What a mulloway to go
Perseverance pays off after 7 hours
FISHING upstream from the Sheepwash with fresh squid for bait he’d caught previously, Garry Ridgeway was after mulloway.
But by 3pm and after some seven hours on the water, he was about to give it away when he hooked a good-size fish.
The mulloway he caught had just stretched the tape out to 82cm when his other rod buckled over.
But after taking quite a bit of line, the hook pulled free and the fish escaped.
CORIO BAY/BELLARINE PENINSULA
Andrew Johnson and Dennis O’Brien fished offshore from the Pelican Shores Caravan Park at Leopold in 4.5m on Friday afternoon. Despite the extreme clarity of the water, they eventually took bag-limit catches of whiting to 40cm.
Returning with Peter Dawson on Sunday in the strong northwesterly, Andrew found the water discoloured and more amenable to whiting fishing, and they soon had five fish.
Undersized pinkie snapper moved in, persuading them to move out a bit deeper. By evening, in 6m of water and with the northwesterly dying off, they finished with another bag-limit catch.
Also picking up a good tally of whiting out there on evening were Darcy, Murray, Shenae and Sara Scott.
On Sunday afternoon, Simon Werner caught several good-size pinkie snapper up to 40cm in ideal snapper conditions from the Portarlington breakwater.
Rod Ludlow, of Beachlea Boat Hire at Indented Head, reports that clients have brought in good catches of flathead when the weather has permitted fishing on the drift out in the deeper water. Squid have been also plentiful with early mornings and late evenings the best times.
With strong winds predicted for Port Phillip on Friday, Andrew Phillips and Tony Greck were among those to make early start. The weather did close in, but by 10.30am they had taken their respective bag limit catches of squid, the biggest around the 1.5kg mark.
Fishing from the rock wall at Wurdiboluc Reservoir on Saturday, Simon Werner put in a lengthy lure-casting session with a metal spoon, catching five rainbow trout, all around the 500g mark.
John Clements, of the Lake Purrumbete Holiday Park, reports that some larger redfin have shown up lately, the biggest was taken by Colby Lesko and weighed 2kg.
John also reports that Lake Bullen Merri is back on line, so to speak, with Steve Moore of Warrnambool picking up both chinook salmon to a kilogram and rainbow trout to 1.5kg by trolling lures.
Fishing from the north bank of Lake Bullen Merri with Berkley Powerbait last week was Martinus de Lange. Initially, all he caught were newly-released chinook salmon before his patience was rewarded with a 1.5kg rainbow trout.
I received notification from Rhiannon Atkinson of the Victorian Fisheries Authority (VFA) last week that 2000 cheetah trout and 2000 tiger trout were scheduled for release into Lake Purrumbete on Thursday.
And I got a call on Monday from Kevin Wild of the Maryborough Angling Club that the VFA was about to release 20,000 rainbow trout fingerlings into Tullaroop Reservoir.
Tullaroop has been producing good size redfin said Kevin, and on Friday, he saw an angler take two very large brown trout while down-rigging.
Early last week, Dean Todd and Shaun King, clients of Matthew Hunt’s Fishing Services, fronted up with 15kg game fishing tackle.
Their strike came at 9am in 70m of water southwest of the Cape Nelson Lighthouse.
The tuna of about 100kg, took four hours and 10 minutes to bring alongside.