The Australia Day break gave fishers a great opportunity to get out for a fish with some fantastic reports coming through.
King George whiting remained a popular target species for anglers with the whole Bellarine Peninsula producing some good results.
Clifton Springs seems to be the best location at the moment, although the fish aren’t getting into any record-breaking size they are in good numbers and not a far drive from the ramp at all.
Calamari are still holding in good numbers around the same area, in particular over the weed beds in about 3.5 metres, with natural and pink-coloured jigs working best.
‘The rip’ has had a few exciting reports this past week with a few yellowtail kingfish starting to pop up and some quality fish among them.
Jigging and live baiting have been the preferred methods to target them and there seems to be a few quality fish among them.
Australian salmon have been in good numbers inside the rip with boats trolling white occy skirts finding plague numbers of fish.
Ranging in size from about 600g to 2 kilograms they sure do make up some great fun and fantastic bait.
Offshore Barwon Heads is still where all the fishing hype is at the moment with the bluefin tuna and kingfish still being on the top of most angler’s priority list.
Tuna are still quite difficult to catch but persistence is definitely the key.
Lachlan and Ken Oliver made the most of the good weather on Sunday getting among the local tuna action with Rapala X-rap Extremes being their preferred lure. Casting lures into the surfacing schools has also been producing plenty of fish but as mentioned, persistence is definitely the key with the boats putting in the most casts getting the most fish.
Kingfish still seem to be holding in crazy numbers right along the coast, with fish ranging between 55-70cm in some of the best numbers we have seen in recent years.
There are plenty of larger fish among them too. Trolling occy skirts and jigging have been the two main techniques to target them but when the fish are on the surface then top water lures are the way to go.
