By Chris Pitman
Anglers had a short trip to reel in good numbers of pinkie, snapper and flathead from angler’s bank on Corio Bay.
Fishers boated flathead and pinkie snapper with soft plastics from Grammar School Lagoon through to the spoil grounds out from Lime Burners boat ramp.
Three to four inch gulp soft plastics rigged on a jig head heavy enough to get to the bottom were most productive.
Around the corner, Clifton Springs had similar results but with a few more whiting thrown into the mix.
Fishing bait like pippies on a running sinker rig along the Curlewis Bank during late afternoon was productive.
Squid were still on offer in three to four metres of water. Size three artificial jigs over the numerous weed beds worked well with some bag limit captures.
Queenscliff was a hot spot for the region with massive King George whiting spread from the grass beds to the east of the harbour though to the Point Lonsdale Bight.
Chris from Gone Fishing Charters again guided his clients onto well-conditioned King George whiting larger than 40cm.
Inside the Queenscliff Harbour, silver trevally snapped up soft plastics worked on slack tide along the main channel.
Land based anglers also found reasonable numbers of squid at Queenscliff Pier during the evening.
Offshore from Ocean Grove and Barwon Heads the odd Mako and Blue Shark made an appearance for those drifting out wide with a strong berley trail.
Drifting with baits down in 40 to 50m of water resulted in Tiger Flathead and good numbers too.
Inside the Barwon Estuary, there was a wide variety of species on the chew with mullet to mulloway being captured.
The lower reaches of the estuary saw good numbers of smaller model whiting and Australian salmon which made for a great option for the kids.
Further up the system, anglers chasing mulloway had some success with fish up to 90cm on offer.
Tuna continue to keep anglers busy right along the coast from just east of the rip to Portland the whole coast line is holding good schools of fish.
Trolling X-Rap lures along with small skirted lures is a very effective tactic and when the fish erupted on the surface in a feeding frenzy casting lures into the commotion was a very exciting way to fish.
Freshwater anglers who ventured down to Lake Purrumbete crossed paths with huge numbers of redfin.
Anglers trolling with the aid of a down rigger boated rainbow trout of 800g to just over 1kg using pink #55 Tassie devils rigged with Dancing Jack 54 hooks.
Next door, Lake Bullen Merri was another hot spot for Chinook salmon and Rainbow trout to 1.5kg.
Casting lures from the lake margins worked as well as trolling again the aid of a down rigger to reach the depths the fish were holding at.
The Barwon River showed no signs of slowing down for carp with anglers landing fish to just over 6kg.
You don’t need to travel far with the fish spread along the whole system.
Redfin around Queens Park were hitting small diving hard-body lures although the redfin are on the small side once a school is located decent numbers of fish are not too hard to bank.
Next week, if the calm conditions return, keep an eye on Clifton Springs as the snapper should fire up once more before they begin to leave the bay.
Offshore is still holding exceptional fishing for sharks and tuna.
Freshwater fishos keep focused on Purrumbete and those monster chinook salmon are still lurking in the depths of the lake.
