Well it's that time again so chuck a few minutes aside and have a read of the latest Gippy fishing report. Thanks for all the new subscribers, i'm aware for a lot of you readers this will be the first report you have received so i hope you guys enjoy. To those that missed the last report We have now moved to 29 Church St in Traralgon to a bigger store, feel free to call us on 0351748544 if you have any enquiries.
Starting with Welshpool, we all anticipated that this was going to be a late season and that the good fishing will extend out into late April, May and even June and so far it looks that way. The water temps inside are still high and are averaging around 18.5 to 19.5 degrees as of yesterday and 18 to 19 degrees offshore. Basically, this has meant that the fishing is still as you would expect to see in summer. All species are still around from kingfish, snapper, gummies, flathead and whiting.
The main talk of late has been the number of yellowtail kingfish inside the system and plenty have been caught over the past few days in the lewis channel around the jetties with schools being seen busting up in the Toora channel and the Franklin channel as well. Methods to catch these beasts have been well rounded with anglers casting large soft plastics such as sluggos and zmans into the pylons doing quite well at times, whilst stick baits cast into busting up schools of kings being successful as well. Also anglers trolling small skirted lures up and down the lewis channel have been picking up a few beauties and also anglers just anchored up and using squid strips on running rigs or live baits such as yakkas have been catching good numbers as well. The exciting thing about the inside kingies has been the size of the fish with most being over 80cm and and reports of anglers hooking unstoppables that can't be pulled out from the structure, so its definately worth having a shot over the next few weeks.
Offshore, there are still plenty of kings out around the islands being caught on trolled skirted lures or with 150g to 200g knife jigs. Another exciting report has been the amount of large snapper caught inside again, this is the next run of big snapper we get at Welshpool, no different to what happens offshore at Lakes Entrance. Mot of the big snapper have been caught in the Franklin channel and the average size has been around 6kg with the odd report of a 20 pounder or 2 floating around as well. The toora is producing stacks of pinkies and the odd bigger snapper of around 4kg but the Franklin definitely seems to be the place. We normally see large snapper caught inside till around the end of April, but this year we may see them a bit longer due to the season seeming to be a bit later as stated before.
The whiting slowed up this week for some reason, but that could change next week, there's still been some fish caught but mainly in numbers ranging from a couple to a dozen tops. There's still good eater size pinkies galore of 30cm to 40cm inside and even more out on the reefs offshore between 20m and 30m where you can catch any number of pinkies you want.
The gummy sharks have been going well and there's not too many monsters inside but plenty of 3 footer to metereys, all the bigger gummies are offshore either at Whale bay, Rabbit Island or out wider around the islands. Its still also worth chasing calamari, there seems to be plenty on the weed beds of the Lewis but there are pretty small and good for fresh bait with the odd eater thrown in. Anyways check out some pics we have been sent in over the past 3 weeks.
- Dylan had a blinder of a session last week landing some cracking late season snapper inside in the Franklin channel in 18m of water on squid baits during the last of the run out tide.
- Wrighty with some big whiting measuring 44cm caught at night in the Franklin channel in 19 meters of water whilst chasing gummies. They just chucked down a whiting rod whilst having the big rods out and ended up with 10 big channel whiting as bi-catch.
- Chris Murphy had an incredible session last week in the Franklin channel in 17 meters of water. He managed to catch double headers of kingfish and snapper on snapper snatchers. Yep.. you read it right... kingfish on the bottom on paternoster rigs, he ended up catch and releasing over half a dozen kingies and even ended up catching a few kings on a bare snapper snatcher rig by itself with no bait. Crazy Stuff! He also ended up bagging out on snapper as well in the same spot during the last of the run in and start of the run out tide.
- I took the young bloke out for a fish late arvo last wednesday. We ended up with a couple of gummies to 105cm in the Toora and a stack of pinkies on the whiting gear. The pinkies were around the 35cm mark and dropped a good snapper at the boat as it was on the whiting snatcher with the 1/0 hook which couldn't handle it in the end.
- Joe Keenen caught this elephant fish in the middle channel on thursday arvo. I have heard of about half a dozen of these caught over the past 2 weeks mostly coming from the toora and the franklin channel. I have even had customers in telling me they have been catching them inside Mcloughlins, so they must be spread throughout the whole system.
PORT ALBERT
- Ben Barnes got this ripper feed from Offshore Port Albert.
- Russell and Dave caught an amazing feed of whiting out of Port Albert using pippis for bait. The biggest one measuring over 45cm. Fish were caught 3 weeks ago. They are still around but we havnt seen a catch this good for 2 weeks now.
- Shane Wedrowicz had a great session out of Port Albert and fishing out the front of Manns beach where they landed 5 gummies and a good snapper. Caught Sat 8/4/17.
WARATAH BAY
- Greg Miller with a thumping big Gummy shark weighing over 19kg caught off waratah bay. 8/0 circle hooks did the trick!
LAKES ENTRANCE
- Shane Coles from Nautica restaurant in Metung caught this ripper snapper from offshore lakes entrance a few days ago. The big snapper are running again all across gippsland so get out for a go!
CENTRAL GIPPSLAND (FRESHWATER)
- What an absolute cracking Central Gippy brown trout. Well done mate, you don't see them this size too often around here. Caught on a Mapso spinner and measuring over 50cm.
90 MILE BEACH
- Congrats to Crofty for landing the big bronzie at Golden beach, He uses a land based game rod and a TLD 50 to land it. He was paddling the baits out past the breakers.
- Dion got him self a new Okuma x-factor 16.5 foot surf rod combo and has never looked back. He has had 2 awesome sessions in the past 2 weeks the most recent was last saturday night where he landed 2 gummies, 3 elephant fish, a few good tailor and a small bronzie. All after dark near Golden beach.
GIPPSLAND BARRAMUNDI (HAZELWOOD PONDAGE)
The Vic Barramundi! It seems it may be taken away from us as quick as it came. What a fishery it has proven to have been, Barramundi to 80cm and over in less than a year. What could this fishery have been? Will it continue? Only time will tell. The water temp has dropped dramatically after the power station has closed. It is currently sitting at around 21.5 to 22.5 degrees, a huge drop from the 37 degrees that it was before the power station closed. Fisheries tell me that the Barra will survive until it hits 19 degrees then they will cease to feed and die. In the meantime, the expect the barra to travel up to the top end of the lake where there is still a little bit of hot water being pumped into the lake from the mine. Apparently this zone will remain hot enough over winter for the barra to survive, but they need to get up there first. Anyway we have all been having fun catching these Aussie icons and to be able to do it only a few minutes from home instead of taking a holiday up north to catch one, its quite amazing and special! The last capture of Barra i have heard of was from Mitch Chapman on Friday Morning the 7th. The water temp was around 22 degrees and mitch managed to land 2 fish for the morning up to 68cm. both were caught on soft plastics.
- Mitch's 68cm Barra caught Friday morning after. water temp was only 22 degrees but these fish still took a soft plastic slow rolled along the bottom.
Will Thompson
Allways Angling
Shop 13/68 Hotham St
Traralgon, Vic 3844
Ph: 03 5174 8544
sales@allwayangling.com.au