Western Port weekend.

Finally a break in the weather during a miserable Melbourne winter, I have been busting to get out for another egi bash in Western Port.

I made the decision to head out fairly late in the afternoon on the previous day so I had not organized a fishing partner for the day, my regulars were all off doing other things or already planned fishing. I have recently joined a facebook group about Melbourne Squid reports and there are heaps of keen people who have asked about going out in the boat so I put a quick post up offering a seat on the boat out in the Port. I checked back in on the post a short time later, Matt was the first to put his hand up from the responses so I contacted Matt and orginised to meet at the Hastings boat ramp at 0800 the next morning.

I was feeling pretty orginised, however, some one forgot to change their alarms on their iphone and it was not Matt, DOH. I rang Matt to let him know I was running about half an hour late.

I arrived at Hastings right on 0830 to find Matt waiting in the car park ready to hit the water, was not long after that we were on the water. Now when I say we had a break in the weather conditions were not perfect. From the launch location at Hasting things were lovely and calm, there was a slight breeze from the south which gave me some reason for concern as the tide was just starting to head out to the south which means as soon as I stick the boats nose out from behind Sandy Point things would be very different and very different it was. We had a few moments of airtime making our way south down the Port, it was like a washing machine in some places. I moved out of the deeper tidal water and made my way into the smoother shallow water for the journey south.

We arrived in our spot where I found Clint and Paul from the Bass Straight Game Fishing Club also trying their luck, from all accounts things were a bit tough, I could have run but the water was the clearest I had seen since launching so I just had to have a few casts.

It took about 5 minutes and I found my first squid, it was only about 15cm in the hood size and caught on a 3.5 sized jig. Not deterred I punched another few casts out and before long we had one of around the 1kg mark in the boat. Still not a big squid but better than the first.

We spent another hour in this area before I gave up, Clint and Paul had already made the move about half an hour before us. The tide turn was due so I though about a little place about half way up the port that would clear up for a while until the tide started to roar.

We arrive to again find Clint and Paul giving the squid a try but they were again struggling and were preparing another move, again I stuck it out for a while. This ended up being our spot of the day landing 6 out the 8 squid for the day in the area. It was pretty tough condition wise and Matt managed his first for the trip in this spot. We did manage one a bit over a kilo from here also.

I made one more move near Stoney Point and found the water was coffee colored and full of weed so it was decided that we make our move back to the ramp and call it quits.

Was great to have Matt aboard, always enjoy having new people on the boat, keeps things interesting and means you are always meeting new people with the common interest being fishing.

I had done a radio interview 2 days before, the last question I was asked was if I was to go squidding on the weekend what color would I use, I said that I would use a Gan Craft size 3.5 in Pink Head Shrimp and in every photo is that very same lure.