Ray Long Fishing Report
On The Bite 4 Feb 2010
MULLOWAY OFF ST HELENS ROCKS
Every week one lucky angler has one of those special outings and when a regular customer of Tackle World asked if we could weigh a fish he had just caught from the rocks at St Helens there was no thought of a rare capture, but to our amazement a fantastic Mulloway of over 8kg was still kicking in the boot of the captors vehicle, taken on bluebait Monday morning this is a quality fish. Well done Cam.
Only last week a couple of other mulloway were caught from the same area while both these fish were just over 60cmtrs just shows that a population of mulloway are available from the inner harbour and well worth targeting especially on live baits.
Corio Bay has been consistent this week with plenty of small snapper, whiting, garfish and flathead caught from both shore and boat. Grammer School lagoon has produced flathead on soft plastics with the odd salmon as well, North Shore rocks produced flathead, snapper and pike, but the Geelong waterfront was also active with flathead to 55cms and snapper to 50cms taking soft plastics such as turtleback worms and three inch minnows.
Stingaree Bay while not as productive as last week still saw a variety of fish landed with clearly the high tide running off producing all the best action. Here Fred Welsh landed a terrific mixed bag of flathead, snapper and whiting along with one salmon, all were caught on pippies.
Outer harbour anglers have had an absolute ball with salmon harassing the bait to the surface then the action has been hot, casting either small soft plastics or metal baitfish profile lures into the commotion will have reels screaming and fish jumping. Best areas have been on the south side of the Alcoa Pier and Bird Rock to the Quarries.
Huge salmon shoals are also harassing the bait in the vicinity of the Point Wilson pier, once again lures will be the most productive method.
Whiting numbers were also up this week with the Wilson Spit providing anglers with consistent bag limit captures, fresh squid and pippies were the bait, small snapper were a problem at times but worth fishing through.
Flathead numbers seem to be getting better and better with most soft plastics enthusiast commenting on both the quality and quantity of fish on offer, shallow water is producing the ultimate results, generally under 4metres. Fishing the edge of Curlewis Bank this week Brendan Sheedy and I landed any number of flathead to 60cms along with snapper to 45cms, both soft plastics and vibe lures were successful.
Garfish were in large shoals off Hermsley this week, anyone setting a berley trail soon had them to the boat, fishing silverfish under a quill float will soon have you catching this fine table fish and absolutely fantastic bait.
St Leonards to Edwards Point continues to be a magnet to those chasing whiting and good numbers are available along the shoreline, best captures are coming to those fishing of an evening in just three metres of water.
Doug Delaney sent me a photo of two squid he caught last weekend from the entrance to Swan Bay, both weighed an impressive 3kg each and took a liking to his small Clicks squid jigs in the natural color. This same area also produced flathead to 2kg and some quality snapper the best we saw at 3.5kg.
Charter operators are still finding salmon in the rip, with the ebb tide clearly seeing the fish work to the surface on a regular basis, trolling white ockys is working but with the addition of a tinsel head insert the captures certainly increase.
Offshore has seen many anglers finding the striped tuna but most are having difficulty in getting the fish to bite, those doing the best are fishing very light tackle and ultra small lures generally around the 80mm size. If you have larger lures or heavy tackle work your lures a long way from the boat around 100metres and you should still land a few.
This week has seen some huge gummy shark landed off Barwon Heads, the best at 21kg and taken on eel, quite a few in the 6 to 10kg bracket were also taken on a variety of fresh baits.
Many anglers continue to report of numbers of mako shark offshore in 50 to 70 metres of water, while most are under 50kg at present Stan Harrison had one of close to 150kg cruise around his boat for over 30 minutes on Saturday before it swam off to check out his mates boat 500 metres away.
Freshwater reports have been mainly coming in from the Barwon River, here Steve Dmytrenko has landed redfin of all sizes some of the better fish around 800grams, lures both soft plastics and hard bodies are working but for bait you need live minnow to get amongst the better fish. Also fishing the Barwon this week was Ken Alford who had a surprise capture on his Eco Gear vibe lure, first cast he landed a carp and followed up a few casts later with a nice tench, just goes to show how the current range of lures are just so productive.
A final reminder that on Wednesday 10th Feb at the Torquay Angling Club Peter Pakula and Andrew Jones both world renowned lure manufacturers and anglers will be conducting a free seminar on Game Fishing tactics, this will include rigging, lure spreads, teasers and more and they will be only to happy to answer all your questions. With the Bluefin season nearly upon us this is the perfect time to learn all the tips from the experts. A free BBQ will start at around 6pm with the boys starting at 7pm, hope to see you all at this fantastic night. Everyone needs to be aware that the Limeburners Boat Ramp will be closed this Sunday due to the running of an Ironman event in the area, signs have been posted in and around the area.
Hope to see you on the water somewhere, Brian, Brendan, Jeanette, Hudson & Ray.