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.