Around The Bay - Tuesday, August 2, 2022

By Jim’s Bait and Tackle

ANOTHER tough few weeks for getting reports with only a handful of people actually fishing but very few reporting catches, telling us they only got a handful so not a lot to report. 

What some people forget sometimes is any catch is a good catch and always better than someone else that has been out. 

Calamari fishing is relatively new and for the first few years we were in the shop, we hardly saw any at any time of the year. 

We kept about 10 different colours of squid jigs and nobody had heard of dedicated Egi rods and if you caught a calamari, it was almost considered a by-catch. How different things are now, 40cm whiting are expected and even 1kg whiting are not too surprising.

Calamari is a targeted species and have created a whole new generation of fishermen who just target them. 

Most of the reports over the last couple of weeks has been from those using baited jigs, especially from the land with those in boats using a mixture of baited and artificial. 

From the reports the best time has been that hour before and after high tide from everywhere. 

Even the boats have found that to be the best time with the odd one reported from outside that time of the tide. 

Nowhere has stood out more than the other and most of the usual calamari areas have been producing. 

The only other land-based reports we have had were from the surf beaches with several salmon reported. 

Woolamai at ANZACS the better, I think because it’s usually the cleanest when we have a bit of rough weather. 

Kilcunda beaches produced less but bigger salmon, cemetery being the best beach but still difficult between the drifts of kelp. 

There was a couple of reports also from the other island beaches at the Colonnades and Smiths and a handful from Inverloch. 

The reports were a mixture of bait, bluebait and pilchards, and lures, 40g the best in a blue or white.

The whiting numbers were as expected but the average size probably a little better. 

As has been the case over winter, the reports came from areas close to the ramps as people not wanting to travel too far in case the weather picked up. 

While it doesn’t sound all that good, opportunities to chase them has been minimal with plenty of wind holding you side onto the tide or just too strong to even think about fishing the whiting areas. 

It’s a great time to come into the shop with our new season’s stock turning up over August. 

We are slowly filling up the shelves with our normal stock lines but with plenty of new products as well. 

It’s also the time to bring in all those reels you need servicing or re-spooling and that rod that needs a repair. 

Maybe you are hanging off because money is a little tight which is understandable but, bring them in, leave them with us and pay it off or pick it up when you are ready.