Happy New Year everybody and let’s get ready to start fresh for 2014!

The snapper are still going bonkers and the average size is ridiculous. The whiting have also hit their straps and are blowing anglers away with a very healthy average size. The gummy sharks have also turned it on with fish to 30kg starting to get very hungry!

The top end of Western Port continues to blow anglers minds and it’s been a very long time since this area has consistently produced fish to the size that we have been seeing.

Joes Island has been as good as ever and the variety of species here is starting to really shine as well. Some really nice whiting have shown up around the island and have schooled up in some pretty big numbers.

Shaun Threlfull sat just off the back of Joes and cleaned up with a lovely bag of whiting; mixed in were a handful of salmon that had come up on the berley. After a bit of a weed problem put an end to Shaun’s whiting session, he moved around the corner closer to Tooradin and turned one of those fresh salmon into a ridiculously big gummy that would have easily weighed over 30kg. The interesting thing with this gummy is that it was caught in only 4.5m of water!

The snapper have also continued to fire around Joes with a massive 11.4kg fish taken by Tom Back, but there has still been plenty of fish around the 4-5kg mark calling Joes home as well.

Tooradin has been a fishing Mecca over the course of the month and with the reports coming through it would have to be up there if you weren’t quite sure where you wanted to fish. A truck load of whiting have been coming in from the Tooradin channel and, although there are plenty of school fish about, I have seen quite a few photos of some long, and really fat whiting coming in. I would put money on the average weight being a little bit up on previous years so let’s hope this continues well into the season.

It’s not just the whiting going off at Tooradin, there are some rather large snapper still swimming around. A Tooradin local caught a ridiculously large 11kg snapper caught on board a local charter boat. He also caught a 7.3kg in the same area, so the abundance of big fish around Tooradin has been phenomenal in recent times.

Warneet refuses to be out done and won’t let Toordin out shine it. The whiting have not been as thick but it has still been well worth soaking a pipi at the end of the channel. Snapper have also been taken just out of Warneet Channel to a whopping 7kg so the big fish have really spread themselves out!

The North Arm has seen a little bit of everything in recent times with some exceptional snapper, gummy sharks and really healthy bags of whiting being caught.

This would have to be one of the best times of the year for us Victorian anglers because the options are endless. Some of the bags of whiting that I have seen taken from the Tyabb Bank have been incredible with fish of 45cm or larger becoming quite common!

Mixed in with the whiting has also been some sensational flathead to 45cm. They are taking whiting baits, so not bad for by-catch! The whiting have also fired up on the Middle Spit, which would easily be one of the most whiting rich areas in the port. Smaller fish tend to congregate right up on the spit in as little as 1.5m of water but the bigger whiting have been sitting in the 4m drop just off the banks of the spit.

All of the usual baits have been getting the job done, it’s just a matter of putting the time in and moving around until you locate the schools.

Hastings has been the place to be if you are chasing something a little bigger with snapper and gummies being caught in the same areas. Cooper Millsom witnessed one of these sessions where he caught snapper to 4kg and gummies to 5kg on the same mark. Not a bad feed to take home to the family, if you ask me!

As I mentioned earlier, fishing doesn’t really get much better than this! So after a long start to the season with some horrid weather it’s time to take advantage of a little bit of warmth, feed the family with the freshest and tastiest fish in the world!

Good luck and keep the reports coming!