Border crossing yields possible record catch
KEVIN McLoughlin and Marcus Pearson took a run down to Port MacDonnell — just over the South Australian border — to compete in a fishing competition and it proved fruitful.
Not only did their catches of various fish, including a tuna and a mako shark, win substantial prizes, Kevin’s capture of a 28.1kg school shark on 2kg class tackle is a potential Game Fishing Association of Australia record, for which he is preparing a claim.
CORIO BAY/BELLARINE PENINSULA
JONATHAN Feldman and his father David, fished for two hours at various places along the Coles channel off St Leonards on Friday with scarcely a bite, so it was clearly time to look elsewhere.
Eventually, out of desperation, they tried the Swan Bay channel and were instantly onto the whiting, ending up with 26 fish to 41cm; most in the high 30cm range.
Also in their catch were some good-size leatherjackets.
Mike Windsor, of Clifton Springs Boat Hire, reported that whiting are still on offer. Among the local anglers to catch them were Mark and Laurie, who found a patch off Curlewis where they caught 40 whiting and some Tommy Rough using squid for bait.
Also fishing off Curlewis on Friday were Andrew Johnson and Dennis O’Brien, who discovered a productive patch of about 5.5m of water where they took bag-limit catches of whiting, their biggest fish approaching 40cm.
Simon Werner, who has been fishing with his son Jayden and one of Jayden’s companions, off Clifton Springs had good results while drifting for squid, taking 20 on one occasion and 15 on another.
Rod Ludlow, of Beachlea Boat Hire, reported that squid remained plentiful and widespread between Grassy Point and the Governor Reefs but whiting had been scarce.
OFF THE BEACH
WITH evening high tides early last week, Tony Ingram fished Bancoora Beach.
Following his encounter with tailor the week previous, he was using ganged hooks baited with pilchard.
His first catch included a couple of Australian salmon around the kilogram mark that fell victim to his rig.
Fishing on into the night, he began losing his baits, possibly to sea lice. So, sacrificing a fillet from one of the salmon he had caught, he presented a strip of that on his rig, which did in fact claim a couple of tailor, along with a gummy shark of possibly 6kg.
FRESHWATER
FISHING Highton’s Saint Augustine’s water hole on Sunday morning were Dave Batty, Jake Leach and Ben Lang.
The sum total of their catch was two small redfin, two roach and a rather large rainbow trout for this small water. Dave didn’t say how big it was but judging from the picture it could have been as much as 2kg. All were caught on corn kernels.
John Clements, of the Lake Purrumbete Holiday Park, reported that Rob Walter and sons Will and Jordan of Hamilton, took just on 100 redfin from the lake using minnow and soft plastics.
Wayne Snell, of Colac, fished mudeyes under a float, hopeful of catching a goodsize brown trout.
He certainly did that with a lovely brown of 3.8kg; he also caught a rainbow trout of 2.5kg.
ANDY ASKS: Geoff, a mate and I were recently discussing the term “stranger” used for grass whiting, do you know how they came to be called that, is it still a valid name, and where they can be caught?
Andy, I recall that in the 1960s, stranger was a valid name for grass whiting and — if I’m not mistaken — it had a legal-size limit of nine inches.
In my youth I caught a good many on sandworm from the rocks below the Esplanade, North Shore.
Among various descriptions for stranger is: “A name in Victoria and Tasmania for a labroid (meaning from the genus Labridae) fish, Odax richardsonii”.
However, Barry Hutchins and Roger Swainston’s Sea Fishes of Southern Australia, describes this fish as the “blue weed whiting” in respect of the male’s blue colouration.
It does not include the former name stranger, and the species seems to have been reclassified as Haletta semifasciata.