Rod Shepherd Profile

South West Victoria

With Rod Shepherd

15 April 2008

Sunday morning saw me back down on the Curdies River after a long hiatus away from my favourite bream fishery. I recently received some info that some anglers were catching bag limits of bream in the two pound bracket on fresh greyback in the lake and river mouth.

Being slightly lazy, I opted to use a packet of glassies. Tied up to the first channel marker in the lake, just out from the mouth, it took only minutes to receive a double hook up on big bream. Between 7am and 9am, I landed seven fish, all around 36cm and lost just as many as they hit the bait that hard. Slack line, open bail arms and/or backed off drag made no difference. They either hooked up or dropped the bait. On the whole, it was an exciting two hours.

The author with 2 typical bream taken in the Curdies on Sunday morning. Already tagged for Fishcare Southwest and about to be released.

From Port Fairy to Port MacDonnell in South Australia, the southern bluefin tuna and the odd albacore are well and truly on the chew. The depths out near the shelf where the fish are presently being taken run to 800 metres plus. Skirted lures used in conjunction with teasers are attracting most strikes. Most SBTs captured run out at 30 kilos but I’ve heard of much bigger fish being hooked and lost. Apparently commercial fishing vessels are present which is a real shame. Although some are bottom trawling for other species, others are targeting the SBT via long lining. These magnificent fish should be declared a recreational take only with most of the bigger ones tagged and released and allowed to breed, keeping only the odd smaller fish around 20 kilos or less. A so called smaller fish will still feed an awful lot of people.

Scott Grey, our local Fishcare facilitator, experienced some success in the SBT department off Portland recently and is venturing out again this week.

The Fitzroy River is still active for bream as my father and brother in-law recently caught 16 fish to 34cm in a session on frozen prawn.

Since the Gellibrand River at Princetown’s mouth opened recently and the whole system received a much needed flush out, good bream have been caught by bank anglers fishing the evening and into the night. From the campground/footy oval road bridge to the mouth has been the most productive section to wet a line. Local shrimp fished lightly weighted or under a bubble float have been the gun bait.

The Hopkins River has been consistent for bream, mostly to 34cm, over the length of the estuary. Brown shell and shrimp have worked well here. Good estuary perch to 1.3 kilos are also being caught at night on lures including surface poppers. The lower reaches of the Glenelg River at Nelson have seen plenty of bream taken on bait and lures. Mulloway are also rather prevalent of late as well. Anglers specifically targeting these magnificent fighting fish are boating Mulloway to 18 pounds.

Lake Bullen Merri is fishing well for brown trout by flat line trolling a variety of lures well back from the boat at first light. Loftys Cobras in white/pink-white are working well here as they often do.

Until next time, stay safe on the water,
Rod Shepherd.

See previous Shepherd report here.