Rod Shepherd Profile

South West Victoria

With Rod Shepherd

22 April 2008

Last Wednesday morning I decided to go for a fish on Lake Bullen Merri. From 7am to 9am, I trolled Loftys Cobra lures all around North Beach close to shore, but in depths varying from 3 to 7 metres. I started with white/pink white with no success. A few minutes after changing to fluoro orange, I hooked up to a 2 pound brown in 3.5 metres depth.

The author with the Bullen Merri Brown.

The lure that saved the day - Loftys Cobra Orange.

Several other boats were out trying their luck as well. Most were down rigging and I didn’t see one other fish boated. There was virtually no wind so the lake was like glass, which is not conducive to successful fishing. Without so much as a ripple disturbing the water’s surface tension, fish tend to get extremely finicky so I guess I was lucky to score a solitary fish. Before heading home I motored over to Potters Point to try for a Bass or two on plastics, but I was literally eaten out of the water by large minnow! (See pic.)

Whilst chasing Bass I couldn't shake off the local minnow population.

Early Saturday morning saw my good self back on the Curdies River bait fishing for bream. Although the weather was perfect, the bream were quiet. I earlier dusted off the greyback net and captured just enough near the town bridge for a session, as well as a few shrimp. With the best bait at hand, I only managed two bream runs. One at the mouth of the river/lake early on and the other, much later in the morning, at the top of Bailey’s Straights. In between, I hooked up to about a dozen or so juvenile salmon. Other, unforseen or detected scavengers stripped my baits clean after 15 or so minutes.

Two things of note whilst soaking a bait on the Curdies, was that schools of greyback (local whitebait) were making their way up the river, presumably to spawn, and quite a few surface schools of mullet were congregating and moving up and down the river. The schools must have numbered in the thousands and were they in the process of spawning too? I’d like to know.

The Curdies River on Saturday. Note the dark rippled water in the centre of picture. A massive surface school of Mullet. I encountered at least seven of these schools whilst trying to tempt a bream. Are they in spawning mode?

Meanwhile at Nelson, good bream and mulloway are being caught along the cliff faces from the SA border down to the mouth. Also the flats near the mouth are producing bream in low light conditions. Mulloway are also being caught along the channel marker poles just down from the town boat ramp.

The Fitzroy Near Tyrendarra has been producing plenty of bream on plastics and bait. Again, during the day, the deeper holes along the main length are holding fish during the day, but shallower water holds good bream in low light conditions.

The Gellibrand River at Princetown is still fishing reasonably well for bream, and first light, dusk and after dark are the best times to fish. Local shrimp used from Latrobe Creek down to the mouth is the gun bait. Bank anglers are scoring well here.

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

See previous Shepherd report here.