ON THE BITE with Peri Stavropoulos
The long weekend offered some hot fishing in the local waters with anglers braving the average weather being rewarded with some nice fish.
The outer harbour has had a spike with King George whiting with reports improving drastically over the past few weeks.
They had slowed down, but after hearing the reports from the weekend the bite is back on. Anglers were finding large numbers of fish spread right across the Bellarine Peninsula with Leopold through to Portarlington holding the best numbers.
Fishing in about 4 metres seems to be the sweet spot with some fish still being caught deeper and shallower. Fishing the stronger tides like what we had over the weekend definitely played a big part in getting those extra bites and with fresh baits like pipi and squid you’re in for a great shot.
Calamari were on the menu for many anglers with plenty of reports coming through of anglers picking some up in the shallows. The calamari haven’t been at a huge size, but there
appears to be a few getting about. Smaller jigs like size 2.5 have been the more productive size to be throwing around with brighter colours to be the current favourites for the squid.
Offshore has seen some fantastic fishing over the past few weeks with the gummy reports coming through thick and fast. That magic 30 metre line we talk so much about is proving to be the best depth to secure yourself a feed. Not only gummies hanging around on the bottom but some nice snapper to around 6kg in weight taking the same rigs and baits intended for gummies. There have also been a few mako sightings this past week so it pays to have a wire trace on hand just in case one comes up to the back of the boat.
WurdiBuloc has well and truly retained its name as the lake of a thousand casts, however with a lot of patience and persistence there are some great fish to be caught. Brown and rainbow trout are still on the top of anglers list of prized fish to catch with still a healthy amount of reddies amongst them too.
Casting surface lures, big swimbaits or large jerkbaits at first light is going to give you the best shot at a big trout or redfin and as the day goes on fishing deeper should get you more bites as the fish go down and become a bit harder to tempt.
