Chasing a good Dhu off the rocks has been a goal for years now, a few years back they where so hard to find but the past 2 years huge numbers of smaller fish up to 60cm have been caught Landbased down south, the old Pb of 68cm was certainly a good fish but still a juvenile with the baby markings. Getting a proper sized Dhu has always been the goal with a 10kg+ one being the ultimate.

This weekend I set off on another adventure with my mrs and a mate, drove down from Perth Friday night, slept for a few hours before getting up and starting the walk in to the spot. It took much longer that I expected to walk in and it was 8am by the time we started fishing. Straight up burley was set up and herring caught with live baits put out. The Mrs live herring goes off but it’s big headshakes before being reefed. Hmmm that was very odd certainly not the sambo or king I was chasing. Re rigged again and lucky to be 9am by this stage her rod goes off again before pulling hooks on what I was calling for a 5-6kg Dhu. Few minutes later my mate jake looses a Dhu at the ledge on another live herring. My turn and I’ve cast a big bait out behind a shallow bommie and hooked up to a powerful fish that tried to reef me on everything possible. Even on 80lb gear it gave me hell and fought so hard from water that was lucky to be 12m deep at most and littered with Bommies. Over the last bommie after dragging my line all through it and a big silver flash was seen and I knew exactly what that belonged to! A good Dhu popped up 5-6m below us in probably the worst location to gaff with huge surge smashing this fish all over the place. Finally got the cliff gaff down and into the fish we still had no idea how big it was. Lifted this Dhu over the edge and onto the rocks and screams of joy came out! I was pumped this was a bloody good sized fish! Not the 10kg+ model I was after but it certainly wasn’t a juvenile and a fish any boat fisher would be proud to get let alone someone off the rocks! Finished the day off with a good snapper on live herring that we released and the Mrs pulling hooks on something else very big. All up fished for 4 1/2 hours and the total we walked there and back from the car was the same amount of time we fished for. My body is killing me today but I still cant wipe the smile off my face!  8.5kg Landbased Dhu is now the PB and getting ever closer to the 10kg+ one. 

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