Big tuna on the chew

Peri Stavropoulos with a barrel tuna. (supplied)

Offshore Barwon Heads towards Cape Schnack is still producing lots of barrel tuna with fish over 100kg in great numbers.

The fish have been holding a fair way south in 75m of water, however on the right day it’s well worth the drive. The fish are mainly feeding on schools of pilchards so your natural blue and silver colours such as Evil Angel have been working very well.

Looking for birds, seals, dolphins and whales (be careful to how close you go to whales) will definitely help pinpoint the fish. Most fish have been caught trolling 8-10” skirts behind a spreader bar has been doing some serious damage.

Peri from Trellys alongside Anthony Flopski and Josh Caruso landed a nice barrel of 115kg bled and gutted on a lumo skirt behind a spreader bar.

Queenscliff bight is really starting to heat up with the XL Calamari with reports of boats finding their bag limit in good time. The true monsters haven’t fully rolled in yet but the average size is quickly increasing and the giants shouldn’t be too far away.

Size 3.5 jigs are basically the staple size to run when fishing here.

In store at Trelly’s we have just received some Yamashita TR Jigs which come with more weight than the standard jigs being perfect for this area.

The cut at Queenscliff is also producing some fantastic silver trevally fishing with anglers landing fish to over 40cm, Z Man Grubz have been a standout soft plastic however just about any 3-4 inch curl tail plastic have all been accounting for plenty of fish.

With the water at times being a little dirty, putting scent on your lures is making a massive impact and difference from landing a fish or two to quite a few.

Inside the bay the snapper reports are slowly but surely becoming more and more consistent, yet again the inner part of the bay around Shell proving to be the main zone to be fishing with anglers landing fish to 6kg both off the rocks and in the boat.

Pilchards and fresh squid have been working best.

The water temp is slowly increasing and snapper will only get better and better as we head into next month.