Fishing Tuesday on the Five Fathom Bank

Today was one of the most calmest days in regards to the wind that I have seen in a long time. It was almost too calm, with hardly any drift or current with the fishing almanac predicting two tides and a hot day of fishing.

There were a heap of gardies at the Fremantle Heads jumping all over the place first thing this morning. We tried to catch some for livebait, but they were awake to the baitcaster rigs. We moved out to a spot behind Stragglers and managed a couple of small blackass, wrasse and eels but nothing worth keeping. Looking for spots up the 5 fathom we noticed huge current lines which looked extremely promising. There were lots of baitfish on the surface but with nothing really boiling and no birds working we kept on moving. This was when we encountered the first of four hammerhead sharks, all 3-6ft in length just cruising along having a good time. We tried throwing a few plastics and baits to them as well, but they too were also awake to our tactics. The water temperature had risen to 23 degrees out there, finally a pelagic season might be on the way.

After a couple more uneventful drifts we moved to the next spot, until Salmo saw a Mackerel of around 7kg freejump about 100 meters infront of the boat. We trawled for a little while until the weed became too much and caught up on the deep divers. The next lump we decided to anchor up on and berley to hell. Instant success resulted in a nice sized harlequin and half a dozen 1kg skippy. There was also a small pinky and 6kg Sambo which were caught and released. We moved around a bit more and found some more wrasse and sgt bakers on some featureless ground.

After the amount of heat we had taken we decided to call it quits and stop for a squid on the way in outside the sailing boat harbour. Unfortunately it was a little too windy and the squid weren't interested, oh well.

Was quite a quiet day on the water, but it was still magic all the same. Here's a couple of snaps.

[img_assist|fid=14568|thumb=1|alt=Hammer Time]

[img_assist|fid=14571|thumb=1|alt=Harlequin]


SHizz's picture

Posts: 1556

Date Joined: 07/08/05

Didnt feel like live baiting

Wed, 2006-02-15 09:05

Didnt feel like live baiting under a balloon for the hammer?

Gully's picture

Posts: 963

Date Joined: 04/10/05

Nice

Wed, 2006-02-15 09:07

Yeah mate I went out yesterday aswell, was absolutely amazing weather. Went out to harass the sambos and there was absolutely millions out there. I also noticed that the water temp out there was around the 23.8 to 24.2 degrees so as you said finally we might be able to get into some pelagics. Didnt have a troll though cos of the serious amounts of weed on the surface, next time! No pics cos they were olny sambos and no real exceptionally sized ones so didnt bother.

Bring on the pelagics!!!

Gully

Adam Gallash's picture

Posts: 15610

Date Joined: 29/11/05

Live bait

Wed, 2006-02-15 17:24

Nah Shizz, just chucked a few mulies at it, but they were more spooked than aggressive. :( Didn't really think about the livebait yesterday, would have been smart thou with the amount of berley we had out.

Pelagics are here mate!!! Put it this way, next time your on the way to the sambo patch, make sure you have a couple of skirts out... Heard some pretty positive reports that come from a reliable source.

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