On the Bite, by Adam Van der Lugt
The past week saw the trout fishing only get better with lakes and rivers both producing great fish.
Tullaroop Reservoir, near Maryborough, was a great location for land-based anglers casting lures to feeding fish along the edges. Brown trout in excess of 6lb were caught with lures like the Rapala F7 or Daiwa Double Clutches.
Tullaroop also recently opened up to kayak and boats with electric motors.
Lake Wendouree fished well for trout, too, with boat anglers catching fish by casting lures along the weed edges. Given that the lake is quite shallow, lures like the bent minnow work well.
Big redfin are also present in Wendouree, with soft plastics being an effective way of targeting them.
Wurdibuloc Reservoir hosted some fantastic redfin fishing, with fish nudging 50cm taken. Early mornings proved best for anglers using metal spoons and soft plastics working well, while trout around the 3lb mark were also reported by anglers using mudeye along the west side of the lake.
Corio Bay’s inner-harbour offered a mixed bag of salmon, flathead, bream, pinkies and King George whiting, all caught around the waterfront and Geelong yacht club.
Dylan Pace fished from his kayak and caught pinkies to 45cm, while Trelly’s Geelong’s Adam Van der Lugt caught a dozen flathead to 50cm and a pair of black bream in 4m to 6m of water.
St Leonards was hot this week for gummy sharks, as Owen Westwell found while fishing a tide change in 20m of water. Using whole fresh squid that he caught over the weed beds before heading out deep, Owen boated a number of gummy sharks to around 10kg.
Anglers willing to make the drive to Portland may be rewarded with some incredible fishing, as Gone Fishing Charters’ Chris Vasilevski experienced this week. He reported good numbers of school tuna out on the shelf and in 250m to 350 meter, with the big barrel tuna caught closer in 50m to 80m of water.
To add to the action, Chris also caught a mako shark on a knife jig intended for tuna along with a bronze whaler shark that ate a skirted lure on the surface.
