On the Bite, by Chris Pitman
Queenscliff Harbour provided some piscatorial action over the past week on some thumping silver trevally.
Fish just over 40cm were caught on soft plastics cast into the main cut at high tide. Craig Varker put in few hours on Monday negotiating the harbour pylons after hooking up trevally to 40cm on Pumpkinseed-coloured plastics.
Trelly’s Fishing World Geelong’s Adam Van Der Lugt also fished the harbour but found well-conditioned pinkie snapper on soft plastics.
Grass beds outside the harbour hosted whiting, including some impressive-sized fish over 40cm.
Anglers fishing land-based from St Leonards Pier caught squid on artificial size-3 jigs in the evenings. Fishing around the lights worked well.
Nearby, the well-known piece of water labelled Bourke Street again produced bag-limit captures of whiting for boaties. Times with the most tidal flow fished best.
Clifton Springs again produced good numbers of squid, although sometimes on the smaller side. Meanwhile, anglers fishing the deeper edge of Curlewis Bank boated numbers of whiting on pippies and running sinker rigs.
The Barwon River estuary was a hot spot for whiting, salmon, trevally, bream and mulloway. The lower reaches were idea for whiting, although the size was down, while the Sheepwash Road section had plenty of small salmon along with mulloway to 90cm on slack tide after dark.
Dane Jurkovic and Daimin Mole were onto good numbers of garfish from St Helens rocks when Dane’s rod buckled over and line began peeling from the reel. Closest to the rod, Daimin began fighting the fish, assumed to be a nice snapper but which turned out to be a well-conditioned elephant fish that was released to fight another day.
Surf anglers fishing the beaches in the evenings caught gummy shark, snapper and even mulloway on simple paternoster rigs with fresh squid baits. Daylight hours produced salmon averaging 1.5kg on lures cast during run-in tides.
Portland continued producing school bluefin tuna, with Chris from Gone Fishing Charters finding good numbers of fish.
Freshwater fishos got stuck into new hot spot Stoney Creek, taking some fantastic fish. Michael Grozdanovski caught on lure a ripping redfin of 46cm and 1.7kg on Monday morning, while other anglers landed numerous brown trout just over 1kg along with a few rainbows.
Lake Bullen Merri continued fishing well for rainbow trout and Chinook salmon. Fishing Powerbait from the lake margins worked well, as did trolling lures or fishing pilchard fillets in berley trails.
Lake Purrumbete’s brown trout were on the chew for anglers slowly trolling the east bank at first and last light.
Next week should provide good fishing for whiting out from St Leonards, while Queenscliff Harbour’s silver trevally could be an option on soft plastics.
