Way out west

I have been trying to get back out west after a tough trip to Nelson a few weeks back so I caught up with mate Quy Bok Choi Van who is a resident of the western suburb of Warnambool and a handy fisho.

I woke nice and early for the 3 hour drive from Cranbourne in search of some Bream and Perch, I have caught a lot of Bream and Perch in my life but have not done a great deal in the west it has always been in Gippsland and some a little closer to home so it was good to catch up with a native (local) who had fished this water before.

Now I am not going to go into detail on the stretch of water we were fishing as I consider it to be quite fragile and not used to high traffic and exploitation, all I can say is it is a very picturesque waterway and one that I enjoyed fishing very much - yes I will be back.

We started in the lower reaches fishing the deep edges, with the deep water I started fishing with a DRESS Drepan Mini vibe, a perfect choice in the conditions. Well it would have been if we did not get plagued by small Australian Salmon keen to smash lures on every cast. Quy was worse off, he was using a Daiwa double clutch and the Salmon were all over him as he was not as deep in the water column. As it was getting tough to get past the Salmon we made a move upstream a little where I changed my lure to a Norries Laydown minnow, not much changed the pesky little salmon were everywhere. Quy managed a nice keeper Bream but it went very quiet except for the Salmon that were busting our chops on what ever we threw out.

Time for a change upstream a little. The whole landscape changed in an instant and the snag lined banks lit up with growth. It was like I had died and gone to Bream heaven. This is a very beautiful part of the world and I knew we would find fish there no matter what. We did find fish - nothing huge but plenty of fun for all.

I was fishing very very light with a PE 0.1 GOSEN Mebarin main line and 3lb leader, silly string for the structure we were fishing and I soon found out that it was probably not the best line choice for this area, this was loaded onto a Stella C2500HGS on a Gan Craft Custom Blue Series Cross Eye Rod. Suffice to say the loss of a few lures was imminent. Good bye to the Norries Laydown minnow, good bye to a couple of Jackson Trout Tunes and good bye to a couple of Dress DREPAN Mini's.

Darkness had started to fall so a quick trip back to the ramp was in order I thought I would get my phone out and film a bit of the water, I should have payed a bit more attention. Many fallen logs in skinny water and outboard will always result in a loud thump and a stalling motor.

Off the water on dark I had an awesome day out and will be back again soon enough. Massive thanks to Quy Bok Choi Van for a great day out in his neck of the woods.

Quick cool brisk morning on the port

With a break in the wind and rain earlier this week I decided to go for a quick session in Westernport in the hope of finding some above average squid.

I met up at the Hastings Ramp with old friend Dale, I had not used the boat since Nelson so nothing was set up or ready to go and
the night before I ran out of time so after a slight delay setting the boat up and getting gear ready we made the slow dark journey out of the Hastings Channel.

We headed north with Carlos following close behind as he had never fished in Westernport before and arrived at the quail bank along with a few others. Quail bank is a shallow piece of water the sits between Yaringa and Warneet, it holds lots of broken ground and lots of squid at the right time. The water varies in depth from 1 meter to about 7 meters so working out if you are set for a deep or shallow bite is the toughest part so I started in the middle and worked from there.

It was not too long and both Dale and I were putting squid into the live well, it was nearing the bottom of the tide and the bite had slowed down considerably so we made a short move to Tyabb bank. We managed a couple from here but nothing that would excite either of us. we made a few short moves along the bank but could not seem to find any decent activity.

I wanted to head much further south but the tide was coming in and there was a stiff north wind blowing - any one who has fished Western port knows what wind against tide can do to the lower reaches of the port so we only ventured down as far as Stony Point. We were doing it pretty tough down at Stoney. With the tide in full swing it was time to pull the plug and head back to the ramp.

Was great to be out on Westernport again, we managed a bag in less than 4 hours of squid up to 40cm.

Hooked up TV Squid session and Osaka Tackle Show

A few months ago we took Kosta from Hooked up Magazine to Japan to see the Osaka Tackle Show 2014, he gathered some great footage of the show and then we did a squid session in PPB when we returned. Catch all the fun here http://www.hookedupmagazine.com.au/ or view below. Its a full length clip and lots of fun was had by all. Hope you enjoy the clip and look out for further episodes of Hooked Up TV.

CLICK ON THE 1080PHD button for best viewing.

Walking the planks

Saturday night I decided to do something that I had not done for a very long time. I left the boat at home strapped on my walking boots and went pier hopping along the Mornington Peninsula.

Since buying a new boat 2 and a half years ago I have only wet a line land based on a few occasions and that was generally in the fresh chasing Trout or Estuary Perch. Fond memories of walking along piers casting at squid and chatting to the other pier rats was something that I had taken for granted having access to a boat and walking that planks of the jetties again sounded like fun.

I jumped in the car loaded with gear and headed about an hour south west to Portsea. Being an Easter weekend there was a few people on the pier already casting away and a few with the long wonderpoles jigging to their hearts content. I stood around chatting for a bit before looking for a clear part of the jetty where I could wet my own line. I found a clear spot near the end of the jetty where I ran into Mr Barresi casting away with his father (I think) they had no joy but I thought I would have a crack myself. A short time later a mate Paul Anca Barton turned up with his missus Beck and the dog for a few casts. After an hour of casting and no joy I packed it in and headed back towards the east to Sorrento.

I got to Sorrento and wondered down to the end of the pier. The current was ripping through and only limited space was available for casting. I picked a spot and cast away for about another hour, it seemed no one was having any joy here either so it was decided Blairgowrie was going to be the next stop. Arriving at Blairgowrie we walked up the jetty towards the end when I noticed a mass of ink on the pier. We stopped and cast around for a bit. Anca was preoccupied by his scotch and while leaning over to reach it he got smacked by a squid but lost on the can retrieval he missed it. I laughed but then realized - hang on I have not even had a hit yet, maybe I should shut up!! Things did not improve, I made the trip to Mornington on my own for the last hurrah.

Mornington was its usual busy so I picked a place out of the way of every one and started plugging away, the water was dirty and the wind was up so I made a quick color change to add some color to the jig and on the very next cast I picked up a typical small Mornington Squid. I stuck to this spot for about half an hour picking up another 3 squid. Some folks had started to leave making room for me further down the jetty. There was more light here so I opted for one of my designs in Kuma Killer and see through red jig with black cloth and white print on the back. The next 20 minutes saw me land another 3 small squid. I was going to keep these guys for a mate who needed some bait but there was a family of 5 sitting to my right that I had been talking to that had been there for 6 hours and not landed a squid. I handed my squid over to them as they were leaving, six hours of casting should not go unrewarded and they were going to eat them. I packed it in myself and headed home after an awesome night.

It was good to gt back to my roots and stroll the loose timer beams of the
many jetties along the southern part of the bay, I will have to do it more often.

Gan Craft Stand - Osaka Fishing Show 2014

Just thought I would share a clip of the Gan Craft Stand at the 2014 Osaka Fishing Show. I managed to squeeze my head in a couple of times. I really love going back to this place every year and cant wait to do it all again.

My last days in Japan for this trip

Apologies for the late entry, I almost forgot I had not finished the trip log. Its always hard to say goodbye when I visit here, the friends you keep and the people you meet are something you can never forget.

I will let the photo's do the talking it was an amazing way to finish off an amazing trip. Cant wait to get back in May for the Eging Summit in Tanabe.

Nelson - Glenelg River

On the weekend past I made the journey west to on of my all time favorite places to fish on the Glenelg River in Nelson.

It had been a big few weeks and I needed to get away from every thing and almost every one for a day or 2 so I could partake in some serenity and try and find some of my old mojo.

I grabbed a good mate Dale and in the early hours of Saturday morning we started our journey in the darkness that 2:00am brings, car and boat loaded the 400km trip was under way. After a couple of hours into the trip on the approach to Colac Dale and I had a conversation about how the Police always sat at the bottom of the hill coming into Colac. Being fully aware of this I put some music on and forgot all about the conversation we had just had. Coming over the hill I saw the 80 sign so I turned the cruise control off and coasted down the hill, then I saw the 60 sign and started on the brakes just as a saw the blue and white checkers of a local divy van. DOH!. It seems that I had not slowed up quick enough and went past the 60 sign at 76. For every action there is a reaction and in this case the reaction was red an blue flashing lights in my rear view. More pissed off at myself than the local constabulary we exchanged pleasantries and speeding fines and we were again on our way.

The sun was coming up as we approached Nelson a bit behind our scheduled time but this weekend was about relaxing and not rushing to meet schedules, we approached the ramp on the pub side only to find the water level too shallow to launch. Water was filthy on the edge and not much better in the deep. We decided to head over the bridge an launch on the other side where the ramp is a bit steeper.

We putted up towards Donavans where the lecky motor was deployed and started to flick some lures around. I started of with a Gan Craft Big Spider Micro on a 1/32 jighead to fall own the edges in the hope a bream would come out and play with it and Dale got started with a DRESS Drepan mini vibe to fish the secondary drop off.

The water was still filthy and there were no Bream to be seen, we made a move to Pritchards hoping the water would be a bit cleaner but the further we traveled the worse the water got, I did get a few hits on the spider but too busy yacking and not paying enough attention saw me panced a couple of times with the bream winning a plastic and me getting a clean jighead back. Dale managed a couple of small Bream on the DRESS vibe but things were just not working for us.

We took the boat out o the water so we could check into the accommodation and grab a feed, now if I can take one thing from this weekend that is that the lamb, gravy an cheese jaffles at the shop in Nelson are to die for and I did my best to smash a few of them over the weekend.

We put the boat back into the water and looked for a bit of clean water. No matter where we looked we could not find any fish or clean edges, even the schooled up fish could not be talked into a vibe after tea bagging for a while. We made some lure changes. I went to an ecogear grass minnow and Dale went the SX40F. We plugged away for a while when I managed to pick up a small jew. I was pretty hapy with the capture as I was only fishing 1lb line and a 3lb leader running through a new Gan Craft Grid 2lb rod. It handled it perfectly. we continued on a bit further with Dale picking up another small Bream or 2 and a small Perch. Defeated we headed back to the room to drop off the boat and then to the pub for a feed.

After a good night sleep we made the decision to have another crack at the Glenelg rather than head to Portland to have a crack at some Tuna - we made the wrong decision. We caught stuff all an every one fishing Tuna bagged out. I will not bore you with the details of our defeat but I had an awesome weekend away fishing with a mate an that's what its all about.