Angler catches shark off Point Lonsdale pier

Angler catches shark off Point Lonsdale pier


Geoff Wilson
February 4th, 2010

Bill Athanasslies lured in this bronze whaler from the Point Lonsdale Pier in the early hours of Monday morning.

FISHING: With Geoff Wilson
Point Lonsdale Shark

A SHORT, sharp series of jerks on a line cast off the Point Lonsdale Pier prompted Bill Athanasslies to check it out.
In the early hours of Monday morning, he was using bonito as bait for a shark.
In the torchlight, Bill was amazed to see a fair-sized thresher shark smash the bait - which was too large for it to take - high into the air with its tail.
However, the thresher went hungry as a large bronze whaler crashed the party, peeling line from Bill's reel at a great rate against a heavy drag until it was eventually tired enough for Bill to beach it alongside the pier an hour or so later.

Snapper

LAST Thursday evening, Andrew Phillips, Chris Stamalos and Zlatka Henry, headed out along the edge of the Point Richards Channel where, from around 9pm until the early hours of the morning, the group caught their combined bag limits of nine snapper ranging in size from 3.5-6 kg.

Jeremy Barnes and his son Dylan, who were fishing in the vicinity of Point Wilson that night, were also successful with two snapper of 5kg and 7.2kg shortly after dark.

Early last week Keith Fry tried his luck just out from Point Henry from around 4am.

Here he caught a snapper of 5kg on a squid head at 6.30am and, then half an hour later, snared another on a soft plastic that weighed 4.4kg.

Barwon River

BRAD Andrews reports spending a couple of hours on the Barwon estuary last Friday where he had no trouble catching legal-sized salmon, flathead and whiting.

These were all caught on the ebb tide using prawn for bait.
Later, Brad fished the Barwon at Sparrowvale with his father Steve.
Here, using the lightest of tackle, they caught several European carp to 4.5 kg.

Offshore

BRAD, who has also been performing decking duties on Geelong Charters and Fishing Trips, reports that large whiting have been a reliable catch inside Port Phillip Heads.

A recent catch they took off Portsea in seven metres of water included 27 King George whiting to 46cm, all of which were taken on squid.

Speaking of whiting, Neil Walker was out on the sand patches off the Barwon Heads Bluff last Thursday evening where his catch included eight whiting to 42cm.

Portland

TIM Clark, from Portland Bait and Tackle, reports that good-sized school shark are present along Portland's north shore and suggests fishing in about seven metres of water between the Surrey and Fitzroy rivers.

Tim says fresh salmon is the best bait to use and you can catch those readily on unweighted or lightly-weighed pilchard fillets just outside the Portland harbour.

Lures have been far less successful than bait since a pod of bronze whaler sharks have been harassing them.

Local angler Tim O'Brien put a salmon he caught back out on a game fishing rig and hooked one of about 150kg which he released.

Game Fishing Night

A REMINDER that Peter Pakula, of Pakula Tackle, and Andrew Jones, from Williamson Lures, will be conducting a game fishing information night at the Torquay Angling Club next Wednesday night from 6.30 pm.

Entry is free and everyone is welcome to attend with a barbecue also being provided.

Pat asks: Geoff, I caught a 2.2 kg jewfish (mulloway) from the rocks at St Helens on Thursday. Are there many caught in the bay?

Pat, mulloway are present in the bay, but seldom caught. Back in 1968 I caught one of 4kg from the Grammar School Lagoon and, some people fishing soft plastics along the Geelong waterfront last winter caught small mulloway.

Most of the mulloway have come from the Barwon estuary, others from local surf beaches but I wouldn't say they were a common catch.
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