On the Bite, by Peri Stavropoulos
The local fishing really started firing up over the past week, with lots of successful reports coming from all over the bays.
Land-based fishos were still finding plenty of snotty trevalla and mullet around the Geelong waterfront. Using chicken for bait and fished on the bottom produced the bulk of the captures, especially when fishing the incoming tide.
The snapper fishing also began heating up, although there haven’t been many reports of big fish yet. Heaps of fish to 40cm along with a few to 4kg were in the mix over the past week.
Owen Westwell and I snuck out for a few hours over the weekend and found multiple schools of snapper to 55cm along with a few pike while casting soft plastics. Drifting and casting plastics is a great way to target them, allowing the lures to cover lots of ground to locate schools of fish.
Nick Powell had a crack at the snapper this week, landing a ripper of about 70cm on a fresh strip of squid.
Whiting were on the chew all the way along the Bellarine Peninsula over the past week. Clifton Springs held plenty of fish but a large percentage of the catch was undersize, although anyone who persisted through them should have been able to find some better-quality specimens.
St Leonards through to Queenscliff held the best fish, as Trelly’s Chris Pitman found out on Monday afternoon. Chris managed plenty of fish to a bit over 40cm while fishing the run off tide off St Leonards.
The area was still also the go for plenty of squid, although the Queenscliff Bight again help the bigger models for anglers using baited jigs.
Local surf beaches continued fishing quite well for Australian salmon to over 2kg. Bait fishing or casting metal lures both worked, usually when fishing the incoming tides.
Anyone fishing the surf at night should also throw out a bigger bait because they might also have a chance of catching a mulloway or gummy shark.
Bellarine Light Game and Sportfishing Club had a day comp at Lake Purrumbete over the weekend, with Kevin Hunter and Jimmy Robinson managing a cracking brown trout of 2.24kg on a live Mudeye suspended under a float in the shallows early in the morning.
Other anglers reported catching Chinook salmon to 1.44kg on pilchard fillets in the deep water areas of the lake.
