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.
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