Fishcare Around the Bay
The last few months have been busy for our groups around Port Phillip Bay with lots of events happening all around the bay! We have had our regular Portsea Camp fishing sessions at the start around October. With another successful fishing session with multiple kids catching fish. The winner of the day was a 30cm Whiting caught during the first session of the day! The kids were also able to see a large Port Jackson Shark and a Banjo Shark (both were released swiftly and safely with the assistance of Fishcare volunteers) caught by anglers on the Pier who were happy to show the kids all the cool stuff found in the Bay.
We also were finally able to have our Altona P-9 fishing clinics at Cherry Lake, Altona after multiple attempts! The wind at one of our clinics getting up to 45km/hr wind gusts! We were happy to finally have a chance to fish with lots of carp stealing bait and splashing around but unfortunately none on the lines. They still had a great day overall, with some of the students practising re-rigging rods and those who had been fishing many times before, were unofficial Fishcare volunteers by helping the students perfect their casting technique!
The 29th October marked the opening of the Carrum Downs Launching Way disability fishing platform extension. Many of the VRFish and Parks Victoria representatives stated that it was Remy Baya, a long term Fishcare Melbourne volunteer, that was the motivation behind getting the upgrade and extension. Remy has been running All Abilities fishing clinics at the Launching Way site for almost 10 years, a site that we use for school clinics as well. Two days after the grand opening, we ran an all day fishing session for the Grade 8 students at Heatherwood High School in conjunction with Tim Curmi from Native Fish Australia. They definitely are looking forward to continuing their fishing clinics with us at the newly improved ramp (and to take advantage of the new BBQ!).
Finally, we had a massive day at Kakarook Lake in Moorabin for National Gone Fishing Day on the 14th October where we teamed up with the Victorian Fisheries Authority to help out with their Vic Fish Kids event. Fishcare Melbourne and Mornington volunteers Wayne Taylor and Tom Clayson ran the casting competition through out the day giving out Tasmanian Devil trout lures as prizes! Various Fishcare regional groups have been at each one of the Vic Fish Kids events around the State, providing knot tying and rigging lessons for the first 15 minutes of every fishing session. Our Port Phillip Facilitator Jacinta has taught over 1,000 kids (not to mention some of their parents too!) how to tie a half blood knot and a running sinker rig in the last 2 months alone! Mitch McMaster from our Fishcare Geelong Bellarine group stepping up to the plate taking over for one of the events when Jacinta wasn’t able to make it to teach around 150 kids in Ararat.
