I always try to balance my report with catching fish on bait and lures but for this report forgive me as I indulge in catching fish on hardbodied lures.

For the keen bait-only anglers, I recommend that May is the best time to give lures a try.

One of the most consistent hot spots in the whole Gippsland Lakes for good-sized bream on lures is the mouth of the Mitchell River. Recently this river has been running with a bit of colour and this can be deadly water to fish.

It seems the fish are not easily spooked and will quite happily attack lures in quite shallow water. The edges along the bottom section of the silt jetties provides this very environment and three guys I know landed 30 bream up to 35cm in a four hour session.

They used a real variety of lures but the standout method was to slowly twitch small, bibbed hardbodies that suspend or sink very slowly.

Recently I’ve found that leaving your lure sit stationary for up to 20, or even 30, seconds at a time will get you more bream. I have also at times slowed my retrieve right down, almost to a snails pace, with very successful results. The less you move it, the more you’re fishing it!

But leaving a lure motionless for up to half a minute at a time can be hard to keep up for an hour, let alone half a day.

But it really works, so give it a try.

I’ve recently been camping with a couple of gun anglers, Bill and Patty Sherrin, who have a holiday house at Loch Sport. This father and son team really know the area well and have been hooking big bream to 38cm. The boys are also landing flatties to 60cm as well and I was amazed at how many different types of lures young Patty uses and knows about.

Lake Victoria can be a daunting place to look for fish but I suggest to keep working water about 60cm to 1m deep and again, work lures as slowly as your patience will allow. Any snags or the jetties at Loch Sport and Wattle Point should be fished thoroughly and at first light if possible.

At Hollands Landing and Seacombe the fishing has been very tough indeed. Chris Ware and Sue Stone know this stretch of water better than most. This mad keen angling couple are very experienced lure specialists now and they just about live at the Eel Farm campsite.

On a recent five-day trip, Chris eventually found tailor and bream using vibes and on the same day I landed just two bream using fast sinking hardbodies along the deep edges. For such a well-known fishing hotspot it has been very disappointing for the last 18-months or more.

I’m still hearing whispers about kingfish down at the eastern end of the lakes (although I’m yet to see any pictures) and I suppose they had to turn up eventually. With the huge numbers of these fish now turning up at Port Albert and Welshpool, it was only a matter of time before the Gippy Lakes recruited some and lets hope the numbers grow.