On the Bite, by Peri Stavropoulos
Fishing continued to improve around the Bellarine Peninsula over the last week.
Corio Bay’s inner-harbour hosted Australian salmon in feeding frenzies busting up on the surface for parts of some days. Casting minnow-style soft plastics into the bust-ups resulted in a hook up nearly every time.
St Helen’s rocks produced some nice fishing for the land-based anglers. Snapper to 3kg were caught on baits, with a few flathead and whiting thrown into the mix.
Plenty of squid were still about along the Curlewis Bank and through to Portarlington.
Steven ‘Trelly’ Threlfall and Chris Pitman managed to sneak out during the week, snagging themselves a nice feed of squid in some average conditions. Casting size 3.0 squid jigs in pilchard or bluebait colourations was a standout method, particularly when fishing in water around 3m deep.
Clifton Springs still held a wide variety of species, which should only get better as the warmer weather kicks in.
I managed to get out over the weekend and found pinkie snapper to just shy of 60cm along with flathead, pike and Australian salmon, all of which took soft plastics. Drifting in about 6m of water over the spoil grounds was where I was finding most of my fish while casting four-inch Gulp twin-tail minnows.
Interestingly, anglers also reportedly caught King George whiting on soft plastics in the same general area.
The cut in Queenscliff Habour was a hot-sport for land-based fishing, producing solid reports. Bryce Nurnaitis went for a flick down that way, scoring himself a snapper of around 55cm along with some smaller fish and a few silver trevally.
Some seriously big squid remained on the go in the Queenscliff Bight, with baited jigs working best. Some of the squids’ hoods were in excess of 50cm and bag-limit captures were very achievable.
Whiting remained on the chew between Queenscliff and St Leonards. Anglers fishing the area for whiting should make sure they fish the tides, with bag-limit captures relatively common at the moment.
Further afield, Trelly’s Geelong’s Adam Van Der Lugt ventured down to Bruny Island, off Tasmania. He fished the island’s Captain Cook River Adam, where he managed to find plenty of bream to 38cm while casting Zman Grubz soft plactics.
