Port Phillip West

PPB WEST Alan Bonnici

alan@fishingmad.com.au

What a rollercoaster the last 12 months have been. I can’t help but feel a bitter sense of deja vu. One minute we’re in lockdown, outlets and for individuals weeks of being confined to your home. We were eventually allowed back out only to deal with Mother Nature’s cruel sense of humour providing us with plenty of wind and rain.

This past snap lockdown had me getting be ready when the gates reopen. Thankfully that’s behind us now and we must charge forward with a sense of optimism. September welcomes spring and says goodbye to a bitterly cold winter. From here the fishing will gradually improve as the outside

Bay trout are around in big numbers.

then we’re not, then we are again. This instability and inconsistency have made fishing and future planning a very difficult task.

Over the last month, Covid has risen its unpleasant head again. Melbourne has endured another snap lockdown, which was then followed with an extension. This time Victoria was not alone as other states like NSW were also severely impacted. To say it’s been challenging for our local tackle stores, charter operators and content creators like myself is a massive understatement. Our last snap lockdown meant a shutdown of all retail up to my usual tricks. Online shopping of fishing tackle that I already have in droves. Servicing and re-spooling reels and create a heap of fishing rigs so I’ll temperature and water temperature slowly start to rise. Around Port Phillip, it’s a great time of year to target salmon, gummy sharks, garfish and squid.

Darren wrestling a PPB gummy shark.

There have been plenty of salmon busting up in the shallows all around Port Phillip Bay. With big number around Port Melbourne, Altona, Corio Bay and within the township of Geelong. When you come across a school of salmon the action can be frantic and pound for pound, they are one of the most exciting fish to catch, especially on light fishing gear.

Salmon love well presented soft plastics, shallow diving hardbody lures and small metal lures retrieved at a constant fast to medium pace. Our go-to setup has been a 2-4kg rod with a 2500 size reel and casting 4” curl tails in natural colours. When those schools are in feeding mode your plastic will be lucky to touch the water surface The author with a tasty squid.

Why not experiment with different colours?

before being smashed by angry sambos fighting for food. You can also catch them with baits, such as pilchard and blue bait.

When in my boat or kayak I always have one rod that’s rigged and ready just in case I stumble across any salmon. I continually looking around for signs of salmon, such as bubbling water, birds congregate in of dolphins that from the distance looked like a potential school of salmon. It truly is an awesome sightseeing dolphins surface in big numbers but generally very unproductive for fishing when they are around. Keep your eye out for them as I’ve seen plenty around Mornington and Geelong.

Bay trout aka juvenile and have been catching a countless amount casting small paddle tail soft plastics. Generally, a fish a cast but most of them are under 30cm. I took my two young kids out in my boat last week and kept them very entertained as they caught countless bay trout on light spinning gear. It was so enjoyable to just sit back and watch the carnage unfold as they caught a fish a cast. Laughs and smiles, which continually remind me that all forms of fishing have an important role to play.

This time of year, you won’t catch squid in the masses, but you will catch good-sized ones with some effort. Areas around Wedge Spit and Point Cook are generally quite productive around that 4m mark. A good way of catching squid when things are quiet is to drift at a steady pace. And continually redrift

Kids really enjoy chasing bay trout on light gear.

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