Although we might have returned to El Nino conditions this year, I am not sure anyone told the Mornington Peninsula as we certainly kicked into winter with some terribly wet and blowy weather!

Fishing can certainly be a challenge at this time of year – motivation’s often the hardest part. But for those who think about their fishing there are often options that present in these conditions and can still see you come home with some remarkable fish.

On that note I will start with a report from one of our good customers Ben Calamatta, who did just that in one of the horrible northwesterly blows we were having. Situating himself on the rocks at Mornington he used the windy, onshore conditions, knowing that this is the time that snapper come into the shallows to feed. It was the middle of the day and low and behold he has two runs, one of which results in an absolute thumping snapper that weighed 8.56kg and measured 91cm. The beauty of this catch is that it shows what you can do without getting the boat out and going through the rigmarole of packing, cleaning, getting up early etc. Well done Ben, a terrific catch!

In another snapper story, we have had a few extremely high barometers push through, which again can be typical of this time of year. Good mates Gawaine Blake and John Cahill saw one of these events with the barometer pushing well into the 1030s and decided that if snapper were going to chew in winter, it would be on that day! Sure enough, the boys pulled a lovely winter red weighing in at 7.8kg. A genuine ripper caught off Mt Martha.

On the beach fishing front, we have had consistent if not hot fishing over the last four weeks. More and more anglers are spinning lures for salmon and enjoying the results but the humble old blue baits has also been catching salmon often between 1-1.8kg at Gunnamatta. For the bait fishos, we have been selling quite a lot of chartreuse coloured poppers, which seem to be the flavour of the month.

If you want to spread your wings a little and try some different local back beaches, I would recommend a drive down to Portsea. Sometimes it is worth going at low tide just to scope out where the reefy sections are and where you might find a good sand hole at high tide. The same goes for Rye and St Andrews back beach – which have more reef again but do have some fishable holes.

Inside the bay, we have seen schools of salmon appearing at some of the local piers such as Rye and Blairgowrie. Despite this, we haven’t seen that big hold-up of fish, grouping in one area like we have the last couple of years. Last year a massive school stopped at Tootgarook and literally hung around in the shallows for a number of weeks. It will be interesting to see if this phenomenon occurs again.

I commented in last months report that the whiting fishing through autumn was some of the best we have had for the year. Well, it’s pleasing to report that this has continued for another month with good captures still being regularly taken by local anglers getting out on the occasional calm days. While I am a big advocate for fishing the ebb tide for whiting, don’t let this stop you having a crack during the flood as I have had a couple of customers swear that the best bites they have had in recent weeks have been at the start of the rising tide.

The whiting reports have come from far and wide these last few weeks with fish taken at the Pinnace Channel, off The Sisters, at The White Lady and down Portsea. It will be interesting to see if they continue through July or we have to start making the trek over to St Leonards where a lot of fish generally hold during winter.

To cut a long story short, on the whole squid have been good. This has probably been with the exception of weeks where we had considerable wind and rain, which muddied the inshore grounds making them a bit hard to find. However, most weeks the water has cleared reasonably quickly and anglers have again been able to find a bag. Sizes have been pretty good this year with hoods in the 20-30cm range pretty common. Squid fishing is still a pretty good option for a couple of hours of fun.

As we roll into August I always feel that we are through the worst of winter. Sure, it can still be cool and windy but September and Spring are only a moment away. No doubt there will early snapper anglers out in the next month and many will focus on doing a bit of bait collecting for the upcoming spring season. For my money we often see good numbers of silver trevally around the pier structures at this time of year and that can be great fun for a bit of light tackle action!

• For more information drop in and see the boys at Compleat Angler Rosebud, 11 Boneo Rd, Rosebud, or call (03) 5981 1994.