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SBT madness continues at Portland
  |  First Published: May 2013



Pristine weather conditions have seen many anglers heading to the continental shelf to try their luck in catching the fish of a lifetime.

And that’s what happened for a group of friends while on a charter with the heaviest SBT caught so far this season weighing a whopping 84kg. The lucky angler on the rod was Andrew Carew from Wonthaggi with the battle lasting 2-hours while fishing with Dave Conway, youngster Lochie Carew and Steve Carew.

This fish was caught on the 1000m line through the Horseshoe and was one of eight SBT caught with the rest weighing 20-25kg. So it just goes to show the big fellas are amongst the schools of smaller SBT.

Armen while fishing with his mate Sam, Berkin and Safeet all of Melbourne landed a fish weighing in at 44kg amongst their bag of SBT, there was also good schools of albacore around at this time weighing between 15-25kg while fishing out on the shelf between 200-1000m.

Easter numbers were down a little on last year due to the winter weather conditions we had over this period but it still did not deter keen anglers heading out on the days that were a little more favourable. Out of the 100 + anglers chasing SBT most got their bag limits with fish weighing from 10-15kg if fishing in close between Cape Bridgewater and Lawrence Rock with those heading out to the shelf fishing between 150-200m to the east of the Horseshoe landing heavier SBT weighing from 15-33kg.

There were also sightings of the larger barrels lurking around. May has proven over the years to be the month when the bigger fish are predominantly caught.

Make sure all your gear is up to scratch and you’re running the best coloured lures to suit SBT feeding patterns. Lures that are working well at the moment are the Black Snack 6” lures in the blue pattern, the white and blue Rapala X raps with the Black Magic Jetsetters in Mackerel and Lumo and Killer Vibes in the Qantas colour. This may vary from day to day so run a few different colours in your spread to work out which lures the fish are favouring on the day.

If conditions are good while your out on the shelf it’s always good to have a bottom bounce for blue eye trevalla, ling and blue grenadier along with other deep water species.

For those not chasing SBT, good bags of whiting, snapper, calamari squid, salmon, trevally, bream, barracouta, pike, mullet, flathead, gummy and school sharks have been taken by boat and land-based anglers depending on the areas fished.

Fresh water fishing in the Fitzroy and Surrey rivers have seen good catches of bream along with salmon and mullet which is also a good option if the weather is not favourable for saltwater fishing.

Let’s hope the month of May sees good weather conditions and plenty of tight lines.

For all your latest fishing and weather reports give the boys a at Portland Bait & Tackle a call on 0355235213, we are open 7 days a week from 7 till 7.

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