Phillip Island

PHILLIP ISLAND Craig Edmonds

The distinct and unmistakeable winter calm that traditionally happens this time of year is in full swing. Sadly, this month is often the coldest for Western Port bay but generally the wind is often at its least.

A lot of anglers have long put away the boat as the cold days are too much to handle, but trust me, they are missing out.

As we head into spring, we have the beginning of the ‘official season’ if we are to go off of previous years the larger snapper are due to arrive in good numbers any time soon.

This winter has been a good one with plenty of good consistent reports, there was only a few weeks where there weren’t many reports and that was held mainly due to either being in lockdown or some freak storm that made the water that dirty the fish couldn’t even see the bottom.

The main species throughout this winter has continued to be whiting, the main reports have been coming from the nice areas with the big sandy bottoms. Even the rough days where the water clarity hasn’t offered the most favourable conditions the whiting have certainly still been hungry.

As a lot of people are beginning to discover, pipis are becoming very hard to find. South Australia has tightened up a lot of the focus around conservation and therefore resulting in us having a shortened season where we are able to stock them. Unfortunately from what we hear, there are no collections again until October 2021. While this may seem like the end of the world to some of our whiting fishers, it is not. There is always more than one species of bait for each species of fish, after all, if the fish is hungry it will eat.

The absence of pipis doesn’t mean you cannot chase whiting, instead try using nice thin strips of squid, thread it on the hook once or twice, make it look like a worm. It’s the presentation off the bait that makes the fish want to eat it more than the flavour. Another local secret to try is to try pilchard. What a lot of the locals actually do is fillet the pilchard, as you would a big fish not different and use just that, they will love it.

Offshore flathead have still been rewarding those dedicating time out of the bay. The flathead have been scattered, some finding them at 40m whilst others finding them nice and close to the shore in 15-20m. Majority of these have been a by-catch from those who still continue to chase the tuna.

The beaches fired up in patches this week and some quality salmon were caught with the bigger fish all caught on lures. The best of the beaches was Kilcunda near the bridge and then up towards the Powlett. There was plenty reported but for those standing on the beach most of the day all they caught was smaller ones every now and again, then a school would come through and if you were very quick at changing baits or had lures all the salmon in the school were 1.5kg or better and up to almost 3kg models. The beach at Woolamai was a little more consistent with regular catches but there were not the schools going through like at Kilcunda. The salmon at Woolamai were a bit smaller as well and again we had several reports at Anzacs to the right, lures only cast over the shallower water.

Calamari reports were good when the weather allowed and seem to be much bigger, and not too many exceedingly small ones.

It was difficult at times with the weed and dirty water, especially for the cast and retrieve with artificial lures. Some good reports from the beach at Woolamai but only from a short period each day, a couple of hours over the high tide change. Boat reports we got were all from those casting artificial lures with a variety of colour working, we also had several reports from the jetties of the calamari swimming up to the jigs to have a look but not taking them and it did not seem to matter what colour you were using.

Overall, there has been some great catches and a lot of bad in-between, but still consistently varied. We get a lot of phone calls asking if it’s worth going fishing or bringing the boat down, the simple answer is yes. If you bring it down, there is no guarantees that you will catch a fish but if you do not and you miss out on the nice weather then you simply missed out.

A bad day’s fishing is always better than a good day mowing the lawns.

From page 84

Melbourne, Frankston and Corio. There is something simple yet special about this style of fishing. Waiting for the float to disappear into the water as a mini marlin takes the bait is exciting for all anglers regardless of their ability. An hour each side of peak high tide seems to be the best time as this encourages the gars to come well into the shallows in accessible areas. There is a video on the FishingMad YouTube Channel, which shows how to rig up and create berley to catch garfish, which we highly recommend checking out.

This is also a good time of year to be targeting bream. Whether this is along the Maribrynong or Yarra River using baits or flicking shallow diving hardbody lures and soft plastics whilst walking the banks or fishing from your kayak or boat. This is where ultra light fishing gear comes into its own and quite possible my favourite form of fishing. A 1-3kg rod paired with a 1000 or 2000 spin reel spooled with 4-6lb line is a fun way of fishing. I like to target bream with soft plastics mainly 2.5” paddle-tails and 2.5” grubs. Using a 1/12 all the way through to 1/28 HWS jighead depending on the depth that your fishing and volume of weed and debris in the water. I find this time of year bream are sitting deeper and working your plastic slowly with some scent smeared on the tail is a great way to encourage bites. I also find that this is the time of year where you land bigger size bream. The volume of catches might be down but the quality is high and well worth the effort even in cold conditions.

And of course, always remember at this time of year that salmon are very active. They frequently congregate in their masses in the shallows around Corio, Geelong, Werribee, Altona and Port Melbourne. You just need a little luck t be in the right place at the right time and I have really enjoyed some amazing sessions both land based and out on the boat or kayak catching salmon after salmon and working my way through some big schools of feisty sambos. Pound-for-pound Australian salmon are one of the best fighting fish and I generally always have a rod rigged and ready to throw a plastic or surface lure at a passing swarm of salmon. Tangling with these fish with light spinning gear is an absolutely thrill so always been on the lookout for surface action, like bubbling water and active bird life, which are a great indicator to an amazing day out on the water.

Until next time, good fishing everyone. Please feel free to reach out to me directly to share your fishing experiences and catches around Melbourne, Port Phillip Bay and beyond which we can feature in next month’s article. You can contact me by email at alan@fishingmad.com.au.

Also don’t forget to follow my fishing adventures through my website www. fishingmad.com.au, and to subscribe to the FishingMad YouTube channel www. youtube.com/c/fishingmad. We can also follow us on social media on Facebook page www. facebook.com/fishingmad. com.au, Instagram page www.instagram.com/ fishingmad.com.au.

The ever-reliable grub is great for bream.

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