Portarlington Pier- 1/1/2019 - AM

Portarlington, St Leonards, Queenscliff
Post Reply
User avatar
StarrangerAU
Rank: Premium Member
Rank: Premium Member
Joined: Sat Aug 19, 2017 2:02 pm
Location: Armadale
Has liked: 58 times
Likes received: 117 times

Portarlington Pier- 1/1/2019 - AM

Post by StarrangerAU » Wed Jan 02, 2019 7:23 am

After a two poor sessions on the eastern side of the bay during the past week I thought to give the western side a go... so at 4am I made a rather spontaneous decision to drive around to Portarlington, aiming for a sun-up start.

Arrived to just on 5.30am and welcomed with beautiful calm conditions, very little wind, and a rising tide. I hadn't fished here before, so I just made my way out along the rock wall to wherever looked most promising, and where the rocks provided a natural flat platform to work from. I saw quite a few squid marks on the pier on the way out, so before setting up I had a few throws of an assortment of jigs in the hope of catching some fresh bait, alas without much success. So I moved on to getting two lines out, both with pillies, one with pato rig, other a running sinker. Not too long after the lines were wet, a 30cm KG whiting on the pato. Even though it was over the minimum, the fish still looked very juvenile and not a lot of bulk in its body, so he goes back in whence he came. Soon followed by two reasonable flathead, though these also lack the body mass to make a decent meal.

The bites dried up, so I switched to squid on one line, and pippies on another, and the results were instantaneous... barely had the bait settled when the pippies would be attacked. The first few strikes missed, so I changed my hook size down to the smallest I had and ended up picking up another 4 whiting (or maybe the same one whiting four times ???) . Just like the first ting, all probably could have been keepers, just, but they seemed to me to lack a worthwhile body bulk to make a decent meal off. For me, I want to get more flesh than carcass if I am going to end the poor things life.

Summary
5.30 - 10.30 am
Rising Tide
Wind SW rising to 5-10kn

2 Flathead
4 Whiting
Attachments
pa3.jpg
pa2.jpg
pa1.jpg
Last edited by StarrangerAU on Wed Jan 02, 2019 10:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
soulstar
Rank: Cephalopod
Rank: Cephalopod
Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2013 12:33 am
Has liked: 6 times
Likes received: 20 times

Re: Portarlington Pier- 1/1/2019 - AM

Post by soulstar » Wed Jan 02, 2019 9:33 am

Solid effort on trying your luck out on the west end! Although they weren’t eating size, good job on throwing them back to get bigger for another day!

Try st Leonard’s on your next outing! Went their a week ago and the water was lively with diffrent types of fish about and had another guy catch a good body Kgw right next to me as I was jigging for squid!

Thanks for your report ;)

Lightningx
Bluefin
Bluefin
Joined: Wed Oct 01, 2014 4:21 pm
Has liked: 72 times
Likes received: 976 times

Re: Portarlington Pier- 1/1/2019 - AM

Post by Lightningx » Wed Jan 02, 2019 11:14 am

Nice report and pics.
I was there the other day with the missus and got onto a few kgw as well but on the small side.

Hectic habbib
Rank: Garfish
Rank: Garfish
Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 6:06 pm
Likes received: 1 time

Re: Portarlington Pier- 1/1/2019 - AM

Post by Hectic habbib » Thu Jan 03, 2019 8:34 pm

I'm trying to get down there tomorrow, trying on sp hope there a nice fish out there

Post Reply

Return to “Portarlington to Queenscliff”