ON THE BITE with Peri Stavropoulos
The snapper fishing this week is certainly starting to sky rocket with fantastic reports coming through of anglers landing some cracking fish, some to more than 10kg.
The snapper have been spread all over the bay and surrounding areas. The outer harbour is proving to be very productive at the moment with some cracking reports rolling through.
Clifton Springs, as we always mention, is a yearly hotspot and this year is no exemption. From the spoil grounds to the channel there seems to be good numbers of fish spread right through. Soft plastics and your standard snapper baits have been getting the job done with fish to 5kg in solid numbers and a few reports of fish between 6kg and 8kg with one or two of 9kg.
St Leonards has been a bit of a hot spot this week with good reports coming through from both boat and landbased anglers. The pier has been very productive for calamari with fishos picking them up on 2.5 or 3.0 jigs casting around the jetty and towards the lights shining in the water and also snapper out far on baits.
Fishing those windy nights definitely helps bring the fish in close and shallow making it super assessable for landbased anglers and on its day can be more productive than
in a boat. Launching baits like pilchards and squid has been accounting for some solid fish.
Anglers fishing from boats are finding good success on King George whiting. Fishing the stronger tides definitely helps with, ideally, dirtier water. The area well known as ‘Bourke Street’ remains a productive area to fish and a bit of burley helps hold fish in the area and with a spread of fresh baits like squid and pipis work great.
Offshore, snapper have really kicked into gear this week with Gone Fishing Charters right into the action getting their customers into the hot bite and putting some fish on the deck.
Most fish have been around that 2kg size with some getting around 5kg. It pays to have a bigger bait out for the chance of a much bigger fish or a gummy shark.
