Battle for the bronze
PATIENCE and resilience paid off for Bill Athanasselis and Mick Kollaris at Lorne last Thursday night.
Chasing a shark from the pier as they had successfully done in previous visits, reward for suffering the intermittent rain came in the early hours of Friday morning, landing a bronze whaler of about two metres long.
CORIO BAY/ BELLARINE PENINSULA
Mike Windsor of Clifton Springs Boat Hire reports tough going last week with the patchy weather. However, there were good-sized pinkie snapper about if you could find them, and among those who did were Noel McMillan and Tom Pool.
According to Mike, whiting have for the most part been scarce off The Springs, but true to form on Friday Andrew Johnson and Dennis O’Brien eventually took their respective bag limit catches, their biggest fish measuring 44cm.
Also doing well on the whiting early last week was Chris Stamalos, who picked up 18 fish to 40cm off the Swan Bay grass beds in the vicinity of the Coles Beacon at Queenscliff. And as is usually the case here, they didn’t really come on the bite until around 7.30pm.
Rod Ludlow of Beachlea Boat Hire at Indented Head reports that while pinkie snapper remain plentiful, squid have been the main species on offer lately, with the Governor Reefs a good place to begin.
And it was here that Steve and Joey Carr picked up their bag limit catch. However, that was after fruitlessly trying for a gummy shark in the deeper water off the Prince George Bank where they suffered the same fate as others there lately, being absolutely plagued with banjo sharks.
FRESHWATER
Early last week, Michael Evans of Victorian Inland Charters and client John Jovanovic visited Lake Bullen Merri, where they had a great session on chinook salmon, both down-rigging with lures, and bait fishing with pilchard fillets suspended just above the bottom.
Not only did John catch his best-ever chinook of 2.9kg, he reset the bar twice more, first with a fish of 3.12kg, and finally with another of 3.51kg, that is destined for the wall — at this stage anyway.
John Clements of Lake Purrumbete Holiday Park reports Lake Purrumbete is also fishing well and that Michael, who also fished here, caught a brown trout of 3.4kg and two 2kg rainbow trout.
PORTLAND
With better than average weather down Portland way last week, Bob McPherson and Lachie Wombell headed out into almost 500 metres of water where they had no trouble catching blue grenadier, pink ling and several other prized bottom fish.
Mind you, they were not the only folk out on the deep with Keryn Millard and her father Dean taking a great catch of pink ling to more than 13kg while fishing nearby.
Tuna are still an item in the vicinity of the ship anchorage some 24km east of the Portland Harbour, said Bob. But as it turned out, so was Jordan Portman, among those fishing for them in 20m of water.
However, it wasn’t a tuna that took Jordan’s lure, but a kingfish that greeted the scales at 14.2kg after being cleaned.
STEVE ASKS:
Geoff, I’ve noticed an abundance of large, pale-looking jellyfish in Corio Bay. Do you know what they are, and if they are detrimental to the bay’s health?
Steve, the jellyfish you refer to are almost certainly ones referred to by some as German jellyfish because of the faint cross on their mantle. They’ve always been present to some degree, but probably never in numbers that would be detrimental to the bay’s health.