Richardson Marine In Depth Fishing Report

Mick Mahney with some great quality south west whiting. They are starting to fire up in bigger numbers so worth getting the light gear out and stuck into some tasty whiting © Richardson Marine

The closer we get to December the higher the expectations are for a good summer for fishing; especially after a slower summer last year thanks to lower temperatures and rough seas. There are some glimmers of hope that we might see an early season with some whitebait present offshore so it's probably only a matter of time before we see some school tuna reports.

Estuaries: The Hopkins River again flexed its muscles for anglers this week but the signs are there for some improvements. Just like offshore there has been some whitebait move into the system which usually gets the bream and perch fired up for a bit afterwards. A few anglers have been trying to target mulloway but there hasn't been any luck so far, but as everyone knows who targets them they could fire up at any time. Plenty of perch in the lower section of the river after dark on hard bodies cast in shallow. One angler who did quite well recently was Shannon O'Brien who travels down to visit friends and family and is a frequent visitor of the Hopkins River. Shannon spent some time casting his favourite little hard bodies, the Ecogear MX48, up at Jubilee Park cast into the shallow rocky edges. He said he landed somewhere between 10-15 nice size bream to 36cm and a few perch too which is a really good day for the way it's fishing lately. One system that is fishing well lately is the Glenelg River as previously reported. The fish seem to be packed in the lower half of the river but this past week they definitely made it hard for anglers thanks to a falling barometer. One angler who targets mulloway a lot over there had a couple runs but the perch fishing the next day definitely made up for it with fish ranging from 45-50cm coming aboard. The Vic Bream Classics grand final will be held on the weekend of the 23rd-24th where the top 50 teams of the year that have qualified to fish it will converge on the Glenelg. It will be interesting to see what the system does between now and then - and with some small environmental flows being released out of Rocklands it could go either way. The Curdies River is a bit hit and miss lately but the Allansford and District Angling Club members found some fish in their last competition held last weekend. Wendy and Slick Pemberton caught the heaviest bag of bream with 5/5 for 3.449kg. Slick won the heaviest bream category with a 720g bream and Wendy caught the heaviest fish for a lady with a 698g bream. Loads of whitebait in the river have made the bream and perch fixated on lures and baits that represent this type of bait. Michael Moore from Pure Fishing has been using the new Berkley Protech Stunnas in the Smelt colour to great success. Either casting them tight to the undercut banks or trolling them slowly past these banks he and his mate "Donut" have been landing some nice bream and perch. Mick said if your lure isn't a whitebait colour then there isn't much point throwing them as they are so fixed on that bait they won't even look at them.

Freshwater: Rocklands Reservoir has again dragged local anglers up there in search of a Murray Cod or a Yellowbelly. The Koroit and District Angling Club held a weekend competition up there last weekend and had 26 entrants make the journey up the road. Brenton Bishop caught the heaviest fish with a Murray Cod that weighed in at 2.869kg. Steven Hutchins landed the second heaviest fish which was a Yellowbelly that weighed in at 1.024kg. It has been fishing very well lately and should continue to moving into summer. When will we see the magic meter long Murray Cod come out of it and someone take home the $1000 cash prize for doing so? The fish have grown fast thanks to the amount of forage that is in there for them; whether it's carp, redfin, yabbies or even smaller stocked cod and goldens. The upper Merri and Hopkins Rivers are slow for trout and that's mainly due to the fact we had no major flood this winter. The water is stagnant and the fish are in poor condition when caught so it might be a tough year coming up on the trout scene. There has been some big perch caught in the freshwater sections of the Hopkins River on lures and with the warmer nights beginning to become more frequent the topwater brigade will be out in force chasing them too.

Saltwater: The offshore fishing along our coast hasn't changed much since last week. Mick Mahney has been getting out on the snapper and gummy sharks with his colleague. Along with that Mick has been getting into some local King George whiting and some great ones at that! It's typically this time of year that we see not only the numbers lifting but the average size of each whiting too. A good indication of whether or not they are on the chew or not is with how many pippies we are selling and it has certainly picked up the last week or so. The old squid strip is also been accounting for a few fish so keep some of those handy too. The faithful paternoster rig has been working best with the red tubing and anywhere between 10 and 20g swivel bomb sinkers. You can wind these rigs back super slowly which stirs up the bottom and makes the whiting go crazy. Some good salmon have also been caught lately both off the beach at Killarney and Port Fairy beaches. Using a metal lure or a bait rig there have been fish to 2kg caught but they are in on the beach one day and 200m off the back the next so you just have to keep trying.

We are having our Boating and Fishing expo next Saturday 16th November beginning at 9am and finishing at 3pm. We will have the popular fishing simulator to test your stamina and skill, slow cooked beef brisket and pork shoulder, lure painting for the kids and industry reps in store to help you in the right direction. Until next week tight lines and best of luck.

Find out more at www.richardsonmarine.com.au.