Collendina Beach

Collendina is the eastern stretch of the Ocean Grove surf beach, reached from the Collendina Reserve and foreshore, with toilets at the foreshore. It is quieter than Ocean Grove's main beach, and the same gutters hold salmon by day and gummy sharks after dark, with surf mulloway along this coast on high tides at night. It's Ocean Grove without the Ocean Grove: same gutters, fewer people, and nobody to witness an empty bucket. The marine park only starts much further east, near Point Lonsdale.

Walk east from the Collendina access at low tide and note the gutters; there are fewer people to watch you do it than at Ocean Grove. Fish them back on the rising tide with 25–50 g metals or soaked blue bait. If the salmon aren't there, the walk counts as exercise. After dark, gummies are the target on fresh fillet.

Salmon in the daytime gutters, gummies after dark, and a mulloway on a lucky high tide. Salmon 21 cm and 20 combined with Australian herring. Gummy shark 45 cm partial length and 2 combined with school shark, kept whole or as a carcass until you are off the water. Mulloway are 60 cm minimum, bag 5 (changes have been proposed — check the VFA guide).

The Point Lonsdale part of the Port Phillip Heads Marine National Park starts on the ocean beach well east of here, toward Point Lonsdale. Check the boundary signs or the VFA app's GPS check, and don't walk east into it with a rod. Keep below the high-tide line where shorebirds nest.

Access is from the Collendina Reserve and foreshore on the eastern side of Ocean Grove, with public toilets at the foreshore. Paths cross the dunes to the sand. Not suited to wheelchairs on the beach itself.

This is the long, open eastern end of the Ocean Grove beach, and its gutters move with every swell — a moderate one builds them, a big south-westerly makes it dangerous. Northerlies are offshore and best. Dawn, dusk and night on the higher half of the tide. On a still winter morning the only sounds are the shorebreak and someone unscrewing a thermos.

Unpatrolled surf with rips — don't wade out to cast. Know where the marine-park boundary is if you walk east. Wear a lifejacket on any rock (AS 4758 level 50S or greater).

Yes — salmon from the gutters by day and gummy sharks at night. Don't fish the far eastern end, which becomes marine national park near Point Lonsdale.

Salmon on a rising tide at dawn or dusk in autumn and winter; gummies after dark on the higher half of the tide.

25–50 g metals or soaked blue bait in the gutters are the go-to.