Capel Sound Beach (Tootgarook)

The Tootgarook and Capel Sound foreshore runs between Rosebud and Rye, with a small boat ramp suitable for small craft only. Offshore, there is extensive seagrass, patchy reef and the deep water of Capel Sound, where boats chase snapper and gummies in spring. From the sand, the same seagrass edges give whiting, calamari and flathead within a cast. Outside the camping season it's quiet enough to hear the whiting thinking about your bait; inside it you'll hear everything else.

Fish a light paternoster onto the sand gaps between the seagrass for whiting, with a pinch of berley. Cast jigs over the weed for calamari at low light. Soft plastics hopped over the sand pick up flathead.

Whiting are the pick off the seagrass edges at Tootgarook in summer, with calamari after dark and flathead on the sand. King George whiting 27 cm and 20. Squid (including calamari), octopus and cuttlefish: combined bag 10. Flathead 27 cm and 20. Salmon 21 cm and 20 combined with Australian herring.

Port Phillip Bay berley is capped at 10 litres, and in its intertidal zone you may only take marine worms, bass yabbies, squid, octopus and cuttlefish. Berley lightly with chopped pipi along the seagrass edge and the whiting will find it; so will every puffer in Capel Sound. Toadfish and puffers must be returned and must not be eaten. Camping-season crowds mean dawn sessions are the quiet ones.

The Tootgarook boat ramp is off Point Nepean Road, with foreshore parking along the beach and the Tootgarook shops a short walk inland. The sand is flat and easy for families. The Rosebud and Rye foreshore campgrounds either side are busy from late October to early May, and busiest over the summer holidays. Capel Sound was Rosebud West until fairly recently; the sign changed, the fishing didn't.

Faces north into Capel Sound; northerlies put chop on the beach and southerlies leave it calm. The higher half of the tide and low light fish best over the shallow seagrass. Tides run stronger here than further up the bay, so the change is the easiest window.

Shallow sandbanks at low tide can leave you further out than you meant to be when the tide turns — keep an eye on the water behind you. Boats use the small Tootgarook ramp. Shuffle your feet when wading to warn off rays.

Yes — the Capel Sound foreshore at Tootgarook fishes for whiting, calamari and flathead over the seagrass edges.

Yes. Cast jigs over the seagrass edges at dusk on the higher half of the tide; the bag is 10 squid, calamari, octopus and cuttlefish combined.

Dawn or dusk on the higher half of the tide, around the change when the current eases.