Well, got back from the Abrolhos on Saltwater Charters early on this week and had a great trip.

Ah, the Abrolhos, where practically every sunrise and sunset is a work of art

On the first day we started a bit of trolling and soon picked up a triple hookup of mackies. A few more passes around similar areas and we got a few more. Good to tick off (and got one on my lighter trolling gear which was fun).

and my biggest, on a chrome head richter waaaay out the back. Took heaps of line and burnt my thumb. Excellent!

We were getting too many mackies, so decided to head off bottom bouncing. Basically we spend the trip moving between bottom fish lumps, chucking poppers and stickbaits at busting up birds or trolling lures around. 

Heaps of great trout were caught, with pretty much everyone getting at least one over 3kg. Damn they pull hard. A coronation and a few tomato cods too.

A fair few pinkies were pulled up and some reasonable sized ones (but no pics on my camera). Last drift of the last night we managed to pull several pinkies off from a spot barely 100m away from the mooring.

Managed to get into quite a few spanglies with them popping up over the place like this one that smashed my plastic

and another patch on the third day where we just got spanglie after spanglie after spanglie.

Got lots of opportunities to cast at the bait being herded up against the shoals, or just birds diving at bait. We'd all have stickbaits ready and as soon as we saw bait schools, four of us were up the front chucking away. Several sharkies pulled out of them, as well as mackies and tuna, including a few YFT pushing about 6-7kg

Fish of the trip was this biiiiig kingfish out of one of the bustups. Must have been pushing almost 20kg and on 30lb line too.

Lots more fish out of bustups but didnt get pics of everything. Had one bustup with bronzies and birds smashing it. We cast a few lures but nothing hit until the bronzies swam off. After that there was a tightly bailed ball of whitebait clinging to the boat and hundreds of tuna smashing it. Lots of little mack tuna, and a few bigger stripeys to about 6kg (damn they go hard on light gear). Everyone had fun catching tuna for over half an hour as the bait school balled up against the boat. Some catching over 20 mack tuna, while others hooking into the bigger stripeys. I have some awesome footage of the baitball getting smashed but for some reason my camera sped it up parts of it when i went to view it on my computer. Weird (and annoying).

I didnt end up doing much jigging myself as for most of the days the drift speed was up a bit due to the wind (but still quite fishable) and I mostly had 80-150g jigs (really needed 200g+). Did manage to get a coral trout, a good tuna hookup that dropped me, a few mackie snips and a this dhuie though.

Oliver however, decided to try jigging for the first time and didnt take long to be rewarded with a great sized dhuie.

His jig was on fire, landing a total of 9 dhuies over the trip (and a small coral trout and pinkie). Biggest was this niced sized one of 12kg (biggest of the trip).

Oh, and i also managed to finally pick up a dollie for this season from a pack that came a marauding while we were bottom bouncing. I know its a small fish, but I love dollies so was very happy to catch one.

Oh, and the Russel Coight moment for me. Was walking up to the front of the boat to do a bit of jigging on the last day. Not the best conditions with a few whitecaps around (but still fishable at least). Stepped up on the gunnel and grabbed the rail at the front, rod and rail in one hand when a perfectly timed wave hit the boat just as i was shifting my feet, slipping over. I managed to grab onto the rail with both hands though, toes dangling in the water, rod fallen but resting safe on the walkway. Pulled myself up no problems and got on with jigging, haha. Wave coulda been a fraction later or a fraction earlier and wouldnt have been a problem, just unusual timing. Yay for reflexes though, hehe.

Not a huge number of really big fish caught, but heaps of great sized mackies, spanglies, coral trout, pinkies, dhuies, etc with pretty much everyone getting multiples of each. Geeez its tough when they're the most common species
Quite a few tuna, sharkies and good sized skippy caught too. As for crap fish, I think we got a single sargeant baker, a single scorpion fish and a few charlie courts and redthroats (which arent bad fish but went back as they werent big) and a few sambos here and there, so quality fish outweighed the others by a nice big margin.

Overall, although I didnt get many fish on jigs, I still got a heap of fish, including a fair few on plastics, and spinning surface lures. Went pretty well with the pelagics though getting a fair few species (mackie, shark mack, stripeys, YFT, sambos, dollie, skippy).

Everyone got into some decent fish (and a fair few fillets brought back) and everyone had a great time when fishing and when not. Awesome trip!

Cant wait for July!
(one spot still left )