ON THE BITE with Peri Stavropoulos
The inner harbour of Corio Bay has been offering some decent land-based fishing this past week, with St Helens and Limeburners rocks offering a small variety of species on the chew.
Pinkie snapper, flathead, Australian salmon and King George whiting are all cruising through these areas at the moment. Small baits like pipi, squid or blue bait are all working well. Ideally the best time to fish is when the wind is strong and stirring up all the bottom structure, which brings the fish in close to feed.
Another great land-based option this week has been Portarlington Pier, with large numbers of Australia salmon hanging around. Anglers casting small metal lures or soft plastics have been having some great success. Heaps of fun, good feed when bled and put on ice and fantastic bait for snapper and gummy sharks.
St Leonards has improved a bit this week with King George whiting reported after last week’s very hot and cold bite. The fish are chewing much better and the size of fish is averaging around the mid-30s with some around the low 40s. As we mention all the time, strong tides, late afternoon, early morning, pipis and squid for bait.
Gummy sharks have been going pretty well in the southern part of Port Phillip, with reports coming in of anglers landing sharks up to 15kg, and although we haven’t heard anything officially bigger there are bound to be some giants around or possibly been caught. Fresh salmon and calamari are the go to baits, silver trevally makes fantastic bait too and all these species are chewing well at the moment.
The Queenscliff Bight has fired up a bit with calamari reports, with anglers finding large numbers of calamari getting around. They’re not huge in size at the moment but the numbers are there and the big ones are sure to rock up any week now.
Offshore the barrel tuna bite remains pretty hot and cold, still fish being landed though. The back of the rip and behind the Barwon Bluff between 50 and 70 metres seems to be the current hot spot for them but as we all know that can change in a matter of hours.
The Barwon River has still been offering some great silver trevally fishing, especially for land-based fishos. Casting soft plastics has been working best, with baits like pipis and bluebait accounting for plenty of fish also.
