Damien, Eric and Michael did some bait collecting over the Melbourne cup weekend, the fished along hastings and Tortoise Head and managed a good mixed bag of mackerel, whiting, salmon, squid and trevally.
The winning snapper in the Tee Tree completion came from this bay again. A whopping 9.88kg caught by Leigh Johnston. 883 snapper were caught in Westerport Bay during the comp.
Nigel and Tawya caught a nice 4 foot gummy and a 3kg snapper off Rhyll last night on pillies and squid
The northern section of Westernport Bay is currently producing a run of large Squid, with some being 3kg or so. Squid freak Paul managed to clean up on them along Quail Bank, with plenty up around 2kg.
Customer Matt has also been fishing the same stretch around Quail and Tyabb Banks and has had Squid up to 3.2kg in weight. Size 2.5 Haramitsu in AK did the damage.
Customer Greg has also been catching these massive Squid, with his largest weighing 2.7kg, caught in 4m of water just outside the Warneet channel entrance.
Good customer Ryan has caught some Squid in his time, and reckons the Squid he is getting out from Hastings are some of the best he's seen. Size 3 Haramitsus are one of his favourites and they aren't letting him down.
The Gummies have been pretty good in Westernport lately; with quite a few anglers targeting the larger models that frequent the entrance channels. Most of these fish are over 12-13kg and are breeding females and should be released promptly. Staff member Harley caught Gummies to about 9kg, along with large Sevengill Sharks and Pinkies along the channel edge from Vetnor.
Customer Jacob caught a few smaller Gummies around Newhaven on Wednesday afternoon, with all of them taking Trevally fillets as bait.
Around Stony Point, customer Marek and his son caught fish to 7kg fishing with their new Shimano Saragosa reels. The Gummies came from a channel ledge in around 10m of water.
Customer Casey and mate Tyson made the most of the weather and went out from Corinella to try for a Gummy or Elephant fish. While the Gummies they caught were only small, the Elephant fish made up for this, being quite prolific. Fresh Squid and Bluebait worked on both.
Customer Warren has been doing well on the King George Whiting, with heaps of school fish 32-39cm hanging around the Warneet area. He has been fishing popular spots such as Quail Bank and Brown's Reserve. He says to make the most of these fish, you must move around from school to school, as the boats that simply 'stay put' aren't getting the same numbers of fish.
Good customer Jacques has been getting his bag of Whiting on most trips, with some large fish up to 46cm, taking tenderised Squid/Pipi cocktails in 8m along the southern section of the Middle Spit.
Regular customer Bill has been fishing the spit as well, with similar sized fish roaming about, with fish 40-44cm not uncommon. Whiting snatchers tipped with fresh Squid and fishing late in the run-out tide are his tips.
Regular Customer Andrew also tried straight out from Hastings, around Sandstone Island and got his bag pretty quickly also. Aussie Pippis did the job, along with 2 frozen Whiting berley blocks.
T-Bob Pete had a Whiting session around the spit and Tankerton, to catch a total of 57 Whiting, with 15 of them 42cm or bigger. He also noticed some nice sized Squid following the hooked Whiting in at times, so he worked a few Yamashita jigs around the berley trail for a while and ended up catching some good quality Squid.
Whiting are in good numbers and excellent size in both bays. The Newhaven area has good numbers of whiting around the 43cm size with most taken on squid and pippies. Hayden reported using frozen whiting berley which kept the fish around without attracting ‘rubbish fish’.
Team member George tried his luck off Mornington and Mt Martha, landing whiting up to 38cm on pipi/squid ‘cocktails’, and using prawn based berley pellets to keep the fish in the area. Mornington Pier over Christmas also proved successful for Andre, who reported landing whiting up to 37cm and Salmon to 42cm. The whiting have been best on mussel and pilchard fillet and the Salmon preferring the whitebait.
Customer John and two friends launched off Hastings at the change of tide and landed 40+ whiting up to 50cm, with the average around the 35cm on squid and pippies. John’s tip – if you have not got onto the fish within 15minutes – move onto a new spot.
Whiting are also in good numbers around Beaumaris Bay in 7 metres of water with reports of fish up to 41cm being taken on pipi/mussel combo.
The Entrance to Gentle Annie Channel is also starting to fire with customer Simon reporting taking whiting up to 40cm on pippies. Also good sized Rock Flathead taken on pippies.