February lands with a blast, as the summer season brings with it warm weather and a bigger run of fish.

Tim Carroll recently fished the spoil grounds off Limeburners boat ramp with his father Raymond and their next door neighbour Glen and his brother-in-law Mick. The action started off hot early with pinkie snapper to 40cm and flathead to 45cm.

Glen was flicking his 3” Nuclear Chicken soft plastic and was struggling early to jag a fish while Mick was boating plenty of pinkies. That was about when Glen’s line screamed off for the horizon! The lads all called it for a big snapper but to their surprise, up beside the boat came a massive pike. An epic battle seen panic stations in the boat trying to get this fish in!

After six landing net attempts they ended up getting its head in and grabbing the tail. The big fish measured in at 1m long and weighed around 3.5kg. Mick also managed to snag a 38cm whiting on a 3” Nuclear Chicken.

I’ve had a few goes out on the whiting and although there has been plenty of undersized fish, we have managed a few either side of 35cm and some flathead to 45cm.

Ross Winstanley has also fished the spoil grounds and taken plenty of pinkies and the odd whiting. Ross sends in a great photo of his grandson Bailey who caught a 45cm snapper with him one morning.

Plenty of anglers fishing St Helens rock wall are enjoying an excellent run of snapper with fish ranging from just size to 8kg.

Clifton Springs has yielded similar results on the snapper for anglers fishing either side of a tide change. Snapper and flathead either side of 40cm have also been caught from Clifton Springs to Geelong.

The Frost family have enjoyed the great snapper fishing off Portarlington where they all caught some quality snapper fishing off Point Richards.

Peter Mohr and his brother in law fished off St Leonards recently where the wind forced them in close, but this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. They soon reached their bag limit of calamari fishing in less than 2m of water. Pete says that metallic blue coloured jigs seemed to have the most interest.

Anglers fishing off St Leonards and Indented Head have also enjoyed good flathead fishing in water from 15-20m. Bluebait has been best but just about anything will be grabbed when they are on.

Snapper to 6kg have also been biting well in this depth closer to dawn and dusk but do not discount cruising around and dropping baits or soft plastic lures down to fish once they are located on your depth sounder during the day. Fishing from both Portarlington and St Leonards Piers after dark has produce snapper from 1-4kg on pilchards so this area has been very productive of late.

Michael Moore from Q-Tackle in Queenscliff managed to get out in the middle of the night and caught a number of nice snapper. The best fish weighed in at 5kg and Michael caught numerous fish just under this weight in the Queenscliff area.

All fish were caught on the Q-tackle snapper attracter hooks baited with squid. The trevally and pinkies are still biting well in the harbour at Queenscliff and the squid are also plentiful at all the popular areas from Lonsdale Bight right through to Clifton Springs.

The Barwon estuary has been on fire despite the dirty water with good captures of silver trevally to 1kg, bream to 1.5kg, whiting to 35cm and plenty of mullet to keep the kids busy. The bream have been biting best on Bass yabbies on the start of the run in tide. As the tide slows, find a deep hole and prepare for the silver trevally. Larger whiting either side of 45cm have been caught around the shallow reefs near the river mouth.

Matt Harris fished from Barwon Heads Surf Beach recently using heavy tackle, and managed to catch and release a ripping 35kg seven-gill shark. The beast was caught using a whole squid stuffed with a saury on a pair of 9/0 octopus circle hooks snelled onto a 100lb Black Magic trace.

February is prime kingfish time off Barwon Heads. Try trolling strips of squid, skirted or baitfish profiled lures or even deep water jigging over structure.

Torquay anglers have rejoiced at the completion of the new boat ramp. Please bear in mind that this is still just a beach access ramp and Torquay is still a beach launching location. Offshore, anglers have enjoyed excellent snapper up to 7kg.

Catch a few around Geelong, Bellarine Peninsula or Surf Coast to Lorne recently? Send in a report to --e-mail address hidden-- with “VFM” in the subject field or give me a call on 0408 997348. Please include where (without giving away your secret spot!), when, what on and who caught the fish. Pictures are always great, but please make sure they are at least 1mb (file size).