Salmon ‘plague’ in local waters

FISH PLAGUE: Bryce Nurnaitis with a Australian salmon from 'The RIP'.

ON THE BITE Peri Stavropoulos

Saltwater fishing continues to go from strength to strength with both Port Phillip Bay and offshore species biting well.

The area between Altona and Werribee has been on fire as of late for King George whiting, with bag limit captures being very achievable.

The size of fish has been ranging between legal and about 40cm so moving around to find different schools of fish can help improve the average size.

There have also been a few snapper getting caught in deeper water on bait but that has been slower compared to previous weeks.

St Leonards through to Queenscliff has also been very productive for whiting and calamari with the fish seeming to be at a better average size compared to other locations.

The whiting have been going best on the last hour of the run-in tide with fresh squid and pippies being the best baits.

Queenscliff harbour is still fishing well for silver trevally, mainly by casting soft plastics but they are more than willing to eat some bait too.

The Rip is currently plagued with massive Australian salmon, trolling white occy skirts or casting lures into the bust ups should get you amongst the action.

The kingfish are still on lots of anglers minds at the moment and the reports are increasing each week from out the front of Barwon Heads.

Although the fish haven’t been massive, they are currently in decent numbers and that should only increase over the coming weeks.

There has also been many schools of slimey mackerel, and when they are around the predatory fish aren’t usually far behind.

On that, there have been a few whispers of Mako sharks getting caught off Barwon Heads as well.

Port Fairy has been more the hotspot this week for kingfish, with anglers trolling live baits.

Wurdi Buloc Reservoir has been fishing fantastically over the past week for both redfin and trout.

Casting shallow diving hard bodies, soft plastics or spoon-style lures have been by far the most effective way to target them, however a live mudeye under a float has been accounting for plenty of fish as well.

Barwon River around Fyansford is still providing plenty of holiday fun with redfin and carp on the chew.

Casting small hard-body lures or soft plastics has been deadly on the redfin and when chasing carp it’s hard to go past a few corn kernels on your hook.