Bringing in the bronze
Good timing and good luck on angler’s side
kies continue to be caught. But flathead remain the main chance; among those to catch them was Melbourne angler Khal Malas, who bagged his limit out toward the channel.
Andrew Johnson and Dennis O’Brien were out off Portarlington on Sunday afternoon, and — anchored out toward the mussel farm in 6.5 metres of water — they were onto a good patch of whiting taking 32 beauties, their biggest measuring 42cm.
Rod Ludlow of Beachlea Boat Hire at Indented Head also reports that clients have been bringing in good catches of whiting, along with a few squid and the occasional cuttlefish.
Kevin Wild and fellow Maryborough Angling Club member John Gray fished the Loddon River below Cairn Curran Reservoir’s spillway at the weekend, and using chicken for bait Kevin caught a 78cm Murray cod.
A nice fish, certainly, but not as big as another that eventually hung him up on a snag, demonstrating some truth in the saying that it’s the big ones that get away.
John Clements of the Lake Purrumbete Holiday Park took a trip up to Bundalong on Lake Mulwala with his son ‘Macca’ last week, a successful event as it turned out, for they caught several Murray cod, including one Macca caught that measured 115cm.
Brown trout are still on offer at Purrumbete, said John, with young Oscar Vacan of Torquay picking up one of 2.4kg, while George Gillies of Winchelsea — previously known as the redfin guru — has now been nominated as the trout-master after catching a 2.6kg specimen on a mudeye fished beneath a float.
But the biggest brown taken at the weekend was caught by Will Farrugia of Roxburgh Park who was slowly trolling mudeyes — it weighed 3kg.
Geoff, the whiting in our bay; are they resident fish, or do they come and go each season?
Kevin, my understanding is that the King George whiting in our bays are all adolescents, even the bigger specimens of 40cm or more. And it’s here they remain until reaching sexual maturity at possibly five or six years of age, after which they venture offshore to breed in deeper water than they customarily inhabit during their adolescence. Having spawned offshore, the larval whiting drift with their planktonic kindred in a lottery favouring those fortunate enough to settle in sheltered sea grass areas for their most critical transformation into small fish. It’s here that they remain until called to the wild in maturity once more.