Golden Beach (Ninety Mile Beach)

Golden Beach is a small community on Ninety Mile Beach about 36 km from Sale, and it is a surf-fishing town first and a holiday town second. The beach gives more than the usual salmon and mulloway, with snapper and sharks frequenting the gutters, and night is the time for the sharks. The Golden Beach runs two surf-fishing events — a carnival over the Australia Day weekend and the Ninety Mile Beach Surf Fishing Competition over Easter — and both draw a crowd of locals and visitors. Camping along Shoreline Drive puts the surf a short walk over the dunes from your tent. On a competition weekend the only topic in town is the weigh-in.

Walk over the dune paths from Shoreline Drive or the town and read the beach at low tide for the darker, deeper gutters. Ninety Mile Beach is not a figure of speech: if the gutter in front of you dies, there is genuinely a lot more beach to try. Fish a long surf rod with a paternoster dropper rig for distance, and a running rig with a big fresh bait after dark for gummies and other sharks. Salmon and tailor take metal slugs cast into the white water at dawn and dusk. For families, lighter gear in the shallow wash with small squid strips or sandworm and a little berley finds mullet, flathead and smaller salmon. Mulloway are a patient night game on big fresh baits in the deepest gutter you can find.

Australian salmon are the most reliable fish, with gummy sharks and other sharks after dark, snapper from the deeper gutters, and mulloway for the patient. Tailor, flathead and mullet round out the catch. Salmon have a 21 cm minimum and a combined bag of 20 with Australian herring; snapper are 28 cm minimum with a bag of 10, of which no more than three may be 40 cm or longer. Gummy and school sharks have a combined bag of 2. Mulloway are 60 cm minimum with a bag of 5 (changes have been proposed — check the VFA guide before you keep one).

Fish at night for the sharks and mulloway, and at dawn and dusk for salmon. Pick a northerly day if you can: it lays the surf down and adds metres to the cast, while an easterly piles weed and side current onto the beach and usually ends the session early. Dogs are allowed only in set areas of Gippsland Lakes Coastal Park — on Shoreline Drive at Golden Beach that means on a leash between campsites one and six — so check the signs before you bring one. If you are here for either competition, book a campsite early.

Golden Beach is reached by road from Sale. Shoreline Drive runs behind the dunes with numerous foreshore camping areas, and pathways cross the dunes from the camps straight to the beach. The viewing platform at Golden Beach has no steps and is wheelchair accessible, though the sand itself is not. The general store in town covers basics. Camping along Shoreline Drive is first in, first served, and there are paid sites at Paradise Beach to the east.

Golden Beach faces south-east onto Bass Strait and takes the swell directly, so gutters form and fill with each blow. A moderate swell carves fishable gutters; a big sea turns it all to white water. A northerly wind and a rising tide are the best combination. Night and low light produce the sharks and mulloway.

Ninety Mile Beach shelves into deep gutters close to the sand, and the rips run out through the same gutters that hold the fish — don't wade past your knees to cast, and keep an eye on the water behind you. Treat it as unpatrolled, and remember big seas dump on the sand. Use a headlamp at night and tell someone where you are. Ticks and snakes are possible in the dune scrub in warmer months.

Salmon are the mainstay, with snapper, mulloway, gummy sharks and other sharks, plus tailor, flathead and mullet. Night fishing gives the best chance of sharks.

There are two: the Australia Day Surf Fishing Carnival over the Australia Day weekend, and the Ninety Mile Beach Surf Fishing Competition over Easter. Check the organisers' pages for this year's dates and rules.

Yes. There are free, first-in first-served foreshore camping areas along Shoreline Drive with paths over the dunes to the beach, and paid sites at Paradise Beach to the east.

Only in set areas of Gippsland Lakes Coastal Park and on a leash. On Shoreline Drive at Golden Beach, dogs are allowed between campsites one and six but not between campsites seven and nineteen.