Welcome to the Best Land Based Fishing Spots around Melbourne as we give you a great starting spot for amazing fishing right on your doorstep. If you need more suggestions, then head over to our Fishing Location Guides, which have over 200 fishing locations to sink your teeth into.
The Warmies | Hotties
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The Warmies is situated between Williamstown and Port Melbourne. It’s the start of the Yarra River feeding from the entrance of Port Phillip Bay. It gets its name and reputation as this section of water directly feeds off the Newport power station. The power station is an electricity overflow which these days only comes on in Winter and when it does it pumps warm water into this channel bringing in massive volumes of Australian Salmon and Tailor. Seasonally, this is also a brilliant fishery for snapper, bream, silver trevally, mulloway and mullet. This place comes alive in peak winter when the pumps are on. Those moments can be chaotic, and it is arguably the busiest fishing location in the state, but you can always find your own patch to land a few fish.
You can fish here with bait, and many anglers will often use small baits suspended from a float or a basic running sinker rig. However, I have had the most success casting soft plastics such as 2.5”. 3” and 4” paddle tails and grubz while covering ground away from the crowds walking the banks.
Watch Al from FishingMad in some crazy land based fishing from the Warmies
Albert Park Lake
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This family-friendly lake is only 3 kilometres from the Melbourne CBD and offers excellent seasonal fishing. It’s a shallow and weedy system, and you can walk around the entire lake in about 30 minutes. It’s stocked with rainbow trout most school holidays and, in Winter, is annually stocked with Stonker trout. However, this lake offers exceptional fishing for yellowbelly and estuary perch. You’ll often see huge yellowbelly cruising along the edges, and targeting Eps on evenings with surface, sub-surface lures and soft plastics is amazing. It’s also home to a massive number of large carp. Be warned not to eat fish from this system as it acts as a stormwater catchment and has poor water quality. There is ample paid parking and plenty for the family to do as well.
Watch as Al walks you through some awesome fishing at Albert Park Lake
Maribyrnong River
Read the complete Maribyrnong River Fishing Location
The Maribyrnong River, “aka the Nong,” is one of the most underrated bream fisheries in the state. This urban river starts close to the city and flows for 40 kilometres. Our favourite land-based stretch is between Flemington and Essendon, which has many great land-based fishing spots, such as jetties near Anglers Tavern, Canning Reserve and in front of Flemington racecourse.
It has also been stocked heavily in recent years with estuary perch and also has a healthy population of pinkies, yelloweye mullet and prized mulloway. Using a light 1-3kg spin rod is perfect for bream. You can catch them using coarse techniques with nibble tip rods and berley and catch them in great volumes with live baits such as scrub worms, maggots or yabbies. You can also walk the banks, flicking lightly weighted soft plastics, shallow diving hard body lures and blades, or crab, yabbie and mussel imitations up against the bridge pylons.
Watch as Al walks you through basic tips on catching bream on the Nong
West Gate Bridge
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Underneath the West Gate bridge provides surprisingly good fishing. For me, this is a special spot where I started my fishing journey, catching good volumes of pinkies and bream with bait. Here, you can also catch flathead, whiting, mullet, gummy sharks and mulloway. Parking off Lorimar street, you can set up your rods and fish from comfortable grasslands, taking a seat and some rod holders. I have caught some huge bream here using live baits such as yabbies, scrub worms and maggots with light spin rods and have landed snapper up to 6 kilos with pilchards and squid on paternoster rigs with heavier and longer length rods to get ample casting distance.
Watch as Al chases big bream under the West Gate Bridge
Webb Dock
Webb Dock is a fascinating land-based location and arguably one of the best land-based snapper spots within close proximity to Melbourne. Once parked, you have a lengthy walk along the Rockwall, which gives you access to deeper waters and seasonally great fishing. This spot comes alive in Summer for snapper and you will often see rows of anglers fishing here all day and night. I’ve seen some huge snappers caught here over the years. You can also catch flathead, gummy sharks, mulloway, mullet, bream and more. It can be a tricky location to fish as the rock wall makes landing fish quite challenging and very snaggy. But the rewards here can be brilliant.
This spot gets its name as it acts as the loading dock for massive cargo ships. In the distance from here, you can see all the scattered piers along Port Melbourne, including Princess, Stations, Lagoon and Kerferd. There is also a state-of-the-art children’s playground near the parking area.
Read the complete Web Dock Fishing Location Guide
Docklands
Right on the fringe of the CBD is docklands, which provides excellent all-year-round fishing for bream and seasonally can have excellent fishing for snapper and, even on odd occasions, kingfish. For the most part, bream will be your target species, and there is no shortage of structure where these bream reside, which makes for fun fishing. Casting lightly weighted soft plastics, crab, yabbie, or mussel imitations deep into a pylon or jetty is a fun form of fishing. Parking and crowds here can be challenging, but the fishing can be excellent.
Read the full Docklands Fishing Location Guide
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