The past week hasn’t had a lot of fishing reports so this
will probably be short and sweet but there has been some improvement from a
sleeping giant of the estuaries down here which has given a lot of people some
confidence to head out.
Estuaries: the Hopkins River seems to have started to fish
well after a very, very quiet run of fishing. In more recent weeks we’ve seen
some extremely high water thanks to the river mouth being closed and big swell
coming over to top of the sand and constantly filling it up. Thankfully the
Glenelg Hopkins CMA were able to open the mouth thanks to a contractor risking
his excavator as the sea was slowly building. On opening, the salt water
immediately began flowing into the river and moving the sand around a lot. I
went down and had a look at the opening only a couple days afterwards and it
was not a wide opening at all. The one thing I did notice was the force of the
salt water coming in was far more powerful than what was coming down from up
top. All it was doing was moving the sand back and forward and not really
deepening the entrance at all. The one area that I did notice seeing had
changed was the Blue Hole which for a few years now has been getting more and
more shallow due to the direction of the flow of the mouth. This spot was
looking a lot deeper and I don’t really know how or why this was cause the
water didn’t seem to sweep around that side of the entrance. Anyway enough of
the landscape waffle so let’s get into the fishing reports. Allansford and
District Angling Club held their second competition of their 2024/25 season and
some anglers found some nice fish. Paul and Vincent Lamb took out the heaviest
bag of 5 bream with 4.636kg. Vincent also won the Junior section with his
heaviest coming in at 805g. Isaac Primmer caught the heaviest bream overall
with a solid fish weighing 1.361kg. As I mentioned these bigger calibre of fish
have been super hard to catch lately so hopefully this is a turn of the tide as
such and we see more of these big fish come in. Over at Nelson a group of keen
anglers headed over on the weekend for the annual “Perch Search” which is a
Victorian Fisheries Authority initiative that basically takes mature Estuary
Perch, transports them to a NSW facility and uses the offspring to stock waterways across Victoria. These anglers keep the perch alive during the day in their
live-wells and release them into holding pens. Staff from the hatchery then
sort through the fish and separate the males and females and assess the fish
for healthiness etc. Speaking to one of the anglers that fished it he said the
perch weren’t really on the chew but the bream were very good. Holding either
super tight on the edge or out in the deep there wasn’t much in between. Soft
plastics cast right in tight on lightly weighted jig heads was the go to for
most as well as some deep diving hard bodies and vibes cast out deeper. No
reports of any big mulloway either which just shows the lack of numbers in the
river again. I would love to know the reason behind the lack of mulloway in the
system but there really isn’t much we can do about it. The Warrnambool and
District Angling Club held their first competition of the year at the Fitzroy
River on Sunday where 12 anglers braved the wind and rain to try their luck.
Rob Oneil landed both the heaviest bream and heaviest bag of 5 bream with 990g
being his biggest and 5/5 bag of 3.790kg taking it out. Jessica Lane caught the
heaviest fish for a lady with a 767g bream hitting the scales. Their next
competition is on this Sunday at 8am-2pm in the Hopkins River. New and existing
members are welcome too with a free BBQ lunch available for all entrants at the
completion of the days fishing.
Freshwater: Tim Vincent has been fishing up around the
Grampians at Lake Fyans in search of some redfin and he has been scoring some
great fish using a combination of jig spinners and minnow style
soft plastics fished in heavy weed. Not often known for their pulling power
they certainly give you a run for your money in heavy weed cover. These
beautiful looking and tasting fish will have you buried in the weed quicker
than you can say stop. Any redfin is great eating but the big ones over 40cm are
what everyone’s chasing for the table and the ones that Tim has been catching
have been that and more! Just a steady retrieve is all that’s needed to entice
a bite from a reddie. Bent minnows are also a very valuable lure when chasing
redfin in and around heavy weed cover as you can skim the top of the weed area.
The two crater lakes have been a bit quiet lately but I would expect the
fishing to pick back up once the weather becomes a bit more stable.
Saltwater: Salty Dog Charters finally got out for a fish
with charter guests on Thursday after the sea was way too rough for any type of
fishing lately. Doing what they do best Dan Hoey was able to put the customers
onto some brilliant bottom fishing with a mixed bag of snapper, terahaiki,
leather jacket and some big gummy and school shark. Often known as fish lotto
which basically means you don’t know what you’ll be able to catch the deeper
water is certainly a much more productive area this time of year. It’s not
uncommon to catch anywhere between 2 and in some instances over 6 species in a
day. Most of these fish are the good eating type of fish too so making the trip
out there is well worth it anyway. Using fresh cut baits such as coota,
trevally, salmon or any other flesh baits will give you the best results. There
is still a steady run of silver trevally in the Moyne River which have been
keeping anglers rods bent and screaming drags. These are a prime bait for any
saltwater fish especially shark. It won’t be long and we will soon be talking
about school tuna and king fish again so get yourself ready and dust those rods
and reels off so you’re ready to go. Remember we can spool any type of reel
with either mono or braid and offer a wide range of types both in bulk spools
and single shot spools.
If you happen to sneak out over the weekend and are happy to
share your catch then send them into us at fishing@richardsonmarine.com.au
or via our social media and we would be happy to share it for you. Until next
week tight lines and best of luck.