We decided to head down to Port Fairy for our first
SBT trip this season. Weather was looking great and after the mother’s day
festivities we set off on the drive down to Warrnambool. Arriving late Sunday
night were met by Steve Moore at Warrnambool Holiday Park & Motel. In my
opinion this has to be one of the best places to stay while fishing the
Warrnambool/Port Fairy area. Situated just off the princess freeway at corner
of Raglan Parade and Simpson Street in Warrnambool makes it easy access for
cars towing boats and caravans down the west coast. The park is very clean and
boat friendly with boat parking just outside your door! The rooms are nice and
clean with all the facilities you would expect from great accommodation. This
park also caters for the kids with some great activities onsite including a
swimming pool and kids play rooms.
Waking up early the next morning feeling nice
and refreshed we checked out of the room around 6 am and headed to the closet
coffee shop! After a quick coffee and grabbing some snacks for the trip we were
off to Port Fairy boat ramp.. Surprised when we got there that no one was at
the ramp! That’s the benefits of fishing mid-week and not on weekends..
Heading out the excitement had set in. With the
amount of barrels caught in the past week that was our target! As we headed
south west reaching the 50 meter line, we were amazed at the amount of birds
hitting the water in the distance! But by the time we got there they were gone,
it was very quiet visually on the water with not much action.
The next plan was
to look for the warmer patches of water and blind troll. Hitting around 16.5
degrees in about 45 meters of water and we decided to get the spread of lures
out, skirts and x-raps set and off we went.. After what seemed like a life time
we finally got a hit! And it was a big hit!! Seemed like a very angry fish and
it was heading straight out and could not do much about it! After around 15 minutes
of fighting the fish the hooks pulled… Devastated!!
We quickly got the lures set again and reset! Now
we have been trolling for around 3 hours feeling like that was the end of it I decided
to move a little deeper, hitting the 60 meter line we trolled for another 30 min
before we got hit again! Short corner with a Jaks baby neo did the job! Wasn’t long
before we had a nice size schoolie on board..
With the wind picking up and the swell reaching
4-5 meters we decided to call it a day.. Back at the boat ramp we had a chat to
some others that were there and they had kind of the same day.. very quiet with
not much activity.. So it came time to pack up and head back home… with only
one thing on our mind… our next trip down the south west coast.. until then…
Tight lines!
