With the weather promising to be good again in Melbourne I had to take advantage of the conditions and get out there and look for a few more squid, although the threat of a strong ESE wind had me worried after launching the wind stayed as a straight north until about 1100 and then it flattened off to a 5 knot south east breeze which made for a nice drift at the end of the trip.
I arrived at Sorrento at about 0630 with mate Dan who has been on many squidding missions in this part of the bay with me previously, the weather was a stark contrast from Wednesday as Wednesday was bright sun with slightly murky water, on that day I used a Gan Craft 3.5 Red Orange Shrimp that is bright orange with a shimp pattern and because the sun was high in the sky I picked this egi as it was translucent which made the egi stand out in the murky water. Today the water was gin clear and the sky was overcast, so it was back to my trusty Gan Craft 3.0 Pink Shrimp Head, this egi has a gold foil with an ivory body and shrimp pattern with pink head and olive body, the foil was perfect for the water conditions and light and the contrasting colors made for a tasty looking treat for squid.
First cast and I had a small squid of about 25cm hood along side the boat, pretty happy with the results I kept working the same area to land about 5 more of the same size, incidentally Dan managed a slightly better one of about 30cm hood, only hung up by both candles he made the decision to grab the squid by the head rather than lift by the jig. I dont know how he did it but he managed to get ink on just about every inch of the boat and not a drop on him, he got the second wave of the water blast and no ink, after a bit or laughter and banter egi back in the water to land a few more. The area quietened off a bit and the tide was still low we thought a trip to Point Lonsdale was in order to cast a few plastics around and wait for the tide a bit.
With a quick stop at Point Nepean we struggled to get a nice drift with the stiff North blowing us in towards the shore at almost 1km per hour, bit hard to cast a 1/32 jig head and a whiting worm around so we kept on to Point Lonsdale. As soon as we stuck our nose beyond the headland at Queenscliff the water became calm and we were protected by the land from the north. We spent about an hour flicking plastics around for whiting but could only manage to harass a few Wrasse, we were a bit time poor as I had a some stuff to take care of later in the day so we did a quick bolt around to Queenscliff to have a quick squid flick, again first cast with the Pink Shrimp Head Gan Craft 3.5 and I was into the squid again. Only 2 more from the area and we moved back towards Portsea.
Similar results to Queenscliff we found a patch of squid landed a couple and moved on back towards Sorrento as we looked at winding the day up. It was then that we found a Honey hole full of small squid, my mate Dan was after some snapper baits so we took a bag from the area and headed back to the ramp. Productive day squid wise but only average sized squid, looks like we are in between the spawn now and should not expect too many giants until June so I am going to have to settle for practice on the small ones until then.
After getting out on the squid on Wednesday I had enough time to wash the boat pack up my gear and head to Brighton to the Brighton Central Angling Club to talk all things squid with the members after their club meeting, during the meeting it was good to see a club involve them self in many of the political issues surrounding fishing and boating and also was refreshing to see a club taking advantage of the RFL small grants program to look at the future of fishing by running a clinic for kids teaching them fishing fundamentals by learning on bread and butter species such as carp. After the meeting a raffle was held and the members kindly raised over $300 for Beyond Blue (the shed program) a great initiative by the club to support a charity that Australian Egi Tournaments has been supporting through out the year, was a very humbling moment to see so many dig so deep for a great cause.
Well I have done a few hours on the boat since I got her but today I finally took some gear out with me as she is now run in, was a cracking day on the water with a slight chop early ending with a calm flat day on the bay.
Started off doing some sight seeing and playing around with the trim but soon settled in with some squid. Started in Rye in the fields but only managed about 8 or so average sized calamari so I headed south towards Portsea, did not take long but in about 30 minutes I landed about 20 squid, no giants but still with hoods to 40cm they were great fun. With a heap of squid caught and released it was time to make my way over towards Queenscliff to see if I could find a few bigger models, not a taker there so headed towards Indented head where I found a heap of small squid to 20cm hoods. No luck on the bigger ones I made my way to point Lonsdale to some of my old haunts, again nothing of significance so I decided to call it a day, stopped at Sorrento moorings for a quick play when these blokes came and scared everything away so I just put the boat back on the trailer and went home.
I have been fortunate enough to spend the last couple of weeks with the great guys from Gan Craft in Japan, it was an absolute honor to conduct some egi talk nights along side the founder and creator of Gan Craft Mr Takanori Hiraiwa, something that I will remember for a long time, although the time went fast as it was a very busy period I had a blast and these guys are great fun to hang with, not only did I learn a thing or 2 about a thing or 2 when it comes to egi but I also learned a bit more Japanese in particular variants in dialects, I learned how to write Japanese calligraphy (kind of) and I learned that Mandurah is not just around the corner from Perth. Long drive for those who have not been to WA before. Met heaps of tackle store people and all in all was a great time. Sadly 2 of our guests had to spend their birthdays away from family and friends so we did what we could to make it feel a bit like home.
For once in the history of our events we had perfect conditions on both days, light sea breezes, sun shining and more squid than you can poke a stick at. This round was a donation event where teams were asked to contribute a donation to Beyond Blue rather than pay an entry fee to compete, thanks to all who contributed we managed to raise more than $600 for this cause.
The Warneet Crew was the first to weigh in closely followed by Team Gladiator while the other teams left it till the final minutes to secure their weights. The Top 3 finished like this
I returned to the weighing tent at 1200 and had a chance to speak with plenty of locals who were keen to talk about what we were doing, great to see a community get behind an event like this with plenty of people interested in another event in their town.
