Snapper on the bite

Peri Stavropoulos with a snapper. (supplied)

The snapper bite is seriously heating up at the moment with lots of reports coming through from most parts of the bay fishing very well.

The Portside Marine 2022 Snapper Competition was held over the weekend and some fantastic fish submitted.

The biggest came in at 9.7kg which cracks that milestone 20lb mark. Plenty more quality fish were caught during the competition from all different parts of the bay. The spoil grounds, the edge of the channel, the bend, the old steam boat channel, Wilson spit and Alcoa pier are all fishing very well for snapper as of late.

Land based fishos have been doing quite well along the many structures along the Bellarine Peninsula with Portarlington rocks and St Leonards pier both producing the goods. Adam Van der Lugt from Trelly’s Geelong has had some great success landing snapper to 4kg land based with silver whiting proving to be his number one bait.

If you’re up for a bit of a drive towards the other side of the bay (Mornington, Seaford, Chelsea) there is some fantastic fishing on offer with anglers landing some great fish.

Peri Stavropoulos from Trelly’s Geelong fished off Carrum over the weekend, landing multiple snapper to 5kg with fresh squid and silver whiting proving irresistible.

Lots of guys are actually throwing soft plastics around and picking up lots if fish doing so, 4” worm profile plastics by Gulp are hands down the best to throw.

Calamari remain a popular target species for anglers fishing along the entire Bellarine Peninsula continuing to produce reports. Clifton Springs to Portarlington have been very consistent with anglers finding bag limit captures on the regular.

King George whiting still remain a hot target in similar areas to the squid.

Snapper and gummy sharks are still chewing well off Barwon Heads with the 40 metre line holding both species. Anglers dropping snapper snatchers down with fresh squid and salmon for bait are picking up some great fish.

The water to the east of the bluff is very dirty (near brown) but to the west it’s quite clean and the fish are chewing.

Reports of barrel tuna are still coming through, although the bite has slowed down quite a bit there are still a few guys heading out mentioning that there is still plenty of life and even picking up a few fish.