By CHRIS PITMAN
WITH settled weather last week, anglers hit the water in great numbers with outstanding results from both fresh and saltwater.
Queenscliff continued to produce excellent squid for those drifting in the bight and the pier area. Matthew Simpson and his son Jimmy were drifting for squid and found them to two kilograms.
Over at Portarlington, anglers encountered both squid and whiting. Squid were holding on the grass beds in four to six metres of water and even shallower towards evening. Smaller jigs were the key as the tide was not that strong. Sizes 2.5 and 3 worked best.
Charlton Cefai took his son Patrick out in an attempt to catch his first squid. It did not take Patrick long to work out how to catch them and his first was a whopper weighing at almost 1.2kg. Anglers fishing the pier have landed whiting using pippies as bait.
Clifton Springs was the clear stand out this week producing snapper, squid, whiting and salmon. While out chasing squid on the shallow grass beds, anglers were taken by surprise when large schools of Australian salmon to 3kg erupted onto the surface. Casting soft plastics and small 15gram metal slugs, anglers landed bag limit catches in quick time.
Graham Edwards was one of several out in the channel where snapper to 9kg were taken by those putting in the hours and using fresh baits such as squid and silver whiting.
Inside Corio Bay, pike, pinkie snapper and along with silver trevally have all been caught in the past week. Fishing North Shore jetty, Ashlee Seddons used chicken fillet as bait resulting in a respectably sized 70cm ling.
Down at the Curdies estuary last week, Michael, Ned and Henry Wright landed some excellent bream to 38cm using scrub worms on lightly weighted rigs. The guys mentioned that they caught a lot of smaller fish that were released.
Bullen Merri has been known this past winter for the quality of the Chinook salmon it has been producing so this week it was a great surprise to see that an Atlantic salmon of 4.27kg was taken by Gabi Willis fishing live bait down deep.
Fly fishing up at Hepburn Lagoon this past weekend, Diego Gilberto banked a nicely-coloured rainbow trout of just over 1kg using a woolly bugger fly. He was especially pleased by the fantastic fight that the feisty rainbow put up.
Heading out of town, David Hughes and Ross Baddley spent some time fishing Lake Jindabyne. The pair caught brown tout to 2.5kg and brook trout to 1.5kg, fishing mudeye and trolling lures such as tassie devils.
Those looking to wet a line over the next week should consider giving Clifton Springs a go for snapper and salmon. If freshwater is your thing then Purrumbete and Bullen Merri are well worth a shot for trout and salmon.
