St Leonard's 17/1/15

[cazof88]

Hi all,

I thought id post a fishing report from my trip out to St Leonard's yesterday. It was the first time I took the boat out early morning and it was an absolute pleasure!
Me and two other mates left my house at 3am with the boat in tow, by the time we stopped for bait and got some snacks we arrived at the boat ramp at about 5:10. We got everything and launched just as first light was coming up. The water was like glass at this time of the morning so we had a bit of fun cruising to a spot i wanted to try.

We arrived at the spot and anchored down, my rod was in the water for less than two minutes when it started screaming! What ensued was a ten minute fight on relative light gear when I finally got it to the boat- it was a damn sting ray. While I had fun fighting it, I was hoping for something a little tastier so we released him back into the deep. What followed was half an hour of catching bango sharks (7 in total and some fairly large ones), we were well and truly over them. We then decided to move, I attempted to used my sounder as best I could and we anchored up an another spot. All we caught was another bango so we moved again which produced nothing. At this stage heavy cloud cover was overhead, it had begun raining and the wind had picked up quite a bit. We put our life jackets on just in case and decided to head for portarlington however the chop picked up as we were in front of the pain st Leonard's pier. We stopped and questioned whether we should go in and call it quits but one of my mates checked the weather satellite and said that the rain should pass within 10 mins so we decided to just anchor down where we were.

the spot was about 24ft of water according to the sounder and we were not very optimistic of out chances of catching anything but it was close enough to the boat ramp that we could get out of trouble if we needed it- we were wrong. What ensured was 90 minutes of pure chaos. Our rods would not be in the water for more then 30 seconds before something would hit the bait. I managed to double hookup three times, unfortunately it was primarily miniature pinkies. In the end of the 90 mins we had landed 8 nice Flathead, released 4 or 5 undersides and caught at least 20 undersized pinkies that were all released. We also caught a single whiting, which I found quite unusual as I thought whiting were suppose to roam in schools. Even though we released more than we kept, we had a lot of fun. After the spot when quiet we tried two other random spots with little success and decided to call it quits since we were lacking sleep and were going out that night.

All in all had a great time with great company. I still need to try to learn how my fish finder unit works. i can use the gps and what not but had no idea how to interpret the sounder side of things. Next time we plan on hitting up western port for some of the massive whiting I've heard so much about but think we will wait for it to be daylight as I've heard it can be pretty hairy in western port if you don't know what your doing.

[bowl]

Nice report,a lot people drift for squid around st leonards.also a good whiting area.
Keep exploring and before long you will have sounder all sussed out.
Go out at low tide in wp so you can see were the mud banks are.

[Scraglor]

Nice report,a lot people drift for squid around st leonards.also a good whiting area.
Keep exploring and before long you will have sounder all sussed out.
Go out at low tide in wp so you can see were the mud banks are.

Yeah, Bowl seems to do pretty good around that area. I dont fish that side of the bay, but I would be looking for patches of reef and fishing the sandy areas next to it for whiting if you are in the area. You can also throw some squid jigs around the reef while you are waiting for your whiting rods to go off.

On the topic of monster WPB whiting, will be launching in about an hour, looking for some of these. Hopefully the weather plays ball. Has been a cracker year for them.

[cazof88]

Thanks for the advice guys, I'll be sure to try my luck for some squid next time.

Bowl what do you mean so I can see where the mud banks are? As in so I don't get trapped on one or so I can fish around them?

[bowl]

Yeah there can be huge tide changes in wp, you r fishing in 2 meters one minute, then a hour later this happens

S5001484.jpg (72.22 KiB) Viewed 1040 times

[Scraglor]

Yeah there can be huge tide changes in wp, you r fishing in 2 meters one minute, then a hour later this happens

S5001484.jpg

Haha, it was like that this afternoon at hastings, the only water was the water in the channel. Once you were out though, it was blowing a gale across the current. Got out, had a wave come over the side of the boat, came back in. Thanks Willy Weather.

[cazof88]

Damn seems like WP is a whole different beast of a bay, I'll make sure to be careful and watch out for those mud banks. Not really the right place to ask but where exactly is middle spit? I hear that's where the best fishing is?

[Scraglor]

Damn seems like WP is a whole different beast of a bay, I'll make sure to be careful and watch out for those mud banks. Not really the right place to ask but where exactly is middle spit? I hear that's where the best fishing is?

There are a few more intricacies with WPB, but dont be put off by them. As long as you have a reasonable sounder and GPS its not a problem. The tide runs a lot harder, but as long as you are aware of the tides, its not too bad. Make sure you know when low tide is, and make sure you arent in an area that could potentially end up dry. There is definitely a lot more on offer in terms of variety, and there seems to be the potential of a lot better quality of fish, in my limited experience. That being said, i'll still be in PPB for peak snapper season, etc

[Nude up]

Nice report where did you launch its a fair run from st lenoards to portarlington in the boat.good idea with the lifejackets making the decision early is a good move. Buy the plasticized maps of wpb and ppb very handy and transport vic put out some general maps with marine parks on best is they are free http://www.transportsafety.vic.gov.au/m ... erway-maps" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[cazof88]

We launched from St Leonard's, we didn't think portarlington was that far but luckily we gave up on the idea before finding out. I just ordered two books online that have maps and apparently gps marks for PPB and WP so hopefully they will come in handy. Thanks for the tip on the general maps, ill need to download some of the useful ones.