Fishing Victoria Forum

Hey everyone, just looking for some tips for a newbie to gunnamatta. Used to go fishing heaps when i was younger but get pretty bad seasickness and just started working as a doctor so busy schedule limits me to the odd weekend landbased trip like portsea for squid etc. Anyway i fished gunnamatta years ago but just bait soaked and wasnt a huge fan of it (sore arms, lots of waiting, never much luck catching) but after reading some the posts about running lures instead and seeing some huge hauls getting dragged on rope from guys like Carl G im keen to get back into it.

Ive scoured these forums for advice, so ive got a Catana, a blue halco roosta 105, a halco twisty, some 20lb braid and watched some videos about reading the beach (hopefully i can find the legendary CarlG's hole you guys talk about a fair bit). Any other tips? like where on gunna are the best gutters, best lures, should i berley, best time of the year, best time of the day, bets tides etc?

Sorry for the essay post and all the questions, being limited to land based this seems like the most exciting fishing i can try!

Just walk the length of the beach casting your slugs at the water. It's probably the easiest kind of fishing I've attempted. No need for burley because you're moving around.

The simple method is get yourself a 9 foot 4 - 8 KG rod, 4000 Sized reel with 10 - 15 lb braid, some leader, a couple of 45 to 55 gram metal slugs and make a cast every 10 metres of the beach as the salmon could be anywhere and repeat. You want the wind to be behind you for casting distance.

the beach takes about 3hrs to walk end to carpark while spinning (for me). allocate that amount of time because like people have said the fish will be anywhere.

The structure of the beach can change from week to week or even day to day depending on the weather. there are a few bigger holes that seem to remain kinda constant, and the first one is right at the bottom of the stairs. convenient, but also probably the busiest real estate on the beach. Generally aim to fish the edges of rips and the breaks. where whitewater meets blue or the end of gutters that dump into a rip or hole. they seem like ambush points and fish patrol them often.

Timing; i prioritise change of light, either dawn or dusk, then tide changes. N to NEE winds of any strength, swell below 1m will both make it much easier to fish. watch the waves when there's any kinda swell running. It's one of the more dangerous beaches in vic if i'm not mistaken and they move a lot faster than you realise.

also, don't be frustrated if you don't catch. The gunn has been very hit and miss for a good few months (its mostly miss). We're all waiting for it to fire up

Hi mate for gunnamatter surf beach I find you should go looking for gutters at low tide there is 3_4 nice gutters and if you go locating them at high tide it will look like one big gutter so a 12ft fiberglass surf rod does the trick fresh pillies or halved wa pillies or a yellow popper tied on even blue bait does better than pillies sometimes a surf casting paternoster rig or twisted dropper rig 6 oz bomb or starvsinkers are good an onion bag with tuna oil bread pillies whiting frame mixed together 30ib leader and50ib main line flurocarbon size 2/0_4/0 is good may April June is good for big aussie salmon try it out have a crack hopefully you get success around now is good for whiting alright for salmon there is more info and advice you can get from real good salmon surf gurus but hopefully you enjoy :welcome: :good: :nicefish!: :water:

Thanks so much for the advice everyone, ill have to go a few days over easter or a weekend soon. Do you guys think poppers or slugs are the way to go or do you have specific ones that have worked for you? I have a roosta popper and also some slugs (halco twisty and a halco streaker) but they are only 20-30grams, are they big enough?

40-50g is about the right size. Roosta poppers are pretty good, I use the Halco Outcasts you can get from Kmart too. I did some spinning with a 40g Gomoku Storm microjig and it had a really nice looking action but I haven't caught anything on it yet. But at the end of the day salmon are about the least fussy fish in the ocean and if you whip something shiny past them chances are they'll have a crack at it, so as long at it casts well almost anything will do.

50gms is good and a yellow or blue surf popper with a bit of pipi pr squid will do the job and get you hooked on some nice aussie salmon :a_goodjob:

AnthonyC wrote:Hey everyone, just looking for some tips for a newbie to gunnamatta. Used to go fishing heaps when i was younger but get pretty bad seasickness and just started working as a doctor so busy schedule limits me to the odd weekend landbased trip like portsea for squid etc. Anyway i fished gunnamatta years ago but just bait soaked and wasnt a huge fan of it (sore arms, lots of waiting, never much luck catching) but after reading some the posts about running lures instead and seeing some huge hauls getting dragged on rope from guys like Carl G im keen to get back into it.

Ive scoured these forums for advice, so ive got a Catana, a blue halco roosta 105, a halco twisty, some 20lb braid and watched some videos about reading the beach (hopefully i can find the legendary CarlG's hole you guys talk about a fair bit). Any other tips? like where on gunna are the best gutters, best lures, should i berley, best time of the year, best time of the day, bets tides etc?

Sorry for the essay post and all the questions, being limited to land based this seems like the most exciting fishing i can try!

your a doctor get back in a boat and just take a 5mg stematel 1/2 an hour before you hit the ramp i do and it works a treat

Bar002811 wrote:50gms is good and a yellow or blue surf popper with a bit of pipi pr squid will do the job and get you hooked on some nice aussie salmon :a_goodjob:

If you read the first post you'd know that he wants to fish with lures not bait.