Tea Tree snapper success

Another Tea Tree Festival has come and gone with great numbers of fish being taken and some absolute honkers amongst them. Aside from the competition the fishing over the past week has been good with lots of anglers fishing themselves silly over the weekend before the bad weather hit on Tuesday.

Tea Tree Festival
Held from 12pm on Friday till 12pm on Saturday a huge field of competitors had a great time catching plenty of snapper with the overall winning fish dragging the scales down to 10.84kg; this monster was taken from Westernport. The second biggest snapper weighed 8.6kg. The third place was taken by good mate Greg (pictured below) with a very fat 6.54kg snapper from Port Phillip Bay.

Port Phillip Bay
There have been plenty of snapper reports over the past week with lots of fish being taken out in the 18-21m areas. Friday afternoon saw lots of snapper being taken over a wide area. Staff member Eren fished with Darren Jansen and Lou Rocca towards the Fawkner Beacon and had no trouble getting a bag of snapper in the 2-3kg range. The boys said all of the boats around them also had similar action. Good mate Quinn fished with his dad and a few mates on Friday and had success all day long catching and releasing snapper from the Gasso to wide off Mornington.

Saturday morning customers Tony and Corey fished in 15m of water off Ricketts Point to land five snapper to 93cm. This is the big one pictured below.

Sunday morning good mate and resident artist Nick Hannan (see his amazing fish prints in store or on the website) fished in 16m of water off Parkdale to land three lovely snapper to 5kg on baits of pilchard.

Sunday, good mates John Manjervic and Lawrence Lecsic fished Queenscliff for some top squid and a dozen thumper whiting ranging from 44-47cm, the whiting were taken in 14m of water with fresh squid and mussels producing the best results.
The boys then fished the area again on Monday and had a cracker session on the squid getting 17 to 2.5kg with best results coming on 3.5 sized jigs in red, or orange.

On Monday good customer Tony took his wife and kids out for a fish on the bay, their day out was a good one with six snapper being caught. Tony's daughter Sophia got her personal best fish of 58cm while her brother Peter got stuck into two lovely snapper to 59cm on Gulp swimming shads in Sardine colour. Monday morning Darren Jansen and his mate "Shifty" trolled the mouth of Patterson river for a whole pile of small salmon. Darren said lure choice was critical to success ... with the best results coming on anything you had, just so long as it was in the water.

Customer and all round good guy Andy Michelis headed out in his boat on Monday after following Adam's advice and came up trumps with his first snapper for the season - I think you can tell by the picture that he was stoked.

Morne and his dad fished Monday afternoon out off Frankston. The boys went out looking for the reds but had to turn around due to wind so they headed in for squid instead and ended up with their bag! Harimitsu jigs in EWC, AR and EOR were the stand out in size 2.5.
Customer George popped in during the week and reported good captures of squid at Mornington Pier. George has been doing well with Yamashita Jigs in 2.5 colours IBA and TGK. He also reported good captures of snapper to 2.5kgs when it has been rough.

Westernport
While fishing the port on Friday Justin Scott and his 12yr old son Josh had a great session fishing the Tea Tree comp. They landed 12 snapper from 1.5 to 4.1kg; keeping only four fish. Then at 6.30pm fishing in 12m of water near Elizabeth island a rod screamed off; after 25 minutes of long runs and big head knocks the boys had a massive silver jewie at the back of their 4m tinnie. It put up a great fight as you could imagine on 12lb mono on a Penn 4600 live liner, the boys now have sore mouths as they can't remove the smiles from their faces.

Some big catches of snapper came from the port on the weekend with customer Matt Pilley fishing over two days. On Friday he fished out around Joes island landing six snapper to 3kg and releasing another 25 to 5kg before the wind picked up forcing them to leave.
The boys then headed back out on Saturday and in his words this is how it unfolded: "We had an insane session catching 59 fish, kept six fish to 3kg and released another 53 to 4kg. Between 1pm and 7pm it was non stop right through the tides and slack water, again had to leave them biting when the wind sprung up. Best baits were fresh squid and IQF pillies."

Customer Brad fished out from Coronet Bay on Monday in 4m of water to catch and release a bunch of snapper between 4 and 7kg, he said it was out of control with four young kids on the boat constantly hooked up on big fish.
Still good reports of squid from Flinders with most success still coming on 3.5-4.0 sized squid jigs, with the best colours being green, red and blue.

Out of town

Warrnambool
Good mate and customer Anton fished Levis Beach Monday afternoon. Anton ended up with 12 nice salmon to 1kg all taken on 40gm Sea Rock minnows in Pilchard colour. Just before the thunderstorm hit he caught a pinkie snapper around the 1kg mark on pilchard.

Mallacoota Inlet
Good customer and mate Ryan Hartas fished with his girlfriend over the long weekend and had a great trip catching plenty of flathead on plastics. Ryan rang Wednesday morning a happy boy. He caught this lovely flathead measuring 96cm on 6lb line and 8lb leader using a 4" Gulp Prawn in Molting. This beauty was released for another day - way to go mate.

Lake Eildon
Marc Ainsworth and Scott Gray fished the lake over the weekend and had a ripper of a trip. The boys were chasing yellowbelly and caught plenty on Rapala Clackin'Raps in MBS and YP. Most yellas caught were between 3 -5lbs with some monsters to 12lbs. Scott spoke to one of the water police over the weekend and he told him of one that went 9kgs. Some other brands to try would be Jackalls and River 2 Sea Tungsten Vibrations. Look out for Adventure Bound over the next few weeks for the show.

North East Alpine District
On Monday Rex fished the north east alpine district rivers in the areas of Dandongedale, Myrtleford and Chestnut for trout. He caught 17 for the day including rainbows to 24cm and browns to 31cms. All fish were taken on a number 0 rainbow pattern Vibrax. He also reported plenty of large lizards and saw a lovely red-belly black and one young, around 2-feet long, stunning looking copperhead snake!

Permalink : Author: Blog Author : Comments (0) : Filed Under: RAYNER'S VIC ROUND-UP by Lee Rayner,