Headed to Mandurah for the Australian Anglers Association (WA) State Boats Championship on Saturday.  The AAA State Boats is a Member Club based competition and is the premium boat fishing event of the year.

With the weather front going through on Friday night / Saturday morning it is fair to say the conditions were fairly average.  I was lucky enough to fish on Y-knot, Dean’s 8m centre console along with Dunny, so we had a good bad weather vessel, although it was questionable that we should even head out to sea due to the conditions.

The plan was to troll some of the estuary on the way down to the cut and then have a look at the ocean when we got there.  We picked up a couple of tailor in the channel between the inlets but generally the fish seemed fairly quiet.  It wasn’t a good look from the mouth with a large swell and sea state and a fresh SSW wind.  Nevertheless, we had an awesome boat, and skilful skipper, so we decided to head to a close inshore reef, spot lock the Minn Kota on likely ground, deploy the large amounts of Shore Catch Mulie Shred I had in the esky and see what happened.  Conditions were that ordinary we went less than a nautical mile from shore and fished in 5m - 10m of water.

First drop, Dunny hooked up to something quite large and after a short and eventful fight boated an awesome pinkie.

There is usually a bit of banter between Club Members so a text of the photo was sent to a couple of the mates.  It was a classic response received from Birdy, who was restricted to fishing sheltered waters in a small boat.  He later described how hard it was to make himself look happy, but I think he did an awesome job.

We kept loading up the shred and it was on.  I don’t think there is anything better than having schools of big hungry pinkies around the boat, and this is the first time we had really experienced it during the day – usually dawn and dusk.  Another highlight was Dunny being hooked up on the bottom gear and then his floater being taken by a big fish.  Dean picked it up and was fighting quite a “monster” when the gear failed.  There was lot of light hearted sledging around Dunny’s knot tying techniques – although there are probably quite a number of other things that could have caused the failure rather than the weakness of the FG knot.  “Y-knot tie a good knot” Dunny?

We got lots of “trophy” fish in one of those sessions you hope for.  We released sized pinkies and just kept the weigh in fish (1 per bag) and a couple for fillets.  Conditions, were difficult but that’s what brought the big pinkie schools inshore.  Our weigh in weights were about 6kg, 5.8kg and 5kg and we left them biting to chase other species in sheltered waters.  It was nice to test the shred in a place we hadn’t fished before and there is no doubt it worked on the day.

Catches across the board were significantly down on previous years that reflected the difficult conditions on the day.  The MAAC was named the Champion Club for the comp which reflected the skill, and participation numbers, present on the day.  I was commissioned to produce a modern fishing shirt, without logos, for the team and was proud to see how everyone looked in the team photo.

The Mandurah Offshore Fishing and Sailing Club were fantastic hosts, and should be congratulated – I noticed there was a membership drive via reduced fees and free membership for juniors, if anyone is local.  The AAA officers also did a great job, and full results will be available on its website soon. 

Results mean nothing against finding the big pinkies in foreign ground and having a great session on them with your mates.  Spending time with the Members of the Club in a team event over the weekend is a memory of Mandurah fishing I won’t forget.