Apollo Bay "Big Catch" 2012

Well, officially there was no “Big Catch Competition” in Apollo Bay this year, but as Dad and I enjoyed it so much over the last couple of years we decided to have our own, this time with the family in tow. The prize was that the loser has to restock the boat tackle box – Hooks, leader, sinkers, swivels, etc. The rules were the same – The total length of each of our bream, whiting, snapper and flathead.

We arrived late Friday night due to a crash on the West Gate Bridge, and had to get ourselves settled into the apartments. I was settled in and ready for bed (Not an easy feat with 4 of us in the same room, including an almost 2 year old and a 3 month old!) and I went to see how Dad was struggling – He had found the movie “Piranha” on TV to psyche himself up! We arranged to meet at the car at 6.45 Saturday morning.

When Saturday morning came around we met at the car and hit the marina to catch a squid for bait. 45 minutes later, and with no squid (A first for me at the Apollo Bay marina – They are usually thick there!) we headed to the servo and picked up some Californian squid and launched at Marengo beach.

I headed out to the left and found some weedbeds whilst Dad stayed near the shore. First cast of the plastic I hooked a barracouta, and second, and third. They all went back. Deciding now was not the time for a flattie I anchored and cast out some squid strips. Straight away I hooked and landed a 25cm pinkie, then another, then another. Unfortunately, despite being a competition fish, they were all undersize! Shortly after I had the characteristic tap-tap-tap of a whiting, and soon had a nice 35cm model on board. The annoying thing was that a massive calamari followed it in and sat under the kayak for a few minutes – I had left my jigs in Dad’s car after the unsuccessful trip to the marina! However, within 15 minutes I had 7 more whiting, all between 35-37cm before the wind picked up and I couldn’t hold anchor anymore (The rope to my brick wasn’t long enough to give me any slack!).

At this stage Dad moseyed over and had not had much luck. Unfortunately for me, his 2 fish (Apart from numerous wrasse) were a 42cm whiting and a 30cm flathead. This meant that despite me having 8 nice whiting in the bag, he was winning the competition 72cm to 37cm! I did manage to hook and land a flathead on a nuc chook 4” jerkshad on the way in, but let it go without measuring it.

That afternoon was spent taking my son fishing to the Barham river. Due to his age, we couldn’t go far and sat just under the main highway bridge. We were there for about 1 and a half hours and we managed 1 15cm bay trout – At least he had fun playing on Pop’s blackberry!

A quick stop at the marina on the way back in and after a few casts of a black yamashita jig I was into a good calamari. Whilst my Dad went to get the camera Ben was very interested in it and patting it etc until it squirted ink. Although it didn’t get him, he didn’t go to close to it again!

We called at a day after that and set Marengo again for this morning’s session. This meant that we wouldn’t be adding a bream to our bag, but hopefully I could manage a flathead and a bigger pinkie. The swell was much greater today, which made launching very hairy, particularly as I launched when a set was coming in and went straight through a few waves that had just broken or were just breaking – I found that the only way to stay on board was to paddle paddle paddle!

Once out there I had a cast of the nuc chook – It was hit immediately and this thing ran and ran, then jumped and spat the hook. Maybe a salmon? Then when we got near the reef I hooked and landed another half dozen couta, with Dad doing the same. I trolled the plastic around a bit and got a really good run, which started heading out to sea. By the time I had landed it – A 50cm couta hooked in the gills, I was out past the seal colony. It was getting shallow (Not to mention, as I found out on the sign later – A marine park!) which meant that the increasing swell was rearing up and nearly breaking. A very hairy situation and I had to paddle directly back to shore to avoid being swamped side-on. Once back into the deeper water I found Dad who had managed another 37cm whiting. I started drifting the sand flats and finally hooked a flathead. I landed it but had no measuring device so put it in the keep net. Then I anchored and managed a 37cm whiting, and Dad managed another couple, to add to 2 leatherjacket he also caught.

By now the swell was up so we headed in, managing to avoid the main breaks on the way back in but still having an interesting experience!

Back at the car we had the final measurement – Dad did not add to his overnight tally of 72cm, but my flathead measured 34cm, which gave me a total of 71cm, making the inaugural winner of the family “Big Catch” competition Dad. I am currently lobbying to get squid and barracouta included for next year’s event!

Here are the totals:

	Trav	Dad
Bream	N/A	N/A
Whiting	37cm	42cm
Flathead	34cm	30cm
Pinkie	25cm (Undersize)	N/A
Total	71cm	72cm

Westernport treble

A belated report, but here goes!

We spent the long weekend at the house in Coronet Bay. Well, we spent saturday afternoon onwards at the house, after the obligatory swimming lesson with the kids saturday morning. As soon as I got to the house at about 2pm we headed back to the northern part of the port and launched with a friend's boat at Warneet. It was myself, Dad and Graham in his very sleek looking boat with all of the mod cons. We tell him that he is the absolute epitome of "All the gear - No idea"!

We headed out into Gentle Annie channel (Not usually fishing there and not having a clue where to go) and proceeded to get some terrible yore and couldn't keep a bait in the same spot. We pulled the pin and headed to near Joe's Island (Found using his very nice HDS5 chartplotter/fishfinder). The tide was quite slow so I chucked out a whiting rod (Hoping for a few famous "channel whiting") and then nailed what I thought was a monster yakka. Dad got inspired by this and chucked down a small bait of his own and pulled in a yakka that would have had no hesitation in eating the one I thought was big - This thing was huge! After about 15 minutes when the tide started running out (Very hard as it was a full moon) we had boated about 10-12 yakkas.

As dusk approached, we headed to the intersection of Bolton and Bourchier channels, which seemed to be the place to go on the runout - Right up against the bank at the bottom of the drop-off. We were hoping for a gummy. What we got was a whole lot of nothing, until just after dark Dad pulled in a monster elephant - Probably close to 5kg and it was released as in addition to always stealing our good baits they are also pretty ordinary on the chew. He then followed this with a banjo (Pictured), then nobody else got another bite for the next hour and a half!


We decided to call it a night and back at the ramp we had to reverse the trailer off the end of the ramp as the tide was so low - Dodgy full moon! Graham's car struggled to get the big fibreglass beast back over the ramp's end but managed it with a run up. At least this was all witnessed by some very amused late-night onlookers on the Warneet Pier!

Sunday dawned and we messed around the house all morning, taking one of my sons to catch a bucket full of bass yabbies at the low tide and headed out off Corinella at about 5pm, and although there were heaps of trailers in the carpark we were able to launch almost straight away. We were much more confident on our "home" ramp in our own boat.

First we stopped right near the end of the Corinella channel and put some bass yabbies over the back in 2m of water, hoping to get some fresh bait. We didn't, but what we got over the next hour and a half were 14 nice whiting (30-35cm), and Dad also managed a nice mullet (Bait) amongst his 10 toadies! As the action was non-stop the spot that we started being the only boat in had 7 more boats around us when we left - Next time we have to not get fish on when people motor past!

Then we headed to the top of Mosquito Channel, eager to explore a spot I thought may hold some jewies - There were 3 boats almost exactly where I wanted to fish so we headed south back down the channel. We sounded up some promising arches so dropped the pick. It turns out these arches were pinkies and we were plagued by pinkies from 25-38cm. We kept 5 and released the rest. I have to admit Dad did get the lion's share of these as I had bigger hooks and baits on, hoping for a bigger snapper or a gummy. Again, Dad managed an elephant which was also released.


Just as the tide was dead low (Usually a quiet time) my rod went off and I landed a nice 1m gummy - Giving me my first "Westernport treble" in a while. (Note: A "Westernport treble" on our boat is catching a whiting/snapper/gummy in the same trip).

We stayed until about 1am, catching more pinkies and not getting any respite as they were voracious at the baits. This proved to be a much more productive session that the previous night!

We're taking the kayaks to Apollo Bay this weekend for "The 50cm whiting challenge" and also hopefully hitting up the Aire river for some big bream, so there should be another report soon!

The big bream

Just a quick report for a quick trip....

Whilst on holidays for the past week I decided that at almost 2 years of age it was time for my son Ben to catch a fish. Rather than take him out in the kayak (This option was vetoed by SWMBO) we decided to first head to the beach at low tide and pump some bass yabbies. Ben loved this (As it turns out, he probably enjoyed this just as much, if not more than the actual fishing!). Then we headed to the Powlett river. Here is Ben "setting up" (Stuffing his face whilst sitting on the esky full of bass yabbies).



Although we stopped next to the bridge, there were a couple of guys fishing under it already (We would have ideally fished the structure) so we went down about 50m and cast out. The result for the first 20 minutes was 2 toadies. Then the other guys moved on so we relocated to under the bridge. The first rod I cast under the bridge fell off the rock as I put it down and I picked it up to find a fish had pulled it off, so Ben swung in to action and with a bit of help landed a massive 15cm bream:


Five minutes after this he was getting a bit restless, so not wanting to dampen his enthusiasm for fishing we headed back to the house. Not the biggest fish ever, but a semi-successful introduction to fishing!

Glenelg River

The big Glenelg trip finally arrived. We left on Thursday night and I picked Dad up near the West Gate at about 5.15 and we were off. A quick stop in Camperdown for some fish and chips and then straight through to the shack, which was situated at Donovans, just inside the South Australian border and 480km from our starting point. There we met up with Paul and Patto who had arrived earlier in the day, and we finally got to bed just after 1am.

On Friday it was up early and on the water at daybreak, launching the kayaks at the boat ramp near the bridge. We didn’t have a clue where to go, but headed towards the mouth and fished a bit between the 8 knot marker poles and back towards the ramp in the area known as “The Poles”. Dad and I both flicked lures including squidgy fish, strike pro cyber vibes and ecogear VX50’s. During the morning we probably fished for about 5 hours and then returned in the afternoon to fish until dusk for another 3-4 hours and did not have a touch. It turns out the mulloway must have been smarter than us. Paul and Patto did slightly better than us, although they were plagued by undersize bream and didn’t manage a keeper fishing pippies and prawn baits.

On Saturday morning the alarm again went off at 5.30 and by 5.31 Dad and I were both back asleep. We decided on a change of tactics and our commitment to casting fruitlessly was wavering – Not the best for guys hoping to catch a mulloway! We got up about 8am and pottered around the shack for a bit whilst Patto was casting a line off the top deck (The shack was one that is on the water with a 2 storey deck and boat mooring on the lower one). He was having bite after bite and not hooking up at all as the bream were all in the 10-15cm range. He finally got tired with the peanut gallery (AKA Me) giving him advice and handed me the rod. I cast out, had a bite within 15 seconds (As was the norm) and struck hard, reeling in a 15cm bream. He claimed it didn’t count as it turns out I had jagged the poor fish but I’m claiming it as a victory. The very next cast Patto did manage another small bream, so all parties were happy. Here is a pic of myself and Patto with my bream - Note to self: Hook one in the mouth next time!

Dad and I headed to Nelson to the boat hire place and had a chat to the guy there who was the most helpful tackle store owner/employee I think I’ve ever dealt with. He gave us heaps of advice and said that the EP fishing was the best it’s ever been, and we were about a week late for the jewies (Isn’t it always the way? I think the rain during the week had something to do with it). He gave us some great advice on jighead selection (I got 1/32oz and he told us to get the one with the #2 hook instead of the #4 as the shank was longer allowing a better hook up rate but not affecting the motion of the plastic) and we also walked out of there with some strike pro micro vibes, a rebel fast track jointed minnow and some 3” banana prawn “fry” gulps.

The afternoon challenge was to fish artificials from the shack and get the biggest bream, a herculean task considering we were surrounded by tiddlers. I started with a micro vibe and so did Dad, and he had a small hit almost immediately. After a fruitless while, I changed to a turtleback worm which got a few small hits. I then cast under the neighbours deck and was on straight away. Embarrassingly the fish took off straight around a pylon and broke me off. Oops. I went inside to re-rig and got mildly distracted by Tiger Woods’ run up the leaderboard.

We headed out in the kayaks again Saturday afternoon at about 4pm, launching from near the bridge at Nelson but on the opposite side of the river. We paddled about 150m to a moored yacht and Dad said “You fish on the other side, I’ll fish this side”. I pulled out my new combo with the stradic ci4 1000FML and the shimano jewel rod. I was a bit skeptical as I had set it up with 4lb power pro braid and 4lb leader, particularly as I had heard of some 50cm+ EPs but was excited nonetheless. I had a few casts then aimed for a snag, and the turtleback worm sunk and stuck on an underwater snag…. It was back over to Dad who had the jigheads. I re-rigged and was heading back to my promising looking snag when I noticed a school of fish on the sounder in about 2m of water. I paddled off them and cast back, and on the 5^th or 6^th lift I was on – And managed to land a healthy EP of about 32cm. Next cast I lost another jig (If you’re keeping score that’s Fish: 2, Trav: 1). I paddled over to the boat hire place (How convenient it’s on the water!) to get some more jigheads but when I arrived it was closed as it was now just after 5, so I made do with some 1/24^th oz jigheads and returned to Dad to see him hooked up to an EP. He informed me that he had landed 4 while I was away and we got straight back into them. Until dusk we probably landed 20, most of them on the 3” fry in banana prawn that was recommended by the boat shop guy.

Sunday morning we had our last session, heading towards the snags again. 4^th or 5^th cast I was on (Again the banana prawn 3” fry) and it was a good one. I was a bit worried as it kept running towards the snags and I couldn’t really stop it with the 4lb leader but eventually it was guided away and into the net – A 38cm EP. A couple of casts later and I was on again, and this felt even bigger. The fight lasted about 20 seconds, most of which involved the stradic’s drag screaming and me frantically trying to guide this fish away from the snags. Turns out that I wasn’t able to stop it as I felt the leader rub against something then part. I changed to a 10lb leader then, but didn’t manage another hit. Dad was still fishless aswell. We went around the corner and I started trying a galaxia minnow in the pink/silver colour and first cast was on! It was a monster 15cm mullet – A first for me on a lure and I started rigging up a bigger rod to drop it over the side as a livey in the hope of a mulloway. I was almost rigged up with the mullet swimming happily in my footwell and went to reach him and noticed his head was out a scupper hole so I tried to grab him by the tail and actually assisted his escape. This prompted me to put the big rod away and keep casting with the lures. We headed up to the bridge, past the bridge and back down to the ramp casting at all of the boat moorings, however did not have another hit for the morning. We then left as we had to pack up and head back to Melbourne. A slow morning with only the 1 EP, a mullet and a bust off and Dad not troubling the scorers. Patto and Paul again had managed some small bream on prawns and pippies. Here is a pic of the boys with my 38cm EP, which was the "fish of the weekend" (And one of the only ones we kept) and they were going to have it for fish and chips last night:

Some lessons taken from the weekend:

• You would need a lot of time to explore the river – We did all of our fishing within 1km either side of the ramp and the river is something like 75km long.
• The lighter jigheads work brilliantly, and get snagged less!
• The commitment to try to catch a mulloway is still huge, so we should endeavour to keep trying and set aside days on end to this quest.
• Down in the country places, people are so much nicer than in the city! Everyone helps you, says G’day and there is no ramp rage.
• If you ever want up to date fishing advice or reports, call the guy at the boat hire place as he said he’s always willing to help.