Offshore: Scott Gray landed some exceptional snapper for our area on Wednesday of last week with the biggest measuring a whopping 87cm. The range of fish were from 60cm to 87cm that Scott got into over a couple of days whilst fishing off Port Fairy. The best bait was by far fresh squid on a single paternoster set up with BKK circle hooks. Using his Minn Kota electric motor to hold position over some markings on his Garmin sounder he was able to hover and target individual fish. Some people are saying that there are fish moving through to Port Phillip and Western Port bays, over in Melbourne, which could mean that we are in for a great season on the reds. We could see some 10kg plus models show up in the not so distant future.

A lot of these better fish have been caught while anglers have been targeting gummy shark so don't be afraid to put a bigger bait out just in case there is a big red floating around. The shark fishing has again been great for those after some flake for the table. Peter Goode has been getting into quite a few off Warrnambool and Port Fairy with him bagging out each time he has been from the past six sessions. Finding the good broken ground on his sounder is vital for success. In other offshore reports Luke Smith and Marty Ellul headed out deep and found some great bottom fish including a nice Tassie trump, snapper and some great flathead.

Estuaries: The Hopkins River is producing some excellent perch fishing the past week for anglers fishing top water lures and lightly weighted soft plastics cast into the banks. The ski run area has been the most productive for the perch as Tim Vincent and Oscar Masters have been finding out. The boys have been catching some great fish on Jackall Micro Pompadours, Cranka Cranks, Sx40's and lightly weighted Zman Slim Swimz. The bream fishing lately has slowed a little bit but some great captures have still made it worthwhile heading out. Allansford Angling Club held a competition on Sunday with some nice fish being landed. None more so then young gun Jett Fleming who landed a 1.403kg bream, beating all senior anglers. Jett and Isaac Primmer also took out heaviest bag with a smidge over 4kg for their five fish. John Gordon took out heaviest fish for a senior with a 1.051kg bream. With lots of blue water making its way up the system we should see some more top class fishing and hopefully some of the summer mulloway that many anglers hold out for each year.

Speaking of which, the Warrnambool and District Angling Club held a competition over at the Glenelg on Saturday and Sunday where Rob O'Neil landed a tiny mulloway of 30cm. Although this isn't a capture worth bragging about it sure shows that there is the next run of fish coming through our systems. Majority of bream were caught up river around Sappling Creek and Pritchards landing on soft plastics and crabs cast closely to the walls and drop offs. Shane Murphy landed the biggest bag of 10 bream weighing a bit over 7kg. Tim Treloar caught the heaviest fish and Mick Hunt had the heaviest other fish which was a mulloway that weighed 2.3kg.

There are lots of fish down the bottom of the Glenelg River around the poles and flat rock area but they don't seem to be taking anything regularly. This is largely due to the spawning run that seems to be in place at the moment. Branden Nattrass had a great day casting plastics and hard bodies at the Glenelg River bream last week while trying out his new Millerods and was soon back in for another as he loved them so much.

Freshwater: The freshwater fishing has been hard work this winter with many of the gun big fish spots failing to produce much at all, which is a fairly uncommon thing especially with the cold winter that we had. In the past week though there has been some decent fish caught even if the numbers aren't about. Daniel Kent landed a nice fish while casting a shallow diving Ecogear minnow along the weed edges at Lake Purrumbete.

There was a round of the Victorian Sport Fishing Championships over the weekend and all fish but three were landed out of Cobdens, Lake Elingamite. The fish in this relatively small lake are fat as pigs and are eating baits fished along the weed edges. Trolling is difficult due to the thick weed that has grown right over the lake. Mudeyes were the stand out for those fishing the competiton just gone.

Saltwater: In other saltwater reports it seems as though the annual squid run has started with some excellent squid being caught by those anglers targeting these tasty specimens. The Warrnambool breakwater has seen some big ones landed lately by anglers casting jigs and also floats with a whiting underneath it on a squid jag. Just before dark seems to be the most productive time to chase them and darker jigs being the standout colour choice for anglers.

On behalf of everyone from Richardson Marine and the Tackle Shack we would like to thank everyone that made our boating and fishing expo on Saturday a great success. We will endeavour to do it again bigger and better next year.

With the weather gods playing unfair again this weekend fishing offshore looks again to be limited.