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Mulloway still prominent
  |  First Published: December 2010



Good news on the mulloway front, as we have seen an early run of better size fish enter the river.

While these fish are not in large numbers, reports have filtered in daily of one or two being caught to 15kg with most around 6-10kg. They have been caught in the estuaries, the poles area and down towards Popes Nose was prominent.

Locals with their putt-putts trolling mainly live mullet accounted for the lions share; anchored boats had success with fresh squid. Elsewhere mulloway catches increased with a smaller sample around the 2.5-6kg being boated from the Princess Margaret Rose Caves area through to Patterson’s Canoe camp.

Standing once again was Shane and Lauren Quinlan with their spew worms freshly pumped from the beaches at Killarney over near Warrnambool. The Quinlans are possibly the most consistent fishers on the river and their approach is unwavering in the use of fresh bait. I have written in the past about their exploits and cannot recommend better bait than the old spewie.

Study your local area or find out about a beach where you can source them, check the rules and regulations on gathering them and use them.

I went for a good estuary check the other day as I was particularly interested to see what all the flood water had done to the massive build up of sand that has built up down there over the past few decades.

We have a good channel below the Popes Nose to Holloways drain, not overly wide but with a depth of 2-4m very boat-able. Holloway’s now offers a bigger area to fish and I was particularly happy to be able to fish an area called Millers Camp, which is on a corner amongst some rocks just below the estuary car park. I was down there at low tide and it was easily accessed by boat, I had a good 2-3m of water.

With a sandy base this spot in past years has seen some massive fish pulled from its depths, you need to be very stealthy, anchor away from the spot you want to fish and cast long to your desired area, try not to throw a shadow, anchor quietly.

While it’s not an area you can over-fish, it should be put on the list of spots to hit on any trip down at our fantastic mouth.

Bream

Bream are up around Sapling Creek through to Forest Camp doing the spawning thing at present. December should see this over and done with so I’d expect the fishing to still be in good numbers in that section. Depending on the amount of rain we get over spring, I wouldn’t be surprised if quite a lot of fish moved upstream as far as Wild Dog Bend and beyond.

This is the most flood water this river, or for the matter any river in Victoria, has seen for years and the environs is certainly at full bloom, so I just feel that the fish will move up as the river is in such great nick. If this happens you can expect to fish in some of the most pristine waters and surrounds. There is heaps of structure to fish to, stacks of bird life, almost untouched natural bush and the odd platypus; as beautiful as the lower 20km is, the upper reaches are just simply special.

Estuary perch catches are filtering in and they appear to be moving slowly back upstream with some nice samples to 2kg coming from around Hutchesson’s Landing through to Patterson’s Canoe Camp; again the small vibes and SX 40/48 lures are working well.

Coastal fishing

Along the coast we are hearing of some nice catches off the surf. School shark and elephantfish along the beaches from the mouth of the river towards Point MacDonnell in South Australia have been very good. Further to the west, there has been some massive mulloway to 25kg beached.

Fingers crossed some of these monsters will make their way closer to us. It’s around this time that Green Point fires up for snapper, massive shark and big mulloway. You will need a tinnie that can be launched from the beach launch with a 4WD.

Fish 150-800m offshore around massive kelp beds in fairly sheltered waters, which gets a big chop, at worst. Call into the pub and we can give you instructions on how to access this great spot as you need to go through a farm gate or two (all legal) to gain direct access to the beach.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish the readers and their families and friends of this magazine a very merry and safe Christmas and New Year.

Call into the pub and say hello, mention you read the mag and we’ll buy you a beer for Christmas.

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