Gem Pier

Gem Pier is a historic Williamstown pier of about 145 metres, home to the museum ship HMAS Castlemaine and right on the Nelson Place waterfront. It's a bream-on-bait pier among the pylons and around the moored boats, with pinkies and flathead taken too and occasional salmon, trevally and garfish. A few hundred metres up the shore, the Ferguson Street Pier fishes much the same way when it is open, so the two are effectively one Hobsons Bay fishery with a city skyline across the water. It is also one of the busiest strolling piers in Melbourne, which shapes when you should fish it.

Bream are the pier's speciality: fish a lightly weighted bait close to the pylons or flick it toward the moored boats and let it drift down naturally. A light berley trail brings garfish, salmon and trevally in close. Casting out from the end into deeper water is the way to find pinkies and flathead. Soft plastics worked slowly around the structure are a good alternative to bait for bream. The bream here have watched a century of hooks go past and remain unimpressed by most of them.

Black bream are the reliable fish year-round, peaking from winter into spring (28 cm minimum, bag 10). Pinkies are around most of the year and flathead from spring into autumn (snapper 28 cm, bag 10 with no more than 3 at 40 cm or more; flathead 27 cm). Salmon, silver trevally and garfish turn up under berley, and yelloweye mullet in the cooler months. Hobsons Bay salmon schools can appear at any time of year.

The pier is extremely popular with fishers and the public alike, so wet a line early or late in the day — by 11 am you're fishing through a walking tour. Don't fish near the gangway of HMAS Castlemaine or across the paths of berthing boats, and keep the deck clear for walkers. Jumping and diving off the pier is prohibited. Berley is limited to 10 litres in Port Phillip Bay, including Hobsons Bay. HMAS Castlemaine has been moored here longer than most anglers have been fishing; she has never once had a bite.

Gem Pier sits off Nelson Place and The Strand in Williamstown, a short walk from cafes and restaurants. Parking is adequate nearby with public toilets along The Strand and Nelson Place, and the waterfront walking and cycling paths run past it. The deck is wide and flat, which suits families, though weekends bring crowds. Nelson Place's fish and chip shops do a roaring trade with anglers who caught nothing; nobody judges. Dogs must be on a lead.

Hobsons Bay is the sheltered top corner of Port Phillip, so Gem Pier fishes in southerly and south-westerly winds that make the open bay piers miserable. A strong northerly can push chop against the Williamstown shoreline but rarely shuts it down. Fresh water from the Yarra after heavy rain colours the bay and can bring bream and snapper closer to the river mouth. Dawn and dusk tide changes are the windows.

The deck sits above deep water with ladders and berthing areas; keep children back from the edges and don't climb onto moored vessels. Wet timber is slippery. Watch the swing of your cast on a crowded pier with walkers behind you. Boat traffic around the moorings means keeping lines short of the fairways.

Yes. Gem Pier is one of the busiest fishing piers in Hobsons Bay, best known for bream around the pylons; fish early or late to dodge the crowds. Jumping and diving are prohibited and dogs must be on a lead.

Mainly black bream, plus pinky snapper and flathead, with occasional salmon, silver trevally and garfish under a light berley trail. Bream are 28 cm minimum with a bag of 10 in Victoria.

When it's open, it fishes much like Gem Pier: bream and trevally around the pylons, snapper and flathead for whoever casts furthest off the end. It has had works in recent years, so obey any fencing.