getting back into things

Over the last 6 months I have done very little fishing due to the surgery on my arm but the few times I managed to get near water with a rod I did ok, with several family outings resulting in me and the kids landing some fish. Last week however on Melbourne cup day I decided it was time to have a good crack at getting a few. I headed to Metcalf cascades and hiked about 2.5km upstream casting at the likely spots in each pool using a lightly weighted squidgy. I caught a small redfin early and a 60cm carp on the squidgy about 1.5km in to my walk, the first carp I have caught on a lure and on 6lb line no less, I estimated to weigh around 2.5kg. I lost the squidgy to a snag shortly after and retied a hardbody lure in bright colours and near the end of my walk found a small rocky pool where I caught a 45cm redfin, the biggest I've ever landed. The fish was followed closely by a similar sized fish when I first got a look at it, but further casts into the area did not produce a result. On the return journey I tried all the obvious spots again with the hardbody this time but only hooked one more small redfin. I stopped for a break near a small cut off water hole at a bend and drowned a few worms which were promptly devoured by an unseen foe which eluded capture before continuing my way back to the car. about 5 hours out fishing and walking and 5km travelled along the river.

May update

Its been a while since I posted an update and I have had several outings. I was in Portland for a night and spent a few hours in the evening and morning fishing the break wall with 6 barracouta, 4 flathead and a couple of wrasse caught. I fished from the kayak and paddled out along the curlewis bank on the suggestion of a tackle store customer but returned after 3 hours without a bight. I then tried the area beside Rippleside jetty where some recent dredging has created some good ledges and drop offs to 7m beside area that rises steeply to 3m. Covering this area on the drift landed me 10 flathead for the evening with 2 coming home for the pan. And finally I headed to Kyneton yesterday and caught about 12 or so redfin with most around the 25cm mark and a couple round 30cm with half the fish caught on hardbody lures and the others on squidgy plastics.

 some fish caught at portland

 view from the kayak by rippleside pier

 sounder logs from curlewis and rippleside

Painkilac creek

I headed back to Kyneton Friday for an hour and caught 5 small redfin but the bight from last week was not happening, possibly because daylight savings has finished and I started fishing an hour later in the day and missed it. On Sunday I drove to Aireys Inlet and fished the Painkilac creek from the kayak, spending 4 1/2 hours on the water. I paddled the whole accessible creek section from Bambra rd upstream to the bush and fished around some nice snags. The top section was well snagged but I got no bites so may have been totally fresh but half a kilometre down there was some good snags and plenty of bream biting where the water was still brackish. Seemed to be a lot of small bream around but I did manage a few around 25cm and one nearer to 40cm with about 10 fish caught in total for the day. The bite really seemed to get good as the rain fell hard which is why the photo is blurry as the rain was pelting down when I got the big one.

cooler weather

Yesterday I headed to Kyneton for a redfin session and it seems the cool weather this week has had a positive effect on the fishing with the smaller models shutting down completely and the larger fish going into attack mode to fatten up for the winter. I spent just on an hour and a half fishing the river and caught about 14 fish with another 6 or so nice fish lost near the bank. The first fish was hooked on a squidgy but the water was a little dirty and I thought some brighter lures might do better so I tried a small darting minnow I have had for a while and never had success with, and boy it worked. I worked several sections of the pool for 45 minutes and caught maybe 10 fish on it mostly near the edge as the lure was only shallow running to 3 foot, most fish were over 30cm. When the bite slowed I tried some deeper running models and changed to a brighter colour and managed a few more fish but not as consistently.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

hazelwood pondage again

I started this week in Morwell with my family staying at Hazelwood pondage in the camper with the intention of trying again for a barra. The Sunday night when I got there I was not too concerned with fishing as we had just drove a fair way and spent a while setting up so I had a few casts and called it a night . In the morning it was still and cool so I grabbed the yak and spent a couple of hours fishing along the bottom wall casting vibes and diving minnow lures but no luck, I did however get some promising bounces back on the sounder showing some great arches in a couple of meters of water. Later that arvo after I spent some time kayaking with the kids and watching them swim, we spent an hour catching cichlids then had some lunch. After midday the wind started to blow and the weather forecast changed to damaging wind and storms so we hurriedly packed up the camper and headed home a day early without my barra yet again. The powerplant was shut down this week so not long left to try again.

 sunrise through the steam at the pondage

 drifting along the wall in the kayak this looked like a barra chasing some small fish

limeburners boatramp

Last Friday I went over to Geelong and ended up at limeburners point as the wind was a bit to strong onshore from the other side of Corio bay. Using bluebait I was getting heaps of bites and getting baited quickly but not hooking any fish. I repeatedly changed hooks to smaller sizes until I finally hooked what was out there. After several dropped fish I finally landed a good size King George Whiting that was over 30cm long. Unfortunately the bite dropped off within about 10 minutes of getting that one and I had wasted an hour changing tackle and trying each hook size and losing bites so missed most of the action at sunset. The other rod had whole whitebait on and didn't get any action for three hours, but one good whiting is worth the trip, yum.

Seymour

I worked in Kilmore today and headed to Seymour when I was done for a session, and I was determined to bring home a fish worth the trip. it took three hours before I even got a bite and I landed a 25cm redfin, then missed another strike on the next cast. About an hour and a half later I caught a 40cm yellowbelly under a fallen tree and got a nibble the next cast but no take. 5 hours fishing in total and 1 good keeper. I also took my girls out last weekend and we caught about 20 small redfin between us in daylesford while out on the inflatable boat.

Creswick and Daylesford

On Saturday I tried a small dam that I had been told about in a pine plantation near creswick, I spent several hours casting lures and bait catching around 20 redfin with the bait accounting for all the catches. the largest fish caught was only around 25cm but i had been told of some 2lb fish coming out of the dam recently. Sunday i took my 2 girls kayaking on lake Daylesford and took a rod with me. We spent 3 hour on the water and i caught around 20 redfin with 10 or so around 25cm or larger, with 2 fish reaching 35cm.

creswick

daylesford

a school of redfin holding near a dropoff