Hi all,

Made it up to Jurien for the weekend with the wife and proceeded to spend most of it fishing. A quick stop at Cervantes to catch some fresh bait - the herring were out in force and while mostly small in size were good sport nonetheless. Also a great opportunity to test out my latest creation - 'Buschy's Best Burley' (sorry Spess) - it works like a charm.

Got into Jurien and checked in to our accommodation for the weekend. At $110 a night ($130 peak) - the self-contained chalets in the caravan park are reasonable value and well situated. Headed out towards Hill River about 3:30pm.

There is a gravel track that takes you out to the beach - then you can pick up a sand track and head either south towards Cervantes or north towards Hill River. I did a quick reccy a couple of K's in each direction and was really impressed with the variety of structure that the beaches threw up. While I did not make it up to the river (did not want to run the risk of getting bogged on my own) - I settled on a section of beach where there was a decent gutter. Reef about 50m offshore and it looked like it would fish really well at high tide. The stiff SSW that was blowing produced some nice chop on the surface and it looked like perfect tailor weather.

Mucked around for an hour with different setups, baits and lures to see what was out there. No interest. Then about 30mins from sunset I started getting nibbles. Something was stripping a whole mulie - nothing big - but cast after cast it was getting a feed and I was reeling in baitless hooks. After about 10 minutes of trying I finally got into it and had a nice surprise when I landed a small flatty. Was not what I was expecting. Unfortunately he had swallowed two of the gangs and by the time I got them out he was worse for wear so he became destined for the dinner table. My first flatty and the first time I had eaten one too - boy they are a B-E-A-utiful fish to eat - great flavour and texture plus catching him in that clean water would of helped too.

Now someone posted asking for advice on tailor rigs about a week ago. I chipped in with my views and then added my disclaimer than in my 6 short months of surf fishing I had only caught the one! I was hoping that would change and sure enough as soon as the sun kissed the water I was into something better. Even though I had only caught the one previously, I knew straight away what it was. It had that distinctive tap as it took the bait. On light gear, I thought it was a small tailor and then when it realised it was only a few metres from the beach it took off on me providing some great sport. A couple of minutes later and my PB tailor was on the beach - about 44cm and while hard to be accurate with the spring scales about 1.6kg.

After that - nothing. They were off the bite as quickly as they came on. I perservered for about 45 minutes then decided to swap over to the big rigs to target my mulla. In that time the stiff breeze had swung around to the east and dropped off completely - it was now the perfect evening for sitting on the beach and enjoying the night sky.

I put out a whole fresh herring on one and blue mack tail on another. Waiting for the run to come the lightning storms rolled in to the SW making for some spectacular night viewing. I just hoped that they would stay away from me - being on a beach furing an electrical storm with a rod in your hand is perfect recipe for a 'shocking' end to the evening.

The first run came about 9:30pm - not long before high tide on the herring. Having caught a mulloway once before at Wedge (approx 7kg) again you can pick that distinctive hard hit on the bait. By the time I had picked up the rod though, it had dropped the bait and didn't come back for seconds. After a few minutes I dragged half a herring back in and replaced it with a fresh one - when all of a sudden the other rod went off. Yes! That same fish again...grabbed the rod out of the holder - and what do you know. It dropped the bait again. So frustrating but being this tentative with the baits it just had to be a big mulla - no doubt with plenty of experience frustrating would be fisherman like myself.

After that it all went quiet again. No runs for a couple of hours so I flicked out some small baits and caught a few bull herring....there were plenty around and all good size, however I did not have an appetite for fishing small and wanted that Mulla!!! I popped a livey on the big rod but despite my best attempts it always wanted to swim right up to shore. When the livey finally kicked for the last time I lopped the head off and put it out on the smaller rod as an unweighted bait (3x 5/0 gangs) on about 50cm of 27lb trace. A whole mack on the big rod - maybe I could snare a reef shark if I was lucky.

After about 15 mins there was a massive splash in the water on top of the fresh herring. The rod tip doubled over and as I reached for the rod it went dead. Whatever it was had snapped me clean off (I can only deduce that the line got caught on the tail of the fish). As I reeled in 50m of slack line I watched my glow stick slowly drift away, hanging out of the mouth of my dream catch..... :(

I kept waiting for it to come back - but that was it and no more runs. Gave up about 2:30am. FISH 3, BUSCHY 0. An exciting night and 'nearly' a big one! Nonetheless was absolutely wrapped to take home a good solid tailor (finally!).

Went back the next night for a couple of hours back no runs on the line. Next time....

Some photo's attached of Jurien sunset, Jurien Jetty at dusk (packed!), Dynamite Bay (Greenhead) and Sandy Bay (which looks like a GREAT fishing spot).

Cheers,

Rob