Well after cancelling the Coipasa Classic for this weekend, I had a free day, so when Sherbert asked me to take out Nigel from the UK and Tony (his brother, who looks younger and is a far better fisherman) I figured why not. Saves me arranging a new deckie, and with the boys setting the challenge of a Dhuie on fly, how could I resist.

The night before I got a call from Tony telling me that Nigel had come down with the flu and wouldn't be making it. All that did was it meant Tony and I could take extra rods each. So Saturday morning we headed out from Mindarie with a bit of a game plan.  Tony would get his fly rod out and I would troll the back of staggies with a sandard laser pro out the back until we found a patch of bonito (which are usually around in good numbers at this time of year). We would then burley up and I would switch to my bream rod and a soft plastic and Tony would hopefully nail one on fly.

Well, you wouldn't read about it, after last trip with Hlokk, where we couldn' get away from them, this trip they were nowhere to be seen. So despite several bog laps of Staggies we were fishless.

I then decided to fish a KG patch I have, but again no joy, so we moved deeper into the hiigh 30's and fished a coral patch that usually holds good numbers of snapper. Finaly we had a few bites and I picked up this nice Breaksea cod, whilst Therbert nailed a little dhuie, which we released using a release weight rigged up on a spare rod. Another drift and another Breaksea for me, slightly bigger than the one in the pic and another Dhuie for THerbert, again marginally under size. Another successful release and off to the "Dropzone" for a bit of a laugh.

As usual I brief my crew on what to expect there and to tighten their drag and put your best bait down etc etc. Typically in all the excitement and anticipation that precedes a drift on that lump I forgot to change over my gear from the by-catch rig I was using earlier for KG's and still had a little Gamakatsu Shiner hook on the bottom dropper.

As we hit the northern edge of the lump I got absolutely monstered. The rod was bent double, I had full thumb lock on the fish with solid weight. I think if Therbert hadn't believed me when I was talking the spot up just before the drift, he did now! The massive surges countered everything I could muster against the fish, but I felt like I had such a good hook up and wasn't actually allowing the fish to power away as had happened so many times before. This time we were locked in a stalemate, much the same as when you have an arm wrestle with someone, the more pressure you exert the more the fish does. 20 seconds seemed like an eternity, as I actually thought I was going to win the battle. Pfffft as if! Then I felt the heartbreaking pull of the line as the hooks gave way and slid out of the fish'es mouth. I think it was simply holding it in its mouth and wasn't even hooked. On returning to the surface I noticed the supersnell was completely untouched and still had a whole squid and mulie on it, but the small shiner hook had the hook point buried in the flesh of the half squid I was using. Normally I am quite anal about bait presentation and can only think that in the excitement of getting a new deckie to experience the dropzone I put too much bait on a hook that points inwards and is prone to burying itself. Naturally I changed hooks after that and next drift nailed this nice Baldie.

OK so 4 drifts on the dropzone, some excitement and some fish, we decided to move on. I hit a few more spots and Therbert caught and released his 5th dhuie for the day. One was accidentally released boatside whilst reaching for the pliers and amazingly kicked and headed down all by itself. We both thought that it was size too, so Therbert was well and truly keeping the fish gods happy but didn't have a keeper to take home.

As was the case with our earlier plan, we had decided to head in to fish the shallows by around lunch time as I had to be out for dinner that night so we couldn't stay out long. So with time marching on I decided to hit the same spot that Shamu caught his first Dhuie, Kasey caught his 24kg Dhuie on jig and I had caught countless dhuies over the years. "Two drifts only Tony" then we have to go. I switched to a jig as the drift was slow and thought we needed to stir them up a bit. The sounder was chokkers with big fish so I thought we were a reasonable chance.

On my third pump and wind Therbert was on big time! I quickly retrieved my line to ensure we didn't tangle and grabbed the camera. I managed to get a bit of the fight on film and will post it up when I get around to it. My guess is the fish came in at about 9kgs. We didn't weigh it but it would be all of that given its girth and conditioning. Therbert posed for a few pics and managed to hold onto his lunch for about 2 seconds after this picture was taken.

As one of my little short stories in the Perth Offshore Fishing section goes....."No Spew, No Dhu"

A great day on the water and great company. Unfortunately the trip home was marred by a very close shave. Some idiot crayfisherman set a string of pots in about 38m with ropes of about 100m. Luckily I spotted the rope just as we hit it doing 25knots and killed the engine. It somehow avoided the prop and by lifting the leg we were set free.

It was very very dangerous and a warning to all heading out from Mindarie at the moment as I am sure these pots will still be out there. Make sure you give them a very wide berth or slow down to about 10 knots when you get near them.

With a southerly blowing they were stretched right across the path of any boat returning from out deep. I should have taken down the numbers on the floats and reported the culprits. Nasty stuff and evidence of a very lazy crayfisherman out there.