Christmas sure sneaks up on you.
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Do you realise that it is now less than five weeks away?
And if you have not already got plans to get that special person a gift for the festive season, then you are starting to run out of time.
Big time.
Fishing gear always makes a good gift — no, I don’t mean a new boat, but that would be nice.
There’s always the little bits and pieces, such as rods, reels and other tackle that always need replacing, renewing or updating.
A selection of new-style lures never goes astray.
Soft plastics, hard-body, deep-diving or surface lures — the variety is endless, not least when you take the latest colours into consideration.
Other gift ideas include bottom gear such as hooks, sinkers, swivels — all of which are a welcome addition to any tackle box.
In fact, a tackle box itself is a good gift idea.
I haven’t even touched on hats, shirts and other clothing, as well as specialised footwear.
The ideas are endless.
For stocking fillers or a major gift, take a trip to your local tackle shop.
Now a word from Rod Lawn from Adamas Fishing Charters at Queenscliff.
Hey, hang on, what about a gift voucher for a fishing trip with Rod?
Just a thought.
Anyway, Rod said the fishing around the heads had been good.
When it wasn’t blowing a gale, Rod said snapper, whiting, flathead and even kingfish were on the bite.
Rod said salmon on the run-out tide in the rip were providing plenty of action.
You haven’t lived until you have a salmon samba — the dance you do when several anglers have hooked up, and you are forced to duck and wave your rod around so that you do not get tangled up with each other’s line.
Then beneath the schools of salmon lurk schools of kingfish, and boy, don’t you know it when kingfish bite.
Rod said that there were also good-sized gummy sharks around the dive sites off Point Lonsdale, and fresh salmon fillets or whole small squid make a good snack for them.
Rod said he had spoken with several cray fishermen who told him they had seen several mako sharks hanging around their cray spots, possibly attracted by the bait used to attract the crayfish.
Mako sharks are the only shark classified as a game fish, and you certainly know all about it when you hook up to one.
They will fight all the way.
In fact, I have seen bite marks on a boat from a mako shark.
Makos were once known as blue pointer sharks and in some places have been known to grow more than five metres in length. Their diet consists of anything they fancy.
Another fish plentiful in Bass Strait is the barracouta, a surface feeder that is equipped with a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth. They are ferocious feeders.
They are found in large schools and at one stage were a staple in fish and chip shops before falling out of favour.
In my days as an early teen, I would be sent out on a Friday night to get a feed of couta and chips as an evening meal for the family.
North of the NSW border at Eden, John Liddell said there was not a lot of action off the shelf but plenty of snapper and morwong along the inshore reefs between Boyd’s Lookout and Green Cape, as well as flathead on the sandy bottom between the reefs.
John said there were also some schools of kingfish as well.
It was a similar story at Narooma around Montague Island, according to Graham Cowley.
Down south at Flinders Island not a lot was happening due to the weather.
Time to take a look at our region, and it is time to start preparing for the reopening of the cod season, which is at midnight on Saturday, November 30.
While you have been allowed to catch and keep cod in Lake Eildon, the rest of the region's cod waterways will reopen on that date.
As far as fishing goes, most reports reaching me say that yellowbelly are becoming more plentiful, and redfin are also biting.
You might try Waranga Basin as well as lakes Hume and Eildon for them.
Trout are in the rivers and streams, but a Dartmouth visit will have to be booked to catch any.
Well, stay snake-safe, road-safe, water- and boat-safe, and have a good time fishing.