By CHRIS PITMAN
CALM offshore conditions last weekend allowed anglers to hook into kingfish.
Fishing World’s Reece Pit setting out off Ocean Grove on Saturday afternoon, sounding up an excellent showing of kings. He boated four to 65cm on small knife jigs, along with a huge Australian salmon just over 3kg.
Michael Moore and I fished alongside Reece for similar results. However, we found that retrieving soft plastics fast through the feeding salmon caught bigger fish.
Whiting to 43cm continued biting on the grass beds just outside Queenscliff Harbour. Pippies and tenderised squid were the baits of choice.
The harbour produced silver trevally on soft plastics fished around the top of the tide, along with salmon to 800g.
Jason Andrew fished behind Mud Island, boating a feisty gummy shark of 20kg on an old salmon fillet that had sat in his freezer for months.
Anglers fishing Clifton Springs around daybreak caught lots of pinkie snapper over the spoil grounds on soft plastics. Gulp Turtleback worms in Pumpkin Green worked well.
Pike to almost 1m and flathead reaching 50cm were also taken.
Later in the mornings the Alcoa Pier area was more productive.
The entrance to Corio Bay around Bird Rock was a hot spot for whiting and flathead on pippies.
Anglers fishing the channel leading into the grammar school caught flathead and pike, especially while casting soft plastics.
Bag limits of whiting were taken around the Avalon and Werribee area, although many undersized fish were thrown back.
John Mole and Brian Long again travelled down the Surf Coast where they were able to spin up numerous salmon to just over 2kg. The rocks either side of Lorne were productive.
Portland and Port Fairy were hot for tuna in 30m to 40m. Dropping small knife jigs over fish holding deep has been a popular method, while other anglers reported success on fish to 25kg on trolled skirted lures such as the UV Richters.
Wurdee Boluc Reservoir expert Michael Evans put a few hours in casting Fish Arrow soft plastics from the main rock wall to bank a well-conditioned redfin of 46cm. He also saw other anglers catch brown trout to 3kg and rainbows of 1kg on baits such as mudeye and scrubworms.
Lake Purrumbete produced rainbow trout to 1.5kg for anglers casting shallow-diving hard-body lures over the numerous weed beds. Fishing dawn or dusk increased catch rates, while drifting mudeyes down deep along the weed beds over at the east bank during the day also worked.
The western district’s Merri River fished well for brown trout to 1.5kg on mudeye.
The next week might be worth jigging for the smaller-model kingfish off Ocean Grove and Barwon Heads. An easy land-based option could be casting soft plastics for trevally in Queenscliff Harbour.
Freshwater fanciers could try casting lures over the shallow weed beds or fishing mudeyes deep for trout at Lake Purrumbete.
