A last minute decision was made last week to do a trip with a mate to some new bluewater ground. The trip was more of a pre winter look and recon type mission with of coarse some fishing thrown in. We didnt really know what to expect so we had a few types of lures and gear to try see us through omst situations weather dependent, main tactic i guess was to drag some lures around looking for trout. Well after a smooth run over that didnt take long, lures were out for less that probably three minutes and i was on, a nice 70cm trout made its way to the boat for a quick photo then it was released to grow a bit bigger.

700 trout, released

another 5 minutes in the water and the laser pro red head proven itself again, a chinaman in less than 3 meters of water gave me a bit of entertainment, although the fish wasnt very big. After that quick little session it was already late so we decided to anchor up eat some tea and have a good night sleep before the next day, that was straight after luke and i both got smoked by some "unstoppables" suspect massive GT's on our pe 5 gear, we waved good buy to those lures, something that would happen pretty regularly over the next 2 days.

Chinaminza, on a laser pro, released

Stella bling

Nice sunset

well we woke to some pretty good weather, after a blustery night that is, a squall came through and fortnately the rain missed, was a little dicey there for a while but hey you get that is suppose. Out into the blue we found some good ground in about 10 meters and managed to troll up quite a few fish, good sized trout, cod and spango's were the norm. Spangos are not something i have ever caught on hard body lures before, i even managed one on a lucanus jig, another first for me

one of many trolled up spangos, released

Spango on a lucanus jig, first for me

we moved spots to some shallower water out of the swell for a dive, we found a few lumps which had quie a few fish on them, i managed to spear a nice bluebone probably around the 650 size, went straight into the esky, there were a lot of medium sized trout and other fish around but we didnt take anything else, happy just to do some exploring, time to move again. i did managed to spine myself on a sea urchine while i grabbed a cray - it still bloody hurts!

One of quite a fe decen sized cod trolled up out of 8 meters, released

next spot the lures went out again, and again we got smoked by some massivve g trains. We did manage to find a school of feeding tuna and shark mackeral as well as the odd queenie, for a while there it was double hookups on tuna or mackeral every minute or so, after loosing a few too many lures we moved again

Baby GT

More chinamen on lures

Heaps of shark mackeral around, must have caught close to 15 in an hour or so

We managed a few more good sized torunt too 700,we kept 2 for a feed and let the rest go, again we were there to look around and a few fish was all we really wanted. We jumped in for another dive and luke towed me around behind the boat while we searched for new ground. Massive chinaman and a few sharks i saw along the way. I dropped off the line and stalked one of the biggest bluebone i have ever seen, being conservitave it would have go at least 90cm, unfortunately i didnt get a shot on it, i suppose it didnt get that big by being stupid.

More trout, think we kept this one

More trout on lures

and more

And more

Well we trolled a little more before we dropped the pic, we managed more than 15 different species on lures that day at the last count, pretty amazing really, was a good day.

well that night after dinner the wind had changed from the south west to the east to probably began gusting to about 35 knots, we had to move the boat at two in the morning to a safer anchorage, was pretty hectic there for a while but lucily things calmed down and we managed to get a few hours sleep, again we woke to some rpetty good weather
things were a bit quite on the second day we worked a different area again and although we got a few good hits it wasnt like the previous day. We upgraded our gear and tried for a few of the GT's we had been smoked by the previous day, we had a double hookup unfortunatly at the time luke was getting a wind knot out of his line and was pinged straight away, i managed to stay connected on my 50 pound gear and land a nice GT of 20-25kg,s was good fun. It was 116cm fork length, and released.

well with the previous nights bad weather and slow fishing we took advantage of some nice weather to make our way home. Arriving we later found out that a cyclone had developed and that we were pretty luck we got out when we did, ahh all good. Just another days fishing in the pilbara. While i am sitting here now it is pissing down outside, i think we made the right decision to come home!

Cheers for the trip luke

Brad