Back in Port Phillip Bay

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Last week I wanted to go for a squid fish but could not remember the last time I launched my boat into Port Phillip Bay, people were catching squid all over the southern half of the bay but none of any size, I thought that the challenge to find some bigger squid in the same areas sounded like fun.

For the first time ever I launched my boat at the Rye boat ramp, normally I would either launch at Mornington or Sorrento but this time for a change I thought I would try in the middle at Rye. Over the years Rye has got a lot of complaints about the condition of its ramp with sand build up making it tough for people with two wheel drive vehicles to launch and more so retrieve. On this occasion the water was crystal clear and there was no sign of sand build up, in fact it was up there with some of the best on the peninsula.

We made our way south heading straight to Sorrento as I did have an ulterior motive for being out on that day and that was to get some photo's for an international magazine and one of my sponsor's advertisement, I needed some where shallow and in the protection of the wind where I could kick my mate Dan out into the water with a few camera's and get some pics there was a stiff south west breeze blowing so I knew a small cape where we could get some pics without the wind causing too many drama's. I have to note, it was bloody freezing so a big thanks to Dan for braving the cold and helping me and my sponsor out on this occasion and he got some cracking photo's for me off the DSLR while managing to keep it dry at the same time.

Enough about that though back to the fishing, I headed over to Point Nepean first up to check out what the water was like, at our first stop the tide was about half way out and the water was heavy with sand and moving very fast, we did one drift without seeing any squid and it was decided that we move to the other side of the rip to have a look for some bigger squid. Upon arrival we found filthy dirty fast moving water with a visibility of only about half a meter. things were gonna be tough. I made a color change to suit teh dirty water and conditions and started a drift. I would be lying if half way through the drift I did not have a lot of confidence. I was thinking about making yet another move when whack, I got a bite and set  hook into a solid squid, now it was no giant but it was about 2kg and when compared to the 200 and 300 gram squid that most had been catching it was a good sign. Long story short we did the same drift another 2 times and picked up 4 about the same size. During a short move we thought we would sneak into queenscliff harbour for a quick food and drink stop.

Our next location was north of Swan Bay and up towards an are where people have been saying there was no squid left as the netters had taken them all. Not sure where these claims come from but on my first cast I landed a squid, Dans first cast and dirty dragger landed squid. There was so many squid it would have been impossible to not catch a bag of squid. Port Phillip Bay is alive with squid. The day was getting on so we decided to start to make our way back to the ramp stopping at a few spots along the way.

While driving along at full noise I decided that rather than go to my normal spots the ground I was flying over had lots of broken ground so we gave it a crack. I can not stress enough, there is more squid in Port Phillip Bay at the moment than there has been in ages, in a random spot we have multiples of squid fighting for the jig, bigger than the average we had been catching and some nice sized cuttle fish cruising around, it was insane. Any one who thinks there are no squid left are delusional.