Apollo Bay Big Catch Comp 2011

Let me start this by saying that the weather this year was 1,000% better than last year when we endured fierce winds and horizontal rain, with the Aire river being our only option to fish!

On friday night we picked up Patto and headed to Apollo Bay, getting to register just after 9 (I think it closed at 10!) and settling in for the night. Once again a everyone received a great "showbag" with a nice rapala lure, Freshwater Fishing magazine and a fishvic cap, amongst other goodies.

Saturday morning saw me setting the smoke detector off at about 5.15 whilst trying to manage to cook bacon, eggs, hash browns and toast for Dad, Patto and myself. Not sure that we were the most popular people amongst the neighbours (Particularly when I repeated the feat Sunday morning when toast got stuck in the toaster), but we ended up at the marina about 6.45 and launched. Dad headed straight through the headland, Patto to the rocks to fish and I stayed in the marina, managing one calamari. I followed the path Dad had taken and saw him right out on the horizon. Our targets here were whiting, flathead and pinkies (Hence me catching the squid). I started flicking a 3" nuc chook minnow around and managed a giant pike most casts - But they weren't our target species. Dad came back in, white as a ghost as he had tried to anchor on the reef right out. His anchor had immediately gotten stuck, he was turned around, nearly flipped and had to cut the whole thing off. After bagging him and having a good laugh I started drifting with a paternoster and some squid (Now in strip form) for anything I could get that wasn't a pike! The drift was fast, and I couldn't stay on the sandy patches long anough (Resulting in many bluethroat wrasse and rock cod of various varieties) so I went to the edge of the reef and anchored on the sand. Turns out I had misjudged the speed of the drift, the anchor dragged and a couple of minutes later I was also cutting off my anchor, much to Dad's amusement.

Shortly after we headed back to the marina to find Patto fishless and us also without a keeper so we went to the local cafe to recharge and came up with a plan to hit the Aire river. When we arrived I threw around a few vibes for about an hour for nothing except weed most casts, and Dad had a couple of just size bream in the bag on prawns. I changed to bait, which almost immediately resulted in a 36cm bream (Which turned out to be the "Big Bream" for the kayak section, pictures to come...). Dad also got one about 34cm, so we headed back to the house. Once again, we returned to unfotrunately find Patto fishless.

We drove back to the marina about 7.30 armed with squid jigs and managed 3 for the next morning, where (After the second smoke alarm incident of the trip) we hit Marengo. It started slow (more wrasse and numerous just-undersize pinkies) then I landed a 37cm whiting. With about an hour until weigh-in we needed flathead and pinkies still, so I threw on the trusty nuc chook minnow and straight away got a 33cm model. Dad got in on the act too and soon we had about half a dozen flatties in the bag. We came back to the beach to find Patto....... wait for it....... fishless.

At the weight in we were pretty happy, Dad weighed in a nice bream and flathead, and I weighed in the following:

1. 37cm whiting
2. 36cm bream
3. 33cm flathead

For a total of 106cm. Disappointing with the pinkies, as I landed about 6, however they were all hovering around the 24-25cm mark.

After cleaning up the house we came back to the presentation. Nobody had the grand slam in the kayaks however someone pipped me with a total length of 117cm, which was a great effort as they had 2 of the top fish awards. My bream was named biggest for the kayakers, so I got a fishing rod and bag of goodies including another hat, a couple of DVDs and some scissors. I gave the rod to Patto so he could update his circa WW1 gear.

A great weekend all in all, and hopefully we can get back there again before next year!

Epic Paddle

Today I went to Coronet Bay to pick up some rods for the weekend, as I will be hitting some freshwater over the weekend. My brother was there so we decided to have a fish. I informed him about the great results at Reef Island of late so we agreed to head there. As I was about to put my kayak on the roof he asked "What are you doing?". I told him the Soldiers Rd launch was as close to the spot as you could get, but he wanted to paddle there. As it turns out, we launched at Coronet Bay beach and pushed into a stiff SE wind with a fair swell for what seemed like forever, probably close to 45 minutes though. This was only a 3km trip!

When we finally got to a spot that looked like it could hold a few whiting we each dropped our anchors. Immediately we were into some bites, but only from small fish. My brother landed a small pinky and I managed 2 size whiting (30cm) along with heaps of undersize whiting and flathead. As it seemed like a nursery a move was in order. In the next spot he started getting a few bites and picked up a 30cm whiting, and I couldn't even manage a bite.

We moved again and my brother was immediately into a few grass whiting. I was about 50m away and in a much sandier area, which accounted for another 6 quick KGW in amongst many smaller fish. My brother managed 1 in amongst the grassies. Unfortunately that was when the bass yabbies ran out! Tried fillets (Of a yakka I caught with my final bait) for a while with no success, but we finished with 10 whiting. The wind had dropped and the paddle back was much more pleasant, although still much further than had we launched at Soldiers Rd!

Here is my first entry for the 2011 vyak pairs comp (@36cm):


Today where were many undersize fish around (2 undersize whiting to every size one), so let's hope that in the future we can get onto some bigger ones!

Reef Island - The return

After cleaning up at Reef Island late last week Dad and I decided that another trip was in order. As Dad had his knee replaced less than a month ago it is still boat fishing for us, however this didn't seem to stop him hitting Coronet Bay and pumping about 60 bass yabbies yesterday afternoon at low tide before I arrived!
I got to the house about 8pm last night, set up a couple of rods, got some other assorted gear ready and hit the hay. We awoke at 5am and had breakfast, packed the boat and were off. Corinella ramp was definitely not what you would expect when we arrived. Although it's the New Year's Day holiday there were about 5 trailers in the carpark (And this was at 6am, by no means early for that part of the world). We launched without incident and headed to our spot near Reef Island (See previous post).
First baits in the water were bass yabbies on a twin hook paternoster and they got smashed almost immediately. This happened for quite a while and after about half an hour I had 11 whiting... Dad had managed 2. Even managed a couple of double hook-ups. Dad then started to fire by pulling in a couple of gars and then some great whiting. Already thinking big catches we started letting most of the smaller ones (Under 32cm) go. One of my rods got tangled so I was rerigging when Dad pulled in a good whiting. It was followed by what we thought initially was just weed but it turned out to be a big calamari. Forgetting my #6 long shank hook I tied a number 3 yamashita (Green with a white belly and red feathers - Not sure what it's called?) on and dropped it down to the squid, who was now just cruising under my side of the boat. It hit the jig immediately and after a short battle I had a 1.5kg calamari (An absolute monster compared to my usual Mornington squid) in the boat. We then got back into the whiting and the odd gar, brought on by the burley we were deploying.
One move for the day saw us catch our bag limit of 32-42cm whiting, 7 gars and the calamari. I also caught 2 nice size leatherjackets which were released. By far the best bait were the bass yabbies, and they also seemed to account for the bigger whiting and many more bites. Pipi was pretty good, but with the price difference (Free Vs $20 per kilo!) I'm definitely using nippers from now on!
Back at the ramp it was pretty busy with many more people having launched, although oddly not one of the 6-8 boats we saw come in had any fish. I think people have decided that as it may be their only chance to fish for the year they want a big one so are sitting in the channels hoping for the best, but that definitely isn't where the majority of the fish are at the moment!
Again I forgot my camera, but Dad remembered his. After some big whiting and the calamari I asked him to take a few shots and he went to turn it on..... And had left the battery in the charger at home. More pics next time!

Fishing hotspot - Reef Island

Another boat trip the other day, but one where we only took whiting rods and decided to have a bit of an explore. Dad and I headed first to Coronet Bay, but couldn't find many whiting at all, I think we managed 3. After that we headed to Reef Island, about 4-5km south of Coronet Bay.
After motoring around the island we finally stopped right near the edge in about 1.5m of water. We cast back towards the edge of the weed and as the boat yawed around it moved our baits, which I think also helped. We caught 25 whiting between us in the end, nothing massive but all 30-36cm which are great eating. We only left as the boat was in about 60cm of water, but the fish were definitely still firing so I believe it would be a great area for kayaks!


In the image above, the "Launch here" section indicates the end of Soldiers Road. There were a few people launching car-topper tinnies there and I believe they would have also done well on the whiting. We have launched there before but never fished the area we did - We have always headed straight out towards Reef Island. Not only is this spot closer to the launch area, but much more productive!

A royal engagement - Hastings style

Forget Kate and Prince William – Yesterday the royals were well and truly at Hastings! Although this is another non-yak report, I’ll definitely have a few over the next couple of weeks!

I got a call from Les over the weekend – He wanted to go fishing yesterday but had nobody to go with, so my arm was twisted into going (Ok, no twisting was necessary). We launched at Stony Pt just after 5am with what seemed most of Melbourne, probably due to it being the first decent day in weeks. Credit to the facilities, the line moved swiftly and the 3 ramps worked well.

I had gotten some great GPS marks for the west side of the port, and although most of the boats headed right to hit up Rhyll (Silverleaves and Observation Pt are still the place to be for the reds), we headed right towards Hastings. Les has a circa 1920 depth sounder on his boat that only displays the bottom and anything else shows up as a little pixelated fish symbol, so while it was still dark we searched for some broken bottom, and stopped in about 13m of water over what looked to be a reef. Lots of casts, lots of bites, not lots of fish. The flatties were ravenous but too small for our 5/0 hooks, although I did manage a 35cm one that got filleted and sent back as bait.

As it got light I borrowed Les’ portable handheld GPS and finally figured how to key in a mark, and we went to a spot just off Hastings in about 16m of water which felt very fishy as we were casting. Les quickly produced 2 pinkies (About 30cm each) and then his rod buckled over again – A 42cm whiting on a 5/0 with pilchard on it! I pulled in a 30cm pinkie, released it and quickly dropped down my 4lb outfit with a sinker that was too big for it, a paternoster rig and some squid strips on #6 long shank hooks. Over the next 30 minutes I pulled in 9 whiting between 34cm-44cm, most being in the bigger size bracket. Les then got on the board with his second whiting, slightly smaller than his first. I then hooked something I couldn’t budge from the bottom and suddenly felt like it was free. After about 5 minutes I pulled in a 44cm trevally on the top hook, with no sinker or bottom hook. I had had a double hook up on them and the bottom one had broken off, although even the one was almost too much for my poor little outfit!

As the tide slackened so did the fish and I finally had a bite on a bigger rod with a cutlet of yakka (I had caught a couple amongst the whiting) on it. A fairly fast run but not many head shakes so I called it for a skate. As it turned to run again it was gone. I pulled in the now slack line and it had bitten me off – Must have been a seven gill shark I assume.

We left the spot and tried a few shallow marks in 3-5m of water along middle spit then near Tankerton but I could only manage one salmon.

On the way back to the ramp my salmon became bait cutlets and we stopped on the edge of the channel in 16m of water. Not much at all, except I pulled up another whiting, this time about 34cm. As we were about to pull up stumps and head in my rod with the salmon on it bounced around in characteristic gummy shark fashion. It slowly loaded up and I struck... To nothing! I couldn’t believe I had missed it! This was enough and we headed in, where back at the ramp most boaties had done well on the snapper but no-one else seemed to have any of the royals, and one of them even said he was chasing whiting when he got the snapper and asked if I wanted to swap fish! As I have a few snapper left in the freezer I declined and we came home with 1 trevally, 2 pinkies and 12 King George whiting. A nice session on the water in absolutely flat conditions and not a breath of wind. That is how it should always be!

When I got home I decided that crumbed whiting, chips and salad should be on the menu for dinner so here is my signature dish for the next season of Masterchef:

The calm before the storm

As I'm staying at the house in Coronet Bay this week, I am trying to make the most of the snapper season. Unfortunately the weather was predicted to turn last night. Earlier in the week I had put the call out to some friends and Brad responded, bringing his father in law along with him. Although the weather was meant to turn, they were both very keen to get out so we headed to a desolate Corinella ramp about 6.45. We motored around in front of Coronet Bay and it was a very different story to last time - Only 2 boats in sight, and nobody within 1km. Also, dead calm water with no wind! I sounded around a bit and almost immediately marked up some fish.

I dropped the anchor and threw out the burley pot. As we threw our baits out I informed the guys that it may be a wait as last time the reds didn't come on until dusk. As I finished saying this all 3 rods took off simultaneously, making a liar of me! Rod and myself landed ours, with Brad missing the strike. 2 good fish, about 2.5-3kg.

In 15 minutes we had bagged out, with our pilchards getting smashed basically as soon as they hit the water. It was absolutely amazing fishing. By this time we had to release any fish over 40cm (Which most were - About 55-60cm the norm). My Dad called 6 times for a report and I was on a fish every time. The boys were still having fun and I grabbed my bream rod (It had come along to try and catch some salmon for bait!) and threw an unweighted half pilchard on a 3/0 gamakatsu. Within 30 seconds the 4lb line was screaming off my reel, and 5 minutes later the following red came along:


This continued for some time and was great fun. Rod remarked that he never caught fish this big, let alone released them! We kept quite a few for a feed for their families, but in order to stay within limits we threw many more back than we kept. I estimate we caught 45 reds in an hour and a half. Then the wind hit hard and some dark clouds were coming in, so we headed back to the ramp to clean the fish and get back to the house.


It was the most amazing snapper fishing I have ever had - It wasn't just a school every 30 minutes or so; it was non-stop! The whooping and hollering from Brad and Rod and the screaming of the reels did attract a couple of other boats, but it was an almost empty 'port and excellent conditions. A great evening on the water.

Think Pink

We finally bit the bullet and in an attempt to make us better at reading the conditions of Westernport, and get a better understanding of how to fish it we booked a charter on Think Big. It was to be a mulloway charter (In the middle of snapper season!), leaving Rhyll at a very early 4am yesterday.
A few days out seabreeze had winds at 20-30 knots so a bit of a worry, but conditions were great and we launched without incident. Casey was our skipper, and Dad, myself and my uncle were all on board. We went to a spot seemingly in the middle of nowhere but there was some reef on the bottom on the sounder and Casey said that it was the best jewie spot in Westernport - But before this he made sure that we had all GPS enabled devices turned off!
Nothing for the first hour and a half until the last hour or so of the run in then we each caught a banjo shark and Dad landed this massive wobbegong:


Casey got a call from a mate in another boat who was catching heaps of snapper and we had the option of going to fish for them. Although the fish were coming on the bite the lure of the reds was a little too much and we headed off, armed with some knowledge of how to find jewie spots.

A short time later we arrived at a spot near the Corals and almost immediately got into the reds, although nothing massive with fish up to about 3kg, most being 1.5kg-2.5kg. This even included a triple hook-up at one stage.

At 10am we had to head in, as a bleary eyed Casey had to take out another charted that evening and didn't look like he had slept much at all. Ah to be a guide in snapper season!

It was great catching the reds, so it probably would have been easier (And a few hundred bucks cheaper!) to just book a snapper charter, however we did learn some great techniques for rigging, spot selection and bait presentation.