On the Bite, by Adam Van der Lugt
Whiting were a big hit of the past week, although many anglers we still able to fill bags right around the bays.
Chris Pitman fished off St Leonards where he had whiting on board within minutes of dropping a line. Fishing in 5.5m of water with pippies as bait, Chris reported that a strong tide in either direction was needed to trigger the fish to bite.
Meanwhile, Dominic Ramesh, from Trelly’s Laverton, had similar success fishing the north side of Port Phillip Bay.
The squid were thick right along the Bellarine Peninsula, with many anglers finding their bag-limit catpures. Fishing over weed beds anywhere between Clifton Springs to Queenscliff in 4m to 6m of water with white or pilchard-blue coloured jigs in size 3.5 worked well.
Anglers without boats found success on the squid at St Leonards and Queenscliff Pier. Bigger squid were still available for anglers wading out to Bell reef at Queenscliff when conditions permitted, which generally meant a low swell and a low tides.
Fishing offshore from Breamlea to Torquay in 50m of water, Peri Stavropoulos and Owen Westwell caught small snapper, nannygai and tiger flathead. They also noticed that the sea was alive with slimy mackerel and arrow squid.
Kingfish to 80cm were again caught from out the front of Point Lonsdale all the way to Barwon Heads. Anglers using squid strips and trolling white occy-skirts did best.
The Rip continued to produce big salmon, especially on white-occy skirts intended for kingfish. Casting small soft plastics into schools of fish busting up on the surface worked too.
Lake Purrumbete hosted great fishing for redfin to 35cm. Anglers had success dropping soft plastics in 6m to 8m of water along the east bank on the outside of the weedbeds.
First and last light produced brown trout to 2kg caught on mudeye at Purrumbete’s newly installed fishing jetty.
Nearby, Lake Bullen Merri fished well for Chinook salmon to 1kg on pilchard cubes.
