Around the Bay with Jim’s Bait and Tackle

It has been a strange week of fishing reports with weather playing its part in the lower numbers but even when people could get out, the catches were all over the place.

We had some tell us it is their worse week of the season so far while we weighed and saw some of the best fish for the season so far.

Maybe it was the full moon.

Normally the reports slow off a little this time of the year because everybody is busy in the last few weeks before Christmas.

This year it is anybody’s guess with plenty of people still booking accommodation places before Christmas and if the sun comes out, regardless of what day it is, the car parks are full of day trippers.

We are still seeing plenty at the boat ramps when the weather is fine and it is not often the jetties don’t have someone fishing on them.

Several chasing calamari from the land this week with the beaches more consistent than the jetties.

While floats are normally the way to go off the beach, we had several reports from customers casting artificial jigs.

If you have not done a lot of fishing for calamari off the beach, I would still recommend a float.

Casting for calamari from the beach takes a bit of practice, if you let the jig sink too much you will lose it in the weed, but you do need to let it sink a bit. So it can be expensive if you are using good quality jigs.

Silver whiting under a float is still the preferred method from the beach and again this week produced plenty.

It is a good mixture of sizes that are being reported now. That doesn’t mean we have not seen big ones, with a 3.2kg one caught in Cleeland Bight this week from a boat.

Jetties see almost everybody using artificial now and more target fishing and not so much cast and hope with the clear water.

We had stories this week of people losing big calamari from the jetties trying to lift them up instead of walking them to the beach.

While they might be well hooked, calamari have very soft flesh, and a jig will tear out easily.

Jase and Josh from Warragul Angling Club called in Friday morning for some bait and we gave them a mark to try for some whiting as they were heading out and wanted something to do for the afternoon.

They managed a few whiting in between the pinkies and then decided to head back to the same area that night, which turned out to be a great idea.

After a few pan-sized snapper and one bigger, another rod went off. Thinking, big snapper or gummy by how heavy it was, you could imagine their surprise when a 1.6m very fat mulloway arrived at the side of the boat.

After a couple of quick photos, extra points to the guys for taking the time to release the fish and watch it swim away.

We had several whiting weighed this week for our December “TINS for TINGS” Whiting fishing competition.

The heaviest now is a respectable but very beatable 480g.

You have until December 22 to weigh a bigger one to win one of the $100 pub vouchers, but don’t forget you can weigh a couple of whiting each day for the weekly closest to the mystery weight pub vouchers.

The whiting was all in the same places and similar times this week, but the size and numbers were a little less than the last few weeks.

With people now trying different things we are seeing as many whiting being caught in two metres of water as we are seeing caught in 10metres plus of water.

It does not take a lot of change to your gear to chase them in the deep, heavier sinkers and maybe a slightly heavier rod if needed and that is it.

Same hooks, same rigs, same baits, although you will find a small piece of squid with your pippi or pilchard will help.

Not so much in the middle of the channels but anywhere else you fish in Westernport, regardless of depth, it pays to drop a whiting in as well, at worse you might pick up some fresh baits.

Pinkies are still driving people mad with their numbers, but you just need to push through them and wait.

If you want to avoid them all together then fish towards or after dark where the very small ones seem to disappear.

It is difficult to keep baits in the water for something bigger when they are around, especially the softer baits.

Try keeping your King George whiting heads and using them, whole squid heads, sauries or garfish or something a bit harder than pieces of pilchards or squid strips.

We weighed our biggest snapper for the season this Friday, 8.73kg with another in the fish bin of just over 5kg.

We have had a lot of big snapper this year but plenty around that 4kg to 5kg and lots of reports of some quality pan sized ones.

The Corals was the place to head this week and that is where most reports came from, regardless of the time of the day.

Almost every report we had from during the daylight hours this week, of any fish came from that period, 1.5 hour before to the change of tide.

It was the same for either tide or once the tide changed it was all over.

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