Chris Pitman
LUKE Perry headed up the Barwon River estuary on Sunday to find son Josh a mulloway or an elephant fish.
Arriving at the Thunderbolt section, they dropped anchor near a deep drop-off to catch Australian snapper on soft plastics while awaiting the tide change. As the tide began running in they set out some squid baits, with Josh’s rod soon buckling over with a 3kg elephant.
St Leonards remained a whiting hot spot over the past week, with anglers moving sometimes as little as 30m to find a school.
Joseph Walsh and his father fished Swan Bay on Saturday, taking a mixed bag of salmon to 1kg and a 40cm silver trevally on Squidgy soft plastics. Joseph then switched to bait for a feed of whiting before drifting with jigs for a catch of reasonably sized squid.
Clifton Springs produced reasonable numbers of squid for anglers drifting over weed beds in 4m to 6m. The calmer days were best.
Whiting were available off the quarries on pippies. Numerous gummy sharks to 10kg were also boated in the same area during the evenings.
Surf angling improved, with gummies and salmon holding in good numbers. Casting 25g metal lures caught salmon to 2kg at Bancoora, while anglers fishing into the dark used the fresh fillets to catch the gummies.
Mulloway has been a welcome by-catch on the beaches and have been a bit larger than the fish from the estuary systems, around 6kg.
Southern Bluefin Tuna continued moved in en masse between Apollo Bay and Port Macdonald, promising the best season yet. Some trophy fish were taken in the past week but the number of tuna over 60kg was the most impressive feature.
Travis Mercieca trolled the Horseshoe off Portland where three of his reels suddenly started screaming off. Travis managed to boat all three tuna, averaging 20kg each.
Travis resumed trolling and soon had a bigger fish on the line. Three hours later he boated a 66.7kg fish, noting the tuna favoured Raplala X-rap 30s.
Also making the trip to Portland was Ben Holloway who ventured all the way to the continental shelf to catch a 20kg tuna. Anglers fishing the shelf reported that the tuna much less finicky and more willing to take larger lures.
Fishing World Geelong’s Reece Pitt spent the weekend down at Nelson on the Victoria-South Australian border. Fishing the Glenelg River from a kayak, Reece caught some good-sized bream and mulloway on soft plastic lures.
Reece said the river mouth had recently broken open to the sea, which made for challenging fishing.
Bill Haywood recently returned from an Easter trip to the Northern Territory. Bill fished the wetland area around Sampan Creek were he boated barramundi to 94cm and huge threadfin salmon on black and gold bomber-style lures.
On the freshwater front, Wurdee Boluc Reservoir continued producing large redfin on lure around sunset along with brown trout to 2.5kg.
Lake Bullen Merri served up Chinook salmon to 1.5kg for anglers trolling deep-diving lures such as Daiwa Double Clutches. Fishing Powerbait from the banks helped anglers land rainbow trout to 1kg.
This weekend anglers should set their sights on elephant fish and mulloway in the Barwon estuary, while anyone with tuna fever should try Port Fairy or Portland.
