Busselton overnight last week

This is long overdue due to my laziness and my tendency to procrastinate. LOL! Anyway, went to Busselton jetty last thursday with a three of my mates, two of which were inexperienced, and it was a really good night. When we got there at about 11pm, the water was firing with skippies. So we just dropped our rods and caught a few just sized skippies, with a couple ones close to 30cm. one of the biggest ones was caught by a girl who came with us out of boredom and her 1st time fishing. Could see that she was rather awkward with her rod. However, for a first timer, she caught 2 skippies and a rather large blue manna on hook! which was a really good job I must say. So amongst the skippies, we also caught a couple of yellowtails and these served as liveys. We had 2 big rods out, mine on a bottom rig and my mate's on a balloon ( it was the right wind that night). After quite some time, my bottom rig went off. I immediately hit my big rod and fought for a while, managed to bring it in somewhat close but it decided to spit the yellowtail out and swim off. After looking at the bait, I concluded that it was a mulloway that I lost. I was disappointed cos I striked at it too early, yet stoked as it was my first mulla hook up. So I put another yellowtail livey out but all was quiet until near dawn, the line peeled again. This time, I waited for the second run after it stopped but it didn't run anymore. Reeled it back and my livey was chomped into half. A really clean cut it was. All the time, the balloon was really quiet. And I nearly lost my berkley rod cos my inexperienced friend just left my rod on the floor without loosening the drag and a skippy took it and almost dragged the whole thing into the water. Toward dawn, I saw a mulloway swam out from under the platform we were on and out into the ocean. Then my experienced fisho and I switched to metal slices and I brought in my first garfish on slice, and my friend brought in a small barracuda. Then he complained that his barracuda curse followed him from Singapore to Perth. 

My other mate then caught his first big thing on a big rod. We are proud of him. We de-barbed the ray and released it.

All in all, it was a good night out fishing.

(sorry, will post the photos later) =p 


Posts: 410

Date Joined: 16/02/09

Sounds like a gud night, how

Fri, 2010-02-19 16:49

Sounds like a gud night, how are the repairs going with the jetty?

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Still learning

Riaz 

Posts: 236

Date Joined: 22/09/09

really slow. I think they

Fri, 2010-02-19 16:56

really slow. I think they should have repaired starting from shore out toward the sea. this way, they could open up the jetty little by little and still generate income from visitors in the day. it would be good for fishos too. But too bad they decided to do it the other way around and lose lotsa income. 

Posts: 440

Date Joined: 27/07/09

how much of it is open now

Fri, 2010-02-19 16:57

how much of it is open now to fish from ?

Swamp's picture

Posts: 121

Date Joined: 10/03/09

de-barbed?

Fri, 2010-02-19 16:59

de-barbed?

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Cheers,

Swamp

Posts: 236

Date Joined: 22/09/09

still the first 200m. We

Fri, 2010-02-19 17:03

still the first 200m. 

We took out the barb from the ray and released it. lol! so it's barbless now. the ray my friend brought up was caught a couple of times alr cos we removed some old hooks and lines that were sticking out from it's mouth.  

kwazulu's picture

Posts: 62

Date Joined: 05/02/10

De barbed

Fri, 2010-02-19 17:07

I see no point in de-barbing a ray if you are putting it back, why cause unneccessary pain to the fish? This is their natural defence mechanism and you have just removed it.

Posts: 587

Date Joined: 04/01/09

*Shakes head* i duno why

Fri, 2010-02-19 18:35

*Shakes head* i duno why you'd debarb a ray and release it for. Somewhat cruel.

Posts: 440

Date Joined: 27/07/09

get any squid from the

Fri, 2010-02-19 18:58

get any squid from the jetty?

 

Posts: 236

Date Joined: 22/09/09

hmm... i posted a question

Fri, 2010-02-19 22:12

hmm... i posted a question on it before actually. i was sort of reluctant to do it but it's not my fish. but there are fishos who said it's ok to the ray to remove it and release it. but oh well. i don't target them. kinda got sick of them when we were catching them almost every time we hit eshed. so yea. I didn't have a say in whether to remove it or not. we did get 1 squid on a single hook on mulie. but it fell through the gaps between the planks when we brought it up the platform. it was a pretty big one. oh well 

Posts: 587

Date Joined: 04/01/09

its ok to remove it, meaning

Sat, 2010-02-20 00:41

its ok to remove it, meaning it will still live. But its pointless to do it for no reason. You're removing its only means of defence making it vulnerable as well as just causing it pain for nothing. Only time i've even removed anything was the tail only because i was taking the wings home to try out how they taste

Posts: 410

Date Joined: 16/02/09

How did they taste? (the

Sat, 2010-02-20 06:30

How did they taste? (the Wings)

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Still learning

Riaz 

Posts: 171

Date Joined: 20/04/09

rays taste not to bad i dont

Sat, 2010-02-20 08:38

rays taste not to bad i dont take them any more when i started scuba diving years ago i stopped taking them there awesome in the water & some times swim all around you some places they must have been fed they will come & sit on ya hand with removing the barb no point realy they just grow another one back it takes a while go for a dive with them your outlook changes to them there heeps of fun especialy if there in a play full mood 

Posts: 236

Date Joined: 22/09/09

point taken chan. won't do

Sat, 2010-02-20 16:06

point taken chan. won't do it again. rays do taste good but i reckon the smaller ones taste much better than the bigger ones

Posts: 587

Date Joined: 04/01/09

eagle rays taste good, any

Sun, 2010-02-21 23:55

eagle rays taste good, any other ones are shit. Blehhh! If cooked right, tastes like scallops.