| geelong & corio bay with geoff wilson |
Dated: 20 January, 2009
 | | Shaun Carroll of the TV series “Fishin’ Trip” with his 72 cm flathead from Corio Bay (Photo Tim Carroll). |
Corio Bay
Early Saturday morning, Raymond Carroll, along with sons Shaun and Tim, headed out onto Corio Bay in fairly rough conditions, hopeful of catching a decent Snapper.
No luck there, so they decided to head into the shallows at Point Henry to see if they could catch some whiting, and perhaps a flathead or two, but banjo sharks and undersize pinkies were all that was on offer
That was until Shaun’s light rod wrapped over to the tune of a 72 cm flathead that took a fancy to the squid on his hook.
Land based success
On Saturday, Paul Mayer tried his luck casting and retrieving soft plastics from the beach at the Geelong Grammar School on the afternoon low tide.
Successfully as it turned out, for included in his catch were several flathead, the biggest measuring 56 cm. All were taken on a 4 inch Berkley minnow in the pumpkinseed colouration.
Last Wednesday, David Graham fished from Cunningham pier about 30 metres out from the retaining wall. Like many other anglers on the pier he caught several trevalla up to about 35 cm using raw chicken fillet for bait.
David also mentions taking a drive down to the fishing platforms below Incitec Pivot North Shore where he met a South African gentleman whose rather impressive catch included flathead to 40 cm or so along with several good size whiting and trevalla.
 | | Lachlan Eggleton with the thresher shark he caught off Barwon Heads. |
Offshore
Taking advantage of a break in the weather, and after catching some salmon for bait, Lachlan Eggleton and a companion made a daybreak start off Barwon Heads.
With a live salmon over the side, they didn’t have long to wait for the action to go down in the form of a 55 kg Thresher Shark.
Snapper
Late last Tuesday night, Andrew Phillips, along with Ivan Mitrov and his son Corey 13, headed out off Point Richards where they had to wait until midnight before their first fish, a Snapper of about 3.5 kg, came along.
From then until 3.00 am Wednesday morning, and using pilchards for berley and for bait, they caught six Gummy Shark and two more Snapper, the biggest 5 kg.
Whiting
Fishing the last of the ebb tide along the edge of the West Channel off St Leonards on Sunday afternoon, Jeff Richards and Chris Hately took 38 whiting, some better than the 40 c mark.
Jeff said they could probably have picked up another couple for their bag limit, but the sou-easter was picking up, so rather than persisting in difficult circumstances, they counted their blessings and headed back in.
Jeff also reports that his neighbour, Bill Pilipasides, picked up 13 beautiful whiting in around 4.5 metres of water out toward the Prince George Light, of Tuesday night, all were over 40 cm and all were taken after dark.
 | Les Clark, Frank Santangelo and Danny Santangelo with a sample of the weekend’s kingfish catch at Portland. (Photo Bob McPherson).
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Portland
Bob McPherson reports that the Portland Fishing Competition was bigger than ever on the weekend with over 400 entries.
A lot of fish were caught including 40 Yellowtail Kingfish, the biggest weighed 12.7 kg was taken by local angler Steve Atchison. Really good catches of whiting were also taken along with pinkie Snapper and various species of shark.
Paul asks:
Geoff, I read an article by Jessica Craven in the Geelong Advertiser last Thursday predicting huge king tides (2.5 metres), the biggest for eighteen years. I never saw much difference in the tides; so what’s going on?
Frank asks:
Geoff, I have purchased a 24 kg game fishing outfit for catching sharks. How do I set the drag on the reel?
Frank, place your rod in a secure rod holder on the boat, threading the line through the guides then attaching a set of scales to the end of the line. The pre-set should then be adjusted so that when the drag lever is pushed forward to the extreme full drag position, the scales read 8 kg as the reel begins to yield line. That setting will also set the strike drag correctly.
You may want to use more drag than this as you become more experienced and you are confident in your rigging, but remember, that as the diameter of line on the spool decreases, the drag pressure will increase, so you may have to back it off a bit should a shark or other large fish take a lot of line.
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Geoff Wilson
Fishnet Pro Angler
Email : gwilson@fishnet.com.au
Fishing reports may be sent by e-mail, or mail to Geoff Wilson:
PO Box 384,
Geelong 3220. |
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