Queenscliff Harbour Fishing Reports

With anchor down and the ship sitting neatly in the current, Roger brought out a cuttlefish strip, placed it on the cutting board, and proceeded to soften it by pounding it with a meat tenderiser. The tenderising procedure not only softens the flesh, it forces the juices to the surface, making the bait more nice. Most anglers fishing for whiting with squid or cuttlefish do the same. But, Roger makes another small improvement: he cuts the tenderised strips of flesh off at an angle so the skin remains behind. ‘I don’t like the skin, I think it detracts from the soft, juicy bait, ‘ he said. (exploreaustralia.net.au)

The key to prospecting vertical structure, as well as navigation markers and bridge or jetty pylons, is to find out the depth at which the fish are holding. Bream, snapper or mulloway may be resting in the eddy at the base of a pylon, actively feeding inside some feet of the surface or lurking anyplace in between. Hardbodied lures are efficient for fish holding higher in the water column, especially when worked into the current and twitched and paused in the eddy. Lipless crankbaits and lightly-weighted soft plastics are better alternatives for fish suspended mid water, while metal blades and heavier soft plastics should stir up the fish down deep. (fishingmonthly.com.au)

With windy )

Soft plastic anglers have been doing well on snapper from legal length to 60cm casting and drifting over rubble beds in 4-7m of water. Useful by-catches using this technique are flathead and it generally pays to have a squid jig over the side. Top possies to attempt this January include; the Geelong waterfront precinct, Royal Geelong Yacht Club and North Shore Rocks where both land and boating established anglers can fish these places. (fishingmonthly.net.au)

On the freshwater scene, Jim Credlin at Swan Hill reports anglers fishing in the Little Murray below the weir are hooking yellowbelly to 2. 2kg. The Murray at Belsar Island is producing some legal-size Murray cod on trolled lures. The Edward River at Moulamein is producing cod to 87cm on lures, and yellowbelly to 49cm on lures, yabbies and scrubworms. There are some Murray cod to about 70cm in the Murray and dear Rivers near Wentworth on deep-diving lures. (weeklytimesnow.com.au)

Squid reports for landbased anglers have been pretty good recently. The Mornington Peninsula was producing squid from most of the common spots with the pier itself at Mornington producing smaller size squid. Size 1. 8 – 2. 5 jigs are the only way to go here as the squid are small and so are the baitfish that they eat. Staff member George stopped by the pier throughout the week for some new whiting baits and he quickly caught 6 before he had lines being cast over his head. George found a size 2. 0 mackerel pattern worked for him. (fishingcamping.com.au)

Our eastern coastline is now in the midst of an Australian salmon explosion.   These schools migrate south each winter to be greeted by many a tempt casting angler as they come inside range.   These big schools of salmon are frequently plagued with other varieties of fish like trevally, bonito and kingfish.   Earlier in the week some of the staff tussled with the schools using hard bodies, metal slugs, soft plastics and fly, landing lots of fish and losing bigger ones.   Salmon aren’t a bad eating fish; they just have to be flavoured.   All of ours were released to fight again as the fight they provided on light lines in unparalleled. (fishing.net.au)

Coming Up – This weekend the 1st ABT-style squid fishing tournament will be held out of the Queenscliff ship Harbour. The tournament titled, ‘The Yamashita Squid Series Invitational was put on by Australian Egi Tournaments and will be held over the complete weekend. It’s a catch and release comp where each team can hold a maximum of three squid at any time. Peninsula Total Tackle has a team who will be fishing one of the days, so we’ll report back next week on how the whole event unfolds. (peninsulacompleatangler.com.au)

Well the secret is well and really out! The Snapper are here and they’re here in a big way! While the fishing was mixed, the schools and numbers of fish are unbelievable. I have generally found that the best Snapper seasons happen when we have a wetter than average Winter and Spring. This is due the amount of life forms flushed out of all the local creeks and rivers. This Plankton feeds the Pilchard schools. The Pilchard schools in turn feed the Squid, Salmon and Barracouta schools that enter the bay simultaneously as the Snapper. Hence the more food, the bigger and longer the run of Snapper. (yaringa.com.au)

Dennis Paul decided to take his kids Paris, Brad and Dillon to Port Macdonnell throughout the school holidays. His mate Wilba from Southerly Fishing Charters had said there were good schools coming through . The 1st day a inflexible breeze was blowing around 20 knots. They headed to the counter and ended up with 6 albacore to 16kg and 4 blue fin tuna to 20kg. The second day they managed 4 blue fin tuna to 19kg. The conditions on day 3, 4 and 5 were too rough to go out but one of their friends did and caught a 107kg tuna and five days earlier had caught a 142kg tuna. Day 6 Dennis and Dillon tried for a bigger fish. (fishingwithpedro.wordpress.com)