Port Phillip VS Western Port

Port Phillip bay reminds me of a full figured girl (FAT), with a huge set of ……. Ummm personality, who I met at the dog park on a lovely Sunday spring morning (3AM at a nightclub on a footy trip).  

Yeh we had fun once (twice) but when all the fun was over I was left with a bored, lonely & sad feeling hoping the next drought wouldnt feel as long and painfull. 

“Listen I have to get going, I have a 9.00am meeting”  

“ummm, its Sunday & you’re a tradie.” 

RUN!!!! 

Where as Western Port reminds me of my newly appointed beautiful Fiance,  who continues to deliver day after day with love (cooked meals) companionship (time to go fishing) & security (spends a lot of time at IKEA) 

Yeh sure Ive had good times every now and again in Port phillip. Its where I & everyone else begins there fishing adventures & I have great memories from there. “Where are the fish mate?” my brother and i would ask everyone who had a snapper at the ramp. “22m straight out there little fella” 

“Hey Dad, this guy at the ramp with a snapper told us where they are!!!!!” 

I remember fishing with my grandpa, my fishing hero, who fly fished every day on the ovens river in myrtelford. He came on the first time we ever took dads boat into port phillip & he would happen to pass away 2 weeks later after catching his first PPB snapper. He would then pass his fly rods & fly cases onto my brother and I. 

My Dad, Brother & I fishing from 5.00AM until 3.00PM with out a single fish then seeing my brother land a 9KG snapper off mornington.  

But when the novelty off being on the boat wore off and the countless hours after hours soaking pillies & having to get a taxi back the boat after parking 3km down the road in mornington, lake disappointment showed its true colours. 

Sure we where quite novice at the time, Stinga was still having wet dreams & I still hid pornos under my bed but the pain and scars have not left our souls.  

Theres more to the fishing world than 22m off carrum. 

Then, in the form of 4 Gummys over 10kg, one pushing 20kg along with a swagger of line peeling salmon, calamari & what ever we couldn’t get even close to the boat we swore our PPB days were over.  We had seen the light and our 4.2m allycraft would take us on the ride of our lives. 

The one thing that astounds me about Western Port bay is its diversity.  

Last week Stinga and myself fished the northern arm of western port primarily for snapper. As normal, when ever we go fishing we take a bag of pippies for fresh bait and enjoyment.  At one stage we were having so much fun catching burrowing Trevally we let a small snapper peel line off the bigger rods in fear of loosing a trophy trevally. We counted 11 species that hit the deck of the boat that night. We got the quaddie of snapper calamari gummy and whiting, along with salmon thumping trevally and a range of rays and sharks. Not only do these fish provide in enjoyment and frivolity, their table quality is divine far surpassing a 22m Carrum snapper. Believe me  Sushimi Trevally is delicious.. 

What has us hooked on western port is the unknown. What is deep down in the murky waters of this fine marine sanctuary? For every rare capture of fish like cobia & hammerheads theres a few that slip by in the form of a few rows of serrated teeth. When the snapper slowly start to leave the fishing only ramps up in summer where we have had most of our success on the grey sub. Last year in the month of January in 4 fishing trips we managed to land 16 gummies the biggest going 18kg and the smallest 10kg.  

Westernport has an abundance of fresh bait available all at the drop of a $6 burley log to the point where most fishos launch without any bait at all. I can near on guarantee you if you drop a burley log in under 3M of water anywhere in the bay soon enough you will be landing a variety of yakka, salmon, barracuda, pike,  trevally & then your always a chance of a delicous king george. A lot of the time the bait collection is the most entertaining fishing of the trip. This style of fishing is a fantastic opportunity to take first time fishos, wives & girlfriends along too.  

We once took our lovely girls out for a gummy fish, and we had pulled in our standard 10 or so yakkas for the trip & said to the girls 

“ok, pull up darls, where going fishing now.” 

They said “what? I thought we were fishing. Why? Where catching heaps of fish here.” 

We then went to our gummy spot and didn’t get a fish & our partners havent come out with us again. Some may say this was a good ploy, but first time fishos want & need to be catching fish regularly so they too can become as obsessed as we all are.  

So as we learn more of our chosen craft, and to the hope of my fiances mother, grow into responsible fathers, I myself will be taking my little ones to the Port so they too will love the sport of recreational fishing.

How not to catch a mulloway

Have I, at some point in my life, crossed paths with a Mulloway in one way or another? This is a question which I regulary ask myself. Was there a Mulloway within the whole system tonight or did I brush a lure right past ones nose & a slight twitch at the wrong time spooked the fish. Was it a Mulloway that spooled me off corinella a few years back when our gear wasn't up to scratch. The answers to these questions I will never know. What I do know is the more I fish for them without luck the more my passion increases to catch this mysterious fish.

It's the mystique & prehistoric characteristics of Mulloway that grabs my attention. People dining on southbank on a Saturday night not knowing that they're are 40kg monsters lurking in the dirty polluted waters of the yarra river. For every 20kg dinosaur landed, i shudder to think the fish lost on tackle set up for bream and other smaller estuary fish. Tommorrow we will be targeting mulloway once again. As every trip, i honestly believe tommorrow will be the day. Will it be a little tweek made from our last journey or will it be every experience that will lead us to our most prized capture? Focusing on the processes not the end result is a little trick we learnt from our under 18's footy coach.

I consider myself the engineer of Mulloway fishing. I've been to uni, studied all the facts, but when I actually get on a real job site I'm out of my depth. I've read, talked to pros, heard the success stories. I have lures ranging from 140mm shallow diving minows to tiny little vibes. My knowledge on paper is great. I know there feeding patterns, I know they like to ambush from turbid water and shadows into clean water and artificial light. I know although ruthless hunters there strike rate on attacks is not that great. All this information that accounts for zero Mulloway. I feel the same as that engineer that rocks up to site in brand new work boots, pants still creased from being folded in a packet & a shiny brand new white helmet.

Have we been successful? Yes. Not by knowing how to catch them, but by knowing how not to. I know a packet of frozen squid from the petrol station will not end in the capture of a secret silver. I know that fishing corinella with 100m of 10 pd mono on ur spool & light leaders is also going to make life hard for yourself. The definition of insanity is making the same mistakes & expecting a different result. So we have been successful Mulloway fisherman by eliminating what doesn't catch Jew fish, & eventually there will be no more mistakes left to make and that shiny white helmet I wore on day one will be covered in dirt, scrathes and union stickers, all proving my experiences.

Portland for the little guy

There's something special about fishing and succeeding on your own in a place usually reserved for massive boats, huge swells, huge game reels, expensive charters & loads of experience, especially when you are as inexperienced in game fishing as we are. 

When I mentioned to the blokes at work that we were thinking about heading down to Portland  I was laughed at, "hey alby, this ringpoker reckons he's gonna fish Portland in a 5.2 hahahaha". There are so many misconceptions about Portland & what is laughable is some of the dollars spent on boats and gear all to catch the same tuna we were catching. It was a sight to see when we had a triple hook up on our gummy outfits in 3-4 metre seas 500m from Lawrence rock, while 2 x 7m+ Haines hunters with outrigers trolled 4 rods @ 24kg gear around for an hour and watched us land 3 12kg tuna and go from 1 fish to bagging out in one hookup. Not only do they have the $150,000 Haines hunter which costs $500 to fill up but it's the $150,000 F-250 used to pull it. So it can be very nerve racking backing your little girl in with the glaring eyes from all the big players. 

I couldn't believe how nervous I was as stinga backed her down the ramp & I drove her off. I felt like a virgin again nervously about to have sex for the first time.. Which was around last week some time. It was 3.00pm on our first day & all the big boys were back looking like they'd just come of the deadliest catch with smears of tuna blood under there eyes in full wet weather gear and boy did we feel intimidated. The Adrenalin was pumping due to the current forecast of 3-4 metre swells & 1-2 metre seas. It was pretty rough straight out of the harbour and the mood was very somber as the seawater sprayed our faces like the ending Debbie does Dallas. Not a word was spoken as I think we were both thinking, "were not gonna get out here". As we rounded Lawrence rock and at a 6 knot trolling speed it wasn't too bad. Sure stinga battled to set the spread but we were soaking lures and it was waiting time.. 10 mins in "SNAP Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz" the elastic band snapped and off went both ratchets... Much the same as my first sexual encounter I got way too excited and finished too quick, i panicked and pulled back on the throttle instantly which inturn lost pressure on the line and didn't complete the hook up.. 

Stinga wasn't happy, the tension was high, the sought of tension that could only be released over a few fine reds by the open fire back at camp..... I mean by seeing a blue fin hit the deck. 

Day one was done & dusted & we were thankful pulling up at the ramp that no one was there to see our scorecard.. Confident in tomorow as the weather was better and we had learnt from my mistake.

1.00pm
6 hits/0 fish. 6.5 hrs on the water. Doubt had set in. We were now not only doubting our ability as fisherman, but  stinga was starting to question his sexuality. Further more by the reports coming in on the VHF that everyone had already bagged out.. Finally just as the topic of discussion had moved from fishing to would you eat a nugget from your dog weekly for an extra centimeter where it counts?... On divulging the hard issues of today's society "SNAP zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz" off went the Penn international and I dove on it.. The big 24kg had no trouble bringing it and 5 mins later our first ever southern blue fin tuna had hit the deck of our little boat. Adjulation, high 5's were being thrown a missed in the rolling swell. What a stunning fish and what a huge amount of blood all over us and the boat. The monkey was off the back and we then spotted a school just off Lawrence rock & ive never seem so much action. There must have been 1000 birds 100 dolphins and seals, and it was then when we triple hooked up with only two of us in the boat as the big boys watched on...We have never had so much fun, we reeled them in as they unsuccessfully tried to get away from the seals. 

Day 3 & my old boy joined us today. We were plotting every hook up on the hds and after a while a pattern starts to emerge and we found that they were all in 50-80m of water 5km east of the lighthouse. Thats the benefit  you get when  you set aside a few days to a trip. What a sight it was to see my old man land his first tuna, smile from ear to ear and he was stoked. Today was unlike the first two days and after our first fish we had dropped down to our gummy gear & were having a ball.. 7/7 today and we were on our way back in by 10.30. The drop down in gear was a great decision and what you can really notice is the way each fish fights. Our biggest at 13kg came straight in as a 10kg one took stinga 20 mins to get in.. We ditched the spread and just ran two rods. 

Alot of people have asked what lures are working but it can be different on any day.. The 2nd day was purple, the next yellow and blue and they didn't touch the purple but to be honest when they're that thick I really think they would take a carrot with a hook in it..

We didn't jump into Portland blind.. An absolute non negotiable is safety gear. We spent over $1000 on making sure our boat was up to standard because if it goes pearshaped out there, your in trouble.. I wasted around a week checking the weather every hour to make sure it was alright and I still thought it was sus heading out. Our boat is a 520c Haines signature with a 115 yamaha 2 stroke. 3-4m swell with 1-2 metre seas is fishable in our vessel but that would be the limit.. The Haines sig has really high sides for a small boat which was a godsend when trolling across the swell.. We barely ran our bildge so if your sides are smaller I wouldn't risk it in those conditions.
On fuel our yam drinks more than a thirsty Russian but our 100 ltr tank lasted till 3.30pm from 6.30am then we put a 20 ltr Jerry in. Be extra careful putting jerrys in, because in rough conditions the seawater can so easily contaminate the fuel...
Don't be scared to fish lighter, if u get busted of by a big one then so be it, It will be back. Mitch chapman & Adam Ring from Tackleworld were nailing them on 6kg gear aboard Bigtime this week so 24 is such an overkill.

But most of all we asked question after question. We berated facebook for answers on how to do things, as well as the not so intimidating charter operators who are all fantastic blokes. We had a guy from sharkmen fishing charters fillet half our fish for us because he couldn't stand us hacking them up any more. And most people are more than happy to help. As amateur fisherman like ourselves we need To understand that charter operators, tackle shops and fishing professionals exist because of us, So ask the questions, and they are more than glad to help out on any queries.. We hope to repay Shaun Furtire for his words of wisdom with a big whiting charter shortly..

So when u hear that the tuna are in close, don't let people put u off and get down there. Be safe, ask questions and go collect your bounty because at the end of the day they tast AMAZING.

Tdogg and stinga

Our Portland album is on our facebook page

History of planking

The art of planking, as described in the planking bible, is the act of placing ones body in such a way in which arms are by the plankers side & all limbs are at full extension often performed on a unanimous object. The object in which the planker chooses to plank on is entirely the plankers choice, although the more unique the object often the better the plank.

The word planking is a dirivetive of the word plankopace, which is Latin for "artistically displaying stiffness" & originated in the 1590's when the Dutch were ferrying exotic spices around the world via sail boat. On these year long journeys they would also ferry people trying to escape their homeland. Those not fortunate enough to afford their own living quarters would travel the year long journey in the lowest poorest part of the deck sometimes not seeing light for months at a time. As it was extremely close living arrangements, a married couple wanting to engage in a sexual encounter, in fear of being caught, would lie on each other in the plank position & let the motion of the ocean rock each other forwards and backwards therefore inventing planking. When more than one couple was planking at the same time it was called plankorgy, also inventing the orgy, which was later shortened to orgy.
Planking, or plankopace^ was later outlawed in 1633 due to rogue waves causes serious injuries & the ship doctor couldn't keep up with all the plakories as described in his tell all book, "Planking, are you in?"

Planking then somewhat disappeared for generations until it was rediscovered recently with the help of facebook & national media & slightly altered to adhere to current day values.
We believe planking is not about who can plank in the most dangerous place but who can be the most creative. It engages peoples minds and can be performed by people of any age. We've even heard the people down at the local cemetery have been planking like mad recently.

So plankers, plank away, engage your mind and invinitiveness, plank safely and always remember your planking ancestors.

Stay stiff


T-Dogg & Stinga

If you liked this article please help us out by clicking on the advertising

Much appreciated

Arrogance in fishing

Why would there ever be arrogance in fishing? It’s a sport which all people can enjoy, it shouldn’t be competitive, and is enjoyed by people who are alike and share the same interests. So why is there arrogance in fishing? We are unsure, but we can promise you there is. We are far from decent fisherman but in our short time in the game we have seen some pretty terrible examples and it really gives us the shits.

We were as green as the day clear, there we were, two young teenagers with barely a pube on our bodies taking Stingas Dad’s 4.1m alleycraft out for the first time. And as you know boat ramps on Saturday mornings in the height of snapper season is not a place for beginners, but we had to start somewhere. So after realizing backing a trailor is not the same as a car we asked for help. We got lucky, some nice dude backed her down for us and we were in the water. On return we came up to clean our 2 pinkies and had to tippy toe to peak over the fish cleaning table (well not really, we were fully grown by then but its good for the story) and we saw 2 guys who had a 10kg gummy and where cleaning it. We were bloody impressed, how we would love to catch such a magnificent specimen of a fish,. And to this day this comment gets pulled out every single fishing trip we go on. So we asked him with great excitement, “were’d you get that mate?” And he replied, “We saw ya”…..

Oh Did ya mate, how about we stick that 10kg gummy straight up your f&%$en ass with a bit of deep heat as lube!

Arrogance…  Now lets decipher why he may of needed to say that to us. Is he’s general area that god dam top secret is it that he cant give a little help to young fisherman that in the future will only support he’s hobbie?

Does he need to make himself feel so good that he knows a general area that holds gummies and these little 18 year olds don’t.

Now what Celebrity grade would you give a fisherman??? Paul Werstoling might make a C Grade?? (Sorry Wersto if you think you’re higher) Maybe Rex in his day might have hit B grade for a bit, and both these two have answered our msgs. Wersto was more than happy to help us out with a few tips when we ran into him at the store… and rexy, he answered one of our tweets and also when my brother contacted him 15 years  ago he posted back a signed picture, lachy was also lucky enough to go fishing with a fly fishing GOD Phil Weegal himself. And Lachy tells me theres no place in fishing with more arrogance than fly fishing and there he is fishing with the master himself. It may not be much for them but these little moments you remember for the rest of your life.

Just recently we emailed a fisherman who we gave an official T-Dogg and Stinga Celebrity rating of H to. He has a few DVD’s out and is someone we have learnt a lot from PAYING good money to watch him do his thing. We decided to drop him an email to let him know that we loved the dvds and they helped us catch more fish.

No, Mr H celebrity must have been too busy with all his other H grade celebrity fans and he’s H grade celebrity lifestyle to even reply a “Thanks mate” Rexy, Wersto & Weegal are /where at the top of there game and they still felt obliged to give a little advice to two keen young fisherman, and middle rangers Mr H and Mr “We saw ya” wouldn’t give us the time of day.  As much as you remember the fantastic helpful moments in your life you remember the arrogant pigs just as much.

We understand that a lot of people rely on the fishing industry for an income, charter operators aren’t gonna tell you where the fish are or otherwise you don’t need them and they don’t make a living… and don’t go into the yarra valley fly fishing club and ask where the fish are biting before you buy your flies sort of thing. Were not asking people to hand out pamphlets with there favourite GPS marks, we wont give our favourites. We payed $200 once for a 45 min charter so we could learn how to catch our own bait which could have been explained to us in a 10 word text msg. So we feel reluctant to give out that exact information because we had to pay for it.. But If someone seems super keen and excited in what we have caught then we would be more than happy to help them out. The other day these old codgers were super impressed with our gummy so we gave them our fresh salmon and squid as bait that we’d caught that day and ¼ a gummy. They were absolutely stoked. Now that makes you fell good about yourself not telling them to stick there dentures up there ass…

There is no place for arrogance in fishing.. We all share the same passion and love for the sport and the water and now more than ever we need to band together and help each other out. Who knows how much power the greens will get in the next few years

If you are lucky enough to bring home a beautiful fish and people ask you questions and seem eager to learn then help them out. Don’t be a Mr H Grade celeb or a “We saw ya”  

T-DOGG & STINGA

Follow us on facebook

Dry Fly Fishing Ovens River

With T-dogg too busy dealing with the "T-dogg & stinga" fanclub, which consists of only his father, he left it up to me to write a few things about our recent trip chasing the feisty stream trout around Bright. In my opinion the skill, knowledge and finesse required to trick a trout into taking your fly is far more rewarding than the tattersalls equivalent of fishing in the salt (sit around waiting for luck to win you the jackpot). T-dogg called his prioritization into question on several occasions. Deciding coffee with his boss (Mrs T-dogg) and the Harrietville market were greater attractions than the freestone mountain streams riddled with eager trout.

Forced to explore by myself I drove 150km, to 7 different spots and walked about 2km in total without wetting a line, due to horrible blackberry management around buffalo river. At 1pm I finally found a promising stretch of water on the Ovens river. The water runs pretty quick at these upper reaches so I elected for the royal Wulff in a 14. In the first 30 minutes I had close to 10 strikes and missed each and every fish. If anyone has noticed something similar with the wulff I'd love to hear about it, email me: missed_another_strike@shittinme.com.au

Despite the fish thrashing at this fly I couldn't stand missing them and tied on a red tag, started hooking fish but it didn't have the fishing thrashing like the wulff did. I couldn't express the relief i felt when I noticed a few duns popping off and in this quick water the 'dads favorite' chose itself. Antony from GVFFC gave me a few of these flies many years back, but whilst I don't think I ever used them i only had one left! Success begun immediately. 4/5 fish later T-dogg rocks up with his pug, in shorts with no gear! after I spent 3 hours driving and walking around, finding a nice river, observing the river, how to fish its likely lies and picking the right fly... I give 'the dog' my rod and he pulls in 3 fish whilst his dog enjoys a lengthy butt sniffing session with a few dogs from a nearby campsite. From this point on it was chaos, we went fish for fish until dark, even managing to get some good footage of the strikes (see the links), and all on the one fly! We would have caught about 25 fish, not huge but they are feisty as all hell. One of the most enjoyable days out I've had. This sort of action cant be beaten and no trip is ever the same.

The following day we tried a stretch about 1km downstream. Working our way up we came across a small creak entering the river, we decided to explore what looked like a beautiful spring fed creak, with slow gin clear pools about 2ft deep and a gentle riffle between each. Certain we would sight out trout we snuck up carefully and sure enough there was one right under the feeder stream at the top of the first pool. A small geehi beetle was selected and subtly flicked into the gentle stream, it drifted back straight over the fish, who moved up through the slow moving water, eyeballed the fly for an instant and then walloped it, engulfing it and half the tippet, I love this fishing! We followed the stream up further but found a fence alarmingly guarded with barbed wire. This fence was clearly designed not to stop livestock from getting out, but people from getting in! So after we finally got through it :-/ we realized what it was doing there, 10m upstream was a pond, this was a trout farm. Disheartened we turned to head back but saw a neat splash from a fish in the pond, we looked at one another and debated over the option, until the word 'poaching' was thrown into the conversation, and we scurried back down to the main river. But again it wasn't until about 4pm with the mayfly hatching that the fishing really picked up, and the same fly did all the damage. Like a racehorse of equal caliber 'dads favorite' will rest out his days in a good paddock with a pretty little female fly, and probably end up taxidermic in a museum somewhere. We will be selling his offspring. That's it from me, P-E-A-C-E out... 

LATCH

T-DOGG & STINGA

Whacking whiting

With T-Dogg away working on his right arm rapid movement techniques & chasing spinerfex fairies I decided it was time to hone my light gear work and chase some kidney slappers and calamari, so I got a crew together that looked like they were from boyzone and consisted of T-Doggs brother lachy. The morning got off to a flying start  with lachy tipping a bucket of motor oil over the back windscreen of t-doggs mrs near new black mazda cx7 thinking it was water. And he's a doctor, genious. After that minor incident we went searching for our targets off the tyabb bank. 

Much like the average Congan man (18cm) the whiting were long and the squid thick and vainy and we were getting black load everywhere. At one stage Lachy asked me if he could dress up as a secretary and put a pair of glasses on which I thought was pretty weird.

It was slack tide, which is the best and usually only time to get squid in western port, and we were casting orange money magnets at them as well as fishing fresh baits under a float and having great success. We had 7 on board, the biggest going to around 1.1kg and these suckers were going to be hitting the fry pan for once. 

After the tide picked up a little it was time to try black magics new whiting whacker, I thought the naming of it was a bit innapropriate as i have no idea how you could wack off a whiting with one of them but I can tell you that they catch heaps of whiting and the bite to hook ratio is through the roof. We were fishing them with strips of squid on each hook and having success that would rival vanilla ice. All were over 35cm with the biggest going to 45cm, or 450mm if that sounds longer. Burley was crucial to keeping them around and we ended up with around 20 delicious tings.

I find squid & whiting fishing incredible fun as there is always a lot of action and with the right gear the fight is really attractive. It's a great genre to take kids, beginners and wags. But people, you do not need 100 fillets of whiting. Just because the limit is 20 per person doesn't mean you have to take that many. If you've got swimmers like Ian Thorpe and are supporting 15 kids then by all means the rest off us should be more cautious.

T-dogg & Stinga



Facebook t-dogg & stinga

Australian Bass

My wrist hasn't been this sore in ages and it's not because I'm working away from my mrs at the moment. No, it's because I've been getting wacked by big bass all day. Recent floods have devastated Brisbane but if the smiles of the young kids i saw today catching bass after bass are anything to go by then they are certainly moving forward.
With every dam in the Brisbane region over capacity the bass have managed to get themselves into the joining creeks and rivers and are there in big numbers.

Previously to the last two days bass fishing, being a Victorian, my only knowledge of bass was that is fished for by people wearing shirts with more advertising on them than your average NASCAR driver, using 1/2 pound line with these big spinny things as lures. Don't get me wrong, I've caught plenty of bass, I've even won tournaments...... On the playstation. Anyway I was to be proven extremely wrong. I saw a young 3 year old girl today catch a 40cm+ bass today on a garden worm with 20 pound line. It really was great to see so many young kids enjoying the fruits of a well stocked and maintained fishery. I was pretty light on for lures as I found out a new strategy Brisbane tackle shops are using to sell more lures. "oh mate, let me show u a new way to tie you leader on to your new reel." I'd stopped listening after the 3rd triple twist and 78 turns later I had my new wiz bang leader knot which conveniantly slipped as I cast my $25 lure in. Business savy. so I even jumped on the garden worm band wagon and ripped in a few.

After playing around with the kids catching bass after bass on a brown worm soft plastic with a jig head spinner the afternoon was upon me and it was time to chase the real stuff up at the spill way. Never catching anything on a popper before I was really excited. First cast in and my lure got smashed off the surface by a 45cm bass and that was to be the first of many. My popper looked like a dazed fish falling over the spillway and the waiting fish were as keen as a college school girl to give it a go. I had a ball watching my purple popper getting ripped off the surface time and time again until the all mighty bass took it away from me.

I felt like my dog had died. Like I was in detention and little Jimmy was kissing my girlfriend and getting to first base before me. I even considered what body part I could sacrifice to remake a popper. But I conceded. I had had an absolute ball and sat there for a few minutes to reflect on how beautiful it was and that god dam bass had my lure. I was going to retire it....

T-dogg & Stinga

facebook t-dogg & stinga
Twitter @TDOGGandSTINGA

Calamari. To eat or not to eat? that is the question!

It’s the age old debate, is calamari better as bait or on the table?

When my father first laid eyes on me in the delivery room his first words to my mother were, “yep, just as I thought, he’s gonna be a calamari user, not an eater”.  And In most cases he was correct.  It’s the elephant in the room when ever your eating it or using it as bait.  Someone’s always thinking to themselves, “you jizzbeard, this could be a 25kg gummy and your kids feeding it to the dog..” Or , “I can’t believe this herpee-harvester is using this as bait while my wifes getting cabbage on toast for dinner”. And most people are either one or the other, I havent known many splitters in my time (someone who users some for bait and some for the table)

For us, we are users. It has contributed to around 75% of all gummy sharks we have caught and on occasions has clean swept all other baits. It will catch big reds and is the number one bait for mulloway. But our mate Con, from Rye,  he loves eating them so much he reckons each time someone catches a calamari and doesn’t eat it, the fishing fairy gets beat up by her alcoholic fish fairy husband.  Fishing Corinella a month ago we fished snelled rigs with strip baits and heads from one calamari as well as a plether of other fresh baits which gummies love. We caught 3 gummy’s all on the squid as well as 2 banjo pattersons, a couple of Michael Jakson sharks and an eagle ray and the other baits weren’t touched.

Catching calamari in both western port and port phillip is easy but some struggle in W.P as we did for years because no lint licker wants to tell you how to do it.

Port phillip is rather easy. Drifting money magnets that have had more technological advances than a holden barina and cost around the same too, over weed beds.

Now W.P is another story,  Squid feed at slack tide. Ever had your rod tickling over at slack tide but you cant seem to catch it? Well that’s calamari and theres a Few ways to catch them.

1 – You can jig money magnets at them in a variety of colours that could rival Dulux

2- Reel your line in really slowly and have a mate standing with a net,  the calamari will hold onto your bait and you can bring it to the surface, then place the net behind the squid and as it lets go it will swim back into your net and bang, squid on board and you’ve saved yourelf an ink facial. Unless your into that stuff like Stinga. This method believe it or not accounts for most of our calamari because they respond really well to fresh baits and berly

3 - The old bait on a squid prong under a float. You can float it at any depth and you’ll get them but we find closer to the bottom the better.

Use these methods baisically on all weed beds in western port on slack tides.

So after you’ve landed a bag of cephalapods, Its decision time.

Bait or Table?

That is the Question.

--------------------------------------------------------

Twitter @TDOGGandSTINGA

Facebook T-Dogg and Stinga

First Western Port Blog

Hello World,

We are T-Dogg & Stinga, two young best mate who love fishing and we where the two young blokes down at the boat ramp watching people cleaning Big fish and gummies, while we are cleaning our one whiting, and asking "Where'd you get that mate?" and in return made to feel like we were the worst people on earth for asking. Well we are trying to break that mould because we have learnt how to catch big gummies to 20kg regulary. we've been made to look like fools by some of our fellow fisherman but also helped out by some amazing fisherman, we've payed good money for charters and caught nothing, how did we do it. we asked, and we asked, and we asked poeple how to do it. Our reports seem to get circuled around the place but you can read them all in depth here!!!! hopefully we can save you the effort we went through.

Fishing Report 27/3/2011 Western Port, Point Leo.

With the weather looking as beautiful as a model's fart in the morning, we decided that we definetly deserved a day off. On heading out to the western entrance of western port we had little metal slugs all ready to go on our light gear because at the moment they are like girls at EVE nightclub chasing AFL players. Everywhere. so sure enough  on our way out there we ran into some of these girls and even though having there eyes on the buff boys of the AFL they were still pretty dam keen on our little metal slugs and we had 10 in the boat in 5 mins. What great fun they are too, you can catch your 20kg gummies, 10kg snapper, but give me a 2kg salmon and there about as fun as any fish on the planet.

We then headed to the edge of the main channel off point leo, sounded around until we found the bottom of a nice drop off and dropped anchor. There was 3 hours till low tide and the water was still screaming though. We dropped our baits done which consisted of fresh yak, squid and that salmon we had earlier. the squid was going off instantly getting eaten by parrot fish of around 2kg, we couldnt keep any down there which we were dissapointed because it had contributed to alot of our gummies recently. so we stuck with yak and salmon, 20 mins in our mate THE DON, who is looking a little like Chubaca at the minute, was on and shortly had a lovely specimen of 13kg on the boat. A few happy snaps and the gummy was off to probably jerk off to some freaky German gummy porn. As the tide started to slow the gummy action really heated up and off went stinga's charter speacial, Screaming it was and the first run left him with only 50m of line left. THE DON was calling stingray to piss him off but we all new we were onto a big gummy here, and it was. 18Kg to be exact. Beautiful big girl also swam away unharmed.

As the tide slowed more salmon were busting the surface right at our boat so we casted into them willy nilly screaming out everytime we hooked up. We were getting wacked pretty hard by THE DON, i mean the salmon, Wierd?

Getting serious i was on again but lost whatever was there, reeling it up to reveal my leader was severed through the middle which made me think there was a toothy around. So the only trace i had was a dirty big mako 13/0 trace which i dropped down with a whole fillet of slimy. and within minutes it was also screaming off, we werent sure what it was gonna be as we were sure it wasnt going to be a gummy, sure enough, Gummy 10kg. Perfect, we'd thrown 3 big girls back already but this one was going on the table.

i Could go on and on about how Stinga thinks he's awesome but has commitment issues, or how blue goes really well with my eyes, but i am unsure if this will get read by anyone so i cant be stuffed at the minute. so hopefully ive done this right and you can comment me or whatever you do on this site

PIECE OUT

T_DOGG & STINGA

@T-DOGGnSTINGA
Facebook - t-dogg and stinga

Werstoling is a legend