October Reds

Dad and I finally managed to align the schedules and leave passes and hit Corinella in the boat yesterday afternoon. After dispensing with the obligatory family commitments like swimming, I got to Coronet Bay and we packed the boat and headed out of a packed Corinella ramp at about 2.30. We headed to French Island and went north about 500m before sounding up some promising looking arches. We dropped the pick and sent out an array of nice baits - Calamari, garfish (Both caught a few weeks prior) and some pilchards.

About 2km north of us (Spit Point area) there was an armada of boats - It was almost Port Phillip Bay like in the how tightly they were all packed together so obviously someone had been catching some fish! As it turns out nobody for the entire trip anchored anywhere near us, although we were in the middle of the highway of boats heading up and back to the ramp. We didn't have to wait long after out baits were in for Dad to hook up - A nice 52cm red which was just shy of his PB of 54cm. Shortly after I was on and a 53cm red came aboard. Although we had put in all this effort to catch bait the only things that were getting a look in was the humble old pilchard! Dad hooked up again to a good fish, which came in at 62cm after an initial massive run then just letting itself be led to the boat, nevertheless it became his new PB.


Dad then got another mid-fifties red and it was 3 fish to 1 - A very sad state of affairs! I missed a good run then had a slower bite, which resulted in a monster port jackson shark, one of two that I managed for the afternoon.


After about an hour of nothing I went to pull in my rod and found a healthy 44cm red attached to the end of it. Only down 2-3 I was mounting a comeback of sorts, however about 10 minutes later Dad hooked up and as I was netting his 45cm red my rod went off. I managed to land another mid fifties and so Dad had to throw his back as we now had 6 over 40cm. Dad managed 2 more reds in the mid fifties, and in all his years has never done well anough on them to have to release these great size fish and was almost in tears as he released another 55cm red.

We went back in on dusk and didn't bother to stay to fish the start of the runout tide as we were ready for tea. Back at the ramp people had had mixed success - Some had none, some had a few. The guy next to us on the cleaning table had managed 3 nice fish and mentioned that a couple of blokes had brought in 15 between the two of them earlier in the day and gotten their boat confiscated, so it's really good to see the laws being enforced and also made Dad far happier that he had in fact released all of the others!

Dad has gone back out this morning (I'm back on home duties) and managed 2 so far, with the best 64cm which again is his new PB!