Mallacoota revealed

Mallacoota is a well-kept secret from many travellers. The distance from Australia's two largest capitals and the national capital contributes to this, but the lucky few who stay in the area are soon convinced it's a great part of the coast to fish. We took the TrailerBoat project boat, the Savage 540 Bluewater, to ‘Coota a few weeks before Christmas. Fishing was the order of the day, every day.

Most people pursue the humble dusky flathead, simply because they can grow to enormous size, they're fun to catch (even sporty on light gear) and one of the best table fish around. These days, a majority of anglers are using soft plastics, though the old timers still swear by the live poddy mullet or prawn. The best fish I've ever caught here - 12lb5oz - was on a hard-bodied lure, but now my preference is plastics.

No one really knows just how big they grow in this lovely environment, but whereas 10-pounders were fairly common a year or two ago, the past season has seen a scarcity of such fish. Drought on land, drought at sea? Never mind, the fishing for all species available here is just fantastic compared to the pro-fishing days.

So what's so special about a common old flathead? Let me tell you, big, dusky flathead in shallow water on light gear are fantastic fun and everyone wants to catch that one big fish. There are two ways you can fish, either wading in shallow water, or from a boat, usually drifting across shallows or using a bow-mount electric motor. Yes, you'll catch these fish in deeper water, but most times you'll find them in the shallows, on the drop-offs and sandbanks, even during high sun times.

Wading across sand flats in knee-high water flicking lures in a fan pattern is total escapism. Your mind is fixed on the lure as it bounces on the bottom, little puffs of sand sending signals to hungry predators.

Let me tell you, it's hard work flicking a lure around for an hour or two. It's guaranteed to make your shoulders ache and give you RSI in the elbows. So you need good, light gear. I'm no expert on fishing gear so get some advice from your local tackle shop, but 3kg line is absolute max. The sporty types fish a lot lighter than that.

Some people use a very light wire leader because, while flathead have only little teeth, they're sharp and will wear through a light line. The argument against wire is that it restricts the movement of the lure and spooks fish. I certainly prefer to set up and fish the way the bream tournament anglers do - if only I was that good!

If you're going to wear waders, be very careful of holes and drop-offs. And whatever you do, don't fish mudflats. They're like quicksand. One good idea to help prevent water ingress into waders if you slip into a hole is to wear a solid, wide leather belt firmly around your middle, outside the waders.

Flick your lure in fairly short casts, quartering ground as you go. Retrieve your line in short, slightly jerky motions so that your lure bounces across the bottom in uneven but not wildly erratic hops. Avoid casting into weed beds, but get as close to them as you can, because fish often lurk in there ready to pounce on anything swimming by.

Weed is a nuisance in this type of fishing, except when you're using weedless hooks, and they're terrific. You can drag your lure through a patch of light weed and snag fish rather than weed. If there's just the slightest trace of weed on your lure, fish will shy off.

Watch your lure. Quite often a fish will follow a lure almost to your feet, curious about the offering you've just made. Yeah, they can be procrastinators too. Sometimes they'll hit hard and fast, sometimes just suck a lure down, almost without moving from where they're buried in the sand. It's not until you give ‘em a bit of hurry up that they realise they're hooked and take off. 

Their runs are usually short and sharp, so be patient, tire them slowly. Have fun, play a little. Once they're tired they'll come to the net fairly easily. And always net head first.

Take a photo of the big one and return it to the water as quickly and harmlessly as possible. Remember, the big ones are the breeders, so they should be returned, not taken. Be satisfied with a photo. Smaller fish taste better anyhow.

Quite often as you advance slowly over ground, you'll spook a fish quite near and it will explode in a puff of sand before swimming away. Odds are the fish won't swim very far before re-settling back into the sand, so flick your lure out in the direction the fish was heading.

You may also find that you'll spook a small ray in a similar way. That's good news because, for some reason, big flathead and rays tend to hunt in the same areas. Flathead also usually hunt in pairs, so if you catch a large one in an area there's usually another nearby.

As I said earlier, on this trip we took TrailerBoat's Savage 540 Bluewater cuddy cabin and it was terrific to fish from while drifting across shallows. However, I would have loved an electric on the bow to control drift.

At times the breeze just wouldn't co-operate, particularly along drop-offs and I'm sure we missed some good fish because of this.

It certainly made fishing slower.

One of my favourite spots, the very top of Howe Bight, is shallow and weedy and only fishable with an electric. It's rarely fished and as a consequence, I've seen some absolute monster flathead in this spot.

Everywhere else, though, the Savage was a gem. Its big cockpit gave plenty of fishing room and the walkthrough to the anchor (which we used often) made life very easy.

The best fishing - and the time of the most stable weather - is late summer and autumn. The summer holidays is a time for families, when thousands of holiday makers invade, and while fishing is still good, peace is at a premium.

Much of the lakes system is shallow, so if in a boat, get a map, ask questions, soak up local knowledge and take care. John at the Shell servo, Wayne at the tackle shop and Barry at the lakeside camp park are mines of information. Gear should be light, no more than 3kg inside and 6kg offshore. You may lose a fish or two but you'll have more fun.

TOP SPOTS:

THE ENTRANCE
When the entrance is open, yellowfin bream are fantastic fun from the top of the tide on the run-out before it gets too strong. Use light gear and a plastic lure or a live nipper under a float and walk down the bank with the tide.

Just inside the entrance, adjacent to the camp park is a shallow delta with islands and sandbars. It's a great area to net prawns at night, and spin for flathead morning and evening. 

Across in Harrison's Channel you may find some excellent King George whiting. There have always been luderick in the hole under Captain Stephenson's Point (use local rock weed under a float) and the camp park stone walls are also popular with anglers for bream, tailor and flathead. Kids have a ball catching large yakkas, mullet and leatherjackets at the main wharf. Some large flathead have been hooked here too.

BOTTOM LAKE
Moving around the channel into the Bottom Lake past Rabbit Island is a popular spot for flathead and bream between the channel markers right around the major white channel light in the lake, called John Bull. Directly ahead, the Goodwin Sands is ideal country for stalking large flathead on foot and to the right is Howe Bight.

Behind the Goodwin Sands is another large stretch of water which features well known picnic spots such as Cemetery Bight and Allan Head, both of which have produced good fish.

THE NARROWS
The Narrows is a mini river linking the Top and Bottom lakes, and is popular with people who like deep water. It can be fished from boat or bank and some huge mulloway have been taken from the deep holes here, especially at night. Anecdotally the number of mulloway in the system is increasing nicely and you'll do well to catch one of these great fighting fish on 3kg!

TOP LAKE
As you move through the Narrows to the Top Lake, you're getting more into bream territory, although Palmer's Bank, a very large, shallow mudbank, is a top flathead spinning spot. Double Creek to the left is navigable for quite some distance and good bream fishing can be had right to its end. This can also be accessed by a walking track from the road into Mallacoota.

From the Top Lake, you move into the wide, peaceful Genoa River and there are plenty of spots to try here, especially around Cape Horn where both mudbanks and very deep holes opposite the picnic spot have produced some excellent fish over the years.

Next stop is Gipsy Point and the confluence of the Genoa and Wallagaraugh, the major rivers which feed Mallacoota Inlet. There's good fishing in both, particularly black bream, but you need to pick your way through the shallows.

Gipsy Point has long been famous for its bream fishing. Big dusky flathead can also be taken on a sandbank opposite Gipsy and in other shallow, muddy backwaters in the area.

The Wallagaraugh is navigable but shallow for some kilometres past the Bullring, but good for bream to the falls.

The Betka River, which is down the coast a couple of kilometres, is renowned for its bream, estuary perch and bass, although it's been some years since big bags or large fish were taken from this river. It's navigable in a tinnie or canoe, but very shallow and if you want to travel upstream, you may have to push yourself over sandbars in the lower reaches. Up higher it narrows and deepens beautifully with lots of snags which all species love.

Down the coast (15km) on a dirt track is Shipwreck Creek, the first of a number of rivers, streams and beaches in the national park that are tough to get to, but produce magnificent bream.

THE BEACHES
Good sized salmon and tailor are available along the beaches, especially at Big Beach, Tip, Betka and Quarry Beaches. Bastion Point in calm weather is great for rock fishing, particularly a small cove between the ocean boat ramp and the point where there is good King George and sand whiting.

OFFSHORE
To get offshore you use the atrocious ocean ramp at Bastion Point or, if the entrance is navigable, go through there. Don't use either before seeking local advice because both can be dangerous.

I remember the old days when we'd catch 100 sandy flathead between Gabo Island (15kms to the east but only 500m offshore) and Tullaberga Island. They're still there, but not as prolific and not as big. You should also get gummies and closer to Gabo, kingfish. The island reefs are prolific with wrasses, leatherjackets, red morwong, snapper, cod and the odd surprise or two.

For pelagic fishermen, salmon and tailor will take silver wobblers close to the beaches and offshore. During summer, there are a number of tunas, mainly the common stripey. The oddly-named New Zealand Star Banks, to the west, are famous for yellowfin tuna, barracouta and seals. This is very sharp, reefy country and safe only in calm weather.

Marlin have also been caught, mainly along a fault line east of Gabo Island in about 50 fathoms.

If going offshore, check with the Mallacoota Coastguard. Weather at the top of Bass Strait can be unpredictable and turn nasty quite quickly.

So there you have it, to my mind, one of the best fishing spots in the country, and all surrounded by national park. I can't wait to get back.

FACT & FIGURES
Mallacoota Inlet is on the eastern tip of Victoria, close to Gabo Island: 750km from Sydney; 523km from Melbourne; 350km from Canberra; and, 23km off the Princes Highway from Genoa.

Mallacoota is within the Croajingolong National Park, a World Biosphere Reserve twin-lake system (Top and Bottom Lakes).

There are 11 picnic areas with jetties on lakes for swimming/fishing/skiing; an airport; doctor's surgery; health and support service; a permanent population of about 1000; a holiday population of 20,000; a number of beaches; golf, bowls, yachting, fishing, tennis, pony, and gun clubs; five caravan parks, including the council-owned 600-site Mallacoota Camp Park on the lake's edge complete with boat moorings; three motels; hotel motel; 20 choices of units and flats; B&Bs; house boats; boat cruises, hire boats, and canoes; two lake-access boat ramps; one ocean access ramp which should only be used with local knowledge and extreme caution; whale watching; and, two supermarkets, post office, banks, two service stations, ATM, and a variety of shops in a small shopping centre.

The industrial area contains the marine service and parts business.

For further information, visit www.lakesandwilderness.com.au

SAVAGE 540 BLUEWATER CUDDY
Trailer Boat's Savage 540 Bluewater cuddy is an ideal all-rounder for waters such as Mallacoota.

For a start, it combines a light aluminium hull with a practical fibreglass canopy which means it's easy to tow and that's important when you're going to places like ‘Coota which is a long way from anywhere.

It can be towed behind the family car with ease, despite being almost 5.5 metres long. It's easy to launch and retrieve from the Mercury trailer (made by Dunbier) and its voluminous cockpit will carry a heap of camping gear.

In fact, there were times when we carried six adults and a heap of picnic gear quite comfortably with the four-stroke Mercury 115hp outboard having no trouble handling the load, although, naturally, it was a little slower getting onto the plane with three adults sitting across the stern bench seat. With just two on board, it was a breeze. And I'd say it would handle skiers quite well too.

The cuddy is plenty big enough to store ample gear and still have room for two adults to hide from the rain, which we had occasion to do a couple of times. A bimini would have been handy!

However, the delight of not having one meant a huge amount of fishing space and we utilised every bit of it with, at times, four people fishing from the rig.

That's great going in a five-metre tinny!

The long sidepockets were ideal to carry our long spinning rods without having to worry about them being damaged. At times, I had about four each side plus other gear.

The rear bench seat folds down out of the way when you're fishing and it's surprising how much more fishing room that creates.

The walkthrough screen and cuddy were terrific. We did a lot of anchoring due to wind preventing favourable drifts and we had to move quite a bit. It was no trouble to walk through to the anchor and lift it, although, I think it would be better to fit an anchor-carrying bowsprit rather than just a roller.

The cuddy bunks are covered in a practical vinyl padding and although storage underneath is limited, it's sufficient to carry items like lifejackets. The deck is carpeted and easily hosed down or vacuumed when you get home.

There is no reason why a boat of this nature could not be used offshore in sensible conditions, so it's versatility in that regard is ideal for waters where you have both inshore and offshore options. In fact, I've seen much smaller boats than this on the 12-mile reef at Bermagui!

The shallow inlet, with sandbanks everywhere, means you have to be careful, but if you do run aground it's just a matter of up with the motor, out with a paddle and push yourself off. No damage done to the aluminium hull. There were many times, in fact, when we deliberately ran the boat carefully onto a sandbank so we could fish a drop-off and not worry about the gelcoat.

In fact, so shallow is the boat's draft that at other times we raised the motor and, using the paddles, pushed our way across sandbanks to more favourable fishing spots. Try doing that in a glass boat!

While we didn't do any speed tests on this trip, our earlier tests revealed a top speed of 56kmh at 5000rpm and a comfortable cruising speed of 48kmh at 4800rpm.

It was a great trip and the Savage Bluewater 540 certainly did its bit!