My last two trips to Western Port chasing whiting have resulted in just two fish on each occasion, so I think that they are really starting to slow up now.

Now it’s time for us to start chasing a few sambos from the surf beaches and some trout from the impoundments. It’s been a patchy year for both whiting and snapper, although pinkies were around in good numbers in February and March in Western Port and all over the place in Port Phillip, which is a good indication that we’ll have lots of fish around the 40cm range next year.

All surf beaches are fishing reasonably well, with most salmon being caught around the 1kg mark, and now with the colder weather descending upon us, the fishing can only get better. There’s no better feeling than a 2kg salmon ‘king hit’, followed by the line screaming off the reel at a rate of knots.

In the Cleelands Bight area, there are still some good calamari about and the odd school of salmon working up and down the channel.

Outside the entrance, even though we have had some calm days, there has been a big swell running on most days, making it difficult to fish. There have been reasonable bags of flathead in the 30-40m depth range coming in off the Glasshouse.

As mentioned, whiting mostly disappeared, but there are still a few coming in from Dickies Bay, Reef Island and Leola Shoal.

Squid are around in fair numbers off the Bass River mouth, and good reports are also coming in from the Tyabb Bank.

There are also a few elephant fish being caught off the Corals and around Coronet Bay, and the odd big gummy has also been coming in from the deep water off Ventnor.

There’s still the odd whiting about if you are prepared to put the time in.

Snook and couta are now showing up in better numbers, and there’s still some good quality calamari about if you can get out of bed early enough to target them around the rubble patches and weed.