The beginning of October saw much of Victoria’s weather change dramatically for the better. The warmth arrived with a bang and the rain virtually disappeared. As most of the state has received below average rainfall so far this year this doesn’t fare well for the summer months.

To make matters worse, the Curdies River mouth at Peterborough closed over after only being open for a couple of months. The system did receive a decent flush out and plenty of salt water did enter and mix with the brackish but closing this early has negatives.

One negative is that October usually sees schools of whitebait enter the system to complete their lifecycle as well as provide excellent bait for bream and other species. Locally known as greyback, the question on smart anglers’ minds is ‘have enough come in?’ The last two years has seen a poor recruitment of the greyback population in the system, but hopefully this doesn’t continue.

At the end of October the river still had a slight flow in it and was fairly full upstream at the Boggy Creek (Curdievale) boat ramp but nowhere near enough to warrant another opening of the mouth.

Plenty of bream are actively involved in spawning and they can be difficult to locate as they move around the estuary but fish are being taken. There’s plenty of weed growth in the river that should hold shrimp and that is the number one bait to use. Most boaters are concentrating their efforts downstream towards the lake with spots like Baileys Straits and ‘The Island’.

Offshore has seen King George whiting move in closer to shore in reach of surf anglers while schools of Australian salmon are still around providing great sport from the beach.

The barrel tuna have finally moved on, however plenty of school and gummy shark are about and when filleted and fried are simply delicious on the tooth.

The Port Campbell jetty has been a very popular place to wet a line with calamari, salmon, barracouta and a snapper or two have been hooked and landed. Warm evenings have seen nary a vacant spot in which to cast a line available to the angler so turn up early to bag a spot or miss out.

Other popular spots to fish include Worm Bay near Peterborough and Newfield Bay just a bit further out towards Warrnambool. Spending a bit of time driving along our shipwreck coast can reveal many small bays and beaches that are well worth wetting a line. If you’re planning a trip down this way for the holidays, there’s plenty of options from the surf at Princetown to Port Campbell as well as further west to Peterborough.