40cm bream from the second trip.
Two estuary trips to Victoria’s west coast, a week apart, brought a mixed bag of wildlife encounters, interesting meals, fishing, and a close call. Over the years, more than a few angling writers have observed that if fish are not quickly revealed to be front and centre of a story, the fishing part was probably lacking. In this case, that’s only partly true.
Trip one was with JD to the Port Fairy area. We fished the Fitzroy and Surrey rivers, and briefly, the lagoons near the mouth of the Moyne River. Both the Fitzroy and Surrey were open to the sea, although as it turned out, the 1 metre high tide was not enough to push up either system. Effectively, we fished outgoing freshwater on both estuaries the whole time.
Peaceful evening on the Surrey River.
On the milky Surrey, all we could scratch up were a couple of small salmon and if that was the only system we fished (admittedly for just an hour or two) then there wouldn’t be much to tell. There was a beautifully-located holiday park with a tree-lined river curving right around it, some hopeful-looking pelicans working the weed-beds, the distant lights of Portland twinkling across the other side of a broad bay, and JD’s chicken curry a welcome meal after a typically cold and grey west coast winter day.
Too much good water on the Fitzroy?
The Fitzroy, on the other hand, was clearer and felt fishy, with a deep cut to the sea and its normally marshy edges high and dry (ish), offering good foot and wading access to lots of water; in fact maybe too much. It was hard to know just how much effort to devote to a section given how good it all looked: weed-beds, drop-offs, flats… FOMO loomed large whenever 15 minutes passed without any fish interactions. Should we be closer to the sea? Further upstream? Fishing deeper? Shallower?
Fitzroy salmon.
So the actual fishing was good but, if I’m honest, not great. We caught a couple of decent bream, a nice salmon (by estuary standards) and a few smaller models. But compared to previous visits and reports from friends, we felt we could (should?) have done better. It seemed like a cop-out to blame the lack of seawater push.
Preparing a more humble meal.
On our way home, there was time for a brief, speculative fish near the mouth of the Moyne River and surrounding lagoons, and surprisingly, given the lack of planning and a cold rain, we probably had more ‘interactions’ there than on the other systems. I sight-fished a reasonable sand flathead, and we polaroided lots of half-decent sweep and (we thought) luderick.
***
Part two was a visit this week to the Aire River, south of Apollo Bay. The accommodation at Max’s place with views to a Bass Strait horizon, was spectacular as always, and with a master chef in the kitchen, the food was sublime. However, the ominously big sets crashing ashore, coupled this time with a 2 metre high tide, promised to make the estuary fishing very different to the previous week. Be careful what you wish for.
Spectator.
We arrived at the Aire two hours before high tide to find the river level already rising and the current pushing upstream. Surprisingly though, the water was a freshwater tannin colour (like the Fitzroy the week before) and only faintly brackish – at least on top. Max and I fished our way towards the mouth, with the boom of the surf getting louder and noticeable ‘swells’ pushing upriver, though still no blue/green saltwater. On the banks, there were wallabies and koalas, but the fish were scarce.
Bluewater and an angry sea.
Finally, only a couple of hundred metres from the ocean and with the listed high tide time having ticked past, the seawater appeared, and soon after, the fish in the form of some very decent and silvery bream. In the space of half an hour or so, a few beauties to around 40cm came to hand, fighting as hard as the half metre tidal bores racing past us. Before long, the blue water was hundreds of metres upstream, in apparent defiance of the tide charts.
Photographing a bream moments before the wave hit.
Around then, I foolishly knelt down in the sand on the river edge to photograph a big bream, and was distracted for long enough not to notice the next tidal bore bearing down on me. Before I knew it, cold sea was trickling in between my puffer jacket and waders, the already unhooked bream had vanished, my phone was sprayed, my net was stretching its lanyard but still attached … and my rod, which should have been on my lap, was gone.
Being on the edge of a deep drop-off which was now a maelstrom of foam and whirlpools, it only took a moment to realise I had no hope of recovering my Sage, plus reel, line and fly. A bit wet and cursing my carelessness, I prepared for a fishless and scrubby 1.5 kilometre walk back to the car for a spare outfit. I tried, as I sometimes do in a crisis, to calculate the win/ loss. Three cracking bream versus losing expensive equipment which had also landed the biggest trout of my life years earlier. Obviously, the equation didn’t stack up.
Max on the edge of the drop-off which I thought my rod had subsequently vanished into.
And just then, miraculously, I noticed my rod lying 50 metres away and 3 metres up from the river edge, safely (and unbelievably) deposited by the surge of salt.
After that, it would have been hard to ruin the day. On the contrary, to add to the wildlife count, we saw two deer bound across the road on the way home. Soon after, Max’s home-made pizza (complete with hand-prepared dough) was as good as it sounds: he is after all Italian by origin.
Enjoying the meal in a warm house, in dry clothes, with an episode of ‘Alone’ on the TV and the muffled explosions of giant waves hitting the beach out there in the dark… well, life doesn’t get much better.
