Tooradin Jetty & Sawtells Inlet

Tooradin sits on Sawtells Inlet at the northern tip of Western Port, and you can fish from the jetty as well as plenty of good spots along the banks. Parks Victoria rebuilt the jetty, which is used by a tour boat, a charter boat and local fishers, and the foreshore around it has just about everything — parking, toilets, barbecues, a big playground, cafés, a boardwalk and lookout over the mangroves, a fish market and an old fisherman's cottage museum. It is the most estuary-like spot in the port: bream and mullet, with flathead and whiting on the flood. Estuary perch turn up too, usually to anglers who were after something else.

The recipe is light tackle and some berley, a running sinker rig for most species, and a float with small long-shanked hooks for mullet, fished around high tide. Bream are worked close to the banks, snags and jetty piles with small baits — sandworm, pipi or peeled prawn — or small soft plastics. Flathead sit on the sandier bottom of the channel and take a slowly worked plastic or a strip of pilchard. The jetty approach can be tide-restricted for boats, which is a hint to anglers: the water at the shore end is very shallow at low tide.

Black bream are the estuary prize (28 cm minimum, combined bream bag of 10 outside the Gippsland Lakes), and yelloweye mullet (no minimum, combined mullet bag of 40) are the reliable bite for kids. Flathead (27 cm, combined bag 20), King George whiting (27 cm, bag 20), salmon and silver trevally push in on the tide. Estuary perch (27 cm minimum, combined bag of 5 with Australian bass, no more than 2 bass) are an occasional catch. Black bream must be kept whole while on the water.

Arrive a couple of hours before high water and fish through to the turn; once the inlet starts to drain the bite drops away. Berley is worth the mess here. Fishing the banks spreads people out on holiday weekends, when the jetty fills with tourists and charter customers. Pick up a feed from the fish market if the bream have other ideas.

The foreshore car park on Foreshore Road sits right beside the jetty and boat ramp. Toilets, barbecues, shelters, a playground, shops and cafés are all at hand. The jetty pontoon has a sleeve for visitors' own Hansa C crane hoists, part of Parks Victoria's wheelchair-to-boat access — the hoist itself is not supplied. The foreshore paths are flat and suit families.

Sawtells Inlet is sheltered and shallow; wind matters less than tide. The flood tide brings clean water and fish up the channel, and low tide leaves mudflats and a narrow drain. At low water the moored boats sit on the mud looking faintly embarrassed, waiting for Western Port to come back. Warm months are generally more productive, and the water is often discoloured after rain.

Mudflats and soft banks are the main risk — do not wade out at low tide. Boat traffic uses the narrow channel and the jetty head, so keep lines out of the fairway. Jumping or diving off the jetty is prohibited because of shallow water and submerged objects.

Expect bream, yelloweye mullet, Australian salmon, flathead, silver trevally, King George whiting and estuary perch for Tooradin. Bream and mullet are the most dependable around the jetty and banks, with flathead and whiting coming in on the flood tide.

The flood into high tide. The inlet is shallow and drains to mud at low water, so fish the last couple of hours of the rising tide through to the turn.

The foreshore is flat and the jetty pontoon has a sleeve for visitors' own Hansa C crane hoists to transfer into boats and canoes; the hoist itself is not provided. Toilets, parking and picnic facilities are right beside the jetty.