By CHRIS PITMAN
WITH the weather on the weekend taking a turn for the worse many anglers took advantage of the Barwon Estuary.
The estuary has had a fantastic run of large 1.5kg Australian salmon moving up and down it with the incoming tide.
Trent Shiller put in a few hours last Friday casting a Z-Man grub from the banks of the river around the Barwon Heads boat ramp where he landed a well-conditioned Australian salmon just on 1kg, which proved to be quite a handful on 2kg line.
Other anglers have found fishing from the Barwon Heads Bridge productive although when hooking into a salmon over 1kg, lifting the fish up to the bridge is a whole other challenge.
Heading down the Surf Coast anglers achieved a mixed bag. Those spinning from the surf beaches banked Australian salmon to 2kg, again taking advantage of the run in tide. North winds will see anglers achieve greater numbers of salmon.
Surf Coast is dotted with many little estuary systems holding a variety of species and can be a great option on days of more wild weather. Craig Varker was fishing scrub worms lightly weighted at one of these systems on Sunday where he took a beastly bream of 1.3kg and 41cm.
Heading inside Port Phillip Bay and anglers have been on the hunt for squid. This week Indented Heads gave up the goods with squid to 1kg being boated on size 3 jigs worked slowly over reef patches in four to five metres of water.
The odd whiting came from nearby grounds but anglers reported average numbers and size of whiting were down compared to recent weeks.
On the hunt for larger Southern Bluefin tuna Mark Stewart made the trip up to Bermagui. Venturing 80km offshore and in 4000 metres of water Mark and his companions started trolling skirted lures. Not having to wait too long, the guys had an impressive four-way hook up, resulting in three tuna being boated. Mark’s tuna tipped the scales at 73kg, making all those kilometres and hard work worthwhile.
Closer to home Portland and Port Fairy still hold respectable numbers of smaller school sized Bluefin tuna. On the calmer days anglers casting stick-bait lures such as the Storm So-Run minnows into frenzied surface commotion have boated tuna to 15kg. Anglers have noted removing the treble hooks from lures and fitting with single lure hooks has resulted in a better catch rates and makes for releasing fish a much safer and faster job.
Local freshwater fishing was excellent last week with St Augustine’s in Waurn Ponds providing plenty of action for kids on school holidays. Baiting up with power bait on a lightly weighted running sinker rig those fishing the lake margins had no dramas in catching rainbow trout to 30cm.
Down the road at Wurdee Boluc the water level is on the rise and the redfin have fired up once again. Casting Fish Arrow soft plastics on heavy heads was responsible for redfin to 1.5kg being landed. Those soaking a few mudeye from the rockwall took rainbow and brown trout averaging 1.2kg on first or last light. Anglers fishing mudeye mentioned that most trout took the bait only metres from the wall.
Tackleworld Geelong staff member Michael Moore travelled down to Lake Bullen Merri last Sunday where he boated Chinook salmon to 1kg trolling lures down deep at eight metres with the aid of a down rigger. Michael mentioned he marked most fish still holding down deep, but as we move further into the colder months those fish should feed higher up in the water column making flat line trolling more productive.
Next week if the weather allows anglers should head down the Western District and make the most of the tuna while they are still around. Closer to home the surf beaches will be worth a cast or two for Australian salmon as well as the lower reaches of the Barwon Estuary. Wurdee Boluc is hard option to go past for the freshwater anglers with both trout and redfin on the chew.
