Trelly's Victoria Fishing Report
Fishing the Goulburn River
Now we have got over Christmas and New Years, finally some time to let everyone know what's been going on, and it has been great, plenty of fish being caught in most parts of the Goulburn River, Cod on Divers around Trawool, some Yellowbelly and Cod around the Seymour township, baits such as Bardi Grubs, Cheese and Worms doing the most damage and the River below the 2 pubs is worth a try. Closer to Nagambie and things a really starting to heat up, Nagambie young gun Hugo (pic) and his mates are catching plenty of Cod, this is a report Hugo sent me:
We have had a cracking start to the new year with another fantastic session on the Murray Cod, Landing 18 fish from 4:00pm onwards. Cheese was truly the stand out bait, catching multiple 60cm plus Cod. Also in the same session, a few of my mates and myself went out in the boat, just on dark and caught one off the surface on a Pompadour. It’s good to see the fish are very active at the moment. Cheers Hugo.
Below the Weir has been great also, everywhere from Murchison East through Toolamba, past Shepparton to Undera is all great, bait has without doubt been the standout, maybe with the River flow at the moment being a little high and fast, bait fishing is a little easier? but Cheese, Bardi Grubs, Shrimp, Yabbies and Scrubworms are all working really well, Pro Staffer Graeme has been getting up to 30 fish in a session around Arcadia, mostly on bait, but the 1 lure he has had success on, are the Old Mate Divers.
Fishing Rushworth / Kyabram Area
Waranga Basin is interesting, we are getting lots of mixed reports, some fisho's smashing it and some donuts from others? I guess the one thing common in the Fisho's catching the Redfin at the moment, is good Sounders, they are not wetting a line until they sound up fish, once they find the fish, bobbing Worms, Yabbies, Ice Jigs and Plastics all working well, even with people swimming around the boat at the same time! The fish seem to be bigger with Redfin over 40cm not uncommon, we did hear of a fisho not having any luck on the Redfin, but found a patch of Yellowbelly and ended up leaving them biting just before a storm a week or so ago. The Channels are all fishing good, Worms and small Yabbies working well in most of the Mains, number 6 from Kiota Road through to Lancaster is probably the standout with nice sized Redfin and the occasional Yellowbelly and Cod being caught.
Austin Laurie (pic) from Rochester has been catching plenty of Cod and Yellowbelly on Bassman Spinnerbaits in the Campaspe River around Rochester in his Kayak.
Fishing around Shepparton
The Main Eastern Channel along the Shepparton Euroa Road has been a bit of a standout over the last few weeks, baits such as Cheese, Bardi Grubs and Yabbies working well on Cod, and Bassman Spinnerbaits working well for both Cod and Yellowbelly, its a great place to get the Kids their first Cod, easy access, and limited snags and most fisho's are getting some fish most sessions, which gives them a great chance.
Fishing the Murray River
The Murray is Fishing quite well, already this season, there has been lots of 1 meter plus Cod caught on a mixture of Bait and Lures. Clayton form Coddog lures (pic) getting a 118cm on a Coddog surface lure and they followed it up with a 120cm on a diver a week later in Mulwala. Most places from Echuca to Yarrawonga are producing fish, so definitely worth a trip up to the Murray, Liam (pic) and I fished Mulwala, Majors Creek side, getting a couple of 55cm models on the Bassman Codman Series, Chartreuse/Orange colour Spinnerbait, the main thing was dodging the Boat/Jetski Traffic, great fun!
Fishing Southern Victoria - Port Fairy, Porland, Queenscliff, Clifton Springs, Barwon River
Kingfish are high on most anglers hit lists this week with quality kings being caught locally and further down the coast to Portland.
Michael Moore and Ben Mclean fished Port Fairy around Julia percy island over the weekend and managed 5 kings to 17kg on live slimy mackerel. The Portland north shore area produced kingfish for anglers casting stickbaits and poppers in shallow water.
A little closer to home has seen kings caught in the rip by jigging and live baiting while off shore from Ocean Grove through to Apollo Bay produced rat kings to 5kg with the odd bigger fish over 10kg caught amongst them.
Whiting are in great numbers from Clifton Springs to Queenscliff to those fishing a moving tide with pippies or squid. While fishing the same terrain you can also expect squid so be prepared with a squid jig in white or natural whiting colour and size #3-3.5.
The Queenscliff harbour is fishing well for silver trevally on a slack high tide. Either using soft plastics or baits like bluebait or squid will have you in with a chance of a trevally to over 50cm with the average size around 35cm, there are still a few nice pinkies in the harbour to 40cm as well as salmon and the odd flathead.
Fishing around the Alcoa spoil grounds has been good for pinkies, flathead and pike for anglers drifting while casting soft plastics. Using the wind, start a drift that will have you cover a big stretch of water around 6 meters deep while casting in front of the boat and working your lure close to the bottom, jigheads in 1/8-1/6oz are ideal.
Freshwater fishing has been great with the Barwon River fishing very well for redfin and carp and even natives like bass and yellowbelly have made an appearance with the warmer afternoons. Casting small minnow style lures or soft plastics are ideal while using 1/4oz spinnerbaits is a good way to target the bigger redfin while avoiding the small fish.