St Helens rock wall has started to fire up over the past few days with reports coming in of a great variety of species coming to shore.
Pinkie snapper, silver trevally and King George whiting all making appearances to the land-based fishos.
Although not reaching any record-breaking sizes they are proving some great fun and with the new reefs about to be dropped in we should only see the fishing here get better and better.
Geelong waterfront has been holding some large schools of Australian salmon to 33cm – anglers fishing from a boat have been having much better success in landing big numbers of fish simply because they can chase them around.
Using your sounder to locate the schools of fish or looking on the surface for baitfish to be pushed up will assist in finding these fish with small 3” minnow-style soft plastics working a treat.
Snapper reports are starting to become more consistent in the outer harbour with fish up to 5kg being caught, fishing the edge of the channel or out towards the quarries has seemed to be the most popular locations.
The whiting reports across the Bellarine Peninsula have been on the improve this week with some great numbers of fish being caught and some quality fish amongst them too – St Leonards through to Queenscliff being the current hotspots.
Queenscliff has had some fantastic squid fishing offer this past week and the size of them has been phenomenal with reports of hoods measuring up to 60cm.
The Queenscliff bight has been, and still is, the number one location to target these giants, the key to fishing this area is to fish the slack tides to allow your jigs to sink down in the fast moving water.
Size 3.5 jigs have been the best with most colours working well.
After the large amount of rain we have had it has filled up the rivers and streams in the Otways and the resident trout down there have come onto a feeding frenzy.
Most systems are fishing well but the Cumberland River and Smythes Creek are arguably the two best locations and very easy to access and fish.
Casting upstream with small shallow-running minnows in natural colours are the perfect lure to throw, just make sure that you cast upstream.
Fishing these little streams and rivers won’t see many big fish get caught but they make up for it in colour and the scenery is as good as it gets.
