The fishing in the south west has been red-hot of late, especially on the shark front offshore. With the added two days off in public holidays last week, it meant that there were more boats hitting the water in search of some flake and other species.
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Saltwater
Wow - has the shark fishing been exceptional or what!
This time of year is the prime-time to be targeting both gummies and school shark due to them coming into spawn on the shallower grounds.
Depth-wise has been a bit of a guess but typically between the 30-50m mark is a great starting point.
Fishing fresh baits is key so if you're wanting to have a fair crack at them then leave the servo bait at home and come in and grab yourself some freshies. When it comes to frozen bait, pilchards and squid have been the standouts recently.
Catching some fresh barracoutta or salmon is a sure way to be successful when targeting these tasty sharks.
All you need to do is fillet the salmon and pin a strip of meat on a circle hook such as the Black Magic KLT8/0. When it comes to coutta, you can use the head as one bait and the two fillets as baits also.
The key with circle hooks is that you don't bunch the hook up with bait as this will actually stop the hook from doing what it's supposed to.
The simplest way to put a bait on for gummies is pinning it through the top of the bait once and letting it swing in the current.
What this will do is allow the shark to properly take the bait and allow the hook point to be exposed and pin the shark in the corner of the jaw.
Amanda Pirotta landed a couple of nice shark on Sunday while fishing with her husband Phil.
Amanda's school shark pulled the scales down to 22.5kg and he gummy wasn't far behind that so they will be eating well for a while yet.
In other reports the barrels seemed to have moved further east with lots of fish being caught out in front of Port Phillip and Western Port bays. One angler who got right on a barrel was Roy Adams fishing out of his Stabicraft.
He launched at Queenscliff along with a heap of others chasing the giants of our ocean. There's been lots of action with whales, dolphins and seals ripping into the same bait balls as the tuna.
Estuaries
The local estuaries have been hit with chocolate-coloured water and have slowed dramatically.
The Hopkins has in some spots three metres of fresh water sitting on top of the salt water. What this does to the fish is they will either sit right in tight on the edge of a salt wedge or right below it where there is a constant stream of oxygen for them.
Throw in the fact that these fish that we have been catching are still spawning and it really is a challenge.
One angler who excelled in tough conditions while fishing the Warrnambool and District Angling Club's second competition of the year was Alex Craig who caught a bag of five bream which weighed in at 3.823kg fishing soft plastics.
Gavin Buchanan put the heavy gear away and had a go at lures which worked out very well for him, landing a 1.429kg bream taking out the heaviest of the day.
Jessica Lane caught the biggest fish for a lady weighing a bream of 732g.
Keen young angler Flynn Collins caught the winning bream in the junior section which was a very respectable 703g bream. The club's next competition is at the Fitzroy River on October 29.
Another club holding a competition is Koroit and District Angling club on Sunday at Yambuk, kicking off at 10am. Anyone interested in joining contact Phil McCosh on 0418 360 685.
Richardson Marine will be holding another in-house boating expo on Saturday, October 15.
The day will kick off at 9am and will run up until 3pm.
See some of the latest offerings from Stabicraft, Quintrex, Seacruiser and Suzuki.
We will have free face painting for kids starting from 10am-12pm. Sam's famous slow cooked meat will be served up free of charge for lunch.
Make a note in the diary as you will be kicking yourself if you miss it.
This weekend's forecast looks OK for those wanting to have another go at the shark offshore with swell staying around two metres.
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