ANGLERS landed some quality captures in unfavourable weather over the past week.
Once the wind settled many chased kingfish around The Rip area, with sizes ranging from a couple of kilograms to a few beauties of 15kg-plus.
Knife jigs worked, along with live baits like slimy mackerel.
The bend in the channel off Point Lonsdale, Collendina and Portsea Hole were all productive.
Grant Holtz found sheltered water just inside Swan Bay where he caught six nice flathead by the session’s end. He also boated garfish, salmon, whiting, leatherjacket and gummy shark.
Gummies were a welcome capture for many other anglers as well, with darkness and fresh bait providing the best results.
Anglers drifting the shallow grass beds, generally in 2m to 4m, have been catching the bigger fish, although the deeper water off Queenscliff to St Leonards has also been fishing well.
Paul Jeffries collected his bag limit of squid off Hermsley, which he put them to great use in catching a mix of both snapper and gummy shark from just off Wilson Spit. His best snapper was 4.8kg and his largest gummy a little over 10kg.
Soft plastics anglers continued pulling fish from the outer-harbour spoil grounds off Hermsley and Leopold, with reports indicating the better captures were taken well-before sunrise.
Daniel Collier found the fish on the bite from 5am until they shut down a little after 8am. He kept three fish, each over 2.5kg.
Snapper were also caught with plastics on Stingaree Bay’s spoil grounds in the early hours. Troy Martin found plenty of fish around 35cm to 40cm when fishing with Gulp jigging grubs.
Trolling small diving-pattern lures worked for Grant Holt who caught salmon and pike in close at Bird Rock. The fishing shut down wen the Sun rose too high.
Greg Marchant fised Moorabool Reservoir where the fishing was extremely slow until mid-afternoon when the wind settled and the Sun broke through. He then caught two trout around the 1.5kg on tiger minnow lures, along with a dozen redfin to 650g.
Lake Purrumbete was productive for anglers slow-trolling with lures around 5m deep. Noel Peterson caught trout over 2k on his past two outings at the lake.
Steve Rowe persisted through a solid downpour on Saturday afternoon near the Queen’s Park bridge, with six big carp to 1m his reward. He caught all of his fish on unweighted bread baits.
This weekend’s afternoon tides should be ideal for the surf, with Black Rock possiblly worthwhile for quality snapper late in the evening if the swell isn’t too big.
Send reports and photos to info@raylongtackle.com.au or visit Brian at Ray Long’s Fishing World, 105 Shannon Ave, Manifold Heights.
