Some bream and tench.

I started my 2012 UK fishing in a Sussex fishery, just before my rod license had expired. It wasn't too successful but ended up with a few tench and bream. Tench - Tinca tinca Bream - Abramis brama

Hong Kong - Only a Pony

On the way back home from Melbourne, I had a three day stop over in Hong Kong. I stayed in the Tsim Sha Tsui area so it was pretty good access to the East Promenade near the Avenue of Stars where I fished previously. Bait wasn’t very easy to get as I didn’t know where the nearest wet fish market was and ended up buying some fresh prawns at Yau Ma Tei fish market which was about a 2 mile return trek from the hotel. I’m sure I could have got it somewhere closer. I found that a nearby supermarket had frozen prawns and fish, but I preferred fresh anyway.

Day 1 - East Promenade

I had only brought a single rod to Hong Kong, and set up a paternoster of quite small hooks and a small bit of prawn. I had many small bites but wasn’t able to convert them into fish. After a little while I landed a small silver fish with a black spot on the nape and front of the dorsal fin, various yellow stripes and spots, an extremely protrusible mouth and very slimy skin. I knew it was a ponyfish, but wasn’t able to identify it as a Spotnape Ponyfish [#139] until I got home.



Spotnape Ponyfish - Nuchequula nuchalis #139



Spotnape Ponyfish - Nuchequula nuchalis

I little while later, I had a different type of bite, it was more of a snatch than a nibble and out came a little goby. I could tell that it was a Tridentiger goby beause of the yellow band on the pectoral fins but was hopeful that it might be a species other than the Chameleon Goby. Well, hopes of a new species faded as I discovered that the only other Tridentiger species in Hong Kong, Tridentiger bifasciatus was an estuarine species that never enters 100% sea water. Like its cousin, it has also travelled the wolrd in cargo ship ballast water. In San Francisco Bay, both species occur but live at the different salinity levels.

I did catch a few more ponyfish and gobies, but not much else for the rest of the session. Just to point out, the Chameleon Gobies here seem to look a little different to the ones I have caught in Australia (see previous post). I'm not sure what it is but the jizz is slightly different somehow and the colouration, especially the darker patterns seem different to me as well.



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus

Day 2 – Hong Kong Ferry Pier

On the way back from Lamma Island, I decided to fish between Pier 7 (the star ferry pier) and Central Pier 8 which was being renovated. It was quite deep water here, but I fished using the same tactics as on the other side of the bay. Again, it was quite hard to hook any of the fish but felt a lot of bites. When I did hook up, I caught a Marbled Rockfish, a species I had caught on the previous trip. These little scorpionfish are called False Kelpfish in Australia because they do look a little like Kelpfish. I noticed that there were a few businessmen fishing with handlines catching small rockfish. They seemed to really enjoy catching them, enthusiastically placing their tiny morsels in a bucket for the pot later. I was only able to catch another tiny rockfish before heading back to the hotel.




Marbled Rockfish - Sebastiscus marmoratus




Marbled Rockfish - Sebastiscus marmoratus

Day 3 - East Promenade

I wanted to fish again at the Promenade to try and catch something different, but only more caught gobies and ponyfish again. They trip was quite disappointing, I had only caught 3 species even though one of them was new. The previous trip got me 7 species and was only 3 week later in the year than this time with only 1 overlapping species. Well better luck next time.

Triple Goby and a Pinky at the Warmies

The last fishing trip on my holiday to Melbourne was to the Warmies in Newport. I hadn’t mentioned in the previous blogs but I did go fishing here a few days earlier on an evening trip but completely blanked. On my last full day in Melbourne, I didn’t want to be defeated by this venue so I needed to give it another go.

The idea was to try and catch as many species as possibly so what I did was to fish a tiny hook with pippies about a rod length out. This would surely get my a few Chameleon (Japanese) Gobies or baby Bream, and sure thing, I caught a few Chameleon Gobies. They to change colours like Chameleons and I've hardly every caught them striped, but this time I caught a couple of them in the striped colouration.



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus



Chameleon Goby - Tridentiger trigonocephalus

Next came a Yellow-fin Goby. I had actually never caught these guys in the Warmies but just around the corner in Greenwich bay in about a foot of water, not about 6’ down.



Yellowfin Goby - Acanthogobius flavimanus



Yellowfin Goby - Acanthogobius flavimanus



Yellowfin Goby - Acanthogobius flavimanus

Then finally a new species, the first (and only) new saltwater species on the holiday. It was a Half-bridled Goby [#138]. These are quite similar to the Bridled Gobies I caught decades ago in the Maribyrnong, but have yet to recapture to photograph. Their fins aren’t as long, and have some spots instead of full stripes ('bridles') around their head. They still have beautiful iridescent blue spots all along its body and head.



Half-bridled Goby - Arenigobius frenatus #138



Half-bridled Goby - Arenigobius frenatus



Half-bridled Goby - Arenigobius frenatus



Half-bridled Goby - Arenigobius frenatus

After about half a dozen Half-bridled Gobies, I decided to move out of the Warmies and fish directly into the Yarra River. It was weird that I hadn't caught any baby Bream so I thought I would have better luck in the River. My plan was to fish the little jetty but it was already full, so I fished between that and the power station wall. I used the same rig but I upsized the hooks. After several dropped takes, I managed to land a lovely pinky snapper. I put up a really decent fight, but I kind of wished it was a Bream. The colours on the fish were awesome especially when I released it.



Snapper - Pagrus auratus




Snapper - Pagrus auratus

After a little while, I gave up on catching a bream, and targeted the yellow-eye mullet that were hanging around the shallows but I couldn’t land any, although I did hook a few of them. For me this wasn’t such a bad day’s fish, but others may disagree. I caught three species of goby with one of them being a new species and a nice snapper.

Werribee Galaxias

One of my goals on my holiday back to Melbourne was to fish my old local river, the Werribee River. It is a fairly short river which travels down from the Great Dividing Range just south of Daylesford. The river is home to quite a few species of fish. Natives include several species of galaxias, pygmy perch, lampreys, Shortfin Eels, Australian Smelt, Flathead Gudgeon and River Blackfish. There are a large number of introduced species as well including Carp, Goldfish, Tench, Redfin (European Perch), Roach, Mosquitofish and Brown Trout. Estuarine species occur just below the town of Werribee.



Common Galaxias - Galaxias maculatus

I had previously caught many of the above species, but my main targets were going to be the Tupong, Mosquitofish, Flathead Gudgeon and Spotted and Common Galaxias. These occur in the weirpool about a kilometre from where I used to live and are species that I do not have photos of. I collected some earthworms from the garden earlier on and the tactic would be to fish simple rigs, basically two handlines of 2lb mono. One with just a small splitshot, a size 14 hook with about half an earthworm or a grain of corn to target the bottom feeding fish and a waggler setup with an 18 hook and a microscopic piece of worm for the midlevel and surface feeders.



Common Galaxias - Galaxias maculatus

Within seconds of the waggler settling, it got dragged in. It took up to a dozen strikes to hook into a fish, and it was a 1” common galaxias, probably the smallest fish I had ever caught on hook and line. I found that I got more bites by moving the waggler, and caught a second common galaxias about double the length.



Common Galaxias - Galaxias maculatus

I didn’t catch anything on the bottom rig. I did lose baits a few times, but was unable to land anything.

I might have caught more species if I had stayed longer than half an hour but at least got a photo of a common galaxias. I would love to have caught a Spotted Galaxias. I have only ever caught one, but this was at the exact same swim I was fishing when I caught one many years ago. These guys look almost like a brown trout and will take dry flies like a brown trout as well. I will have to target the remaining species again the next time I am home.

Early Morning Lorne Pier

I had been staying with my parents Melbourne, and one evening, I got in contact with my old fishing buddy and he had planned a squid fishing trip in Lorne the following morning. He offered to pick me up at 4am the next morning for a 6am start. There was no way I was going to turn down a fishing trip even though it was now very late in the evening and I had only just got over the jetlag.



Snapper - Pagrus auratus



Snapper - Pagrus auratus

We arrived at the pier at about 6:30am and started fishing. He fished only squid jigs and I fished a squid jig on one rod and half a pilchard on the other. After a little while I caught the first fish, a nice 13" Snapper. I gave up on squid and just had 2 rods with pilchards and pipies. I caught a few more smaller snapper. 28cm is the legal limit here and caught a few just below as well.



Blue Weed-Whiting - Haletta semifasciata



King George Whiting - Sillaginodes punctatus

The next I caught a Smooth Toadfish. These are a pufferfish and have no fight in them at all. Then a Blue Weed Whiting, a close relative of the wrasse. It was a female, without the extreme blue colouring of the male. The final species of the day was a King George Whiting, a nice sized fish that I hadn’t caught for about 10 years.

I finished the day off on a larger snapper, probably about 15". My mate only managed a single female blue-throated wrasse and a smaller but legal snapper but no squid. We left by about 9:30am and returned more jetlagged than before.



Smooth Toadfish - Tetractenos glaber



Blue-throated Wrasse - Notolabrus tetricus
Although no new species were caught, I obtained photos of the two species of whiting, which I had caught before but never had a photo of. The pinkie snapper were quite fun to land, I didn’t remember how strong they were.

Hazelwood – Cichilds in Southern Australia

Ever since I was a quite young, I was fascinated by the fact that there were species of cichlids living in Victoria. I couldn’t believe that such colourful tropical species of fish could live in the temperate waters of Southern Australian. I originally learnt about them when I borrowed a field guide of freshwater fish of Victoria. On closer inspection, I found that they all occur in the same location in Victoria, and that was a cooling pond for the Hazelwood Powerstation in the LaTrobe valley, where the temperature remains around 26 degrees all year round.


They led to years of wanting to fish this water, but I never got around to doing it. Having lived in London for about 7 years now, I had almost forgotten about them. I hadn’t gone back home of about 4 years and planned a trip Melbourne. During the trip planning process, I open up my freshwater fish of Australia book and found them in the introduced fish section at the back, and my mind was set, this time, on this trip, I would target the cichlids.

Hazelwood is about two and a half hours drives from Melbourne towards the east. As I arrived, the sun was out which was lovely but there was a steady wind of about 20kph. The spot I decided to fish had a few little breakwaters which allowed me to fish into a lea bank. I still got splashed a lot from the waves generated by the winds, but it was quite find because the water was a nice 25 degrees. The water was extremely silty so I couldn't see any fish and wasn't even sure they were there.



Red Devil - Amphilophus labiatus #136


Red Devil - Amphilophus labiatus


Red Devil - Amphilophus labiatus


I rigged up a waggler with a size 16 hook baited with sweet corn. I slowly moved around and caught my first fish, a handsome looking yellow fish and jet black eyes. This was a Red Devil [#136]. Apparently all Australian Red Devils are a Hybrid between A. labiatus and A. citrinellus, but I will just count them as A. labiatus as it’s pretty hard to distinguish them anyway. The next few fish were dark fish, with a yellowish body, red breast, ‘tiger’ stripes and a black tail spot. I originally thought these were Tilapia, but found that they are actually naturally coloured red devils. I ended catching these little devils in a whole rainbow of colours from the naturals, greenish, yellow, orange, red and pink with the largest fish about 5”.



Red Devil - Amphilophus labiatus



Red Devil - Amphilophus labiatus



Red Devil - Amphilophus labiatus


Whilst fishing for the devils, decided to fish tight into the margin to see if I could catch anything different and it worked, I hooked into a more cylindrically shaped fish, with a ‘roman’ nose and electric blue stripes. To me, it was a typical shape Psuedotrpheus, also known as Mbuna. I caught several of these, and each had a slightly different shaped nose and body even tending towards the genus Labeotropheus. I’ve decided that it is going to be impossible to identify this fish and to assign in my books as a Psuedotrpheus hybrid [#137]. What I will do with hybrids is that they count as a different species until I catch one of the parents.




Zebra Mbuna hybrid - Pseudotropheus zebra x 'Hazelwood' #137



Zebra Mbuna hybrid - Pseudotropheus zebra x 'Hazelwood'



Zebra Mbuna hybrid - Pseudotropheus zebra x 'Hazelwood'



Zebra Mbuna hybrid - Pseudotropheus zebra x 'Hazelwood'



Zebra Mbuna hybrid - Pseudotropheus zebra x 'Hazelwood'


It was a joy to fish here but the plan was to drive up to Mount Baw Baw for a late lunch so I had to pack up. It was hard to leave even though the fish were not of any size, they so colourful, it felt like a dream. If you had just stumbled on this page and you would have thought that I was fishing in the tropics some where, or even the Rift Valley. I was hoping for a few more species, Tilapia, Convicts and maybe Firemouths, but maybe next time.