Garfish crank it up a gear

Stefan Uzur with a redfin. (supplied)

The garfish in the inner harbour have gone up a gear with reports becoming more consistent and some big ones are cruising about, too.

Most of Corio Bay’s land based structures are all fishing pretty well, but these often frustrating fish can be at one spot one day then somewhere completely different the next.

Plenty of burley in the water certainly helps when trying to catch these critters. Anglers are also finding pinky snapper, salmon and trevally.

The outer harbour has, unfortunately, slowed up a bit for the whiting fishing with boats still getting out chasing them and only a few managing to hit the nail on the head. Apart from that the calamari are slowly starting to improve with numbers with boats finding it easier to locate the packs of them and get onto a few in relatively quick time.

Bright coloured jigs this past week or so have seemed to be most popular for the resident squid at the moment.

The biggest fishing news this week would easily be the barrel tuna that have arrived out the front of the heads.

Barrels have rocked up and are holding in large numbers straight south of Barwon Heads in 70m of water. There is certainly plenty of life out there making it a bit easier to find the fish (whales, birds, dolphins, seals and bait fish showering) and once you find this life it could be MENTAL.

Reports of fish to over 140kg with lots of fish falling victim to a skirted lure behind a spreader bar.

The freshwater fishing remains to be quite the reliable option this week with Lake Purrumbete remaining a reliable location to find a variety of species. Chinook salmon have been the most caught fish with anglers finding lots of fish out deep whilst bait fishing.

As we have said many times before, burley hard with pilchard fillets five winds off the bottom and you should be into the action. Browns, rainbows, tigers and reddies have all been cruising the weed edges and those casting shallow jerkbaits or bent minnows have been doing very well.