Offshore Angling Club of WA - November Field Day Report
The OSACWA held their November Field Day between Cervantes and Greenhead 16th/17th November.
The majority of participating anglers focused their efforts between Cervantes and Hill River.
Saturday morning 05:00am was the honour start and straight away those in the Hill River area were onto the tailor, a majority of anglers bagged out for the day before 6:00am.
That was pretty much the only saving grace for the trip. What happened next, sank everybodies hearts. The BLOWFISH swarm awoke from their slumber and absolutely ravaged any mulies that hit the water from 6:00am through to after 7:00pm. Completely killed the fishing. Never experienced anything like it.
Between 7:15 and 7:30 a handful of tailor (~6) were landed, 4 buy one angler (:P me, I missed the morning session), they simply did not turn up in numbers. Nothing large arrived later into the night apart from some drifting weed, the fishing was absolutley dead.
Oh well, hit that sack, in the morning it will be better right?
Sunday: 04:30, mulie hits the water, first cast, tailor snared and beached! Things looking up? Nope, another solitary tailor was beached that morning, a flapper was hooked and the weed turned up. The BLOWFISH swarm was back - shutting down the fishing again.
Those club members that fished north of Jurien, reported that the swarm was also present to the north. No matter where they went in the boundary they could not be avoided.
The largest tailor bagged was 0.85kg and the biggest bag of fish weighed in about 4.5kgs. One club member found some nice whiting and the odd skippy was on show though no word on where these were taken from.
The Fremantle AAC was present in the area too and they also reported bad bags. A bad weekend despite being the pick of the moon phases.
Oh well you can't win them all!
Cheers,
D80
Member of the Offshore Angling Club of WA
www.beachfishingwa.org.au
uncle
Posts: 9486
Date Joined: 10/02/07
we need an introduced varmint
to clean out the blowies,boy I hate those things. long way to go to get hassled by them, when we were in fishing clubs years ago up around there for field days I don't remember them being a pest
all aggressive fish love bigjohnsjigs
buschy
Posts: 626
Date Joined: 27/11/09
It's our fault they are there
I first 'found' Hill River around 5 years ago. I'd just got into beach fishing and it was one of my first trips away from the metro area. I did an overnighter and parked in one of the now popular spots just along the gravel track to that runs north.
'The Spot' as it became known to me, was pristine. It was clear that not many people fished there. The grasses and bushes were relatively undisturbed, there was no sign on rubbish. The only debris on the beach was a busted up rock lobster pot. The gutter was deep and the water was clear, it looked like a prime spot. I got into tailor, with fish up to 45cm - which is very respectable for that stretch. I had a crazy night with mulloway playing games with my fresh baits (it gave me the bug big time). The morning session didn't produce tailor, but the bull herring were rampant along with mullet, stormies, whiting, etc. Absolutely no sign of any blowies. I fished it a few times that summer for similar results.
I started fishing further north (and still do) - but returned to Hill River a few times until a visit couple of years ago. It was clear that it was getting hammered by recreational fishos. The dune vegetation had been trampled and flattened by vehicles / people traffic. There was no shortage of rubbish - cans, bottles, plastic bags. There were people camping in most of the spots north and south of the carpark. I found a spot and setup. Was joined by a bunch of young lads who proceeded to light a huge fire and make a racket. The whole attraction of the spot was gone to me - it no longer offered that bit of serenity. I no longer felt like I was removed from the populace.
I still caught a few fish, but no big runs. In the morning on the low tide I had to burley hard to get the herring going. I caught a blowie in between other B&B fish - a sure sign that the area was under pressure and too much food was going into the water. I have not been back since.
It's really disappointing to hear about blowies being around in such plague proportions - but I see this as simply a continuation. There are a number of factors that would result in this IMO - increased tourism to the Jurien area as a result of the Indian Ocean Drive development, increased population of Jurien itself, Hill River is only a couple of hours from Perth metro so can easily be a day trip......
As a generation of Anglers we cannot expect to keep taking fish and using burley without it having a long term effect. I'm not having a dig, just voicing my opinion. It's not based on science...so it may not be accurate.
Every problem with our fisheries is a byproduct of human behaviour. I guess the thing is, we are doing nothing wrong with respect to our legal obligations.....just fishing.....but Hill River for me is just the tip of the iceberg.
Old reports on that area (5-10 yrs) suggest that it constantly produces tailor, school sharks, soapies and a diverse range of B&B species. Not anymore.....so what can we do as concerned Anglers to make a difference?
Auslobster
Posts: 1901
Date Joined: 03/05/08
Great points there, buschy!
I made a similar observation a few months back, re the blowie problems in the Swan river, although my point was more to do with the use of bait/berley instead of lures being a big factor in the blowfish explosion.
It certainly stands to reason that increased human activity means increased sedentary (not moving) prey items in the water....in purely wild conditions, where prey must be chased down or actively foraged for (like a whiting digging in the sand) blowies simply wouldn't survive...they must rely on dead or dying organic material to be practically handed to them...ie bait and berley.
The blowie numbers have drastically increased where human numbers have increased...the Cervantes/Jurien coastline bears this out...so does the Swan and the Peel/Harvey estuary system.