THE widely anticipated Cranka Crabs lures had their first outings in the region over the past week with some impressive results.
Michael Evans was the first local that I know of to try the lure, landing three quality bream. I also fished the crab-like lures last weekend, taking three bream around 36cm.
The lures we designed for bream fishing but their realistic design should work on a wide variety of fish.
Big seas limited surf angling opportunities last weekend, although fishable rocks around the Lorne area produced salmon on lure.
Jump Rock, just before Lorne, was good for quality mullet on calm days, with sandworm the standout bait.
Offshore anglers found stripy tuna, kingfish and even small bluefin close to Barwon Heads and The Rip when conditions allowed. Small lures such as Micro Uzis, white Slug Go’s and white Asari Mahi baitfish designs were effective.
Salmon were plentiful in and around The Rip. Trolling small white occy skirts worked but casting soft plastics into the surface action was better.
Grant Stirling laid a liberal berley trail near the entrance to Swan Bay where he soon had garfish on the bite. He caught around a dozen until they shut down with the appearance of a massive shoal of salmon, of which he enjoyably caught 10.
Whiting were fickle, with bag-limit captures uncommon. Six to 10 fish per boat was a good result.
The Coles Channel area produced reasonable catches of gummy sharks to 15kg. Fresh squid or salmon fillets were the favoured baits and the early hours of the morning the best time to fish.
Luke Perry and Josephine Clarke drifted the outer-harbour spoil grounds where they had a ball catching and releasing snapper just over or under legal size. They also managed a few quality snapper along with pike to 1m and a handful of average-sized flathead on Gulp Turtleback worms in the Pumpkin Green colour.
Flathead were caught on the shallow grass beds right along the Bellarine Peninsula. Water around 2m deep was generally best for the big fish.
Guy and Andy Stevens fished Stingaree Bay where they consistently hooked up small snapper on bluebait. However, by day’s end they returned with four fish over 50cm, with the best action on sunset.
Perry Cartwright had no trouble landing four nice pike while spinning from the rocks at North Geelong on Monday evening. He caught all of them and a 2.2kg salmon on a chrome Halco sliced lure.
Terry Podbury fished the sandbar inside the grammar school lagoon on the run-off from high tide for a catch of flathead, salmon, snapper, bream and mullet. Pippies caught the most fish.
Redfin were caught on lure in Barwon River between the Shannon Ave bridge upstream to Inverleigh. Suspending bibbed lures and soft plastics were best, with the busiest time from late afternoon to dark.
The fishing was slow at Wurdi Boluc Reservoir but redfin were caught in the last two hours before dark on Bob n Spoons and Pegron tiger minnow lures.
Send reports and photos to info@raylongtackle.com.au or visit Brian at Ray Long’s Fishing World, 105 Shannon Ave, Manifold Heights.
