Hello All,

Well, time has passed after my First Post (http://www.fishwrecked.com/forum/first-and-hopefully-not-last-post-full-edition) about my lack of local knowledge and experience relating to fishing the waters of WA after moving here from Queensland in December.  I thought I might update the knowledgeable FishWrecked Members about some of the recent experiences in the hope that these may provide insight that could assist other “newbys” in the nuances of trying to get the family a feed in waters you know nothing about.  I must say at the outset that a lot of my motivation was about trying to stop the torments of immediate family members - “where are these fish that you spend so much time chasing”, “I want slabs not bites”, “you got the wrong boat as you can’t go far enough to get us decent fish”, “how much cash are you going to spend on your fishing gear with no return”?  I am sure many of you are all too aware of these types of comments!

So, where I left off in the First Post was to concentrate on the dawn and dusk and see how we went.  I had proven that the 5m Quintrex Hornet Trophy had the required navigation gear to do this successfully when the conditions were right.  The real problem is that over the past months the conditions have rarely been right and I have gained an appreciation as to why Perth is called the Windy City.

Based on the local knowledge and experience I had gained so far, I saw a real need for an “all round” combination that would catch anything from the Sand Whiting to the Sampson Fish.  This need was also brought about by my interest in fishing the MAAC monthly competitions where there is a real incentive to catch the maximum number of different species whereby I didn’t want to have heaps of different gear for this purpose.  After much research and internet reviews I settled on a Shimano Stradic CI4+ 4000 spooled with 300m of Diawa Accure Tournament 30lb 8 strand braid fitted to a Storm PE3 Jig Stick.  What a lovely little light combo that could land most things as long as you fought the fish.  I don’t eat the things so it is all about the sport for me.

Another thing that my limited local knowledge and experience had suggested, and following a number of posts, was the importance of burley.  It is not something I had routinely used fishing the beaches and running rivers but I could see the real need for it in the reef environments off Perth Metro.  So, it was off to Nana’s to see if she still had one of those old style mincers (the cast iron ones that you anchor to a bench and they can just about mince anything with a bit of elbow grease).  Hooray, I could get one and it is now a much loved item of my ever growing fishing equipment.  The burley making however is not a much loved event of the family as I do it out the back and let’s just say it creates the odd impact or two on the local amenity in the way of air quality.

Off to the pet food shop and I purchased 25kg of chook pellets as a base for the burley.  Off to the tackle shop to buy tuna oil with aniseed.  Off to the fridge to pull out all the old bags of bait, small fish kept for dead baits and fillets of those less than desirable eating quality fish, collection of those old frames that had been frozen for disposal on bin day.  In the end, I ended up with pellets, oil, whiting (whole and fillets), pilchards, squid, prawns, octopus, Skippy fillets and various offcuts from all sorts of things.  The mincer got a real workout as I created a bucket load of brown smelly paste that I then mixed and mixed and mixed.  Loaded it up into sealable plastic bags so the roll would fit into my burley bomb and then into the freezer to become rock solid.  Experience with using it suggests that if you make it right it lasts between 2 and 3 hours.  One lesson however is don’t use too many pellets – it makes the mix too crumbly and lasts about 15 minutes – make sure there is plenty of fish and other solid flesh to get a thick toothpaste type of consistency, and grind the pellets up as well.

Anyway, the alarm clock is permanently set on 4.30am and the wind forecasting web sites are reviewed many times a day to pick those meteorological abnormalities where winds are light and seas are small around the dawn and dusk time frames.  Luckily there have been a few such occurrences over the past couple of months.

The following is a gallery of some of the recent captures and a bit of commentary.  Note that these have all been caught on the 3 Mile Reef in about 10m-12m of water – shows that you don’t have to always go a long way to get some decent fish although the desire to go a bit further afield is growing more and more. 

The first fish with my new rod and reel.

A nice Sampson at first light.

Skipjack Tuna at dusk - what a good fight that was.

The bag on the night we got the Tuna.

A good sized flathead - this was the only fish not caught at the 3 Mile - got him in about 30m with a live slimy on the drift.

A school of Skippy that liked our burley.

A bag from a night fishing with the nephew and kids.

Sarah's Sambo.

Luke's 700mm pinky - I rate this as the premium catch so far.

The bag from the night we got the big pinky.

Luke's first legal Dhu.  We had caught about half a dozen or more undersized, including a 480mm, so it was good to finally land this 580mm specimin.

The bag on the night we got the legal Dhu.

This one inspired us to go and get some cray pots.

A "heart starting" Sambo and sign of things to come.

The biggest Skippy caught so far.

Double 600mm pinks.  The Sambo, big Skippy and these two made for a great morning.

I reckon Snook are the mongrels of the sea.  They always come on just after dark and smash your mono.  We have lost good fish because of line damage caused by these bastards.  At least I have a use for them in the cray pots now.  Those Harlequin are quality eating fish though.

Unusual catch day - a big Wobby, a Spangaled Emperor, and a big mongrel Snook.

The 430mm Spangled - needed to ask for confirmation as they really shouldn't be this far South.

Our first legal cray from the 3 Mile.

A few of the “golden rules” I have picked up using my limited, although growing, local knowledge and experience are as follows.

• Burley long and hard.  Get a slick going and keep feeding it with “chunks” but don’t overdo it and feed the fish – you want their interest only.
• Burley works best at anchor, and make sure the burley is in your fishing zone.
• Always have a floating bait out and only let out enough line so the bait won’t hit the bottom – or better still, free spool until it hits the bottom and then set again.
• Learn how to rig a snelled hook set as whole pilchard bait presentation is much better than on gangs.
• Expect to lose some gear as there are some ocean “beasts” attracted to the burley that you will just struggle to stop.
• Pilchards are a really good bait that most things like.  Yes they go soft, yes they come off easily, yes they are stinky and sloppy but you do get really good results.
• When the sun is up it is the playtime of the wrasse and parrot – it is only the odd black arse we have caught on the shallow near shore reefs during the day, in amongst the thousands of red and brown nuisances.
• You can catch big fish with little hooks but you can only foul hook “little” fish with big hooks.
• Big Sampson Fish like little live wrasse.  Sampson Fish are not worth keeping but are great sport.
• Use solid mono leader and avoid all weak points – attaching a hook with a loop just doesn’t work on big fish and we have lost many because of this – spend the time on tying the pana properly.
• Watch out for cray pots in the dark – always best to try and plan your dusk and dawn trips in pairs so you can see and note the positions of the cray pots in the afternoon and set your morning course to avoid them.
• Be very wary of charter boats – see: http://fishwrecked.com/forum/seeing-eye-dog-needed-charter-boat-skipper
• Behave yourself at the boat ramp and be courteous to others – see: http://fishwrecked.com/forum/rampies

The images show that we have been generally lucky and have landed some nice fish from near shore waters.  We have put the effort in though and it is good to see that you can get the rewards when you do.  I still feel that we are complete novices and have a lot to learn.

It is fair to say that I have nothing but admiration for the WA waters and am looking forward to continuing the adventure.  I do hope this post can inspire other new to WA fishers as it is an aquarium out there.

Good luck to all.  Mick

Image Upload: