Just spent a week working with my brother down in Mandurah, painting a house on the canals at Dudly park. As we were staying in the house for the week i thought a few nights fishing in the canals would be good so threw in a couple of whiting rods and my 30lb jigging outfit for a mullaway rig.

On the first arvo i set my bro up with a whiting rig and some peeled prawns and was setting up myself when the first whiting was caught. Bloody small but it was a sign there were whiting there so i hurried with my rig and got some bait wet. Well the whiting may have been there to start with but the bream pretty quickly pushed them out of the way and that was all we were catching. Must have got 15 small bream in the next 15min. Good fun but at 12cm or so not what we were after. My bro caught a 10cm stripped grunter (i think it is called that) and i pulled out the big guns for some live baiting. Tossed him out and set the rod against a tree to see what was there and kept trying for the whiting. Didnt take long and there was a tap on the live bait so picked up the rod and tightened the line up a bit. Well the stripie was gone. We ended up with another grunter and hooked him up, tossed him out and this time i held onto the rod. Got another tap and felt like the fish was gone again so pulled it in to find just a head with a clean bite behind the gills. Things were looking promising for something bigger than small bream but had to shut it down for the night.

Second day we set up just before sunset and first fish in was a whiting again. As that is my prefered offshore bait i hooked it up as a livey and sent it out. Bloody thing swam straight to the bottom and got nailed by a crab who mush have been next to, or under the only rock in the canal. Snagged me up and i ended up busting off my 50lb leader. Normally not a problem except i only had my small tackle box with me and only had 6,15 and 20lb leader in it. A bit small for a taylor or mulla. I snelled up a couple of rigs with the 20lb so i had an assist type hook to pin in the skin near the tailof the live bait. It was full dark by then and the small ones were off the bite with nothing but undersize crabs getting caught so we shut it down again.

Worked late Wed so knocked off a bit earlier on Thurs to get some fishing in. Targeted the grunter and got a bucket of 8-9 liveys. To prevent the crabs getting hold of them we rigged up a couple of makeshift floats from wild turkey corks and both of us went at it. First cast out and my brother got smashed and had a hell of a fight on his little rod. Managed to land his first taylor of 30cm. It bit through the leader just as it was pulled from the water but managed to land just on the payvement at his feet. Got a photo and released it. Almost straight away i was hit but got dropped. Was reeling in a very light bait, probably a head, when i was hit and hooked up. Had some great jumping action and landed another 30cm taylor. He had sliced through the leader and my assist hook was missing so it was back to re-rig.

Looking through my soft plastics bag i had found an old spool of 100lb leader but seeing as the hooks i had were only small, the biggest being a largish KG hook i had discounted it. Well i gave it a go and tied on some 100lb leader, that just fit through the eye, and had another couple of rigs. Bloody hard to tie that size leader on small hooks..lol..   We fished until our bait supply was gone with me getting my PB taylor of 35cm and the biggest of the night. No photo's of that one as we were both pretty pissed by then.

Had great fun even if i didnt get the mullaway i was hoping for.