Myaree customer Cameron and his first salmon

 With the weather proving to be mint most days as of late, we have had smiling faces and fishing success stories filtering into our stores all week. For the lucky ones who manage to dodge the weekend chores and commitments, the next couple of days could prove very fruitful. Plenty of options and plenty of potential.

If you can’t make the early morning or late evening bite and need some banker’s hours fishing options, dhufish have been around in good numbers. 5-Fathom has been producing plenty of dhuies, but make sure you have your release weight at hand, because you will need to work through plenty of undersized fish to find the trophy-sized specimens.

Schools of salmon are thick and are an exciting prospect for many, and so they should be. As staff member Mike says, “they are a sports fish that will take a popper, what more do you want?”.  They provide a hard, usually clean fight whether they are jumping and pulling drag when hooked from the shore or heading deep under the boat to test even the avid angler offshore.

Lots of pink snapper being caught not only offshore but from the rock walls, groins and beaches from Fremantle to Two Rocks. Surely the thought of catching snapper from the rocks without having to cast into the gale force conditions as we usually do gets you excited? From the boat pinkies will respond to bait, jigs, plastics or lures. A simple snelled mulie is a good and effective bait rig but the fun of flicking plastics or jigging up some big head thumpers is hard to beat (or you could just do it all). Shallow water reefs are a good place to start with Cockburn, Fremantle, Scarborough and Mindarie all fishing extremely well in as little as 6-8 metres of water.

Morley Customer Sean and a good pinky

Morley customer Zack and a pink slab off the stones

The Cockburn Sound is full of squid and great catches have been taken from the shore and off the boat. South Mole and the boat harbours are producing from shore. From the boat, any weed beds in said Sound are worth a prospect. Notably, the reports of sizeable squid from Parmelia Bank on the edges in around 6m of water. Further north, just off Hillarys has also been productive. If you start a small berley trail as you’re drifting, a school of herring usually finds its way to the back of the boat in no time.

Good numbers of garfish and herring have been caught off Rottnest recently and Milana (Staff member Dave’s granddaughter) had a great time doing so. There is still a lot of bait fish to be caught at local haunts, so if you are going on a trip now is a good time to start collecting. Don’t delay however as salmon are wreaking havoc on bait schools. If, however you are just after some of these bread and butter species for an undeniably delicious meal the same applies.

Milana representing Bluewater at Rotto

The west end of Rottnest has been holding excellent numbers of mid-size yellowtail kings. A great way to target these powerful predators is to anchor and cube. Make sure you anchor up-drift of the a substantial piece of structure and keep a steady stream of mulies drifting out the back of the boat. Within 20minutes or so, you should start to see flashes of fluoro yellow zipping through your berley trail. Once you’ve attracted the fish to the boat, there are several techniques you can use to catch them. Try casting large, bright soft plastic grubs, sinking stickbaits, livebaits, mulie cubes and even surface poppers.

Last week, there were still plenty of dolphinfish at the FADS, as well as tuna and with a great weather window tomorrow, they should be an ideal target for those anglers looking to spread their wings beyond the marauding salmon schools. There are some decent yellowfin around the big bluefin schools, and there is still the chance of a metro marlin too.

In the river, chopper tailor have been snipping off the delicate offerings intended for bream, so it might be handy to carry a 5g metal with you to take advantage of these ferocious predators, before the salmon schools turn the tables on them and send them fleeing for their lives.

Big sharks are up and about with bronzies and tigers following the salmon schools. Land based shark fishing is very exciting but those chasing them need to make sure you are well equipped with the right gear for the job and are aware of all rules and regulations.
 
Mindarie customer Simon with a good landbased pinkie 

Joondalup Staff member Dave shared this recipe with us this week.  

"Here's an idea for an entree recipe that some might like to try. Boil some potato and mash it while mixing in some finely chopped raw king prawns and finely chopped chives. The prawns will cook easily if they are finely chopped purely because of the heat from the potato. Take some scallops, (I can't stand the roe so I get rid of that) and cook in a hot pan in just butter for no more than 2 minutes. Some people will like to add garlic to the butter but I'm not a fan of garlic. Take your scallops and line the shells with the mash. Add the scallops and drizzle with just a small dab of any sauce of your choice. The sauce can be as simple as melted butter. Simple but simply lovely.”