. For the bait angler this means the

Nischal with a rainbow trout caught in the Goulburn River on a jointed Rapala. patterns near Nursery Corner and up near the spillway by Cemetery Point. Spider mudeyes are the more

Suzie Fisher with a rainbow trout she caught on Lemon Twist PowerBait near McMartins Lane in the Goulburn River.

was safely returned after a great pic! Jarred Marriott also landed a nice cod of 91cm on a Jackall Doozer. A mighty fine PB that he should be very proud of! At this time of the year I find the smaller fish become less active and the big girls come out to play. Baits like the Thirsty Snake and the Jackall Gigantrel are favourites of mine to get the reaction bites. Don’t think that a lure is too big to throw because these fish will eat lures bigger than them! Trust me, when you get hit by a metre cod throwing a lure of 30cm and 5oz, it’s the most intense freshwater bite you can have – they don’t just give it a nibble! With the lake expected to slowly rise due to rainfall and future snow run-off, the Bonnie Doon flats should fire. The spots to focus your attention on will be the grassy banks that haven’t seen water for some time. The redfin and trout will

Relax and enjoy delicious food and warm hospitality.

John with a rainbow trout that he caught in the Goulburn River on a Tassie Devil.

From page 62

enjoy a feeding frenzy with all the bugs and new growth that will be submerged. The best methods will be lightly-weighted worms and creature imitation lures fished slowly in real shallow. With the lake firing like it is it’s time to get out there and target the cod and trout. Remember, don’t be scared to try something different! It could just land you the fish of a lifetime!

common mudeye found in the pondage. These do well under a float in and around the shallows and reedy areas.

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AUGUST 2018

Hot catches at cold Blue Rock WST/STH GIPPSLAND

Steve Haughton steve@habitatcreations.com.au

After a dry winter on Blue Rock Lake, the water levels are slowly rising thanks to a consistent flowing Tanjil River, which receives snowmelt from Mount Baw Baw. The streams throughout the rest of the region are flowing well but not high. With every rainfall event the water simply runs off the dry soils, creating dirty water. I like to think that the stream trout, river blackfish and eels have plenty to feed on with the surface runoff adding plenty of food to the system. The trout season opens at the end of the month coinciding with the closing of the blackfish season. Despite the chill factor,

Blue Rock Lake is seeing plenty of anglers braving the elements, trolling for trout or targeting bass and redfin with bait and jigs. The cold winter air hasn’t deterred kayakers, landbased anglers or boaties, with plenty of action on the water all week round. Trout have been targeted by trolling winged lures, spinner blades, hardbodies and plastics at slow speed. Some anglers have done well on trolling lead line or setting up trolling weights/ discs to get lures down a bit deeper. At this time of the year the fish aren’t necessarily feeding along the banks, so don’t be surprised if you hook up in deep water out in the open. Many anglers opt for a fish in the sticks after a few hours trolling and some nice bass and redfin are on offer. If you have an electric engine with spot

lock/anchor, sound around the banks out in the lake for schools of redfin and bass. Position the boat over the schools and jig using baits, ice jigs or soft plastics. For the anglers using baits, live baits like the trusty garden worm, yabbies or crickets work wonders on bass. If a bait feels heavy enough, fish it without weight and simply drop it down amongst the snags. Otherwise a small ball sinker above the hook is fine too. Plenty of redfin are about too and the odd big one has been a surprise by-catch for those targeting bass. If it’s your first time fishing at Blue Rock, it can be a bit overwhelming deciding where to start fishing, as there is no shortage of dead trees up the Tanjil Arm or in the coves dotted around the lake. Tie up to trees in

waters between 4-12m and keep hopping around until you find the schools. Please remember the stream trout season reopens after midnight on Saturday 1 September. The closure of the season brings some relief to the stream trout population, which relies solely on natural spawning high up in the tributaries of this catchment. There are no stream trout stocking programs in West and South Gippsland, so anglers rely heavily on anglers catching and releasing trout. If you are heading out to target river blackfish or eel, or just happen to be passing through and spot illegal activities on our streams, please report to 13 FISH. Feel free to send me a report or photo, particularly if you have any success stories over the winter season.

Beau Gilliatte braved a winter’s day and got this 42cm redfin on a humble garden worm while chasing schooling bass.

Plenty of options for cold Melbourne fishing MELBOURNE METRO

Dylan Brennan

While August may not be considered the prime month to be out fishing the freshwater around Melbourne, there are still a few options to connect you with fish. The gloomy and wet weather can be unforgiving if you’re dressed incorrectly, so make sure to pack adequate wet weather clothing. The good news is that the many stocked urban

lakes around the suburbs have been producing fish since the most recent school holiday stocking. Karkarook Park Lake has been the hotspot of late, with its southeastern suburb proximity, which is a massive help in getting anglers out, even if only for a few hours. Undoubtedly the most effective method here has been to berley and baitfish using coarse fishing methods. Specialist ‘stocked trout’ berley worked into a fine mix has been a key ingredient in keeping active fish around, while

‘chartreuse’ coloured PowerBait and trout dough are deadly baits in conjunction. One of the keys to being successful with this method is to make sure that you don’t move locations once you have found a spot. By moving around you end up breaking your berley trail and sending the fish out of your area, possibly to another angler. If you’re more into your river fishing then the Yarra is still worth a shot for redfin, Macquarie perch and blackfish during the winter months – just

DAM LEVELS Dam............................... % Full

Dam............................... % Full

LAKE/DAM

Mulwala

Cairn Curran

May June July 56

54 52

Newlyn

Eildon

54 54 52

Nillahcootie 58 54 55

Eppalock

63 62 60

Rocklands 32 32 32

Fyans

66 66 67

Taylors

52 49 47

Greens

53 57 58

Tullaroop

53 53 51

Hepburn

43 45 49

Upper Coliban 74

Hume

31 37 44

Waranga

13 14 23

Lauriston

84 80 79

Wartook

50 47 47

AUGUST 2018

during the day will see redfin and maccas come to the party, along with the ever-present carp. Once daylight has shifted into early evening freshwater eels will harass your baits, but if you persist through them you can be rewarded with some lovely freshwater blackfish. • For any of the latest metro reports and information, pop into Compleat Angler Dandenong at 241-243 Princes Highway, Dandenong, give us a call on 03 9794 9397 or jump on to the ‘Melbourne Metro Freshwater Fishing’ page on Facebook.

48 49 50

William Hovell 46

73 75

48 101

(All levels correct at time of going to press. Dam levels can change at any time, so please check with local authorities to ensure safe boating and fishing.) 64

light fluorocarbon leader. Hook choices can vary ,but for the fish species in the area a small wide gap or baitholder hook in around #6 is perfect for a couple of juicy worms to be threaded onto. Before you cast your bait towards a likely fishholding zone, apply a small amount of tube scent. The scent helps the fish find your bait in the discoloured water, and also masks foreign scents that might spook them. Some of the better brands of gel scent to try are Pro-Cure and Megastrike. Using this method to target the snaggy pools

(Yarrawonga) 87 0 0

Dartmouth 88 88 89

Malmsbury 9 15 16

be mindful that the trout season will be shut for a while yet, so all trout caught must be released. The middle reaches of the river from Warrandyte through to Yarra Junction are the better areas to fish with loads of snaggy, slow-moving pools. Your best bet in targeting these species of fish around this part of the river is a bunch of scrub worms. The best way to rig up is often the simplest and for this form of fishing a simple paternoster rig is best. All you will need are some small black three-way swivels, 1/4oz bomb sinkers and some

The highly elusive Macquarie perch and river blackfish come out to play after dark in the Yarra.

Trout are getting better in the cooler season CRATER LAKES

Rod Shepherd

Recently it all seems to be happening at Lake Purrumbete for many anglers. Only recently a boater landed a perfectly coloured trophy brown weighing in at a neat 7lb, which was taken downrigging a trout patterned minnow lure. But wait; it only gets better. A few days later, trout enthusiast Tim Beusmans travelled down to the lake once again in search of those trophy browns. Tim spent day one out on the lake for absolutely nothing. Tim prefers to flat line troll minnow lures at this time of year but on the day he went begging. Day two however was an entirely different story when within an hour or two of flat line trolling, Tim hooked up to, played and then landed an 11lb

brown trout. Tim has taken a few big browns close to that magic mark of 10lb over the years, but finally he managed one just over eleven. It was a personal best for him. Tim caught it on a minnow lure in the spotted dog pattern. It didn’t end there; a redfin weighing in at over 3lb rose from the weed beds and scoffed another lure! Well, you’d think that was a bonzer of a day out on the water, but then another huge brown weighing just over 10lb jumped all over one of his trolled lures. It was certainly a day to remember for Tim and it might be hard to top that one ever again on this lake. Talk about the fishing gods looking on with approval! That afternoon after Tim had left I took advantage of the relatively still and sunny day and spent a few hours out on the lake. Most visiting anglers had left for home by this stage with

only three other boats out on the water when I arrived. I spent well over an hour trying to coax a reddy or three up off the bottom in 12-15m depth by jigging soft plastics, but to no avail. It looks like the deep water redfin schools have broken up for the duration. I then decided to troll minnow lures (deep divers) out from the weed beds in 5-6m depth. Almost straight away I picked up a reasonable pan-sized redfin and thought that things could only get better, but unfortunately it didn’t. That’s fishing! Late May saw 9000 yearling rainbow trout released into both Lake Bullen Merri and Purrumbete. A massive rain event in mid-June saw Lake Elingamite open once again to boaters. At this stage any craft less than 4m with a relatively flat hull will have no problems getting in and out. More rain will

A feisty new season Elingamite brown trout prior to release. allow larger vessels to launch as well as keeping the lake open for longer. I wasted no time getting out on what I consider my

home lake and managed to catch a yearling brown on a Black Magic B Max minnow in fluorescent orange, but dropped a

further two larger trout off the same lure with the last fish pinching my offering – the only lure in that colour that I had on board with me.

FISHING NEWS

Gippsland lakes illegal netting huge fines Two East Gippsland men have been found guilty, fined a total sum of $17,356.64 and had a vessel, motor vehicle and other equipment forfeited in relation to illegal netting in the Gippsland Lakes. Senior Fisheries Officer Matt Bateson said a Lakes Entrance man pleaded guilty on 25 January in the Bairnsdale Magistrates Court to multiple charges relating to taking fish for sale, using commercial fishing equipment and obtaining financial advantage by deception. The second man from Nowa Nowa pleaded guilty on 31 May in the Bairnsdale Magistrates Court also to multiple charges relating to taking fish for sale, using commercial fishing equipment and obtaining financial advantage by deception. Mr Bateson said the court heard the men colluded to gain a financial advantage by deception by posing as legitimate licensed commercial fishermen and

consigning their illegal catch for sale in Melbourne. In total, the pair made $11,356.64 from the 3,852.5kg of fish they sold. The pair were convicted and each ordered to pay a pecuniary order of $5678.32, as well as a further $3,000 each. The pair also had various commercial nets and equipment forfeited including a motor vehicle, vessel with outboard motor and trailer, another trailer and scales. Mr Bateson said the result showed that the courts are taking illegal netting very seriously. “This crime has an impact on the environment as well as commercial and recreational fisheries who share the resources of the Gippsland Lakes.” Anyone with information relating to illegal fishing is encouraged to ring the illegal fishing reporting number on 13FISH (133 474). OUR FRESHWATER FISHERIES ARE IN GREAT SHAPE A recent follow-up audit of Victoria’s freshwater

fisheries management has concluded that the Victorian Fisheries Authority (VFA) has responded to all recommendations made by the Victorian Auditor General’s Office (VAGO) since it’s audit review in 2013. Acting VFA CEO Dallas D’Silva said the report findings indicate our freshwater recreational fisheries are in great shape. “Unprecedented State Government support through the Target One Million plan to get more Victorians fishing, more often, has enabled us to build better recreational fisheries with record investment in fish stocking, river restoration and strong collaboration between government agencies and recreational fishers,” Mr D’Silva said. “The legacy of this work will flow through for decades to come.” “The VAGO report found the VFA has strengthened its alignment with the objectives of the Fisheries Act 1995, improved its

engagement with natural resource managers, developed a stronger evidence base to support decision-making and managed freshwater fisheries in an ecologically sustainable manner. “The key findings acknowledge the development of a Draft Freshwater Fisheries Management Plan, which provides a new state-

wide strategic direction for managing freshwater recreational fisheries over the next decade. “As outlined in the Draft Freshwater Fisheries Plan, building great recreational fisheries is about aligning fish, water and land management investment partnerships between agencies, water authorities and anglers.

“The VAGO audit also found the VFA had implemented all recommendations relating to fish stocking and was able to demonstrate the use of scientific data to inform stocking activity, including the recovery of some of our most threatened native fish populations. – Victoria Fisheries

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AUGUST 2018

Trout heating up while redfin are cooling off HORSHAM

James Perry Instagram: @James_Perry_Outdoors

It’s the last month of winter and change will soon be in the air. The sun is starting to linger of an afternoon as a hint of what is to come.

Toolondo are both solid options on a sunny August afternoon to find a trout or redfin. Personally I find it easy to choose what lake to fish; if it’s windy, target trout. If the sun is out and wind is low, cod fishing it is. Taylors Lake has been a bit quiet over the last

Lachie Meehan fooled this silver bullet trolling a Rapala CD7 at Lake Bellfied. This is also the last month before closed season for the mighty Murray cod is upon us. Historically when we’ve had a bit of sunshine in August this has proven to be a great time to target cod in local waters. Pair that with a few golden perch that are starting to awaken from their winter slumber and a trip to Taylors Lake is a smart choice at this time of the year. It’s like a perfect match of nice enough days to go fishing, and cold enough to keep the ski boats away. If you would rather chase the imports, Lake Fyans and

month or two, but a few dedicated anglers have been landing some well-fed cod in recent times. Be it bait, lures or fly, it’s hard to get it wrong on this lake when it’s fishing well. Keep in mind, this is a dirty water lake, so rattles and vibration are key for lure choices along with gold coloured spinner blades and darker plastics if you’re fishing spinnerbaits. Large noisy surface lures are also well worth a shot worked over the sunken rocky drop-offs that are hidden within the main section of lake. Bait fishers aim for the key bite times of sunrise and sunset along with moonrise and moonset. If you can get a few yabbies, they will be your best bet to success. Lake Toolondo has been on and off over the last month. The key with this lake is to fish it when there is a bit of wind and overcast

skies. Stealth is also a big key here, so set up drifts with a drogue to slow the boat down and avoid ‘tinny slap’ from the chop. Cast surface and sub-surface lures into the drift and keep a close eye on your lure. If you see a shadow or bow wave behind it, pause the retrieve. This winter I have noticed a large number of big trout tailing the lure, but not willing to strike in an aggressive manner. A well-timed pause followed by some small twitches is often enough to encourage the strike. The key to this method is keeping sight of your lure at all times, so get up out of that seat and onto your casting deck. If you’re really keen, look into a poling platform to gain some extra height and visibility. Bent minnows are by far the go-to lure here, but don’t be afraid to mix it up with some other surface

These lures always get a swim when the author’s at Toolondo.

TOURNAMENT CALENDAR

Gage Wright caught this rainbow in less than a foot of water at Toolondo. options. Walk-the-dogs are gaining popularity on the lake and personally I’ve been throwing Jackall Micro Pompadours and Woolley Subdogs. Hues of white and silver have been the most consistent colours recently, closely followed by natural browns and greens. Fly fishers look to basic proven designs like the timeless Olive Bugger. For the bait fishers live minnows are hard to go past if you can get some, otherwise a few scrub worms will get you by. Drift slowly and fish 90° to the boat with your

bait suspended under a float. Once again, keep the noise to a minimum. The waters to watch over the next month in my opinion will be Lake Wartook and the Glenelg River below Rocklands Reservoir. Late winter rains can have a tendency to fire both these waters up with good flows and new feed introduced. Walking the upper Glenelg is always a fun outing with the chance of a bass finding your lure, and at this time of the year the lack of snakes out and about makes it a great option.

Brought to you by

2018

JULY AUGUST

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Hickson’s Hawkesbury win After several years and plenty of top-10 finishes, Taree’s Kris Hickson bounced back to the top of the podium with style, taking out the Atomic sponsored round of the Costa BREAM Series on the Hawkesbury River. “I spent the whole weekend just fishing places I have caught big fish before and places I thought big bream live, and it worked out this time,” Hickson explained. Anchored by a bream in the 1.4kg class each day, Hickson did what he usually does and rotated through a selection of proven baits fished in nasty country to get the bites he needed to contend for the win. The

A cool trophy, $3,400, and novelty cheque for the pool room that Happy Gilmore would be excited about was the reward for Hickson’s Hawkesbury heroics.

STORM

Bream like this really launch you up the leader board. Hickson presented a 1.4kg-class fish to the weighmaster on both days. fact that he landed his big kicker fish was the edge he needed to get the job done. “I fished three key baits and mainly in oyster rack country. They were a ZMan 2.5” bloodworm grub on a

thousands of dollars in events all round the country, but it was the subtle differences in presentation that got Kris the bites he needed. “The bream were only nipping at the tail, so I’d use a slower, dragging retrieve more than the standard hop-and-drop and sometimes I’d change to the Cranka Crab to convert some of those bites,” he said. Also helping the fish eat the lure was a liberal application of Pro Cure scent in blue crab flavour. Although fishing with an assortment of Daiwa tackle, Hickson singled out a favourite rig that was virtually impossible to pull drag from. Spooled with 10lb fluorocarbon leader and 10lb Daiwa J-Braid, it consisted

of a Silver Wolf rod and 2500 sized Daiwa reel. Best of all, both of Hickson’s kicker fish were captured on his on-board Garmin camera and you can watch him catch them on the highlights reel on the ABT YouTube channel (ABT Tournaments). Although suffering a setback (in the form of forgetting to screw in the bung) on the Sunday, Kris managed enough bites to box a 4.02kg bag and steal the win from Matt Hall by 170g. The win propelled the Manning Valley breamer back to no. 1 in the national rankings with two Qualifiers and a Grand Final remaining on the 2018 Costa BREAM Tour.

1/16oz, #1 HeadLockz head, a heavy, olive Cranka Crab and a deep diving Jackall Chubby in brown suji,” Hickson said. Between them, these baits have won hundreds of

WINNING TACKLE Rod: Reel: Line: Leader: Lure 1:

Daiwa Battler Water Zombie Daiwa Exist 2015, size 2003 Daiwa Evo-braid 14lb Yamatoyo Chinu Harris Gulp! Shrimp 2.5” camo and banana prawn Lure 2: Cranka Crab 5.9g olive Lure 3: ZMan 2.5” Grubz Lure 4: Jackall Deep Chubby brown suji

Canberra non-boater Tani Konsul landed the Daiwa J-Braid Big Bream with this awesome crab eater on a rocky river bank.

TOP 10 BOATERS

Visit www.abt.org.au for entry forms. For general enquiries phone ABT on (07) 3387 0888. 68

AUGUST 2018

Scan this QR Code for the complete Hawkesbury River YouTube highlights Playlist.

Place Angler

Fish (kg)

Weight

1 2 3 4 5 6

Kris Hickson Matt Hall Liam Carruthers Jason Mayberry Ross Cannizzaro Steve Morgan

10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10 10/10

7 8 9 10

$3,150 + $250 Merc Bonus $1,500 $1,250 + $150 Merc Bonus $1,000 $900 $800 + $150 Merc Bonus + $200 Pro $700 $600 $500

Russell Babekuhl 8/10 5.66 Cam Whittam 10/10 5.61 Phil Nix 9/10 5.58 Todd Riches 9/10 5.34 For full result listings, see www.abt.org.au

7.15 6.98 6.96 6.32 6.18 5.97

Payout

Matt Hall Junk Fishes Way to Second

Making his ABT debut at the Franklins Australian Open earlier in the year, Matt Hall consolidated his position as ‘a-boater-to-watch’ by logging a solid second place amongst a big field of quality anglers at the event. Falling 170g short of Hickson, Matt Hall, a 25-year-old fire protection technician from St Clair in Western Sydney, started each day on the Barrenjoey flats, throwing 2 1/2” Gulp! Shrimps in camo and banana prawn colours on 1/24oz HWS jigheads. “I picked up a quality fish each morning there before the pressure got too heavy,” said Hall. “I’d throw a long cast and sink the bait into the weed, then I’d pop it out again. The bream Matt Hall and his blue Bass Cat have been making a splash in the ABT events in usually hit it on the drop.” 2018. He narrowly missed his first win at the Hawkesbury event with bream like this.

Cranka Crab

He then left the flat and fished windblown points with washes near Juno Point in the main river using the ubiquitous Cranka heavy, olive crabs. As the tide dropped, he’d switch to ZMan Grubs fished on the secondary drop-offs. Adding a vital final day fish on a Jackall brown suji Deep Chubby, Hall, like Hickson, displayed the versatility needed

BREAM SERIES to catch the fish to contend. Hall’s gear consisted of Daiwa Battler Water Zombie rods, high end Daiwa reels (his favourite a 2003 Exist 2015), 14lb Daiwa Evo-braid and 4lb Yamatoyo Chinu Harris leader. “For me, it’s all about the wind. If it’s calm I struggle, so the windy conditions really played to my strengths,” Hall concluded.

DUFFRODS BIG BAG NSW breamer, Liam Carruthers presented the Duffrods Big Bag to the scales (4.32kg) on the second day. Fishing 65mm Cranka Crabs in Cowan Creek, Liam lamented that he hooked the fish to win the event on Day 1, but too many made it back home into the sandstone rocks.

HICKSON’S WINNING PATTERN

Liam Carruthers won the Duffrods Big Bag with a 4.32kg limit on Sunday.

Shuey Finally First after 4 Years Victorian Ben Shuey has been non-boating the ABT circuit for around four years and snatched his first title from the back of the boat at the Hawkesbury. Fishing exclusively the heavy, olive Cranka Crab, Ben assembled his limits in Cowan Creek (Day 1) and Berowra Creek (Day 2).

“There was a bit of a knack to getting the bream hooked up. We were getting lots of bites and had to keep the crab moving until the rod loaded up. Then we just wound them on,” Ben said. Ben used his favourite 13 Fishing Envy Black 7’1” light spinning rod paired with a Shimano Ci4 reel spooled with Sunline Castaway 10lb braid and 4lb Sunline Bream FC leader.

Ben’s winning margin was significant (1.47kg) but would have been much more so if he’d added another couple of legal fish to his Sunday 3-fish for 2.61kg bag. He was definitely catching quality fish. Qualifying for the 2018 Costa BREAM Series Grand Final in 2018 in his home waters in Victoria, Ben will be a great draw

in the season ending event where the winning boater will take home a Bass Cat Margay and Mercury motor package.

DAIWA J-BRAID BIG BREAM The event’s Big Bream was a 1.44kg giant yellowfin landed by non-boater Tani Konsul from Canberra. It ate a 5.9g olive Cranka Crab fished along a rocky wall up the river with braided line and a 4lb fluorocarbon leader. Running back into the rocks several times, boater Bradley Young described her as excited as any non-boater he’d ever seen.

TOP 10 NON BOATERS Place

Angler

Fish(kg)

Weight

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Ben Shuey 8/10 5.79 Michael Thompson 9/10 4.32 Chris Micallef 6/10 3.51 Craig Johnson 6/10 3.38 Jim Hickson 4/10 2.61 Wayne Siow 3/10 2.45 Grant Oliver 5/10 2.45 Tani Konsul 3/10 2.28 Nathan Gregory 4/10 2.21 James Morgan 4/10 2.10 For full result listings, see www.abt.org.au

Payout Prize pack Prize pack Prize pack Prize pack Prize pack Prize pack Prize pack Prize pack Prize pack Prize pack

Victorian Ben Shuey weighed only three fish on the Sunday, but they were all donkeys. AUGUST 2018

Thug Lures Thug Cray BEST ORNAMENTAL PIECE Chris Anderson and Kim Baldwin had a pretty good 2018 Lure Expo, taking out three categories at the awards night. The standout was the Best Ornamental Lure, the Thug Cray. This one would look fantastic in the pool room, which is exactly what it’s for! This creation looked so real at the show, you almost expected it to crawl out of the cabinet and start terrorising children and small dogs! The boys also took out the Best Stand award, with

their small but jam-packed stand with dozens of amazing designs on display. if you’d like to learn more about Thugs Lures, see some of the crazy designs, or maybe even buy one or two, be sure to visit the ‘Thug Lures’ Facebook page.

BEST BIBBED DIVING LURE

to resemble claws, this can either be fished as a trolling or casting lure. If you’d like to find out more about these incredible

AUGUST 2018

Matt Fraser from Barambah Lures is well-known for making amazingly life-like creations for big fish, and the Manic Budgie is no exception. Matt got the idea while fishing for Murray cod in some of the western rivers when he noticed the

lures, visit the ‘Kuttafurra Lures’ Facebook page.

BEST BLUE WATER LURE

MB Custom Lures are put together by Le Ve Hua, who makes the blanks, and Darcy Paton, who does the amazing art work. Darcy hand-paints each of these fantastic lures, which are designed to be used on bluewater pelagics, but with such a beautiful finish on

This year, the Lure Expo inducted two very important people from the lure industry into their Hall of Fame. Peter Pakula has been making bluewater lures for years, and is a recognised name in the industry. No doubt thousands of marlin have been landed on his lures. Anthony Curtis has been making the very widely-used and respected AC Lures, or Australian Crafted for around 25 years. Any seasoned cod fisher will have used or at least know about these great Aussie classics. Marcus Walker Blowfly

out around two per week, it makes sense that the finished product is just that much more special, and worthy of these quite high prices. If you want to get a hold of any of Le and Darcy’s lures, visit www. mbcustomlures.com.au.

TENT CON

Peter Pakula

Anthony Curtis FLY TYING CHAMPION Marcus Walker from the Brisbane Fly Fishing Club may have entered the smallest fly, but it was good enough to take out the Best Fly Award! Marcus has already caught trout on this very tiny fly. If you’d like to join the Brisbane Fly Fishing Club, you can do so by visiting www.bffc.org.au. You can participate in events, including fishing days, and learn more to improve your own fly fishing.

BEST TOP WATER / SURFACE / WAKE BAIT amount of birds that were flying around the river. With no other lure makers producing anything like it, it seemed like the perfect chance to introduce this wonderful creation to the fishing world. The lure is a wakebait, meaning it wobbles like a normal bibbed lure, but

it doesn’t dive. if you’d like to see more of Matt’s lure, or even buy a few yourself, you can do so by visiting the ‘Barambah Lures’ Facebook page.

Barambah Lures Manic Budgie

This is the second year in a row Chilton Tackle Co. has won the Best Swimbait category. Blair Chilton from Chilton Tackle Co. designed this lure from a

photograph of a baby barra, hence the ultra-realistic appearance! And given that barra are known for being canabilistic, there’s no doubt these swimbaits

BEST SWIM BAIT will catch their fair share of barra! f you want to buy any of these amazing lures from Chilton, visit www. chiltontackleco.com.au.

MB Custom Lures 222 Twitch them, it would almost be a sin to throw them into such risky territory! This is backed up by the fact that these lures average around $400 each when auctioned off, however some have sold for as much as $855! Given that the boys can only put

HALL OF FAME AWARD

BEST PRESENTED STAND

Kuttafurra Lures Yabby

Aaron from Kuttafurra Lures is wellknown for making some of the most imaginative lures available anywhere in Australia, and this year’s winner seems to have raised the bar even further! Rigged with assist hooks on the rear

Thug Lures decided that the smaller Swagga from last year needed to be pumped

up to cod size! Now this intriguing design can be used for all manner of freshwater species.

Thug Lures Cod Swagga

BEST BLADED METAL LURE

AN THE

Lure Expo Award winners impress in 2018

DE FOR EX

16-17 JUNE 2018 • IPSWICH SHOWGROUNDS

EXPO

- SC

Lure Fly & Outdoors

RE ONLINE MO

The Australian

Chilton Tackle Co. Chilton Barra

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The signal in the noise SUNTAG

Stefan Sawynok

This is the story of a two-year journey to bring new technology to Australia and how it changed my thinking on where we needed to focus as a business in the coming decade. Fishing for food will always be part of the Australian lifestyle, but the economic reality is for fishing to continue to grow as an industry, we need to make more money from taking less fish. Just for the record – that is both commercial and recreational sectors.

on harvest, focus on less take, less species, greater value-add. This insight led me to seek out others that held that belief. From San Diego, I travelled to Aberdeen, a small town in Washington State. Aberdeen is a fishing community with a mix of recreational, native and commercial fishers. I was there to meet up with a long-term friend – a Baptist preacher and musician who had spent a year collaborating with me on an audio book. None the less, I couldn’t help but do a bit of digging. Aberdeen is a small community and Rick– now a DJ knows everybody – managed to get me introductions to many people, including the First Nations owner of a takeaway, who

for around 30 years, who have been making echo sounders that come with a unique feature – they can count things. A couple of the more exciting objects they count include people and torpedos. On a more mundane level, the Biosonics also counts fish with some handy additions, such as filtering out sections of the water column and calibrating the signal strength to species.

to look at habitat in Central Queensland. Even with the full support of all the major local organisations and a lot of work on design and implementation, we failed to convince Fisheries that the project had merit. Despite my disappointment, we kept going, and during 2017 I openly advocated that we should take the risk and bring in the equipment. That was

Aaron Dunlop using the Biosonics Unit.

Standing wood in the Woolwash.

Top: Balls of tilapia detected on the Biosonics. Below: A section of scan at Woolwash Lagoon. Over the last five years of visiting different fisheries around the country, one of the most significant problems I have encountered is the time it takes to work out many fundamental fishing questions. What if we could reduce the time to work out a fishery down to days, even hours? I have spent many thousands of hours working out how to make that idea a reality. AN UNEXPECTED CHAIN OF COINCIDENCES Back in the middle of 2016, I received an email from the World Fisheries Monitoring Conference in San Diego. The conference is a meeting of mainly governmental agencies on how to tackle the challenges of monitoring the world’s fishing fleets. I have no idea why an invite made it my way, but I decided that I needed to go. The conference was eye-opening. With its heavy focus on the global commercial fleet, a topic I knew nothing about, I was free to be inquisitive and connect with some of the left field thinkers. One thing I didn’t expect was to be convinced by a commercial fisher that we needed to invert our thinking 72

AUGUST 2018

also operated a commercial vessel on the Chehalis River. During that encounter, he mentioned that the local tribe had a very different approach to monitoring the fishery on Lake Quinault. That led me to a breakfast meeting with a fisheries scientist who introduced me to some smart technology that changed the way I think about fishing problems. BIOSONICS What is this technology? Biosonics is a company that has been based in Seattle has

Most of the time this sort of technology is used by scientists on expensive projects, but I had a vision that with a bunch of work, this technology could be used by ordinary fishing groups to rapidly work out local fisheries problems such as setting the right stocking levels. I want to more than bring the Biosonics Unit to Australia – I want to deliver its benefits to as many people as possible. FAILURE TO LAUNCH While I was busy working my way through the fishing community of Aberdeen, I received an email from my father Bill that he had met with Rockhampton Council. He had met with council and established that the number one priority with the new Net Free Zone was to map out the habitat and fish aggregations across the length of the Fitzroy. This is exactly what the Biosonics system is designed to do, so I was pretty excited. On return, we presented to council and worked with the technicians at Biosonics and developed a plan. At the same time, a one-off funding opportunity came up

Fish identified in the lagoon.

not a small risk, as Biosonics systems come with a hefty price tag, not to mention a lower Australian dollar and all the complications of financing equipment with a vendor overseas. The internal agreement within Infofish was yes to moving forward, so long as there were some locked in clients. That process was slow – unsurprisingly it’s hard to get progress on something you can’t demonstrate. By the end of 2017 I was becoming very frustrated and at times despondent that we would never get there. Rockhampton City Council came up again at the start of 2018 when we were invited to apply to another program. This time around we were not just thinking a single river, but how would you apply the technology to the entire state. Once again we put in a lot of work to establish how that could happen and yet again we were knocked back, failing to pass the bar set by Fisheries. AN EMERGENCY TO GET ACTION Fortune smiled upon me in a very unexpected way. Out of nowhere one of the groups we had been talking to for more than a year decided at the end of April that they wanted to do a project and it had to be done by June 30. Fresh from the disappointment of months of work on the second proposal to Fisheries, everyone at Infofish wanted to see the project happen. This time I managed to prosecute the argument that we take the risk. The next six weeks were chaos, but finally, there was momentum to make it happen, and as fast as hurdles appeared, we knocked them down. On 30 May after one last hurdle at customs, we took possession of a 95lb box of gear. Never in my life have I been so nervous and at

the same time hopeful that something magical lay within. THE SIGNAL IN THE NOISE My very first question –

question should be, is the Biosonics a good observer? Think of the ways fish are counted – nets, electrofishing, cameras and so on. Each has its limitations in sampling, which require statistics to make estimates. The more fish a method can detect – the more accurate the estimate. Figure 2 shows the opposite problem with this technique. While most other methods are naturally selective, this unit is very capable of picking up a lot more than you might imagine – so in reality, the challenge is finding the signal in the noise. QUANTUM OF ACCURACY In our initial test surveys,

Fish densities in Yeppen Lagoon. which I suspect all my readers would share – is it accurate? Not for the first time in my articles, we come back to the ‘can we count all the fish in

we selected two lagoons of around the same width, Woolwash Lagoon and Yeppen Lagoon just outside Rockhampton. In Woolwash

Density mapping of wood in the lagoon. the sea’ principle. Straight up, nobody would believe me if I said yes, and the reality is, based on field experience, the natural world doesn’t play ball in that way. However, that is not the question I should have been asking. The real

Lagoon, the Biosonics detected around 15% of the number of fish in the Yeppen Lagoon. Also, we identified a higher proportion of bigger fish (>50cm) at approximately 50% of fish present, while fish in the Yeppen were generally

smaller. In this case, based on additional validation work, Woolwash has mostly barramundi, while tilapia are the dominant species in the Yeppen. Does it matter if there are 5601 or 5605 fish if we want to make decisions on how to improve these fisheries? In the case of the Yeppen, stocking barramundi would be a good idea especially, as the point of our surveys was to look at habitat enhancement. How much better do you want to make things for tilapia? In the case of the Woolwash, habitat enhancement is probably a waste of time as there is already more habitat than fish to support. At project inception, a one size fits all approach to habitat enhancement was

Fish counts per transect and depth of water fish were in. 4 is a section of the resulting map. The gap in the scan is where the boys encountered one of those pieces of wood up close and personal. Development time aside, we were able to get the time from survey to map down to around two hours for the full extent of a 6km track. Straight away we can demonstrate the power of what we are aiming to do – we can map large areas

Tilapia nests out to the side of the boat were visible on the unit. taken as our understanding of the differences in the lagoons were limited – that changed once the reality was clearer. That is not to say that numbers don’t matter. Some problems require much greater level of precision. My point is so long as the data is reliable in presenting what is actually in the water, better decision making will result. SO MUCH WOOD Now on to practical matters. If you look closely at Figure 2, there are some large hotspots. Figure 3 provides a bit of a clue as to what they are. Anglers will likely get quite excited (and with good cause) at all that wood, but what happens if you are counting wood as well as fish? As it turns out, this is what happened in our first survey run, we ended up with ridiculous counts. Not to be discouraged, we worked through the tuning process until we were able to screen out the wood and see the fish. One useful outcome from this exercise is we found we could go the other way and count wood. In this case, we came up with a figure of around 2870 wood structures. Based on surface observational counts used as a validation, that wouldn’t be far off. To make that large number more useful, we grouped the scan blocks to 10mx5m, 50 square metres surface area. We were able to use that method to generate a wood density map that fitted well with external observations and manual inspection of the images returned by the sounder. Figure

with real numbers in much less time than conventional means. For a contrast, Figure 5 shows fish in the same area detected in 10mx1m blocks. Most of these fish are >50cm. Ready to break out the rods? SIDESCAN? Another thing that takes a little getting your head around is while we are using a dual beam scanner, the transducer is in many cases aimed to the side. I should make the point that I am not talking sidescan, which is more like a wall of higher frequency noise. Instead, think of downscan where the edge of the river is the bottom. By

using this configuration, we can scan large areas in quite shallow water. In the case of the Woolwash, the depth was rarely over 2m, which if we used conventional downscan would give us a beam width of 20cm. One of the fun facts I learned about downscan is the swim bladder is the most visible part of the fish. By scanning from the side from a distance of 30-50m the echosounder has a wide beam targeting a more reflective side surface. COUNTING FISH So how does the Biosonics count fish? Most fishers are familiar with the images that are presented by echosounders. The reality is this is not a photographic technique. A sensor in the transducer is compiling a bunch of returned signals and storing those signals as data. In order to construct an image, the echosounder has to interpret that data. Figure 7 presents an idea of what that looks like in practice and how the Biosonics unit takes advantage of a more powerful transducer. The software paints fish it has identified based on userprovided criteria and some clever maths based on years of collected observational data. In the case of Figure 7, we are firing through a 4m thick layer of bony bream, which we didn’t want to count. The bump on the bottom to the left is a fish hotel, which you can see fish hanging around. How about scalability in counting fish? Well, just for

A single shot with the cast net results in a boatload of tilapia.

kicks we used the sidescan mode to have a look at the bony bream bait ball. Figure 8 is the result. BEST OF BOTH WORLDS Yeppen Lagoon offered the perfect opportunity to test

identify the fish densities across the lagoon. We repeated the surveys three times to get an average and to check the stability of the sampling. The good news being we detected little change between samples. A TILAPIA PREDICTION One of the observations made in the Yeppen Lagoon was that tilapia were in highest densities in the parts of the lagoon that averaged less than 4m in depth. Woolwash Lagoon is close to Yeppen, around 2km apart. The two connect up during floods, and with shallower water you might expect a substantial number

tilapia dominated the cast net surveys. THE FUTURE? I am excited by the potential of this technology, as it allows us to reduce the costs of rapid assessment of localised fish stocks, habitat, pest fish and many other questions that fishers ask. That will lead to smarter decision making, improved success rates for fishing groups investing in taking fisheries forward and better fishing opportunities for all fishers. Creating better fishing experiences is what I am dedicated to, 7 days a week. Right now we are learning

Top: Counting bony bream in a bait ball. Below: Biosonics software identifies and counts fish. both side and down modes of operation. Figure 9 shows the two different survey patterns used. The red line represents side scanning transects, the coloured contour represents downscan transects. One of the real world questions we wanted to look at was to see if there was evidence that showed the fish hotels were attracting fish. To do that correctly, we couldn’t just look at the hotels; we needed to compare the results against areas without fish hotels. A 250m wide area was selected that covered 120m or so either side with transects performed every 5m apart. Figure 10 shows that transects with fish hotels did in fact show higher numbers of fish present. Plotting the aggregations on a map then confirmed that indeed the numbers were highest around the hotels. For the record, a fulllength transect of the Yeppen Lagoon was also conducted revealing that the bony bream bait ball extended for 500m, was an average of 4m deep and extended 60m at the widest points. That is some bait ball, given that the Lagoon is only just over 1km long. The use of the side scanning option aimed to

of tilapia. Woolwash Lagoon also connects to the Fitzroy in smaller floods via Gavial Creek, so barramundi have more regular opportunities to make their way into the Woolwash. Even though tilapia are present, it seems the barra are keeping them under control. Yeppen Lagoon, on the other hand, has very few opportunities for barramundi to enter, so the Tilapia can live

new things every day we are on the water, and I suspect that will be the case for a long while. That aside, already we have a production process in place to get the data extracted and analysed without the need for a great deal of human intervention, which is crucial to keeping the costs down. Portability is the other goal. If we have to cart around a boat that is a big limiter, but

Horses for courses survey patterns. out their lives in relative peace. Another 700m on there is another lagoon – Crescent Lagoon – which has no public access, so we had no idea what would be there. That said, I speculated that if the Lagoon was shallow, there was a high probability that the tilapia numbers would high. Low and behold, with an average depth of 3-4m,

most fishing groups already have someone with a suitable vessel and sidescan. By only transporting the kit and operator we can get to more places around the country and keep the costs down as much as possible. You can get excited too and check out more on the Biosonics at http://crystalbowl.com.au/biosonics. AUGUST 2018

BAIT & TACKLE WEST COAST Portland Bait & Tackle (03) 5523 5213 Compleat Angler Portland (03) 5521 1844

CENTRAL

She Left

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EAST COAST Inverloch Marine (03) 5674 1502

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Anchor Right 03 5968 5014 or www.anchorright.com.au Salt-away 1800 091 172 or www.salt-away.com.au

ONLINE TACKLE PRODUCTS Specialty Fishing Products

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www.marlocamping.com.au Marlo Ocean Views Caravan and Camping Park, Marlo (03) 5154 8268

This section in V&TFM Fishing Monthly consolidates the trades and services in your area that are relevant to your fishing and boating. Whether you’re a local looking for more options or a travelling angler fishing around the state, this guide will direct you to reputable businesses in the area you’re searching. 74

AUGUST 2018

HOLIDAY ACCOMMODATION

Rip Charters Fishing Trips, Sorrento (03) 5984 3664 Saltwater Charters, Queenscliff (03) 5258 4888 Off The Hook Fishing Charters 0419 554 916

EAST GIPPSLAND (Continued) Bemm River Holiday Accommodation & Boat Hire, Bemm River (03) 5158 4233 or 0427 584 233

St Kilda Fishing Charters, St Kilda (03) 9770 2200 Western Port Fishing Charters, Hastings (03) 9769 5544

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Lazy Acre Log Cabins 1, 2 & 3 BEDROOM SPACIOUS COTTAGES ♦ Solar Pool ♦ Free Wi-Fi ♦ Air-Con/Heating ♦ Fishing Advice ♦ Boat Parking

Quiet central location Ideal for all the family Close to 90 mile beach 5min drive to boat ramps

N O W AVA IL A B L E ALL YOUR FISHING MONTHLY GEAR From

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(03) 5155 1323 ♦ 0418 516 555 ♦ 35 Roadknight Street, LAKES ENTRANCE

Millbrook Lakes Lodge, Ballarat (03) 5334 0404

TASMANIA & FLINDERS ISLAND Lazy Acre Log Cabins, Lakes Entrance (03) 5155 1323

Ausprey Tours, Launceston (03) 6630 2612 Gone Fishing Charters, St Helens (03) 6376 1553

SAMPLE AD - BUSINESS NAME This is where your copy will appear. You will have approximately 30 words within a 5x2 ad size.

$320 + GST for 6 months Email : pjung@fishingmonthly.com.au CHARTER BOATS WEST COAST Portland Fishing Charters, Portland (03) 5523 3020

CENTRAL

Timeout Fishing Charters

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Timeout Fishing Charters 0400 440 705 South-West Fishing Charters, Portland 0418 306 714 Gone Fishing Charters 0409 007 068 Able Fishing & Charters, Williamstown (03) 9502 3777 ACE Fishing Charters, Bonbeach (03) 9773 4183 Adamas Fishing Charters, Barwon Heads (03) 5254 3320 Big Red Fishing Charters, Queenscliff 1800 805 587

29 45

Mugs

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Reel Affair, Merimbula freecall 1800 233 247 Espirit Charters, Bermagui (02) 6493 4104 or 0407 260 110 Freedom Charters, Eden (02) 6496 1209 or 0415 602 446 Headland Fishing Adventures, Merimbula (02) 6495 1134 Island Charters, Narooma (02) 4476 1047 or 0408 428 857 K9 Fishing Charters, Merimbula (02) 6495 1681

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Merimbula Marina, Merimbula (02) 6495 1686 or 0427 951 080 Narooma Charters, Narooma 0407 909 111 O’Brien Charter Service, Bermagui 0407 214 124

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NSW SOUTH COAST Wilderness Fishing Tours, Mallacoota 0424 625 160

TRADES AND SERVICES ADVERTISING

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From

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and lots more...

MANY DESIGNS TO CHOOSE FROM ON A WIDE VARIETY OF PRODUCTS ALL MADE TO ORDER

If you have any other trades or services that you would like to see in this section please don’t hesitate to give us a call Email: pjung@fishingmonthly.com.au

Blue Magic Fishing Charters, Rowville (03) 9759 5301 Geelong Charters & Fishing Trips, Geelong (03) 5275 7107 Katrina Louise Charters, Cheltenham 0402 828 140

CHANDLERY & ACCESSORIES

Kestrel Charters, Queenscliff (03) 5258 1783

Anchor Right (03) 5968 5014

Queenscliff Fishing Charters, Queenscliff 0458 504 058

Salt-away 1800 091 172 or www.salt-away.com.au

Pro Red Fishing Charters 0421 442 775

Techni Ice (03) 9783 1922

fishingmonthly.redbubble.com

Advertisers wanting to be involved in this directory can call (07) 3387 0800 or email pjung@fishingmonthly.com.au AUGUST 2018

FUN PAGE AND COMPETITIONS PISCIVORES

HUMAN AQUATIC GENET BULLDOG BAT SEALION WOLVES TURTLES OTTER SHREW AMERICAN MINK CAT OTTER

DOLPHIN SEAL PENGUIN EAGLE SNAKE SHARK SPIDER TIGER BEARS JAGUARS

Valley Hill Rocketeer Slicer

Name: Address:

P/Code:

The first correct entry at the end of each month will win the prize pack. SEND ENTRIES TO: VIC Find-a-word Competition, PO box 3172, Loganholme Qld 4129

VIC AUGUST 2018

Phone (day):

BARRA COUNTRY by Brett Currie

The Rocketeer Slicer from Japanese tackle giant Valley Hill is a real feat of Japanese design and engineering. The Rocketeer Slicer has a unique metal plate at the nose of the jig, which lets you secure line in two places, and ensures a superior swimming action even through debris. In addition, its tail system lets you cast more effectively into the wind. The Rocketeer Slicer is available in two sizes (3.0 and 3.5) and 13 different colour combinations. It has proven to be highly effective on Australian squid. www.dogtoothdistribution.com.au

SPOT THE

10 DIFFERENCES

GEORGE & NEV by Michael Hardy

ORIGINAL

FIND-A-WORD

Congratulations to Trevor Richardson from Warrnambool who was last month’s winner of the Find-a-Word Competition! Monthly winners receive a sponsor prize. Prize delivery can take 8 weeks. – VFM

SUBSCRIBER PRIZE

The subscriber prize winner for June is D Gora of Bentleigh East, who won a Hard Korr 8m Blue and White Boat Light Kit and T600 Headlamp valued at $328. All subscribers are entered in the monthly subscriber prize draws. Prize delivery takes up to 8 weeks. – V&TFM

Juc, R Bant of Elaine, J Titter of Werribee, F Saunders of Rosanna, A Pollard of Darley, N Bryant of North Albury, T Kubeil of Euroa, N Byrne of Waldara, L Murray of Sale, J Hines of Leopold, B Sharp of Wendouree, I Wild of St Arnaud, T Wass of Bendigo, P Case of Euroa, M Lea of Caramut, D Dunn of Warrnambool, J Smith of Carranballac, P Gigliotti of Coburg North, K Morrison of

Moama, N Knights of Bayswater North, P Hill of Mt Eliza, T Mathieson of Patterson Lakes, G Jones of Eltham, D Biggs of Stratford, J Watt of Melton South, B Bell of Wodonga, J Neilson of Rochester, R Potter of Dimboola, M Collier of Smythes Creek. Prize delivery takes up to 8 weeks. – V&TFM

LAST MONTH’S ANSWERS

FIND THE DAIWA LOGO

The answers to Find the Daiwa Logo for June were: 9, 17, 20, 21, 22, 27, 35, 38, 49, 50, 72, 75, 86, 114, 118. – V&TFM

AUGUST 2018

This month’s Guess the Fish Answer: Cobia

The Find the Daiwa Logo prize winners for June were: R Newton of Wangaratta, R Crossman of Echuca, D Hedley of Hamilton, G Bannister of Lorne, H Kirk of Hadspen, Z Stevens of Alfredton, L Rojahn of Banyo, R Coombes of Vermont, M Stacey of Portland, M Lewandowski of Langwarrin, P Cobb of Berrigan, M Loussert of Jan

GUESS THE FISH?

Answer:

boats & kayaks

In the skipper’s seat 78 Fantastic Fyans Inside story...

Bar Crusher leads the industry in design and quality to produce some of the most advanced plate aluminium fishing boats on the market. Incorporating exclusive innovations, Bar Crusher boats are renowned for their superior performance.

Made for...

Bar Crusher’s philosophy is all about ensuring that the buyer ends up with a boat that’s ideal for their offshore boating needs. Bar Crushers deliver a super-smooth ride – a far cry from the uncomfortable, pounding ride of traditional aluminium boats – and superior stability at rest.

This month...

Steve Morgan takes the Bar Crusher 780HT with a Yamaha F300hp 4-stroke for a test flight. Check it out on page 86!

Corey Gallagher travels to one of Victoria’s premier trophy redfin fisheries for the kayaker.

80 Hour of power

Justin Willmer offers a few tips to help you make the most of bite periods from a smaller vessel.

82 Battery black magic Batteries are part of life with boats. Learn all about them with Neil Slater!

84 Trailer boat tidy up Wayne Kampe shares a few pointers in cleaning and tidying up a boat after use.

88 Stessl Bluewater 520 Steve Morgan test drives this new beast, powered by a Yamaha F115 hp.

AUGUST 2018

Finding the fish at Lake Fyans MELBOURNE

Corey Gallagher

Nestled in the shadow of the majestic Grampians National Park, Lake Fyans has long been a favourite amongst freshwater anglers

Fyans. There are extensive sections of bank accessible to vehicles around the perimeter of the lake, with the campsite at Kellys Beach Road providing excellent options for those with smaller kayaks. Those with larger yaks can use the nearby dirt

enticing those bigger redfin feeding in amongst the weed. I have also used skirted jigs with curl-tail, paddle-tail or even crawfish (yabby) style trailers to great effect in the same areas. Using a jig with a weed guard can help prevent the weed snagging

isn’t essential and often the clear water makes the weed visible, even in deeper water. The reddies will also move up onto the shallow mud flats around the shoreline of the lake to feed at certain times of the day or after extensive rain to feed on yabbies and insects that have been washed into the lake. Casting small crankbaits that dive down to the bottom and stirring up mud are great ways of replicating fleeing yabbies. Using a rip and pause retrieve will allow the crankbait to dig down into the mud and then float up into the water column; this is a retrieve that has proved deadly for redfin in the past. Trout are a little more difficult to target in the lake, as the thick weed makes trolling difficult in many areas of the lake. However, there are sections where there is a good metre or so

Perfectly conditioned redfin like this are a major drawcard for kayak anglers travelling to the lake. lures at Fyans. Often the temptation for kayak anglers is touse rod holders when trolling, however I always hold the rod, meaning I can only troll one lure at a time. This gives you the option to high stick the lure moving it higher in the water column if the lure starts to grab weed, but more importantly it allows you to impart more action on the

form of fishing I particularly enjoy. When trolling I will switch back to casting once I have caught a few fish in an area and more thoroughly work over an area using a range of different retrieves such as a slow roll or twitch and pause. SAFETY Although fishing on an inland lake can be relatively safe in comparison, it is still

Lake Fyans’ close proximity to Halls Gap makes it a great location to visit with family and friends. across the state looking for a tasty feed of redfin and trout. Located only a stone’s throw away from one of Victoria’s premier

boat ramp, which is more than suitable for kayaks. TARGET SPECIES Lake Fyans has been regularly stocked by Fisheries

your lure. A kayak fitted with a sounder is often very helpful when looking for the weed beds, however it

Standing timber, exposed reeds and extensive weed beds are the dominant features of Lake Fyans.

Launching from the shoreline along Kellys Beach Road is a great way to access Lake Fyans with a kayak. tourist regions, I often visit Fyans while holidaying with my family in the nearby township of Halls Gap. The kayak gives me the versatility to transport on my vehicle’s roof racks while towing the family caravan – a major bonus for those who like get out on the water while caravaning with the family. Lake Fyans is dominated by its abundance of standing timber, exposed reeds and extensive thick weed beds littered throughout the lake. Due to the abundance of weed the lake is often very clear, although this can change quickly after runoff enters the lake from the surrounding farms. ACCESS Kayak anglers have a plethora of options available to them when launching on 78

AUGUST 2018

in recent years with good numbers of both rainbow and brown trout, but surprisingly it’s often the genuine trophysized redfin that keep anglers returning to Fyans. The conditions at Fyans and abundance of bait make it the perfect water for redfin to gorge themselves, allowing them to grow to significant sizes and weights. TECHNIQUES When targeting redfin at Fyans my first point of call is the thick weed beds littered throughout the lake, particularly those located on the northwest shoreline in the vicinity of the lake wall. I like to use heavy jigheads in the 1/8-1/6oz range with large paddle-tail or curl-tail plastics. Sinking the plastic right down into the weed and jigging it vertically can be a very productive way of

of water column above the weed; this is perfect water for trolling shallow diving minnows such as Nories Laydown minnows and the smaller sized Daiwa Double Clutch. I almost always use gold or natural trout pattern

lure by twitching the rod tip or dropping the rod tip back. Often this can be the trigger to enticing a bite from a following trout. Trolling is certainly not for all anglers and if I’m perfectly honest, it’s not a

A picture-perfect lake nestled in the shadow of the Grampians National Park.

important to take precautions when on the water. On occasions I have found myself in very thick fog when fishing at Fyans and with visibility very low it pays to wear bright clothing or make use of flashing lights to make your presence known to other vessels on the water. The other issue with thick fog is it’s very easy to lose your bearings; a sounder equipped with GPS will go a long way in preventing getting lost on the water. As always, make sure you are wearing a serviced PFD and keep a bailer on board as required by Victorian law. Lake Fyans is a truly picturesque location to target some freshwater species, including some trophy-sized redfin. Its close proximity to the Grampians makes it the perfect water to visit while holidaying in the region. Do yourself a favour and throw the kayak on the roof next time your heading up that way for your chance to tangle with some terrific trout and perch.

WHAT’S NEW BOATING AQUAYAK BANJO

Lightweight, extremely stable, easy to paddle and available in a wide range of colours, the Australian-made Banjo is the perfect gift for kids. Like all Aquayaks, the Banjo’s rugged, one-piece construction guarantees a lifetime of enjoyment. Designed to accommodate paddlers up to 65kg, the Banjo’s cockpit is deep moulded, lowering the centre of gravity, making it extremely stable. The Banjo measures 1.8m x 0.6m and weighs 11kg, and features include 10-year warranty on construction and UV certification; 1 x two-piece paddle; central storage soft hatch; 2x heavy-duty handles (sides); 2x toggle handles (front and rear), 1 x paddle leash saddle; 2 x flush rod holders; cup holder; drain bung; utility pocket; self-draining cockpit; thruster (3 fins) keep for wave surfing; stackable for storage and transport. Price: SRP $249 www.aquayak.com

EVINRUDE 10 YEAR 2 WARRANTY For the first time in Australia, Evinrude is offering a 10Year Factory Backed Warranty on all engines from 25hp-300hp inclusive, available to Australian customers purchasing at participating boat shows in 2018. Evinrude engines already offer best-inclass fuel efficiency and torque, no break-in period and no oil changes ever. These engines also comply with and exceed new Australian emissions standards. Telwater (manufacturer of Quintrex, Stacer and Savage boats and Evinrude AU distributor) Director of Sales and Marketing Damien Duncan said the offer added extreme value and showed high confidence in the quality of the products offered to the market. “Telwater chose to work with Evinrude as we believe it is the best outboard on the market and offers customers leading innovation in the marine industry,” Damien said, “and now we can offer industry-leading warranty coverage.” This offer is available at all eligible boat shows by participating dealers and on factory-fitted BMT packages. For full terms and conditions head to the Evinrude website. www.evinrude.com.au

MOTORGUIDE XI3 AND 72” XI5

The new MotorGuide Xi3 is up to 40% quieter than its nearest competitor, and a hand-held remote is included as standard. Its SecureStep system lets users release the motor from its locked position without having to reach over it, while providing a clear visual and audible signal to confirm that it’s stowed and locked correctly. The Xi3 also boasts the Pinpoint GPS module, which lets you focus on fishing while taking advantage of GPS functions like Anchor, Jog, Heading Lock, Route Record and more. Available in 12V and 24V options, with thrust ranging from 55-70lb, all Xi3 models are Lowrance, Simrad and Mercury VesselView connectivity compatible. Anglers also have the option of freshwater or saltwater variants, along with the choice of 48-60” (122-152cm) shafts. A three-blade Machete propeller is included as standard with all Xi3 models, and built-in sonar is optional for selected motors. In addition to this, the MotorGuide Xi5 just got even better with the release of a 72” (183cm) shaft version. www.mercurymarine.com.au

NEW MERCURY PRO XS MODELS

PRODUCT GUIDE

Mercury has announced multiple new Pro XS outboards – V-8 4.6L engines in 200, 225, 250 and 300hp, along with an all-new V-6 3.4L 175hp model. The new 200-300hp Pro XS models are built on Mercury’s new V-8 engine platform and boast a 4.6L powerhead that delivers phenomenal torque while weighing just 229kg. During testing, the 250hp Pro XS outpaced the leading competitor by 20% for 0-32km/h acceleration under heavy load while also delivering up to 16% better fuel economy at cruise. The 200-300hp Pro XS models also feature a robust 3.2cm diameter prop shaft and are available with a next-gen Torque Master gearcase that offers a 1.75:1 gear ratio and low-water pickups on the nose-cone for added mounting and trimming flexibility. These engines are smooth and quiet at cruise. The new 175hp Pro XS is built on Mercury’s new 3.4L V-6 platform. This large displacement engine delivers higher maximum RPM at full throttle, while providing superior fuel economy and weighing just 213kg for the 175hp. www.mercurymarine.com.au

3 4

JL AUDIO LAUNCHES 5 MM50 JL Audio has released a new 2.8” weatherproof, powered marine source unit. The MM50 is a high-performance, single-chassis, powered source unit with outstanding audio performance and advanced features, specifically designed for marine applications. The easy-to read, 2.8” full colour LCD display has adjustable brightness and an intuitive interface with large, easy to use backlit controls. There are flexible zone controls, including tone controls for bass, mid-range, treble and balance, independent or linked with zone 1. The built-in amplifier generates 100W of high-fidelity output. The MM50 has a digital AM/FM tuner with Radio Data System display info (where available), and can store up to 18 AM/FM stations. It also has Bluetooth compatibility, a USB 2.0 direct-digital connection, and NMEA2000 certified compatibility. The MM50 is has three remote controller options (each sold separately) to help you create a versatile audio command centre. Price: SRP $449.99 www.jlaudio.com

RAYMARINE AXIOM XL

The new Raymarine Axiom XL family is fully waterproof, and each model delivers wider viewing angles, sharp contrast, and unmatched readability in bright sun. Axiom XL has three Ethernet ports for connecting with network sensors or with additional Axiom, Axiom Pro, and Axiom XL family displays. Axiom XL’s FLIR thermal imaging camera support enhances navigation awareness and safety, while HDMI input enables Axiom XL to serve as a remote touchscreen PC or entertainment display. A quad-core processor supports Raymarine navigation, radar, sonar, and FLIR thermal technology for an all-in-one HD display. Powered by Raymarine’s LightHouse 3 OS, the displays offer an uncluttered interface that is easily personalised. There’s the choice of multitouch screen control or the Raymarine RMK-10 keypad for complete remote system control of multiple Axiom XL displays. Axiom XLs are available in 16”, 19”, 22” and 24” display sizes. The XL24 is available now, and the XL22 will be available in September. Price: SRP $9995 www.raymarine.com.au

Please email contributions to: nicole@fishingmonthly.com.au

SCAN THE QR CODE!

AUGUST 2018

The hour of power BRISBANE

Justin Willmer Find me on Facebook at Yaks On

For years my mates and I have spoken about the hour of power when fishing, referring to the first hour of morning light and the last hour of daylight. Although

to spot you as easily and less boat traffic on the water. These variables and more often contribute to making this hour a hot bite opportunity. For those of us fishing from an SUP, kayak, canoe or other paddle craft, it’s a great opportunity to be on the water before the waterway gets busy, which

You don’t want to take your expensive gear out on the SUP. A couple of $80 combos do the job just fine. this is two hours in each day, with work, families and other commitments, we often only get the opportunity to fish one of these hours… the hour of power. In these low light conditions, you will often find the water comes alive with bait and the fish feed more actively, there are less shadows being cast, less visibility for the fish

can often spook the fish and make the bite tougher. Alternatively, you can hang around for the last hour of light, when many boaties have already packed up for the day to get home and get their boat and gear cleaned up and put away. The other thing to consider is your launch point, as you often don’t need to rely on a boat ramp to launch, so try

and launch close to where you intend to fish to make the most of the morning or afternoon hour of power. Here are a handful of tips to make the most of this peak bite period and a quick wrap up of a recent SUP session where I made the most of the late afternoon bite. THE 5 PS Prior planning prevents poor performance… well you won’t catch them every time, that’s fishing, but if you only have a short period on the water, try and line up a tide you like to fish or a species you like to target with one of the magic hours of the day and be organised. Have your vessel and kit ready to roll so you can make the most of the time available. RIGGED AND READY Make sure you aren’t wasting the peak bite

AUGUST 2018

my favourite target species in the estuaries, however I will also target bream, trevally, mulloway and other species. A popular

organised, with items leashed, secured or stowed. When fishing I have scent, a ruler, Boomerang Tool line snip, water bottle,

Back at the launch point - note the clear deck, with everything stowed and secured for the paddle home. period by digging through your tackle and rigging your rods out on the water. I generally carry two rigged rods on the deck of the SUP, or up to four rigged rods in my rear rod holder setup on the kayak. I will either have both rods rigged with the same lure if I have been catching on it and am confident of repeating this success, or I will be rigged with a couple of different lures. Flathead are

The shallow water presentation also produced plenty of bites. The ZMan 2.5” Slim SwimZ on a 1/4oz jighead was working great. 80

A fresh feed of fish for the table. An icebox is ideal for keeping your catch in optimum condition.

go-to for these species in my local waters is one rod rigged with a 2.5” paddletail on a 1/4oz 1/0 light wire jighead and a second rod rigged with a bulkier 3” paddle-tail on a 3/8oz 3/0 heavy wire jighead. These two plastics have me covered from rolling the flats for bream, trevally and flathead, to fishing drop-offs for flathead and mulloway. VISIBILITY It’s important to ensure that you are highly visible when fishing low light, especially when you’re low to the water in a paddle craft. A headlamp is a great idea for your own visibility and for signalling to other watercraft if necessary. I prefer a waterproof LED battery-powered headlamp and I always switch it on to check the power level before heading out and carry a spare set of batteries with me. Other ways to make yourself more visible on the water include the range of lighting options from Railblaza, which are quick and easy to attach, along with high-vis and reflective clothing, a PFD with reflective tape or reflective tape or stickers attached to your vessel. DECK ORGANISATION When fishing low light conditions, it is even more important to keep the cockpit of your vessel

camera and other random items on my deck, however when paddling to my spot or back to shore, especially in darkness, the camera is

left inside to make it float. CLOTHING Hot, cold, sunburn, insect bites and wind can all be part of it… before I scare you off the water, I just want to say that most of this can be overcome with simple clothing choices. Headwear, gloves, sunnies, buffs, layered tops, long sun pants, wading shoes and rain gear are just some of the clothing options available to paddlers, with a lot of technical clothing available with features that include quick dry, wind-proof, lightweight, UPF ratings and more. Plan your clothing to suit your adventure and you can always carry a couple of additional items in a dry bag, just in case.

Being able to stow loose items is a big plus on a paddle back to the launch point. secured in my pocket, water bottle in my icebox and the scent, line snip, ruler and other accessories are stowed in a dry bag that is rolled up with enough air

COMMUNICATION Finally, let someone know where you are going and what time you expect to be home. I always carry my phone, fully charged in

a waterproof case… except for that one time when I went on my first quick SUP mission and my wife and my father were looking for me with binoculars and telescopic camera lenses… time gets away when you’re fishing and especially when you’re catching. For more extreme adventures a PLB (Personal Locator Beacon)

the stand up paddle board, for those who are wanting to get into the sport or have recently purchased a board. The board that I purchased has a removable fin and on one of my adventures, where I found myself landlocked and removed the thumbscrew and fin to slide the board across the weed beds, I learned a

One for the table! Note the author’s headlamp around the neck and PFD with reflective strip ready for sunset. or EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) is not a silly idea. SUP TECH TIP Before we head out onto the water, I just wanted to cover a small technical tip with regard to

valuable lesson… When I next went to use the board and screw the fin in, I discovered that the thumbscrew doesn’t actually screw into a fixed point, it in fact screws into a little plate/nuts of which

was somewhere out in the ocean, as it had slid out of the fin slot. A quick look online and these are readily available to purchase, so I’m guessing I’m not the first and won’t be the last to make this mistake and here’s hoping I can save a couple of others from making the same mistake. In future, if I remove the fin for transportation or other reasons, I will ensure that I screw the nut and screw together into the fin for safe storage. Anyway, in true Aussie ‘tie it up with wire’ style I simply pushed the fin into the slot, placed a little silicone scraper from my painting kit over the slot and taped the fin in with silver tape. It was a success, and I am out of trouble until a new plate/ nut arrives, along with a few spares… just in case. LET’S HIT THE WATER! After being busy all weekend recently I made a last-minute decision to grab what was left of Sunday afternoon and launch the SUP to drift for flathead. It was the last of the run-out tide, bottoming out around dark and as I slid the SUP in at 4:30pm I figured I had about an hour and a half of fishing time. Positioning the SUP about a cast distance from the bank, I drifted the channel edge, casting to the edge of the weed and hopping the plastic down the drop-off. The first 50m of bank dropped steeply into about 3m of water, so I opted for my 3” paddle-tail and 3/8oz jighead, allowing plenty of time between hops to ensure the plastic was on the bottom. With a tap,

After losing the first flathead, this one was going in the net. followed by a solid hookset I was connected to my first flathead, which was on the deck and then off again in the blink of an eye as it shook its head, threw the lure and launched back into the water. There are a couple of reasons why I should have netted the fish. Firstly, I would have had dinner in the icebox and secondly a fish that is going crazy on your deck has the potential to launch unsecured items into the water. It wasn’t too many casts before I had a fish on again! This time, I netted a flathead that measured mid 50s, and I carefully slid it into my icebox that doubles as my seat. Although it’s called an SUP, my icebox makes a pretty good seat, it’s at the perfect height

and securely strapped to the deck attachment points, and I must admit I spend most of my time sitting, relaxing and taking it all in. As the bank began to taper more slowly into the depths, I picked up the other rod and started fishing the 1/4oz jighead and 2.5” paddle-tail, casting right up into the shallows where the bait was flicking. Fish on! A small but cranky flathead was landed, followed by another next cast and then a yellowtail pike that was also released. Flathead often school, so I paddled back to work this section again, landing two more small fish in two casts and then another for the icebox a couple of casts later. With the sun disappearing and the tide almost still, I

paddled a little further to a patch of sand at the mouth of a drain and landed a few more flathead and yellowtail pike, all of which were released, as I had one fish for dinner, along with one for our neighbour. What had been a busy and stressful weekend had ended on a high, thanks to an hour and a half on the water that included the afternoon hour of power. A dozen flathead and a few yellowtail pike, including a feed of fresh fish – a wind down before heading back to work and a fun session on the water. I hope you all get an opportunity to get out on the water soon and remember to make the most of your hour of power. See you on the water.

Rhys Wilkinson with a 81cm cod taken from the upper Murray near Jinjellic, late afternoon. It was caught with a red black spinnerbait and released without harm.

A typical weedy channel edge and drain that will produce flathead on the run-out tide.

AUGUST 2018

Battery black magic GEELONG

Neil Slater slaterbunch@optusnet.com.au

Batteries are a force of nature to be reckoned with. Any of you out there that has done year nine chemistry or worked in the industry will get most of it, but for a lot of us, it isn’t straightforward. They can look fine, test fine and then really let you down. Remember that it’s not like a car where you can just get out and walk home. For that reason alone, batteries are a vital bit of kit if your outboard relies on it to start. There are a few checks we can all do to help prolong their life, diagnose minor issues

BUYING THE RIGHT BATTERY FOR THE JOB There are so many types out there with varying price points, and it can get very confusing. Buying the right battery for the task at hand will ensure it provides maximum performance, life and recovery after discharge as possible. Lead-acid battery A high quality lead acid battery with be very heavy, as it has thicker lead plates in it. Thicker plates make it more durable and longer lasting. Cheaper batteries that quote high cranking amps (CCA or MCA) may not last as long as the more expensive ones. ‘Maintenance’ or ‘Serviceable’ Battery These batteries often

Regularly check your terminals to ensure that they’re tight and free of corrosion. before they become major ones plus a bit of maintenance here and there never goes astray. Get comfortable – here comes the waffle. WHAT IS A BATTERY? Basically, a battery is something that can store electrical energy in a sack of chemicals. Clearly this is sorcery and should not be trusted! Understanding a bit about them can help you look after them better and remove that evil halo that surrounds them. CHEMISTRY When two dissimilar metals are linked together with an electrolyte, they can form a chemical reaction where electricity is produced. You can stab a zinc nail and a copper coin in a lemon and generate about 0.9 volts – not enough to start a boat. So, for batteries with enough power to start engines, the smart people chose lead alloy (a mix of lead and other metals to give the lead plate strength) as the anode or negative pole, lead dioxide as the cathode or positive pole and sulphuric acid as the electrolyte. This produces about 2.1V. Hang on, you need 12V…. Yes, not enough; so, they joined six of them together! This gives us approximately 12.6Vat full charge. As batteries discharge, a chemical reaction changes the sulphuric acid to lead sulphate and water. Supply an electrical current, that is, recharge the battery, and it reverses this chemical reaction. Neato! 82

AUGUST 2018

require the owner to check the electrolyte level and specific gravity (SG) of each cell via the fill caps on top and must always remain upright as their electrolyte is running liquid. They are used for most cars and some marine ‘cranking’ batteries. The electrolyte can be topped up with distilled water or sulphuric acid. Plain tap water should not be used but could be in an emergency. Maintenance Free Battery Maintenance free batteries are sealed and the electrolyte level does not need to be maintained. Some also have a built-in hydrometer often called a charge level window, giving some indication of the charge in one cell (only). Most calcium batteries are maintenance free. Marine Battery Most marine batteries have extra reinforcing between

thicker lead plates to cope with the rough ride at sea and on a trailer. They also sometimes have extra terminals so you can add accessories. Some of them are also labelled ‘dual purpose’ (see ‘hybrid’ below) so can cope with deep discharge to run accessories and high current output as required for cranking an outboard. They will also have an MCA (marine cranking amps) figure quoted – the higher the figure, the more cranking power. VRLA Battery VRLA stands for ‘Valve Regulated Lead Acid’. These batteries do not like to get too hot when charging. Warm is normal, but not hot. See AGM and GEL batteries below. GEL Cell battery This is a type of VRLA battery where the sulphuric acid is in gel form rather than fully flooded plates. They are often found as deep cycle, or deep discharge batteries and have an amp hour (Ah) rating such as 100Ah rather than a cold cranking amp (CCA) or marine cranking amp (MCA) rating. Basically, they are used to slowly discharge and often used for portable 12V fridges, solar panel electricity storage, caravans, electric bow mount/trolling motors and as a ‘house’ or ‘accessories’ battery on a dual battery system. AGM battery AGM stands for ‘Absorbed Glass Matt’, and they are also known as ‘dry cell’, ‘sealed lead acid’, or ‘non-spillable’ batteries. The sulphuric acid electrolyte in these is absorbed into a glass matt and has similar deep discharge capabilities as GEL batteries. The glass matt adds to their durability. Calcium battery A calcium battery’s plates are still predominantly lead and the electrolyte is sulphuric acid, but calcium replaces antimony in the lead plates of the battery. Advantages include better resistance to terminal corrosion, less off gassing of hydrogen when charged and lower self-discharge. The one major disadvantage is that they do not like to be deep discharged (allowed to run dead flat to 10 or so volts too

A battery box will keep the battery secure and out of the elements. often). Since there is less off gassing during charging, the battery can ‘stratify’, meaning the acid is not mixed by the gas bubbles and some parts of the lead plate can deteriorate before the others. Calcium batteries require a slightly higher charge voltage of around 14.8V and can hit 16V rather than 14.4-14.6V for conventional batteries for maximum life. This higher voltage is delivered by battery chargers that have a ‘calcium’ setting or mode and helps mix the electrolyte to avoid stratification without smashing it with amps.

Most calcium batteries are ‘maintenance free’. Lithium Battery These are new-tech, so expect to see a few more of these in boats as they become more affordable. Walks like a normally battery, quacks like a normal battery, but weight in at half the weight at around 13-14kg for a 100Ah battery. They also come with staggering warranties of six years or more, with some offering limited lifetime warranties. However, they cost in the order of $1300 to $1800 for an 100Ah unit. Cranking or starter Battery The starter or crank battery

deep cycle could have 100Ah capacity or more. The more capacity, the heavier and more expensive the battery. Hybrid or DualPurpose batteries These batteries do their best to achieve both results, but are never the best at either of them. For example, a decent hybrid may only have 75Ah and 650MCA. BUYING THE RIGHT CHARGER FOR THE JOB A decent battery charger is worth almost as much as the battery – sometimes more! To achieve the best life of your battery, you need a

A multimeter is a quick way to check the battery. Note that some batteries read high immediately after charging. Give them an hour and recheck. If it falls below 12.6V, the battery could be on its way out.

BATTERY TERMINOLOGY Cold cranking amps (CCA) Most commonly found on car batteries, this is the amount of power (amps) that the battery can produce for 30 seconds at -18°C (0°F) before it falls below 7.2V. Marine Cranking Amps (MCA ) Mostly found on marine batteries, this measures the amount of power (amps) that the battery can produce for 30 seconds at 0°C (32°F) before it falls below 7.2. Hot Cranking Amps (HCA ) This is the amount of power (amps) that the battery can produce for 30 seconds at 26.7°C (80°F) before it falls below 7.2V. Amp Hours (Ah) Most often quoted on deep cycle batteries, this is the number of hours the battery can supply 1 amp of current before dropping below 10.5V. E.g. a 100Ah battery can run for 100 hours if the device it is powering is only drawing one amp – In theory. However, due to discharge of the battery, while this is happening, the real-world result is often much less. The bottom line here is that an 80Ah battery has less capacity than a 100Ah battery. Reserve Capacity (RC) This is the time (in minutes) the battery can deliver 25 Amps at 26.7°C (80°F) before it is reduced to 10.5V. Specific Gravity (SG) This measures the thickness of fluids. Battery electrolyte (sulphuric acid) is thicker than water and measures in at values above 1 while pure water has an SG of 1.000.

is designed to give short bursts of high amps that are required to turn over an outboard. To achieve this, they often have a more plates than a deep cycle, but they are thinner, which offers a higher surface area to provide more current. A good starter battery to suit a 70hp outboard could have 750MCA and 60Ah Deep cycle or Deep discharge battery Deep cycle batteries have less plates, but they are thicker. This provides less short-term power, but greater long-term energy delivery and can survive multiple charge/ discharge cycles. A good

good battery charger. Battery chargers state their charge rate in amps. A rough guide is that the charger should be able to deliver about 10% of the Ah rating of your battery in amps. For example, a 100Ah battery should be charged with a 10Amp battery charger. A decent battery charger will be ‘multi stage’, where it gives the battery a cuddle and puts on some Barry White before it makes its move and ‘bulk charges’. Almost. Bulk charging hits the battery with the maximum current to get the charge back to where it should be. Absorption charging gives the battery a top up charge

to approach 100% gently, so as not to over charge and a reduced current is supplied. Once fully charged, the multi stage charger then enters ‘float charge’ where it monitors the voltage and keeps the battery in a fully charged state. OUTBOARD ALTERNATORS Never rely on your outboard’s alternator to charge your battery to 100%. Larger motors do have better alternators, but this is not consistent. You may have done your alternator homework before buying an outboard, but this figure of alternator output amps is measured at high or

maximum revs. For example, my old 70hp 2-stroke Yamaha only had a stator, not an alternator, that only delivered 10A at 5500rpm, so a weekend of stop/start lure trolling can see a battery at 70% or less! So always pop the battery on the charger after a fishing trip and it will last longer. Smaller motors may require a regulator/rectifier installed to keep the voltage supplied to your batteries and accessories below 14V. Check with your local service centre if unsure. WHAT IF MY BATTERY FAILS AT SEA? There are a few things

you can check before firing off the flares if it is safe to do so. The number one cause of that dreaded ‘click-click’ sound of a battery not able to turn a motor over is a dirty terminal. Turn the ignition to the off position and check that both battery terminals are tight and clean. If in doubt, remove them and scratch both to reveal shiny lead and reattached them tightly. A lot of outboards also have the ability to be pull started. Take the cowl off and you may have to remove a plastic flywheel cover to expose the flywheel. You may notice a notch in the top of the flywheel on a groove. This is

Check your outboard’s flywheel. It may have an option to pull start if your battery fails.

for you to wedge the end of a knotted rope, wrap around the flywheel a few times and pull start the outboard. Remember that you’ll need the ignition in the ‘start’ position, and watch out for the first mate behind you as that knot can put someone’s eye out. WHAT IS A FULLY CHARGED OR DEAD FLAT BATTERY? More chemistry. You can check the charge of your battery in two ways; either with a multimeter or a hydrometer. For voltage, set your multimeter to ‘DC’ voltage and place the red lead onto the positive (red) terminal and the black onto the negative (black) terminal. The voltage of a fully charged battery varies on its chemistry. A standard lead acid battery should be 12.6-12.7V while an AGM or GEL will be about 12.8V. A reading of 12.0V is about 20% charged and 11.8V is dead flat, so you can see there isn’t a great deal of voltage headroom there. This can also vary a bit between manufacturers! Another method if you have a serviceable battery (one with caps you can take off for each cell) is to measure the specific gravity or ‘SG’ using a hydrometer. The SG is the density of your electrolyte. Fully charged batteries’ electrolyte is all thick (heavy) sulphuric acid

Don’t expect a day’s trolling to charge up your battery. and fully discharged battery’s electrolyte is all full of (light) runny water. It’s a reasonably messy but accurate procedure where you draw the electrolyte up into the hydrometer and read the SG off the side scale. So, the SG for a fully charged battery should be around 1.265-1.275, at 50% charged it should be about 1.175 to 1.195 and dead flat will be close to the SG of water 1.095-1.115.

Thankfully, all this is written on a battery hygrometer. As you can see, these are of no use if you have maintenance free or sealed batteries and it is much easier to carry around a multimeter! It is best to avoid fully discharging your battery and try to keep it above 12.4V or completely full at all times where possible to achieve the best life out of it.

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Tidy up that trailer boat BRISBANE

Wayne Kampe wkff@aapt.net.au

Boat ownership is a big part of my life, and I’m guessing that it’s also a big part of yours as well – or at least that you’re seriously considering it. My advice to you is this: go for it! Boating is a multifaceted escape from the more mundane things in life. Whether you’ve launched the boat merely for a fun run or for some serious strategies on the fish, your the time on the water is always changing. I’ve rarely had two boating excursions that are the same, given the variation in weather and sea conditions we boaties constantly encounter. Once the craft is home again, you need to ensure things are ‘ship shape’ for the next expedition. Along with some careful thought as to where you should put important items (at the end of a day on the water, they’ll probably be somewhere inconvenient) it’s a good idea to clean things up good and proper so that your pride and joy can look its best and perform just as well. After all, the quality of a trip can depend on how well you tidied up the last time you went out. But before we start cleaning up let’s work out some strategies for orderly management of important items. WASH OUT THE WELL Starting at the bow, we have the anchor well. Some wells can take in a little water via the outflow at times, so you might want to check the amount of salt and other unwanted material that’s in there with the anchor rope. Open wells can gather all kinds of random items

like tangled tackle, leaves or discarded bait or lure packets, which are annoying when you want to quickly drop the ground tackle. A bit of bump and thump during a late run to the ramp can also further tangle the anchor rope after it was hastily retrieved in between sets of swells or chop. At the end of the day you should completely remove all anchor warp and clean up the well before you neatly store the anchor rope for the next trip. You’ll appreciate this the next time you’re on the water. ANOINT THE ELECTRIC When it comes to electric motors, even a saltwater model needs some special care. I’ve seen even the best brands fail from sheer

For some models it’s recommended that you remove the side plates, so you should read the small booklet that came with it. Some spray with a lubricant is good practice as well. As a side note, many boaters have both a hand and foot control for their electrics as a failsafe. Most people favour the hand control due to its convenience, but it’s a good idea to also understand exactly how the foot control is set up for use – either with or without a wireless link to the motor – so you should consult the handbook. It may also have some tips on foot control use stored strategically in the boat, and it could save the day if you’ve never used the unit before. Remember, too, that

Multi-roller trailers are great, but there are times when the rollers are affected by exhaust from a diesel engine, and cause unsightly black marks on the hull.

These roller marks will require some effort to clean off the fibreglass. Metho might work but acetone will be more effective. neglect. During the boat wash down, you should put the electric motor in its down-for-use position so that all salt residue is entirely removed from vital above-water componentry.

areas are odour free. Remember that if you use detergent of any kind you’ll need to rinse the live well, as any detergent residue will kill the next lot of livies very quickly. A thorough wash-out is necessary after detergent use. CLEANING THE ALLOY HULL Alloy hulls are great. They’re so easy to maintain, especially if they’re unpainted, and lend themselves to all kinds of fishing. Most owners give their craft a hose-down after use, but there are other things you can do to really make things fresh and clean again. One of the kindest things an owner can do to an alloy hull, especially if

the freshwater, there’s a lot you can do at the ramp to help keep the boat clean. So long as other ramp users aren’t inconvenienced (and trust me, they will let you know if they are), you should clean all water marks or scum lines off the rig at the ramp while they are still damp. If that scum and other residue is allowed to dry out it becomes very hard to remove, and may even require some hand polishing to completely obliterate. When I owned my TABS punt I found that a super quick rubdown with a soft, wet broom at a freshwater ramp removed scum and other residue about 20 times more rapidly than when I tried to clean it up at home.

some foot controls also rely on a small battery to power them, so it’s smart to replace that battery regularly. The last thing to remember about your electric is to un-plug the main power

Isolator switches are designed to cut off power, but extra insurance against power leakage is as easy as removing a battery terminal after use.

An hour in the Brisbane River caused these marks to form on a new alloy hull. 84

AUGUST 2018

lead as a safeguard against any leakage. FISH BOXES AND BAIT WELLS A wash-out and rub down with diluted vinegar followed by another wash-out can ensure these

it’s painted, is to get all the scum, water marks and scuff marks off that hull ASAP. If your boat has been used in the salt, a thorough hose down is a good way to get the ball rolling. If your boat has been used in

This tactic applies to both painted and unpainted alloy hulls. Painted alloy hulls can be revamped at home with a wash down with a highly diluted mix of No More Tears baby shampoo and tap

water. The baby shampoo cleans very well, leaves no water marks or residue and is a remarkably effective method of restoring painted surfaces to their best condition. It is also very gentle on paintwork. Lastly, when the alloy craft is declared clean enough to be put to bed before the next use, don’t simply rely upon the ubiquitous isolator switch to prevent any sneaky current leaks (which will in time cause paint bubbling and other corrosion thanks to electrolysis). It’s far better to completely remove a battery terminal if you know the boat won’t be used for a while. CLEANING THE GLASS HULL While fibreglass hulls look super shiny, they will soil just the same as alloy. As with an alloy hull,

A U S T R A L I A

Margay 2017

$52,990 • 17’7” • Single axle Basscat trailer • 115 hp Mercury 4 stroke • 24v electric motor (Minn Kota or Motor Guide) • 2 x sounders (Humminbird 597cxi HD Di or Lowrance HDS 5

Whether your boat is fibreglass or alloy, it will always benefit from a clean-up after use.

If you use detergent to clean out the bait well, ensure it’s flushed very well or the next lot of livies won’t last long. all electrical components should be isolated (consider removing a terminal) at the end of each use, especially if the boat is going to sit for a spell. Cleaning a glass hull can be a bit tedious, especially when those pesky black scuff marks are showing up on the one side of the hull courtesy of rubber rollers from the trailer. Every wondered why this happens? Allow me to provide the answer: it’s because of a reaction between the exhaust of a diesel car and the rubber roller. If your tow vehicle is petrol powered you probably won’t be seeing it all, but if your car is an oil burner you will know what I’m on about if your trailer is equipped with rollers. Cleaning fibreglass can be as easy as a wash down with a sugar soap or specialized detergent solution, but for really tough marks – such as those diesel/rubber demons

– metho might work, but acetone definitely will. This stuff is flammable and somewhat corrosive. I recommend gloves for

handling it. Acetone is a last resort, but it’s worth the extra care for those marks on the fibreglass that are very hard to remove.

THE TRAILER? Saltwater is hard on trailers. Every part of the trailer that has been in saltwater needs a good hose-down, and special attention should be paid to any brake assemblies. Extra hosing on all brake components is smart, and the springs should get some extra washing as well. A strategic spray of lubricant on the brake assembly’s main activation mechanism will extend its life considerably as well. Testing the park brake of the trailer is as easy as giving the unit a little push and applying the lever. If the trailer doesn’t stop instantly you’ll need to tighten up the cable to a small degree. Don’t overdo this or there will be excessively hot brake discs and callipers when towing the boat. So that’s the plan. A good clean up, everything in its proper place and your boat will be clean, tidy and ready for its next trip! Enjoy.

or Garmin 6”)

Pantera II 2017

$74,990

• 19’1” • Single axle Basscat trailer • 200 hp Mercury Optimax • 24v electric motor (Minn Kota or Motor Guide) • 2 x sounders (Humminbird 698cxi HD Si or Lowrance HDS 7 GEN2 or Garmin 6”)

Pantera Classic 2018

$65,990

• 19’6” • Single Axel Bass Cat Trailer • 150 hp Mercury Pro-XS • 24v electric motor (Minn Kota or Motor Guide) • 2 x sounders (Humminbird 597cxi HD Di or Lowrance HDS 5 or Garmin 6”)

Sabre FTD 2017

$61,990

• 18’1” • Single axle Basscat trailer • 115 hp Mercury 4 stroke • 24v electric motor (Minn Kota or Motor Guide) • 2 x sounders (Humminbird 698cxi HD Si or Lowrance HDS 7 GEN2 or Garmin 6”)

Alloy boats are always subject to electrolysis, which can lead to paint bubbling, via power leakage and it’s smart practice to remove a battery lead if the boat is going to be unused for a while.

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Phone: 0410 173 060 www.basscataustralia.com AUGUST 2018

Bar Crusher 780HT with Yamaha F300hp 4 stroke

- SC

TENT -

RE ONLINE MO

T AUGUST 2018

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RPM........................ km/h....................... km/L 1000............................... 9...........................1.9 2000............................. 13...........................1.0 3000............................. 36...........................1.5 4000............................. 54...........................1.1 5000............................. 67...........................0.8 5600............................. 80...........................0.8 * Figures from Yamaha Performance Bulletin Main: What do you get when a Bar Crusher dealer says, “Let’s see if we can order the most optioned-up Bar Crusher ever?” A 780 Hard Top with a 300hp Yamaha 4-stroke and all the fruit. Above: This 780HT has been fitted with a 500L (instead of the standard 330L) fuel tank, but at the expense of an underfloor kill box. It gives this rig a theoretical range of over 700km at the economical cruising speed. accessories – a fridge, radar, toilet – you know, all of the things that are necessary for a big day on

Length:............................................................ 7.8m Beam:........................................................... 2.45m Weight on trailer (dry):.............................2,380 kg Fuel:....................................... 500L (330 standard) Max hp:............................................................ 300 Capacity:................................................6 persons Materials:....................... 5mm bottom, 4mm sides

you’re fishing and the practicality of the transom door and boarding ladder arrangement. You can watch a video review of the boat test

PERFORMANCE

SPECIFICATIONS

ramp. It didn’t matter in this rig. It’s long enough to bridge the waves, heavy enough to move the water (and not vice versa) and dry enough in the wheelhouse to cop a gale warning and still keep you warm and comfortable. And it had all of the

s.morgan@fishingmonthly.com.au

I asked Stones Corner Marine’s Glenn Baker if he was in an optionticking mood when he put together this demo rig for their dealership in Brisbane. After all, this 780 Bar Crusher hard top with a 300hp Yamaha 4-stroke was one of the most kitted out boats that we’ve tested in the last couple of years. “We like to have all of the good gear on our demo boats, because customers see the finished product, relate to it and then want to take it home,” Baker smiled, “and that’s exactly what a demo boat should do.” We knew we were in for a great day on the water in this epic rig – even though Moreton Bay was white capping and there was hardly another trailer at the

faster you went, the more the hull got on top of the rough water and the waterline length bridged the gaps. Quartering the slop, you’d definitely get wet if it

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the water. That’s what you get for $165,000. A great Australian built boat with enough gear and range to take you to a different state. We had Stones Corner salesman, Troy Wegner, take us out for a spin on a day that was perfect for seeing what hulls like

this can do. “This boat has a 500L fuel tank rather than the 330L standard, but it comes at the expense of an underfloor kill-box,” said Troy on the test day. After running the numbers, we calculated that this rig would have a theoretical range of over 700km with that tank and a captain sitting on 3,000rpm. At those revs, the Yamaha pushed the 780 along at 41km/h and delivered 1.6km/L of fuel burned. If you’re showing off to your mates at wide open throttle, you’ll only get 700m/L, but you’ll have plenty of fun. It all depends on how much you like spending money at the bowser.

The way that the Bar Crusher ate up the sub-metre chop was impressive – the

wasn’t an enclosed hard top design, but the cabin and new hard top design kept the cabin warm and dry. There’s a lot to like in a rig like this, but I was particularly impressed with the lockable cabin, the dash that can flush-mount any of your electronics and be visible from where

on the Fishing Monthly Magazines YouTube channel or by scanning the QR code hereby with your smartphone. Or better still, get in touch with the guys from Bar Crusher Victoria, they’re at

www.barcrusher.com.au or call them on (03) 9792 2999 to arrange a visit.

Like all boats, economy varies with how heavy you are on the stick. Drive this rig as fast as it will go and it will sting you with 700m/L performance. You’ll at least double the range at 3,000rpm and still travel at 41km/h.

Yamaha’s 300hp 4-stroke is an imposing piece of machinery. It’ll give you 1.6km/L at 3,000rpm and 41km/h.

How’s this for luxury? An Engel fridge/freezer that slides out from under the seat. No use having over 700km of range if you haven’t got a fridge.

As you’d expect, there’s enough cockpit space in the 780 to take all of your mates fishing. And most likely a few of their mates as well! The chequer plate deck is easy to clean and very practical for an offshore boat.

There’s a mile of visibility with Bar Crusher’s new Hard Top design and the forward-sliding windows allow the ventilation that you need in warmer climates. The helm is well laid out and there’s a lockable sliding cabin door. To keep your gear secure when you’re on the road. It also offers the family privacy if needed.

Top: Now that’s a bait board! There’s nothing worse than a cluttered bait station. Left: There’s both a fresh- and saltwater deck wash on the 780. The freshwater version has a 60L tank. Right: With folding rear ladder, transom door and non-cushioned rear lounge seat, egress from the boat is as easy as it gets.

Top Left: The cabin-fitted macerator toilet will make the weekends with the family more comfortable for everyone. Top Right: Although an option, I’d call the Stressfree anchor winch on this boat a necessity. Left: These are neat. They can caddy up to 4 rods, as well as your favourite lures along the side pockets. Right: There’s enough room in here for a day’s worth of live baits and the clear lid allows you to continuously assess their condition. AUGUST 2018

Stessl Bluewater 520 with Yamaha F115hp

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Glenn Gibson from Yamaha tagged along on the test to see how the rig performed. Glenn gave the modern technology some historical perspective.

SPECIFICATIONS Length Overall.............................. 5.5m Length bow to transom............... 5.3m Length on trailer.......................... 6.7m Height on trailer........................... 2.4m Beam............................................. 2.4m Depth............................................ 1.35m Bottom sheet............................... 4mm Side Sheet.................................... 4mm Hull weight................................... 550kg Rec HP.......................................... 90 Max HP......................................... 115 Capacity....................................... 6 persons

Main: The Stessl 520 Bluewater was plenty of fun to fang around out of the Tweed River. The Stessl factory is a short trip from the Tweed and the Bluewater was designed for exactly these waters. Above: There’s no shortage of places to hold a fishing rod – either when in use or being stored. 88

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We’ve tested a couple of Stessl Platetrix boats since new owner of Stessl, Scotty James (who also makes Horizon Boats), has taken the helm. And the first thing I asked Scott when we did the first of these tests is “What’s Platetrix”? The answer was pretty simple. Platetrix is a design philosophy that’s based around over-engineering the heck out of the hull so that it’ll outlast any owner. They do this with extra

pedestal seats and some bars to help gear from sliding back from the front of the runabout. Powered by Yamaha’s second generation F115,

s.morgan@fishingmonthly.com.au

longitudinal and latitudinal stringers welded below the deck, and the backbone of the hull is a keel extrusion that’s a backbone to the whole construction process. “You’ll break yourself before you break the boat,” Scott confidently answered when asked if it was breakable. With an overall length of 5.5m, the 520 Bluewater is a boat designed to be a versatile inshore and offshore rig in SE Queensland and beyond. It has a unique design internally, which sees a full floor run from transom to bow, punctuated only by the

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“We all came from a background as kids when we all went boating with the old 2-stroke V4s – oil in one container and fuel in the other. Look at it today – we have a 4-stroke motor where you turn the key and it runs quietly and smoke free. Doesn’t matter if it’s cold, hot, rainy or sunny – they just work and it makes for a great boating experience,” Glenn said. With the 115 at the top end of the allowable power on this hull, the rig made for a great day on the water for the test crew. At dawn, we ventured offshore from the Tweed and later on we retreated to the river for some estuary work. The economy was great – delivering around 2.4km/L at 3,500rpm. Drop the throttle and you can reach 65km/h,

Back in the river, the Bluewater was equally capable. but each litre gets you 800m less. With a 150L fuel tank underfloor, the practical range is well over 300km on a tank. Other features that will interest the angler are the bait station on the transom, which holds all you need to get rigged while on the water, and the huge underfloor kill tank that will store a bag limit of mackerel with ease. Add a targa top rocket launcher and your storage problems are solved. At the helm, the seats are well positioned and there’s a small ledge to cradle your

forearm as you’re making throttle adjustments. There’s room for bracket mounted electronics and the LCD Yamaha gauge was flushmounted into the aluminium. Supplied on a singleaxle trailer and weighing in at around 1.5t, this rig is towable by most family cars and would make an excellent transition into a ‘real’ fishing boat from your smaller tinnie. For more information, see your local Stessl dealer, visit www.stessl.com. au or like Stessl Boats on Facebook.

PERFORMANCE RPM......Speed (km/h) Economy (km/L) 1000..........................7........................ 3.7 2000........................ 11........................ 5.3 3000........................ 20........................ 2.0 4000........................ 39........................ 2.2 5000........................ 50........................ 1.9 5900........................ 65........................ 1.6 • Tested with 16” SST SDS propeller

A steep entry tapers back to a moderate lee at the transom to offer a comfortable ride in choppy conditions.

The fold-up ladder and walk-through transom door facilitate easy boarding.

The unique floor design of the Bluewater sees the flat internal floor running from bow to transom at the same level.

The bait station at the transom holds rods, drinks, bait and knives.

The fold-away rear lounge gives your passengers somewhere to sit and tucks out of the way when the fishing begins.

Some simple bars for’ard keep your important gear dry and up the front.

This Bluewater sported a good-looking vinyl wrap that will turn heads at the ramp.

I don’t mind a bit of a sill to rest the arm on while driving. The test boat was fitted with a sounder combo and Yamaha’s LCD screen digital gauges. Overhead fishing rod storage is virtually mandatory in this kind of boat. It keeps your tackle out of the way and out of danger. Unless you forget about that low hanging branch at the ramp….

The Yamaha F115 delivered great economy – getting you 2.4km/L at 3,500rpm.

Standard side pockets hold your gear that needs to be readily accessible.

Now THAT’s an underfloor kill tank. Made for and in a part of the world where you can fill it with mackerel. AUGUST 2018

Victorian Tide Times

2018 2018

JANUARY Time m MAY Time

Time 0416 0027 1046 0626 MO 1645 TU 1321 1858 0022 0112 0534 0710 TU 1157 1408 WE1757 1941 0124 0152 0645 0750 WE 1304 1448 TH1902 2019 0220 0229 0746 0829 TH 1405 1524 FR2001 2056 0313 0303 0842 0905 FR 1500 1557 SA2056 2131 0401 0338 0934 0942 1554 SA 1630 SU2147 2208

11 22

33 44

55 66

POINT LONSDALE – VICTORIA 3 q Australian Made Boat & Trailer POINT – 144° VICTORIA LAT LONSDALE 38° 18’ LONG 37’ 18’ of High LONG 144° 3 Full Camper Covers TimesLAT and38° Heights and Low37’ Waters q Local Time

Times and Heights of High and Low Waters MARCH FEBRUARY 3 JULY q m Time Time m Time mJUNE Time m

Time m m 0033 1.38 0.81 0533 0.83 0.43 1.48 0545 1.32 1245 1.22 1.64 0.39 TU 1152 0.26 1817 0.38 0.78 1.65 WE1813 0.66 1.51 0123 1.43 0035 0.79 1.48 1.50 0.79 0649 0624 1.24 0.33 0.33 WE 1246 1.35 1336 0.34 1.74 1.71 TH1904 0.20 1907 0.74 0.64 1.61 0206 1.48 0124 0.72 1.52 1.51 0.73 0742 0713 1.27 0.26 0.31 TH 1336 1.40 1424 0.31 1.81 1.73 FR1949 0.14 0.64 1954 0.70 1.69 0244 1.53 0211 0.66 1.55 1.51 0.64 0825 0800 1.31 0.23 0.31 FR 1422 1.46 1511 0.30 1.83 1.72 SA2030 0.10 0.64 2040 0.67 1.74 0318 1.57 0256 0.59 1.56 1.49 0.55 0905 0849 1.35 0.23 0.33 1.50 1505 SA 1556 0.30 1.81 1.70 SU2107 0.11 2126 0.65 0.64 1.75 0352 1.59 0342 1.56 1.47 0.47 0942 0.54 0938 0.26 0.36 1.52 1545 1.38 SU 1.65 MO 1642 1.76 0.15 2141 2213 0.31 0.63 0.66 1.73 0426 1.60 1.44 0430 1.53 0.40 1017 0.40 1026 0.49 0.33 1.51 1626 1.61 MO 1730 1.40 1.70 TU 0.22 2214 2300 0.34 0.62 0.68

16 16

17 17

18 18 19 19

20 20 21 21

Time 0102 0117 0621 0719 TH 1246 1423 FR 1849 1953 0201 0156 0730 0759 FR 1352 1458 SA 1952 2030 0255 0233 0830 0836 SA 1451 1530 SU 2046 2108 0343 0310 0923 0912 SU 1546 1601 MO 2137 2145 0427 0347 1013 0946 MO 1639 1635 TU 2223 2220 0508 0426 1059 1018 1730 TU 1710 WE 2305 2256

22 33 44

m 1.52 1.47 0.72 0.37 1.37 1.73 0.20 0.75 1.59 1.47 0.62 0.37 1.44 1.73 0.18 0.73 1.65 1.47 0.50 0.39 1.50 1.71 0.18 0.72 1.69 1.46 0.40 0.42 1.54 1.69 0.21 0.71 1.69 1.44 0.32 0.46 1.55 1.65 0.27 0.71 1.66 1.41 0.27 0.50 1.53 1.62 0.34 0.70

Time 0131 0055 0715 0645 FR 1311 1405 SA 1927 1930 0213 0147 0802 0739 SA 1402 1455 SU 2011 2020 0250 0239 0843 0832 SU 1448 1543 MO 2048 2111 0326 0330 0919 0924 MO 1531 1630 TU 2124 2201 0400 0422 0954 1015 TU 1613 1715 WE 2159 2253 0434 0519 1028 1103 1653 WE 1802 TH 2236 2345

16 16 17 17 18 18

19 19 20 20 21 21

m 1.38 1.52 0.73 0.25 1.23 1.82 0.39 0.76 1.44 1.56 0.65 0.23 1.30 1.84 0.37 0.70 1.50 1.59 0.56 0.25 1.37 1.83 0.36 0.64 1.54 1.58 0.48 0.30 1.43 1.79 0.36 0.60 1.57 1.56 0.41 0.38 1.47 1.74 0.37 0.56 1.57 1.52 0.34 0.48 1.50 1.67 0.40 0.54

FR MO

SA TU

SU WE

MO TH

TU FR

Toughened mGlass Windscreen m Time m Time m Time m 0521 0.80 0540 0.59 0109 1.47 3 16 q Pressurized Shower Sink1.44 0131 1139 1.56 1.18 1219 1.64 1.42 0559 0.49 160313 16 11&0229 0827 1750 0.24 0.55 1807 0.34 0.66 1238 0.43 1.50 16 FR 0725 SU MO0857 1437 1.80 1511 1828 1.64 0.49 TH 1544 1.72 WE MO 3 q Full Length Bunks & Chemical 2004 0.64 2101 0.62Toilet 2131 0.35 0101 1.52 0030 1.43 0045 1.32 2 17 0227 1.60 0308 1.46 3 17 0654 Engine 0.39 170406 0624 1.63 0.47 0638 0.72 q Fresh Water Cooled Volvo 2 0900 1335 0.46 1.59 17 1311 0.41 1.54 1246 0.26 1.24 MO TU0943 SA 0819 TU 1525 TH 1544 1919 1.64 0.48 FR 1624 1854 1.68 0.63 1857 1.80 0.53 3 Premium 2218 0.32 2058 Cabin 0.56 Headlining 2135 0.57 q 0146 1.55 0115 1.48 0132 1.39 0347 0321 3 18 0740 1.46 0.31 180500 0705 1.59 0.37 0730 1.61 0.62 3 3TU0933 q 18 Fusion Stereo VHF0.50 0.32 1426 1.66 18 1358 0.49 1.65 1343 1.34& Garmin WE1026 SU 0912 FR 1616 WE 1610 2004 1.62 0.48 SA 1702 1937 1.62 0.60 1945 1.78 0.50 2301 0.32 2209 0.53 2150 0.49 3 Garmin q GPS/FF 0227 1.56 0157 1.52 0215 1.45 0429 0415 4 19 0822 1.46 0.26 190553 0746 1.53 0.29 0810 1.59 0.52 4 1511 0.55 0.40 3 19 1.68 19 1443 0.57 1.72 1431Cabin 1.44 Divider q Privacy WE1009 TH1107 MO 1000 SA 1649 TH 1654 2045 1.59 0.49 SU 1742 2019 1.55 0.58 2025 1.73 0.47

m 0.75 1.43 1.30 0.40 0.34 1.68 0.76 1.44 1.45 0.67 0.41 1.36 1.69 0.33 0.73 1.51 1.45 0.55 0.44 1.45 1.68 0.31 0.70 1.57 1.44 0.43 0.47 1.53 1.66 0.30 0.67 1.61 1.43 0.33 0.51 1.59 1.64 0.32 0.65 1.62 1.41 0.26 0.57 1.61 1.60 0.36 0.62

2241 0253 0515 0846 1047 1516 TU 1736 FR 2103 2330 0330 0616 0922 1132 1559 WE 1818 SA 2141

20 20

21 21

0.45 1.50 1.55 0.42 0.49 1.53 1.67 0.46 0.43 1.54 1.51 0.33 0.59 1.59 1.60 0.46

2242 0303 0512 0901 1047 1550 TH1724 SU 2121 2317 0337 0600 0939 1129 1627 FR 1801 MO 2157 2356

2344 0.35 0.49 1.55 0238 1.54 0645 1.46 0.25 0829 1.47 0.23 1148 0.61 1.67 1526 0.66 1.75 FR 1821 1.47 1.55 0.52 MO 2100 0.58 0.45 1.52 0317 1.54 0026 0.39 1.45 0.26 0912 0.21 0739 1.42 0.68 1.64 1609 1.74 SA 1231 1.51 TU 2143 0.74 0.55 0.58 1905 1.40 0.42 1.48 0359 0.44 1.53 0110 1.44 0.29 0956 1.37 0.22 0833 0.75 1.59 SU1319 1653 0.82 1.70 1.46 0.58 WE 1954 2226 1.33 0.60

20 20 21 21

0626 0507 1.61 1.38 22 0508 77 0545 1142 1152 1052 0.25 0.56 22 1102 1734 1820 1.49 TH WE

0437 7 0531 1033 7 1104 WE 1714

1.60 1.40 0.23 0.63 1.60 1755 1.56 SA 2245 0.41 2344 0.59

0411 0407 0.43 1.55 70656 22 0016 1015 0959 1.47 0.27 22 7 0718 1215 SA 1701 TH 1640 1.63

0459 0542 0522 1.59 1.48 0553 1.54 1.35 0039 0451 1.69 1.40 880531 88 0622 1115 1051 1222 23 1115 0.44 0.42 1128 0.26 0.62 23 1138 0738 1050 0.35 0.45 23 MO 1740 1.48 TU 1705 1.40 TH 1911 1.43 FR 1817

0513 8 0623 1113 1147 TH 1756

1.56 1.39 0.22 0.70 1.56 1834 1.52 SU 2322 0.47

0443 0.45 1.54 0445 0.40 1.44 0441 0.49 1.50 23 0103 80041 230201 1037 1.44 0.22 1049 1.43 0.33 23 1040 1.35 0.26 8 0930 0817 0759 FR 1721 1.63 SU 1736 1.53 MO 1739 1.63

0532 0618 0134 0531 1.63 1.35 0624 1.57 1.43 0010 0.51 0.69 99 0025 990614 1124 1202 0659 24 0844 1124 0.33 0.51 24 1205 0.40 0.52 0646 1.47 1.33 24 1216 TU 1837 1.43 WE 1746 1.40 FR 1300 0.29 SA 1905

0546 9 0024 1149 0722 FR 1837

0519 0.48 1.52 0521 0.38 1.38 0528 0.52 1.45 24 0154 90134 240303 1116 1.43 0.21 1124 1.44 0.38 24 1126 1.35 0.33 9 1029 0915 0908 SA 1804 1.60 MO 1814 1.46 TU 1830 1.56

0104 0036 0606 0232 0617 0.41 1.30 0048 1.53 0.62 0054 0.60 0.66 10 0735 0655 1159 25 10 100006 0946 1200 1.56 0.58 25 0741 0.36 1.40 10 0750 1.39 1.34 25 0658 1340 0.34 1257 1248 0.33 1831 1.39

0620 10 0110 1225 0829 1917

0600 0.37 1.32 0623 0.52 1.40 0558 0.49 1.49 100239 250413 25 0250 1200 1.48 0.45 25 1215 1.37 0.42 1157 1.44 0.22 10 1125 1014 1020 1857 1.40 1930 1.49 1851 1.55

0121 0332 0153 0.50 0.61 0145 0.68 0.62 0039 0.52 0.74 11 260005 11 0147 110050 0816 0737 0642 1047 0857 1.49 1.40 11 0901 1.31 1.38 26 0744 0713 1.48 1.27 26 1423 0.38 1344 1333 0.35 1236 0.32

0036 11 0204 0656 0938

0026 0.34 0.73 0051 0.50 0.67 0022 0.50 0.59 110354 260515 26 0350 0645 1.54 1.26 26 0732 1.42 1.35 0640 1.46 1.44 11 1111 1129 1215

0430 0129 0.62 0.74 0301 0.58 0.57 0244 0.76 0.56 0213 120134 270049 12 0237 12 1144 0819 1.39 1.26 27 1006 1.44 1.45 12 1012 1.24 1.46 27 0841 0820 0904 0722 1656 1336 0.74 1514 0.81 1515 0.91

0115 12 0308 1047 0734

0112 0.31 0.77 0200 0.47 0.67 0107 0.48 0.65 27 0449 120510 270609 1204 1230 1257 0741 1.61 1.22 27 0857 1.47 1.34 0730 1.49 1.39 12

0227 0.72 0.71 0407 0.66 0.52 0346 0.82 0.48 0522 0318 280138 13 0337 130224 13 0934 1.32 1.30 28 1111 1.39 1.52 13 1118 1.19 1.56 28 0953 1235 1001 0907 0809 1443 0.80 1629 0.84 1630 0.91 1755

0159 13 0417 1153 0819 1704

0019 0045 0208 1.49 0.79 0319 1.35 0.63 0159 0.45 0.70 28 0543 13 28 0616 0653 1250 0849 0.28 1.19 28 1015 0.44 1.38 0830 1.53 1.33 13 1325 1.68 1333 1.52 1816 0.85

0505 0.74 0.47 0332 0.80 0.64 0450 0.84 0.39 0000 290234 140322 14 0452 1210 1.34 1.59 14 1046 1.26 1.39 29 1218 1.17 1.67 29 0610 14 0959 1107 0904 TU 1735 0.83 MO 1600 0.83 TH 1738 0.88 FR 1319

0250 14 0525 1252 0915 SA 1810

0121 0130 0319 1.56 0.77 0433 1.41 0.55 0304 1.35 0.72 29 0016 0715 0731 0630 14 29 1007 0.27 1.22 29 1125 0.43 1.46 0950 0.43 1.30 14 TU 1415 1.72 WE 1408 1.56 SU 1330 1.57

0437 0.84 0.54 0554 0.80 0.42 0549 1.32 0.31 0045 150432 300343 15 0042 1150 1.22 1.51 30 1300 1.31 1.66 15 1314 0.81 1.76 30 0653 15 0611 1055 1012 TU 1716 0.82 WE 1829 0.81 FR 1837 0.82 SA 1358

0357 15 0032 0627 1025 1346 SU

0218 0213 0440 1.61 0.69 0428 1.39 0.69 0535 1.47 0.46 30 0103 0808 0806 0713 15 30 1118 0.29 1.30 30 1116 0.42 1.32 15 1228 0.44 1.56 1500 1.74 1441 1.58 1405 1.61 WE TH MO

0415 770447 1026 1016 1646 SU 1702 MO2236 2244

TU 1739 1.55 2322 2319 0.31 0.70

WE 1818 1.50 2358 0.73

22 22

WE 1819 1.63 2247 2352 0.38 0.62

TH 1913 1.56 2325 0.43

WE TH 1903 1.44 TH FR 1300 0.63 1938 1.38 2009 1.51

TH SA 1402 0.74 FR 1243 0.66 FR 2039 1923 2106 1.38 1.47 1954 1.34 1.40

SA1420 0.37 SU1317 0.30 FR SA 2050 1.32 1.37 2202 1.37 1.45 2138 2022

SU1513 0.40 SU MO1406 0.28 SA 2148 1.31 1.37 2258 1.37 1.44 2237 2130

SU 1611 0.41 MO 1504 0.27 2349 1.39 1.44 2247 1.34 1.39 2336 2244

MO 1714 0.41 TU 1615 2344 1.43 2357 0035 0502 0638 1130 1345 TH 1735 WE 1913

31 31

0.27 1.44 1.46 0.79 0.38 1.32 1.71 0.24 0.78

1747 1.57 TH 2345 2331 0.42 0.70

FR 1827 1.53

SA 1211 0.70 2000 1911 1.38 1.48

SA SU 1301 0.78 2052 2000 1.32 1.45

SU MO 1403 0.86 2146 2055 1.29 1.42

TU 1515 0.43 MO 2154 1.27 1.42 2245

WE 1618 0.45 TU 2256 1.28 1.44 2345

WE 1730 0.45 2357 1.48

TH 1212 1.19 1834 0.43

1.56 1.47 0.29 0.58 1.51 1850 1.61 FR 2314 0.45

TH SU

Time 0440 0127 1118 0733 1718 1432 2007 0038 0207 0604 0812 1237 1504 1838 2046 0138 0246 0715 0847 1345 1537 1942 2123 0230 0326 0815 0920 1445 1610 2036 2159 0317 0405 0906 0953 1538 1644 2123 2233 0400 0446 0952 1027 1628 1718 2206 2307

Local Time APRIL Time Time AUGUST m

1.53 0.53 0.26 1.45 0.70 SA 1242 1.50 2354 1939 0.50 1.54

1.49 0.53 0.24 1.45 0.80 SU 1336 1.47 2030 1.48

0.57 0.52 1.44 1.47 0.88 SU 1438 0.24 MO 2000 2123 1.43 1.44

0.65 0.51 1.39 1.50 0.92 MO TU 1547 0.26 2104 2216 1.39 1.41 0.48 0.72 1.55 1.33 0.92 WE TU 1441 0.29 2310 1.37 1.40 2217

0.45 0.76 1.60 1.30 0.89 TH 1553 0.33 WE 2331 1.39 1.40 0.43 1.64 1844 0.85

1.42 0.41 1.67 1928 0.80

1.51 0.55 0.25 1.40 1.50 1235 0.79 MO 2359 1.48 0.53 1919 1.45 0.51 0.29 1.43 1.44 SA 1331 0.86 TU 2011 1.44

0.59 0.46 1.38 1.48 1300 0.92 0.34 SU 1438 WE 2000 1.43 1.37 2109 0.41 0.66 1.55 1.31 1339 0.94 0.40 TH 1551 MO 2215 2048 1.43 1.32 0.35 0.73 1.63 1.24 0.46 FR TU 1422 0.90 2327 2144 1.46 1.27

0.29 0.79 1.71 1.19 0.51 WE 1516 0.82 2245 1.26 1.51 0.82 0.25 1.16 1.76 TH 1627 0.55 1908 2348 0.73 1.28

0.70 SU 1217 2220 1.53 0.47 1902

MO 1304 0.79 2300 1.46 0.50 1949

TU 1359 0.87 2341 1.39 0.54 2039

SU 1502 0.92 WE 2133 1.35

1240 0.93 0.25 MO TH 1614 1943 1.33 1.49 2230

1327 0.90 0.31 FR TU 1720 2326 2045 1.33 1.43

SA 1423 0.39 WE 2155 1.39

TH 1536 0.46 1904 2305 0.79 1.38

FR 1703 0.50 1946 0.73

TU 1845 2232

22 22

WE 1306 0.82 2309 1.42 0.63 1935

TH 1407 0.88 2346 1.39 0.68 2037

TU1521 0.89 FR 2150 1.39

TH 1417 0.87 2310 1.27 0.62 2050

FR 1530 0.89 2358 1.25 0.65 2152

WE1646 0.86 SA 2255 1.26

1238 0.84 0.51 SU 1312 0.80 0.52 WE1639 TH1751 SA 1947 1.42 1.34 2033 1.29 1.44 2309 2353

1325 0.74 0.59 MO 1421 0.72 0.61 SU TH1750 FR1842 2045 1.31 2137 1.42

MO FR 1423 0.65 1853 2148 0.63 1.30

SA 1537 0.69 1949 2248 0.51 1.33

SU 1702 0.69 2042 2343 0.42 1.37

0011 1.42 1.42 31 0147 0751 0551 0.42 0.61 1439 1.63 TU 1231 1.40 SA 2025 1823 0.67 0.50

CopyrightCommonwealth Commonwealth of of Australia Australia 2016, 2016, Bureau Bureau of of Meteorology Meteorology Copyright Datum of Predictions is Lowest Astronomical Tide Datum of Predictions is Lowest Astronomical Tide Timesare areininlocal localstandard standardtime time (UTC (UTC +10:00) +10:00) or or daylight daylight savings savings time Times time (UTC (UTC +11:00) +11:00) when whenin ineffect effect New Moon First Quarter Moon Phase Symbols Full Moon New Moon First Quarter Moon Phase Symbols Full Moon

TU SA 1543 0.67 1923 2239 0.63 1.43

SU 1701 0.69 2000 2335 0.55 1.45

MO 1806 0.68 2033 0.49

31 0253 0841

1.51 0.46 FR 1515 1.59 2107 0.43

Last LastQuarter Quarter

Tide predictions for Port Phillip Heads have been formatted by the National Tidal Centre, Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Copyright reserved. All material is supplied in good faith and is believed to be correct. It is supplied on the condition that no warranty is given in relation thereto, that no responsibility or liability for errors or omissions is, or will be, accepted and that the recipient will hold MHL and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology Australia free from all such responsibility or liability and from all loss or damage incurred as a consequence of any error or omission. Predictions should not be used for navigational purposes. Use of these tide predictions will be deemed to include acceptance of the above conditions. 90

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MAKING MEMORIES SINCE 1953 *Manufacturers Recommended Retail Price (MRRP). MRRP is a from price, with all standard inclusions and includes GST. Excludes freight charges, pre-delivery charges, safety equipment and registrations. Boats shown are for demonstration purposes only and may show equipment that is not standard. Contact your local Whittley dealer or log onto the website for more information, www.whittley.com.au. AUGUST 2018

UNBEATABLE 75–115hp FourStroke

Unbridled power, unexpectedly compact, uncompromising reliability, unbelievably fuel efficient. Mercury’s 75–115hp FourStroke Range. Unlike anything the world has ever seen.

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OPTIMAX YAMAHA EVINRUDE SUZUKI TWOSTROKE TWOSTROKE

DISPLACEMENT COMPARISON 115HP FOURSTROKE HONDA

2.4L

2.2L 2.0L 163kg 170kg

(54kg Heavier)

2.1L 2.0L

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171kg 177kg

182kg

217kg

1.8L

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MERCURY YAMAHA SUZUKI HONDA FOURSTROKE FOURSTROKE FOURSTROKE FOURSTROKE

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1.7L