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The closer we get to December the
higher the expectations are for a good summer for fishing; especially after a slower
summer last year thanks to lower temperatures and rough seas. There are some
glimmers of hope that we might see an early season with some whitebait present offshore
so it’s probably only a matter of time before we see some school tuna reports.
Estuaries: The Hopkins River again
flexed its muscles for anglers this week but the signs are there for some
improvements. Just like offshore there has been some whitebait move into the
system which usually gets the bream and perch fired up for a bit afterwards. A
few anglers have been trying to target mulloway but there hasn’t been any luck
so far, but as everyone knows who targets them they could fire up at any time.
Plenty of perch in the lower section of the river after dark on hard bodies
cast in shallow. One angler who did quite well recently was Shannon O'Brien who
travels down to visit friends and family and is a frequent visitor of the
Hopkins River. Shannon spent some time casting his favourite little hard bodies, the Ecogear MX48, up at
Jubilee Park cast into the shallow rocky edges. He said he landed somewhere
between 10-15 nice size bream to 36cm and a few perch too which is a really
good day for the way it’s fishing lately. One system that is fishing well
lately is the Glenelg River as previously reported. The fish seem to be packed
in the lower half of the river but this past week they definitely made it hard
for anglers thanks to a falling barometer. One angler who targets mulloway a
lot over there had a couple runs but the perch fishing the next day definitely
made up for it with fish ranging from 45-50cm coming aboard. The Vic Bream
Classics grand final will be held on the weekend of the 23rd-24th where the top 50 teams of the year
that have qualified to fish it will converge on the Glenelg. It will be
interesting to see what the system does between now and then - and with some
small environmental flows being released out of Rocklands it could go
either way. The Curdies River is a bit hit and miss lately but the Allansford
and District Angling Club members found some fish in their last competition
held last weekend. Wendy and Slick Pemberton caught the heaviest bag of bream
with 5/5 for 3.449kg. Slick won the heaviest bream category with a 720g bream
and Wendy caught the heaviest fish for a lady with a 698g bream. Loads of
whitebait in the river have made the bream and perch fixated on lures and baits
that represent this type of bait. Michael Moore from Pure Fishing has been
using the new Berkley Protech Stunnas in the Smelt colour to great success.
Either casting them tight to the undercut banks or trolling them slowly past
these banks he and his mate “Donut” have been landing some nice bream and
perch. Mick said if your lure isn’t a whitebait colour then there isn’t much
point throwing them as they are so fixed on that bait they won’t even look at
them.
Freshwater: Rocklands Reservoir
has again dragged local anglers up there in search of a Murray Cod or a
Yellowbelly. The Koroit and District Angling Club held a weekend competition up
there last weekend and had 26 entrants make the journey up the road. Brenton
Bishop caught the heaviest fish with a Murray Cod that weighed in at 2.869kg.
Steven Hutchins landed the second heaviest fish which was a Yellowbelly that
weighed in at 1.024kg. It has been fishing very well lately and should continue to
moving into summer. When will we see the magic meter long Murray Cod come out
of it and someone take home the $1000 cash prize for doing so? The fish have
grown fast thanks to the amount of forage that is in there for them; whether it's carp, redfin, yabbies or even smaller stocked cod and goldens. The upper Merri and Hopkins Rivers are slow
for trout and that’s mainly due to the fact we had no major flood this winter.
The water is stagnant and the fish are in poor condition when caught so it
might be a tough year coming up on the trout scene. There has been some big
perch caught in the freshwater sections of the Hopkins River on lures and with
the warmer nights beginning to become more frequent the topwater brigade will
be out in force chasing them too.
Saltwater: The offshore fishing
along our coast hasn’t changed much since last week. Mick Mahney has been
getting out on the snapper and gummy sharks with his colleague. Along with that
Mick has been getting into some local King George whiting and some great ones
at that! It’s typically this time of year that we see not only the numbers
lifting but the average size of each whiting too. A good indication of whether
or not they are on the chew or not is with how many pippies we are selling and
it has certainly picked up the last week or so. The old squid strip is also
been accounting for a few fish so keep some of those handy too. The faithful paternoster rig has been working best with the red tubing and anywhere
between 10 and 20g swivel bomb sinkers. You can wind these rigs back super
slowly which stirs up the bottom and makes the whiting go crazy. Some good
salmon have also been caught lately both off the beach at Killarney and Port
Fairy beaches. Using a metal lure or a bait rig there have been fish to 2kg
caught but they are in on the beach one day and 200m off the back the next so
you just have to keep trying.
We are having our Boating and
Fishing expo next Saturday 16th November
beginning at 9am and finishing at 3pm. We will have the popular fishing
simulator to test your stamina and skill, slow cooked beef brisket and pork
shoulder, lure painting for the kids and industry reps in store to help you in
the right direction. Until next week tight lines and best of luck.