Peri Stavropoulos
The good weather over the week and Australia Day saw hundreds of boats flock offshore in search of tuna off Barwon Heads with many boats having great success.
Between the bluff of Barwon Heads and Torquay has definitely been the current hot spot as of late with depths between 20-65m all holding plenty of fish with sizes ranging anywhere from 10-25kg.
Trolling skirted lures with the aid of a spreader bar has really been making a massive difference with anglers’ success.
Deep diving hardbodies such as Rapala X-Raps, Samaki Pacemakers and Nomad DX Minnows have all been accounting for plenty of bites also on the troll.
The better success has been to the boats mainly throwing topwater lures at the surfacing fish as trolling tends to put them down deep and in a bit of a sooky mood.
Poppers and floating stick baits prove to be a hot favourite and having a variety of sizes and colours is very handy as each day is different and finding out what they want on the day is a game changer.
Yellowtail kingfish have been in brilliant numbers along the coast this week, although most aren’t massive in size they sure do make up for it in numbers with reports of a school or two of 10kg plus fish.
Topwater stickbaits and poppers have been working very well and so too have jigs.
Mako sharks have continued to be in great numbers offshore also at the moment with plenty of reports still coming in.
Setting a burley trail in the deeper water and ideally away from other boats trolling for tuna, anglers have been having some great success with sharks up to 60kg being caught.
Inside the bay has still been producing some great fishing over the past week with whiting and calamari both in good numbers and on the chew.
Both species are being caught right across the peninsula with bag limit captures for both being very achievable.
The Surf Coast estuaries and rivers have been producing some great fishing for both bream and perch with Aireys Inlet being a hot spot.
Casting small curl tail soft plastics and hard bodies have been super effective and on an evening surface lures have been deadly.
