Sensational salmon the talk of Lorne

AUSTRALIAN salmon are seldom found in the waters off Lorne, but the months of May and June suggest otherwise at the Lorne Aquatic and Angling Club.

Club commodore Keith Miller said numbers of salmon such as this hadn’t been seen in Lorne for almost a decade as thousands of the fish have gathered near the Surf Coast town.

“We’ve never had them here this big before, either,” Mr Miller said.

“Several of our members have caught some impressive Australian salmon over a number of competitions here, and I’d say three times in a week at one point we’ve broken the club record for the fish.”

A month ago, Alby Dawson set a new junior club record with a 2,061g salmon, but that was broken last week when Rita DeBon caught a 2,811g salmon.

Rita held the record for a short time, but then Alby reclaimed it with a 2,960g salmon, which is now the incumbent junior record and heavier than the senior record holder.

 

 

The record was then again broken with a catch recorded at 4,000g.

The commodore has a theory behind the spontaneous increase in Australian salmon numbers.

“They are feeding on a small fish called whitebait, and are busting up in large schools attacking their prey and often completely jumping out of the water by more than a metre,” Mr Miller said.

“The whitebait are there, I believe, because they are feeding on thousands and thousands of acres of jellyfish, which is in turn attracting the salmon.

“We’ve had jellyfish come by in the past, but not like this.

“It’s a wonderful sequence of events and it was made even better seeing our kids making the catches. Who knows? We might even break another record.”

 

 

Mr Miller also said the fish is classed as “poor eating”, but that’s just a matter of personal taste.

“I actually really like them, but you must eat them fresh. They are also great smoked.”