With some nice calm days this week there's been some favourable opportunities to get out for a winter fish; and the rewards have made anglers efforts worthwhile! Whether it's offshore gummies, estuary action or trout inland, let's take a look at the local fishing opportunities on offer right now.
Salty Dog Charters have been putting customers onto some excellent sharks out of Port Fairy. Dan's clients have also been finding some other assorted species as by-catch; including pinkies, nannygai, morwong, some bigger snapper and the ever-present leatherjacket. During the winter time, the bigger gummies and schoolies come in a little closer than they will for the rest of the year, as they breed and lay pups on the shallower grounds. It's important for this reason to check any captured sharks for pups before keeping them for the table; it's not a good look when you get back to the ramp and discover your shark was full of babies! It's also a good time of year for beach fishing; again with those bigger gummies coming in close, and also for reduced numbers of pesky rays which can plague summer anglers. If you're looking to get into some sharks landbased; you'll want a 13-14 foot rod, a spin reel of around 8000-10000 in size, spooled with 50lb braid and an 80lb leader. You'll want to be on the beach for at least a couple of hours after dark, however it's also important to be at the beach before sunset so you can take in your surroundings and determine the best section of the beach to fish. There's nothing worse than fishing all through the night, not catching a thing; only to find out, with the assistance of daylight, that you were 50m away from the gutter and therefore the sharks! Fresh baits of squid, salmon and mackerel are perfect. PVC rod holders, glow sticks, grappel sinkers and long-cast pulley rigs are all essentials for this style of fishing and available in the Tackle Shack. Speaking of beaches, the salmon run continues, with some nice fishing behind had at Port Fairy's East Beach and Killarney. Typically Peterborough's main beach can be great for winter salmon too, and although reports from down there have been slim, it's well worth a go too! On the tuna front, the reports have quietened yet the fish are still there; Dan from Salty Dog again reporting continued captures of barrels just this week! His go-to lure has been the Bonze Weapon skirt.
The Glenelg River has been producing some fantastic fishing for anglers in the right area; with Warrnambool's Andy and Anna Cumming making a couple of trips over and being well rewarded for their efforts in the cold. Andy found the fish schooled up big time in the lower Taylor's Strait area, capturing over 40 fish for the fish session, most being quality fish with hardly an undersized specimen! Most were bream and estuary perch, some into the 40cm range, but Andy also found some school sized mulloway mixed in which is great to see. The duo found that Nomad's new Live Ops soft plastics range were dynamite, with fish falling victim to the Switcher Shrimp and Radiax grub styled plastics in the smaller sizes. These lures have been selling like hot cakes in the Tackle Shack and we can't wait to see what else is captured on the range over the summer months. Max Fry and his dad Janaka also headed west to sample the Glenelg's produce, and the pair had a blast capturing bream and estuary perch off the famous rockwalls. Warrnambool's Hopkins River is open to the sea, with some lovely blue water pushing in to clean out the system. There's constant chatter on social media platforms about the river mouth, but the fact is that naturally, these rivers are closed to the sea most of the year; it is only when infrastructure is in immediate flooding danger that the CMA will open the river mouth artificially. Opening the river mouth earlier, unauthorised, without proper water quality tests, can lead to fish kills and disaster for the ecosystem. How does this happen? Our local estuaries typically have two layers of water, with little mixing between the two. The salty layer, being denser than the freshwater layer, sits on the bottom, and is lower in oxygen (which gets further depleted over time). The freshwater layer sits on top, and is higher in oxygen. Local authorities will conduct regular water profile checks, dropping probes down each metre to assess temperature, oxygen and salinity at each depth. If the mouth is opened at the wrong time, the top, oxygen rich layer runs out to sea, leaving only the stale, oxygen poor saltwater behind; and this is what causes fish kills. Luckily, the Hopkins is in great shape right now, with old river water being flushed out to sea for the first time properly in 18 months thanks to recent rainfalls. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the Curdies where a small scale fish kill recently occured; this will be one to keep an eye on.
Great trout fishing has continued in the freshwater into this week. Young Lincoln Boehkout has been having a ball fishing the upper reaches of the Hopkins, where he landed a nice fish under the bridge, his access point, straight away and then didn't see a fish for the next 5km he walked! Tim Vincent also found the same phenomenon in the Hopkins; so never skip fishing the bridge, even if it looks to have been fished recently. While the water is a little discoloured at present, it's not too turbid hence many anglers choosing to fish with soft plastics. Andy Cumming was one of those anglers, after spending several days catching endless bream and EPs he couldn't resist throwing a Nomad Live Ops plastic at a trout. He found the browns of the upper Hopkins were only too keen to scoff his offering down! We also recieved a report from Ben Rymell, who scored a couple of lovely brown trout under the Hopkins Falls whilst visiting the area on a trip from Adelaide. Our local trout fishing really is up there with the best in Australia; few other places so consistently offer the chance to catch a brown trout, averaging 1-2kg, so easily accessible, and year round too. And yet so many local anglers still don't realise how good the fishing can be!
Looking at the forecast we have some great conditions for this weekend, so hopefully we've given you some inspiration to get out amongst some winter fishing action.