Reel ripper snapper
on or mullet to use as live bait for mulloway, but it was the last of the outgoing tide and pickings were lean.
The incoming tide in the afternoon saw an improvement though, with both anglers fishing with live mullet on their heavier tackle.
But it was not mullet that was taken, but a pipi on Keith’s small, bait-catching outfit that initiated an extended battle that eventually saw an 85cm mulloway in the landing net.
Around midnight on Friday, Kevin McLoughlin, Brian Nolan, Paul Carson and Frank Farrugia headed offshore in search of mako shark.
They caught four in the early hours of the morning, the biggest around the 80kg mark.
They released three and kept one weighing about 40kg.
Although they stayed until after sunrise, the bite had finished by then.
John Clements, manager of Lake Purrumbete Holiday Park, along with Chris Farrugia and Bruno Portaro, joined forces to make up Victoria’s team No 11 (Nitro).
The team fished the Kakadu Clash, a barramundi catch and release competition held on the South Alligator River in the Northern Territory’s Kakadu National Park, last week. They won the competition outright with their three largest fish measuring 99, 89, and 108cm, accruing a tally of 296 points.
Second was team 24 (Arnhem Land Coastal Camp) with 282 points, and the team from National Australian Fishing Magazine came third with 266 points.
My brothers and I are going to Portland for the tuna and allies over Easter. We have a sixmetre boat and plenty of fuel, but I’m not sure where to look. Can you help?
Doug, my advice from Bob McPherson was that most recent catches of tuna have come from the shipping anchorage some 14km east of Portland in 30-40 metres of water.
Historically though, at this time of year — and particularly with recent sightings of tuna by cray fishermen just west of the South Australia border — most tuna have been caught to the west off Cape Grant, Cape Bridgewater.
However, should you want to target albacore as well as tuna, you would need to fish much wider out, preferably on a bearing of 210 degrees south- Nelson and west from Lawrence Rock, where — depending on the weather — it may take you an hour or so to find productive water, which is often betrayed by circling birds and leaping fish.