I was privileged to have caught Sambo from the beach at Tims Thicket in July last year (http://fishwrecked.com/forum/samsonfish-mandurah). Having spent a good number of weekends on the boat it was time to get the sand between the toes again and we decided to head off to Preston Beach as we had heard of Salmon being taken from the beach at this venue.

Mate Nic, his wife and my missis and I left Perth on a cold winter’s morning (Sunday 7th July) and set off to Preston Beach. We arrived at this sleepy holiday town as the sun was rising and the temp gauge indicated a fresh 2 degrees. After letting the tyres down to the desired pressure we drove the 30 minutes down the beach to our favourite spot on this stretch of sand. It did not take long setting up our rigs and we were soon into the Herring and Whiting. I decided to swim one of the Herring on the 4m Purglas Executive 10-20kg rod which has a Daiwa Sealine SL50SHB loaded with 24kg Big Game line. I had casted an 8oz grapnel weight to a distance of about 110m before swimming the live Herring down the line. The other rig which I use to target game fish is a smaller and lighter 3.9m Truflex rod has a Ambassadeur 7000i reel loaded with 25lb Maxima line on it. Instead of swimming the bait - I casted half a fresh Herring to a distance of about 60m. Both the rods were placed into tubes and the drags set as light as possible - mainly because I had lost a brand new rig at this same spot a couple of months earlier (http://fishwrecked.com/forum/gear-gone-swimming-preston-beach).

After about two hours of fishing Nic caught a decent Salmon and I decided to use the lighter game fish rig to target Salmon on Mullies. As I approached the rod to rebait the tip of the rod suddenly had three massive knocks and the reel started screaming. I pulled the rod from the tube and tightened the drag as the two snelled 4/0 Gamakatsu hooks penetrated the fish's mouth. The immediate reaction of the fish was to strip off about 50m on its initial run. The net result was me sprinting down the beach trying to retrieve some of the fast disappearing line. After the initial run the fish changed direction and took another 50m of line before I managed to stop it and turn its head. As this was happening my heavier rig took off and Gail wrestled the rod from the tube whilst tightening the drag to set the 8/0 Gamakatsu circle hook into the fish's mouth. Gail battled to lift the rod from an almost horizontal position and I recommended that Nic assist her as I could see that I would be spending quite a while on my fish. The fish on Gail’s rod took almost all the line from the reel on the initial run and she soon had only a very few turns left on the reel. This forced her to fully tighten the drag as the fish continued stripping line from the reel. Unfortunately all the pressure caused the trace to break and Gail lost one massive fish.

After about 35 minutes I eventually managed to bring the fish into the shallows where Nic masterfully put the gaff into its mouth and so landing it with the least amount of damage. I was over the moon with my second decent Sambo from the beach and after a couple of quick pics had it back in the water to revive it. The Sambo was exhausted and it took a good 20 minutes before the fish was re-energised sufficiently to swim off on its own.

The length of the Sambo was 113cm which puts it in the 20kg class.

See the complete episode at http://youtu.be/MaulA9Jl6Pg

Anybody interested in this method is welcome to mail me at

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