Corio Bay’s inner-harbour was popular with soft plastics anglers seeking strong winds over the past week, particularly the area around Royal Geelong Yacht Club.
Casting Gulp Turtleback worms and Gulp 3” minnows produced a great variety of fish, such as pinkie snapper to 2kg, flathead, salmon and the odd bream.
However, fishing from a boat at night worked best on the great run of big winter snapper. Some of the fish caught pushed 10kg.
Boaties able to get out off the Bellarine Peninsula had some great whiting catches all the way from Clifton Springs to Queenscliff. Fishing evening tide changes produced near bag-limit captures, with some fish reaching 48cm.
Queenscliff Bight produced a few reports of whiting, along with some big calamari on the cleaner water of high tides.
Gummy sharks continued biting from Werribee all the way through to Queenscliff. St Leonards held plenty around 10kg in 20m of water.
South Channel continued fishing well for bigger gummies, along with a few school sharks. Fresh bait such as salmon or pike cut into chunks, calamari heads and hood in strips, and even frozen pilchards worked well on running sinker rigs appropriately weighted for the tides.
Tuna were taken again between Port Fairy to Portland. The poor weather kept most boats ashore but anglers who did get offshore reported bag-limit captures of school fish on three to five-inch skirts and diving lures.
A few barrels well over 100kg were taken off Portland and Cape Bridgewater.
Moorabool Reservoir was a freshwater standout with brown trout to 5lb. Casting a wide range of lures like divers, spoons, plastics and even fly worked well.
Lake Bolac remained hit and miss, although persistent anglers caught nice rainbow trout. Fishing the banks with Powerbait or pilchard fillets on light running sinker rigs worked well.
