Snapper toll for Bells
Cold easterly can’t dampen bay expedition
CORIO BAY/ BELLARINE PENINSULA
On Sunday, with the smell of snapper in the air, Andrew Johnson and Dennis and Brodie Bell headed out west of Wilson Spit where their sounder readings provided some encouragement.
Despite the cold easterly breeze, things began to warm up when Brodie hooked a 5.7kg snapper on a silver whiting.
And they scarcely had time to admire that before Dennis’s rod signalled another hook-up, this time on a snapper of 6.2kg.
Things went rather quiet before it was Andrew’s turn, but this time it was clear he’d hooked something a lot bigger than a snapper. It was in fact a large seven-gilled shark that was cut free, before he hooked a second even bigger shark, after which they left.
Meanwhile, Jeff Richards reports that anglers fishing from the Portarlington breakwater have caught pinkie snapper up to 1.5kg lately, with most being caught on lines cast into the harbour rather than into the bay. Other species including Australian salmon have been caught here as well.
OFFSHORE
Aaron Habgood, of Red’s Fishing Adventures, is not known for catching small fry, but while fishing in 30m of water off Barwon Heads recently he soon realised that what had taken the chunk of Australian salmon he was using for bait was bigger than usual, and after a struggle he boated a massive school shark that weighed 36.7kg.
FRESHWATER
John Clements, of Lake Purrumbete Holiday Park, says occasional large brown are still being taken, including one of 4.5kg that was caught last week by an angler casting a Rapala bibbed minnow along the weed bed edges. Other browns were taken on the fly by Frank Gadea with the timehonoured “woolly bugger”.
John also mentions that a 1.5kg brook trout captured on a Rapala bibbed minnow in the redfin colouration, on being cleaned, was found to have swallowed a soft plastic lure, also in the redfin colouration; make of that what you may.
Redfin still remain the main catch, said John. Terry Haig and Peter Kelly cleaned up on fish from 600g to 1.2kg at the weekend using scrubworms and minnow for bait.
The weather being as it was last week, there were only two days that permitted fishing on nearby Lake Bullen Merri, and even then there was only a handful of anglers, the most successful again being fly fishermen taking chinook salmon and brown trout on smelt patterns during those evenings.
PORTLAND
With a reasonable forecast, Bob McPherson and George Gereige headed out into 500m of water where they hoped to do well on the bottom fish.
Unfortunately the weather turned sour, but not before they caught a couple of blue eye trevalla, a pink ling and several blue grenadier.
Heading back in, they found the sea calmer, and in 150m of water tried for a Tasmanian trumpeter or two, but a handful of red, or slimy cod, was their only reward.
Bob said the Lee Breakwater has reopened to the public after maintenance.
ROMAN ASKS:
Geoff, I fished for snapper in the Corio Bay outer harbour recently, but after dark sea lice became a problem, taking virtually the whole bait in minutes. Is there a solution?
Roman, a bait buoyed 2m above the bottom will usually remain lice free, so adding flotation to the bait with a short length of 10mm diameter cell foam gap filler, and secured with a couple of small cable ties should do the trick. Naturally, you will need to fix a small sinker 2m or so up your line to prevent the bait floating back to the surface.
Something I noticed at Shark Bay, Western Australia, was that while the lice would eat the eyes, and most of the flesh off the whiting heads we were using, leaving little more than the shell, the snapper would still take them.