Hi All,

First time poster, been waiting to catch something more worthwhile than a wrasse. 

Went out from Port Geographe yesterday at around 10am, with the plan of searching for some reef off Peppermint Beach to catch a skippy, my Navman was 'aquiring sattelites' so i didn't have much to go on, eventually got the GPS going after unplugging and replugging the cables numerous times but still nothing was biting so threw out some lures and headed toward the cape sitting around the 35m mark. Gave up on that after 40 mins and roared over out the back of Wright's Bank. The sounder was lit with bottom fish, i was catching a few various wrasse (my specialty) when a few fish started breaking the surface 5m from the boat. Looked up to the rocket launcher and saw my crusty old jarvis walker combo with a smiling jack lure sitting there, 2nd cast and it was on with a nice stripey, the whole fight i was looking at my brand new penn combo spooled up with 30lb fins braid wishing I had swapped the lure onto it. Didn't matter in the end as I swung the net under this tuna and into the boat. A quick search of the Fishwreckapeadia and I decided it was a striped tuna and the best option was to bleed it and take it home for the smoker (next one will be catch and release)

A few drops later and I caught this McCulloch's Scalyfin, it went straight back. Was going to put up a Fish ID post but searched and found it. I later took this as a sign that I was in a reefy area and will return here, found a few lumps around 2m with fish on them drifting around and marked them on the GPS. 

Next I hooked some unstoppable monster of the deep, fought with it for 30mins, I got it up off the bottom and then the battle began, I'd get half a metre and it would take 2, eventually the mono pulled through my allbright knot and that was that. I looked at the time, around 16:30 and figured it was time to go back to the ramp. Put in the waypoint for the Marina, 20 nautical miles away, looked around and the glassy conditions were gone, it was all choppy whitecaps. Managed to get back accross the bay at around 17kn, with my eyes going from the fuel gauge to the distance remaining and back again. Made it back no worries, boat on the trailer just as the sun was going down. 

Taking the little brother and his kids out on Saturday morning so hopefully will have something worth posting about again after that. 

Cheers for reading,

Robz

Here's a complimentary pic of my tub, upgraded from a 4.3m tinny about a month ago, hoping to catch a dhu or two soon to start recouping some of the cost