Phillip Island

PHILLIP ISLAND Craig Edmonds

Springtime and the good fishing days are just around the corner, and even customers have a bit of a smile on their faces with the weather changing

The concentration over the last couple of months, except for the tuna, has been on bait collection for the upcoming snapper season. High tide, late afternoon and fine weather over the last month you will have seen most of the jetty or beach car parks full of tradies of warmth in the days and nights, the water is starting to warm up. We will start to see the snapper reports coming in as well as whiting and calamari from those in boats. When you are heading out in the boat, take your time on the way to the early snapper marks because we have seen over the last couple of years the snapper showing up on what would be considered late season areas. You will still have to put up with the odd draughtboard and seven gill shark but they will soon go and gummies will become the by-catch.

Those who head offshore have had a reasonable run over the last couple of months. Taking out the tuna, which were good, the flathead, gummies and pinkies have been excellent. They all have been good quality size and great take home fish.

There has been some flathead around the 60cm+ but this time of the year the bigger ones are a little soft in the flesh and better

Barrels were a regular catch at times through the winter, especially when the conditions were as mint as this day.

for the better. The AFL and local Grand finals are just around the corner and once that’s over the fishing reports really start to ramp up with a lot more out fishing. knocking off a bit early to catch a calamari or two. While we started getting snapper reports back in July it was only the super-keen rugging up and putting in the time. Now there is a little bit freezer. The size of the calamari has been good and we have been regularly weighing them to around 2kg. We have had several reports from the boats of the same size calamari with even a few offshore towards Kilcunda. From the beaches and jetties the baited jigs are having the most success but, in the boats, it’s been artificial jigs.

From all the fisheries reports and their testing numbers the snapper seasons over the next few years are going to be extremely good. I guess only time will tell but if the numbers of pinkies we have seen over the last couple of years has any bearing on it then there is a good chance they will be right. The reports we have had so far are of smaller snapper than we normally see this time of the year with some of the better reports coming from Newhaven jetty. If the bigger snapper are what you want then upsize your baits a bit and use whole pilchards instead of chunks, use large strips of calamari or even small whole calamari, even try some live baiting if you can get onto a school of mullet or tommy roughs. 6-8kg snapper will have no problem taking a very large fillet or whole squid and while I wouldn’t set every rod with large baits I would have at least one with a much larger rig and bait than the rest.

There has been a huge change over the last few years with as many women getting into the sport as men. Scarlett was very pleased with a few meals of flake for the freezer.

Taking design cues from the original, the Gerber Suspension-NXT (SRP $79.95) is the evolution of the classic multi-tool design. Boasting an increased tool count of 15 in a smart everyday carry package, it is equipped with a pocket clip that is easily carried in pocket or on belt. The slim butterfly design features outboard tools that are accessible in a snap when unexpected tasks come up.

Features include: spring-loaded jaws to lessen hand fatigue; needlenose pliers; regular pliers; wire cutter; 2.25” plain/serrated combination blade; scissors; real cross driver; large, medium, and small flathead drivers; can opener; bottle opener; awl; file; ruler; and wire stripper. The Gerber Suspension-NXT has a closed length of 4.25” and an open length of 6.25”, and it’s backed by a limited lifetime warranty.

Building on the success of the larger one-hand opening models, the compact Gerber MP400 tool version (SRP $119.95) is nimble but just as tough. Built to solve everyday snags, it has 11 components packed into an unobtrusive 200g package. Features include: Saf.T.Plus locking system; stainless steel construction; 1-handed ppening pliers; black ballistic nylon sheath; needle nose pliers; partially serrated blade; Phillips screwdriver; small, medium and large flat screwdrivers; bottle opener and can opener; Fiskars scissors; wire cutters and wire stripper; and a file. It’s made in the USA and backed by a limited lifetime warranty. – Whitworths

Heading away on holidays Ollie asked mum and dad for some new gear. He was happy with the result and even out fished dad.

put back. The best ones to keep are those around the 40-45cm mark, especially if you are after a skin off tail to fry up in a bit of batter. Luckily that’s what most were finding with a few smaller ones mixed in. The flathead have followed the same pattern as the last couple of years, deeper when we have had a period of rough weather and in close when we have had a period of calmer weather, so 30-50m of water from the Woolamai Surf Club to Kilcunda Bridge.

We have also seen very good numbers of school shark, which have been missing for the last few years and they have been very respectable at over 15kg.

Beach fishing, especially the surf beaches, have been very difficult this winter because of all the bad weather creating plenty of kelp on the beaches. There have been those keener than others and persevered and while they didn’t bag out all the time, they found a good handful most trips. Smaller salmon at the Phillip Island beaches, which were much cleaner than Kilcunda, had better size salmon.

Most of the time the back beaches, Cleeland Bight and Ventnor have been weed free with only small periods through the tides you couldn’t fish. This allowed those chasing calamari, either for bait or for eating to fill up the