mixed results

I have been up to a lot these last 2 weeks with a trip to Hazelwood pondage starting things off last weekend, I headed down on the Friday and fished for on hour in the evening trying for a barra and then for about 3 and 1/2 hours Saturday morning. The only fish I caught were some chiclids but it was a good chance to get the lay of things. I went home from Hazelwood via Blue Rock dam and spent an hour casting lures for a reddie or bass but had no luck there also. This weekend I fished the Campaspe river and caught 26 redfin in an hour and a half, though most were small they made up for the lack of size with the aggressive strikes. From there I went to Portland to get my kids from their grandparents house and have a Christmas lunch with them, but also to sneak in about 8 hours of fishing off the harbor breakwall. I caught roughly 40 fish for the day with 3 pinky snapper several nice leatherjacket and lots of wrasse comprising the bulk of them. I was also trying to catch some small hogfish that I spotted from the edge that had spectacular markings but wasn't able to hook up. Another fish I was trying to hook was some southern rock cod that I saw swimming among the weed and rocks but also no success as the other wrasse and sweep were too aggressive to get a bait to them. Towards the end of the day I had spotted 2 yellow tail kingfish attacking bait schools in close to the cruise ship berth, so I spent about half an hour sight casting an unweighted bluebait in front of where I thought they would be headed, and finally hooked one. I was completely out gunned on my light gear with only 8lb line and leader but after several minutes I did get the fish close enough to the bank to try and get it in the net only to snap off the hook as I leant in to net it. The fish was about 70cm long and even as I tried to net it the second fish swam with it only inches away. I retied my leader and hook and walked up the breakwater looking for them again and saw some barracouta cruising the edge so I cast to them and was hooked up straight away only to lose it 30 seconds later. The same thing happened several more times with each fish around 80cm until it seemed they had moved on.

 Hazelwood pondage in the morning with steam rising in the cool air.

 Barra lollies or chiclids.

 Blue rock dam

 a colorful leatherjacket from portland

 perfect weather and clear water made it easy to see what to target.

Family fishing

My kids wanted to go out fishing today so I took them to Newport at the warmies where I know they can get small fish consistently and have some fun. We spent an hour and a half out and we got six small salmon/tommy rough not sure exactly which and three chamelion goby as well as the girls netted some shrimp. Before we left the buckets got emptied back into the channel so we can catch them all again next time.

 the girls waiting for a nibble

 a few little fish meant a pair of happy girls.

more luck

I made the best of the fine weather this morning and headed to Kyneton again and started fishing around 7am. I had a slow start but once the sun hit the water they were practically jumping onto the lure, with 10 small reddies around 15-20cm caught fairly quickly. The bite slowed again for a while but I persisted and managed a final fish of 33cm to finish out the morning. Next week I will try my luck at Hazelwood land based for a few Barra and today I grabbed a few more big lures to use while I'm there. They are a big profiled deep diver so I can also use them to target cod when I head to the Goulburn river.

 the best fish of the day

 about 9am the weather was perfect

a few new aditions at the top and bottom

extra large swim bait lures for the barra

nice wide and deep profile to be seen from anywhere. dives to 25 foot.

Corio bay flathead

I went down to Limeburners Lagoon boat ramp and went out in my inflatable boat with my dad this morning and we fished for 4 and a half hours through the run out tide. The fishing was a little slow but we caught about 10 flathead between us with 4 making it home for dinner, the biggest went 42cm.
We also landed a leather jacket and a banjo shark. Around 11am we also encountered a pod of dolphins feeding in close to the shore. A fine mornings fishing.

redfin are fired up

I came down with a bit of man flu last week and had a couple of days off work to recover and spent a fair bit of time just browsing the web and watching movies, but I started feeling better late Saturday and decided not to waste the Sunday so I went out for a bit under 2 hours at Kyneton. The redfin bite was almost as good as the week before and  I landed 11 in about 90 minutes as well as dropped at least 6 on the retrieve. I changed up my lure before finishing and used a much bigger lure than I would normally and quickly landed a fish. Several casts later I hooked a very good fish which I managed to get a look at near the surface before he took more line and spat the hooks, and I estimate his length to be at least 35cm from the brief view I had. I also went to 2 BCF stores and stocked up on my favorite lures from the bargain bin as it seems they are on clearance and will no longer be available. On another note I have entered the barra ballot that allows you a place to put a boat on Hazelwood pondage and chase the Barramundi from December 9th. fingers crossed I can get one of the 4 I have requested and can head down with the inflatable or the yak.

The lure at the top left is what I changed to later in the day, a Molix hard body, and the bright lure at the bottom right was what caught the rest, a Savage gear 38mm suspending deep diver.

Metcalf

After the success on Saturday I thought I would go up to Metcalf for a try where I caught a couple of good redfin earlier this year. I went with my dad and we spent about 2 hours casting lures in several pools of the Coliban river, managing only 2 fish around 25cm each. Although we did see several small trout schooled up near the surface and the first redfin caught brang in a school of around 25 fish with him that were trying to take the lure from his mouth we did not manage any more takes for the session. Regardless what we caught it looks like a promising spot for future trips.

Redfin, redfin and more redfin.

I got up early this morning and drove an hour or so to Kyneton to go fishing on the Campaspe river and got a line in the water a tad before 7am. the first fish was taken on a scrub worm within a few minutes and they kept coming after that. I kept re-baiting the sleeper rod even though I wasn't paying it much attention and it accounted for 3 of the total caught but the lures were in a place of their own today. I had started with squidgeys and fished several different types of curl and paddle tail patterns and a couple of yabby shapes as well landing 5 or 6 fish but losing most of the tackle to submerged timber and rocks. I then switched to hard body divers as the sun hit the water and started dragging in fish after fish. I walked around the pool and fished an area not usually fished by anyone and started catching almost a fish a cast for twenty minutes. The times I didn't land a fish I was hooked up and dropped one at some point through the retrieve. Probably the best half hour of fishing in a few years that I have seen. I ended up taking home 8 redfin and released 13 with most of the one I let go around 15cm. I took home 1 fish around 35cm 2 around 30cm and 1 just over 25cm and another 4 a little over 20cm. The water temp had jumped probably 6 or 7 degrees since I last fished and the fish were all fat and agressive with some fish following the lures all the way to my feet attacking repeatedly.

 

Starting to get bigger.

One of the better ones.

Perfect morning.

Caught around 15 this size.

Kyneton

On the first weekend of November I took the kayak out on Eppalock and trolled some deep diving hardbody lures for a while and tried bobbing a yabby around standing timber, I spent a total of 2 and a half hours on the water but had no luck. the following day I went to Kyneton and fished the Campaspe river with my father and we caught 6 redfin between us with the biggest around 25cm. I went to Kyneton again later In the week and caught another 3 redfin with the biggest measuring 35cm. later on in the week I hurt my wrist again at work so it will slow me down a bit from going fishing for a while.

Wye river

I went camping with my family in Wye river this week and tried a bit of surf fishing and rock fishing while I was there. I didn't have to much luck with the salt water catching only a single small salmon and a single wrasse on the first day there. I did persist several more times when the weather allowed spending over 8 hours trying for another fish but there was very little action. I also fished the small estuary in the mouth of the river, and kayaked the area several times with my kids. The first time through on the kayak I spotted several bream so I targeted them for a few hours as well. I fished unweighted worms hard against structure and under overhangs on the opposite side of the river and caught two bream and to my surprise a nicely conditioned brown trout from the same spot just 100m from the ocean.

 small salmon

 nice wrasse

fluffy visitor

couple of bream

 brown trout and the river section it was caught

long weekend

Yesterday I made the most of the public holiday and headed down towards Geelong and over to Wurdi Boluc reservoir for a couple of hours of bait and lure fishing.I ran into Micheal and Brad from last cast fishing tours on my way out and they had caught a couple of redfin in the 4 hours they had fished and told me it would be slow. I tried yabby both on the bottom and under a float and some garden worms on a small hook under a float. I also cast some squidgy wriglers and a savage hardbody for a while but the water was dirty and there was not much action. Occasionally a small trout would rise and give me a target to cast to and I did manage one small rainbow but it seemed a little slow. Today I headed over to Hamilton to pick up the kids from their Grandparents and came home the scenic rout via Horsham to see how the river looked. Plenty of standing water around but the river seemed to be handling the flow well within its banks. Once we all got home I cooked up some snags for dinner and threw a few rods in the car and headed to Geelong again but this time ended up at Cunningham pier and fished from 7-9 pm. There were about 5-6 people fishing  and only 4 small Flathead were landed that I knew of and I didn't even get a bite, but you cant catch em if you don't try so it was worth a shot.

 a calm day at wurdi boluc with a slight onshore breeze

 small rainbow trout caught on a worm under float

 all the gates open on the Horsham weir keeping the water level down

 a mild night with little wind at Geelongs Cunningham Pier.

more gear arrived

I had some rods arrive today, I had purchased a bulk deal of 4 Quantum Surge rods 4-8kg 8ft graphite blanks with rod bags and a 7ft rod tube. I also got a Quantum Smoke baitcast reel and a Crucis 7ft 6-8kg baitcaster rod to pair with it. Now I need to make some room in the rod rack. I will probably go wet a line tomorrow since its a public holiday so hopefully i can put one of these rods to the test.

Full dams and rivers.

I went for a tour around this weekend to look at some local lakes and cast a few lures to fill in a morning. I visited Bostock reservoir which has risen from about 40% to overflowing this month and then headed up to Daylesford lake. I spent about an hour casting different lures and sat a yabby under a float but had no interest from the fish. I then stopped at wombat reservoir which is also overflowing at the moment and one again had no interest over the course of an hour. from there I went to Kyneton and checked out the Campaspe river which is now down from last weeks peak and flowing at a fishable rate again. I spent about half an hour casting some lures and had one hook up but dropped the fish at my feet as I got him to the edge, only a smaller redfin under 25cm. Later in the day I ended up in Cranbourne at Tackle World and purchased a Crucis baitcast rod to pair to a Quantum smoke reel I ordered last week. Yesterday I was sent to Kilmore for work and finished up fairly early so I headed on to Seymour and spent a couple of hours bait fishing the Goulburn river but again had no takers. I will post some pics of some rods when the rest of my stuff is delivered.

 bostock overflowing

 lake Daylesford

 wombat dam

Goulburn river at Seymour down a little from last weeks high water.