Fishing has become a very popular pastime and more and more people have become attracted to the sport. Fishing, as I see it, is not like other sports as it has so many different facets to it.

You can become competent in trout fishing and then move on to game fishing or surf fishing or snapper or whiting, etc. Or you can do as I do and follow the seasons and the different species as they come and go. That’s what I love about it. But with more and more people wetting a line brings about more and more pressure on our fish stocks and we need to closely monitor these stocks to ensure that we have a healthy fish population for the future.

Fisheries Victoria don’t have the resources to monitor our current stocks and they would love to have your help through their Angler Diary Program. It is not difficult to do, all you have to do is to ring Simon Conron on (03) 5258 0111 at Fisheries Queenscliff and he will send you out a booklet that is self-explanatory.

Every time you go fishing you just fill in the spaces (when you get home) e.g. what species you were after, how many you caught, kept and released, their size, etc. Believe me, it helps fisheries and it also helps you. If you tick the box on the front of the booklet when they send you out a new one they will also send your completed book as well (they photocopy it for their records). The returned booklets will also give you valuable information on when and where you caught fish in the past, which has helped me to locate the hot spots from previous years. So if you would like to participate and help fisheries, just give Simon a ring. I have been filling out these booklets for the past six years and if I can do it then anybody can.

The surf beaches are fishing reasonably well with Baxters and Williamsons being the stand out beaches with fish up to 2.5kg being caught on a variety of baits, with white bait and pipis accounting for most of the fish. During the week I tried my luck at Gunnamatta Beach, the weather was good and the water was nice and clean. But the fish weren’t co-operating, two bites and a couple of 1/2kg fish for four hours of fishing. But then again, that’s fishing, and you can’t catch them all the time.

Outside the Entrance, weather permitting, and if you are up to standing the cold then there have been some excellent gummies landed. Cleelands Bight is still producing calamari, the odd whiting and some salmon in the channel.

Still the odd big snapper is being caught up the northern end of the bay and also at The Corals. Squid are about in reasonable numbers on the Tyabb Bank. Whiting are hard to find anywhere, but with another month or so and they will be back in good numbers.

It’s that time of year again off Flinders when the big calamari arrive. These big squid tend to prefer a baited jig rather than an artificial one. Baited jigs are normally fished under a float so you need to weight your jig because of the current to keep it close to the bottom. Usually a 1oz sinker tied under the prongs so it hangs beneath the jig works well.