Fishing Victoria Forum

Hey fellas, I went out chasing Rip kings on Wednesday (day before you guys) and had the same experience. About 20 boats out and no one catching anything I could see. Got a few good signs on the sounder and we fished those areas hard but no love. We did accidentally drift off into the marine park at one point and got pulled up by the ranger but they were really good about it and let us off with a warning. We only just drifted In by about 100 meters and they were onto us after having a run in with a charter boat for drifting into the marine park (not far from us) who apparently hurled abuse at them.

Anyone fishing the rip should get familiar with the marine park zone on the western side as it extends way out into the shipping zone and is not so easy to notice, save yourself a fine. The eastern side is yellow buoyed and only 250m off the coast so easy to identify. The marine park rangers are all over it like White on rice.

skronkman wrote:Hey fellas, I went out chasing Rip kings on Wednesday (day before you guys) and had the same experience. About 20 boats out and no one catching anything I could see. Got a few good signs on the sounder and we fished those areas hard but no love. We did accidentally drift off into the marine park at one point and got pulled up by the ranger but they were really good about it and let us off with a warning. We only just drifted In by about 100 meters and they were onto us after having a run in with a charter boat for drifting into the marine park (not far from us) who apparently hurled abuse at them.

Anyone fishing the rip should get familiar with the marine park zone on the western side as it extends way out into the shipping zone and is not so easy to notice, save yourself a fine. The eastern side is yellow buoyed and only 250m off the coast so easy to identify. The marine park rangers are all over it like White on rice.

its amazing how many they catch at the marine park outside point cook chasing squid.

hardly worth it fir a squid.

wonder what would happen if you drifted in while fighting a kingy

Yer mate same Thursday when we went the fisheries where warning people

Went out today in my boat and a mate picked up one second drop. That was it for the day though. Picked up 8 squid while killing time in between tide changes. Had a heap of fun burning around at full noise. Awesome conditions.

I was definitely one of the smaller boats out there. Haha

ducky wrote:Went out today in my boat and a mate picked up one second drop. That was it for the day though. Picked up 8 squid while killing time in between tide changes. Had a heap of fun burning around at full noise. Awesome conditions.

so it was your boat that i seen then, i was pretty sure it was you but was a bit too far away to tell

ducky wrote:
I was definitely one of the smaller boats out there. Haha

you didnt see the 3m polycraft tuff tender then??

was there for a few hours today, seen a few nice schools, but only had one live squid and sammy the seal made the most of that.
i swaer now my left arm is a lot stronger than my right from all the jigging i have done

Haha. I certainly did see that. Brass balls that one.

What boat were you in?

carribean concorde i believe. It was calmer than thursday. That's for sure. And quite busy haha.

Yeah it certainly was calm. Had no concerns at all. Will definitely take my boat out there again. There's plenty of deep water in the calmer sections inside the heads no one was fishing.

I just need a better sounder... Mine didn't handle the depths at all

ducky wrote:Yeah it certainly was calm. Had no concerns at all. Will definitely take my boat out there again. There's plenty of deep water in the calmer sections inside the heads no one was fishing.

I just need a better sounder... Mine didn't handle the depths at all

yeah we lost bottom a few times too, garmin and elite ti7, but they both fared well otherwise.
i was rethinking going there in my boat after i seen the tuff tender and few other tinnies that my boat can outhandle any day. but im not confident enough and thats what it all comes down to. some guys have balls of steel no questions asked, specially that tuff tender, he dissapeared in the swell so many times it wasnt funny.

Good luck for next time guys, kingfish are really annoying and unpredictable. Every day, every hour in-fact every minute day have different behaviour and bite times. When I was out last Monday there was at least 20 boats in the marine park including 2 well known charters!!! Luckily our skipper was sensible and stayed well out of marine park and crowd.