What Size and Colour Squid Jig for Port Phillip Bay?

Walk into any tackle shop and you'll see a wall of egi in every size and colour imaginable. For Port Phillip Bay, you genuinely need about six — if you pick them properly. Here's the local logic.

Size: 2.5 to 3.5 covers the Bay

Port Phillip's squid grounds are mostly shallow weed and reef — 2 to 8 metres — and the golden rule is that sink rate matters more than size. A jig that plummets drops through the strike zone before a calamari commits; one that hangs gets eaten.

• 2.5 — the slow-tide and skinny-water pick. Start and end of the tide, shallow weed flats, calm days. Many experienced Bay anglers fish a 2.5 almost exclusively because it stays in the zone longest.
• 3.0 — the all-rounder. If you buy one size for the Bay, buy this.
• 3.5 — mid-tide current, wind chop, deeper edges (Queenscliff, the southern channels), and when big spring squid are about.

Colour: read the light, not the packet

Colour choice is really about light and water clarity:

• Bright day, clear water: natural finishes — baitfish, silver, prawn and subtle browns. This is where Yamashita's EGI OH LIVE 3D baitfish patterns earn their keep.
• Dawn, dusk and overcast: darker foils. Inside Port Phillip specifically, dark combinations — especially red foil — have a long local track record. Reds and greens silhouette better against low light than bright “obvious” colours.
• Deep, murky or night: UV (keimura) and glow. Squid see the 490nm wavelength better than almost anything else — which is exactly what the EGI OH K NeonBright and LIVE NeonBright are built around.

A six-jig Bay box

1. Natural 2.5 — clear shallow water
2. Natural 3.0 — the default cast
3. Red foil 3.0 — dawn/dusk inside the Bay
4. Dark 3.5 — spring big-bodies and current
5. Keimura 3.0 — overcast and stained water
6. Glow 3.0 — night sessions off the piers

Our Yamashita range and Daiwa Emeraldas LC series cover every slot above — and if the squid are spread out and you need casting distance, the Emeraldas Dart LC's shifting-weight body throws well past a standard egi.

Not sure which mix suits where you fish? Ask us — we fish these waters ourselves.