Fishing Victoria Forum

a22z wrote:Reel Time charters have been asked about a few times and given I've been out with Matty rather frequently of late I thought I'd post about it in case others were thinking of heading out with him.

We left Martha Cove just on 6am and headed straight to the squid grounds to stock up on some livies. Within about 30 minutes we had close to 50 squid (aka King-Candy) so it was off to the rip to chase the kingies.

IMG_7409.jpg

We headed straight through the rip as the water was too green on the day and started marking fish on the sounder a few km's off shore as we got into the blue water. Dropped a few of the squid off the back of the boat while the rest of us jigged up around the front. The jigging was tough going, with only a few hookups that were mostly dropped, and only myself managing to land one king successfully on a jig.

IMG_7424.jpg

Meanwhile on the squid, the action was hot! The first drift saw us land around 6 kings, a couple which were under size. We kept steadily landing kings over the next few hours, with Matt moving around as he saw fit. He really knows how to keep you on the fish and ensures as much as he can that the bite stays hot.

IMG_7415.jpg

IMG_7414.jpg

We ended up with around 15-20 keepers for the day, not bad for the 5 of us fishing. Fish ranged in size from 2kgs upto 7kgs. No horses today, but Matty is still trying hard to find himself a 20kgs model to top his PB this year of 17kgs.

IMG_7430.jpg

IMG_7458.jpg

Given it was pushing 30+ degrees on the day, we decided we couldn’t be arsed standing around the pier cleaning up the fish in the sun, so we headed to The Big Fish fish market in Carrum Downs where the boys graciously cleaned the kingies up for us for a small fee.

IMG_7433.jpg

All in all a great day out on the water. I’ve been out with Matty and Reel Time 4 of 5 times since November and we’ve constantly caught whatever we were chasing in good numbers. He really knows his stuff and genuinely cares about getting his customer onto a fish and works tirelessly to ensure were always in the right spot. Highly recommended!

crumpet_avenger wrote: Looks like a brilliant trip. What he charge for that?

a22z wrote:

crumpet_avenger wrote: Looks like a brilliant trip. What he charge for that?

Check out the website: http://reeltimefishing.com.au/ for more info on pricing etc.

Cost was $200pp. You can also book the boat if you have a group of at least 7 people.

Sinsemilla wrote:

Mattblack wrote:Great report! Ive heard a few people on here mention that green water is not good....why is that?

Usually the "blue water" is the water moving around with the currents. Usually warmer and nutrient rich which attracts more baitfish which in turn attracts the pelagic's.

Anth

a22z wrote:

skronkman wrote:Hey, nice trip. I've had a few cracks in the rip this year but no luck. When was the last time you went out and got onto them? I haven't heard anything of late but would be keen to have another crack if they're hanging around.

This outing was on last Saturday. Still plenty of kingies around mate, just got to find them! The general rule of thumb seems to be that they definitely don't like the green water, so fish blue and deep. We were fishing in 40m+ of water. Also try catching live squid as bait. While we were pulling up a kingy every 20-30 mins on the live squid, there were dozens of boats around us jigging like crazy and we only saw 2 or 3 of them hook up.

I'm heading out again with them at the end of the month, they should still be around... at least until the water cools down.

barra mick wrote: Alot of people get sucked in jigging

Thw smart operators move on.

a22z wrote:

barra mick wrote: Alot of people get sucked in jigging

Thw smart operators move on.

So true. We were right in the middle of at least 20-30 boats, watching blokes jig non-stop for hours getting exhausted and sunburned. We eventually got tired ourselves after 30 minutes of realising the jigging was too hard and wasn't producing fish, so we ended up hanging around the baited lines sipping cold ones waiting for the rods to buckle. You just can't compare the knowledge of a charter operator who's out there every single day vs the weekend fisho.