Top 7 spots to go fishing on Port Phillip Bay

The more relaxed rules around recreational activities are a welcome relief for fishers who, by their nature, are pretty solitary creatures when it comes to their favourite pastime. However, while everyone in the state will be able to wet a line, strict social distancing rules mean we will all still need to be vigilant that we do our best to halt the spread of coronavirus.

That means gathering in groups of no more than 10 people on a jetty, and even while on a boat, maintaining a 1.5-metre distance away from anyone who does not live under the same roof as you.

Related content:

Victoria’s decision to ease outright fishing and boating bans comes just as the weather shifts into early winter, the peak time for chasing a good feed of snapper, whiting or flathead.

Fisheries Victoria says conditions on Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay can only have benefitted from the months-long break, and should now be better than ever.

Here’s the boatsales.com.au guide to some of the bay’s best fishing spots, no matter if you’re casting a line off the jetty or heading out to your favourite hotspot.

As always, check local conditions before heading out, and ensure your boat’s battery is holding charge – the cooler conditions as we ease into winter can severely sap an older battery’s ability to hold enough charge to restart the outboard engine for the trip home.

Most importantly, be sensible. We’ve waited a long time to get back out on the water, and everyone who heads out fishing in this COVID-19 crisis and acts irresponsibly can spoil it for everyone else.

Head to the Geelong foreshore to chase squid, salmon, snapper, flathead, silver trevally, garfish, King George whiting, and leatherjacket. Fishers can also target bream and snotty trevalla – the latter using chicken attached to a float.

For shore-based fishers, Geelong has the Cunningham Street pier just off the city’s major shopping strip, and the rock wall at St Helens where the smaller of Geelong’s two boat ramps is located. The second, at Limeburners Point, is a decent two-lane ramp protected by a rock wall.

The Cunningham Pier is one of the best in Port Phillip Bay because it provides easy access to the deep water, and therefore the fish.

Head to Queenscliff, one of Victoria’s oldest fishing ports, to target squid, yellow-eye mullet, salmon, flathead, silver trevally, garfish or King George whiting. If you’re lucky, you may also get the occasional snapper.

Queenscliff has a decent jetty to fish from where you can target white snapper, whiting and salmon, as well as one of the better boat launching facilities on the bay, with two lanes and a pontoon.

A good spot to head to is the coastal gutters in front of the Santa Casa church, where you can chase gummy shark, snapper, whiting, calamari, flathead and salmon.

The boat ramp at Werribee South, in Melbourne’s outer west, provides good access to the Werribee River.

Two lanes with floating pontoons provide excellent access to the water, where boats can head out and target bream – look for them where freshwater drains sweeten the water after rain – yellow-eye mullet, salmon, flathead and silver trevally.

Werribee South has plenty of small jetties for land-based anglers, who can also target bream and larger mullet at this time of year.

Land-based fishers have to share the river with boaters, so be mindful of constant traffic up and down the waterway.

The Mordialloc boat ramp is located on the Mordialloc Creek. Access to Port Phillip Bay is by sneaking under Pompei’s Bridge, a low overpass that forms part of the Nepean Highway. You also need to be a bit careful in the river’s shallower parts that you don’t suck mud up through the outboard engine.

If your boat is too tall to fit under the bridge, Mordialloc Pier offers a decent land-based alternative. Long and roomy, you can fish for snapper, squid in the weed beds, and salmon off the deeper end, and other species including flathead, silver trevally, King George whiting, leatherjacket, bream and yellow-eye mullet.

Fish on the Mordialloc Creek side of the pier and you can target bream and garfish.

Note that because the Mordialloc Pier is low, waves can occasionally break over it, par5ticularly if it’s a southwesterly.

Mornington is one of those places that benefit from a large sea wall protecting the beaches from strong southwesterly swells.

That means land-based fishers can target the open bay for squid, salmon, snapper, silver trevally, leatherjacket, garfish or yellowtail kingfish, or fish inside the wall in shallower, more protected areas for flathead and King George whiting.

You can even target pike in these reef systems.

Mornington is a great place to launch a boat, with good launching facilities and decent reefs offshore including Ansetts and Morrisons off nearby Mount Martha. Launching facilities are good, although be prepared to wait to launch and retrieve your boat – it’s right up there with Melbourne’s busiest boat ramps.

This is without a doubt Melbourne’s best place to launch a boat, although there’s a downside to all that appeal – up to 600 boats launch there in a day, so get there a little late and the car park will be full to overflowing.

While this isn’t really a spot for land-based anglers – facilities are few, fishers are locked out at night so they don’t annoy nearby residents, and if you’re fishing the river the boat traffic is non-stop so you have to fish deep – it’s a cracking place to put a boat in the water.

The river is good for bream – particularly after heavy rain and around the river mouth – and mulloway, but head offshore and you’re into the yellow-eye mullet, salmon, flathead, silver trevally and whiting.

Land-based fishers are well catered-for at Sorrento, with a long public jetty leading out to deep water. The Sorento-Queenscliff ferry terminates here, stirring up sand and silt as it docks and attracting feeding fish.

Because it is in deeper water, the Sorrento Pier is good for targeting everything from squid to salmon, snapper, flathead, silver trevally, King George whiting, leatherjacket and even barracouta – Sorrento is home to a large traditional ‘couta boat fleet.

If you’re heading out on the water, Sorrento is one of the best places to target squid. Target them in low light up to an hour after sunset.

A popular offshore location to head to is the Portsea Hole, a popular bay diving spot. The hole is off limits to recreational fishers, but there are a few good places to sit around it to target everything from snapper to gummy shark.