While working on site in Africa I met a couple of great blokes, Mick and Rex who have a beach shack a couple of hours north of Perth with some great fishing spots. The weather was looking pretty good all week so we took off on Sunday arvo towing Mick's 8m cat behind the old effy. First day it was a 6am wakeup to beach launch the boat, which went pretty well and soon enough we were on our way out to a spot that had produced some monster Dhu's in its time. Both Mick and Rex both enjoy fishing bait and had brought enough for about a week,  I was keen to christen my new Major Craft Alexander PE3 rod and give the 6000PG Stella another good run.

We got to the spot and hadn't even switched on the sounder so I wasn't expecting too much, though I sent down my trusty 80g Ima Ro in the sardine colour. As soon as the jig hit the bottom it was literally jig, jig, jig bang!! Not long after Mick was also onto a decent fish before Rex had even got his line in the water. AFter a pretty good fight we both had our fish on the surface, both Dhu's of around 4kg. Mine was pretty stuffed so it went into the kill tank and Mick's was released in good conditon. I thought I'd try a different jig so on the next drift I sent down a 130g Caprice. It was the same deal as the previous drift, not long after the jig hit the bottom I was on to another good fish, and this time it was Rex's turn to get one on bait. Rex's was a pretty good fish so we kept that one and let mine go as we'd got our boat limit in 2 drifts and about 10 minutes!! We decided to try and get a few baldy's as they were apparently like flies out there. We tried a number of spots but all we kept getting was Dhu's - a nice problem to have ordinarily but we wanted something different. The day slowed down and we only managed to get a couple of baldies and a few other bits and pieces.

Day 2 we decided to have a more serious crack at getting something other than dhu's. We tried a few different spots without much luck, only getting a few bb's and the usual bycatch. We got to some ground that looked very likely for baldies so were all anticipating getting a few. The boys were'nt even getting a touch on bait, which was not a good sign. My caprice wasn't getting much interest either till I got a big hit about 10m off the bottom. I was fishing a fair bit of drag on the stella, which was not even looking like slowing the fish down at all! After a few good runs and a great fight a dhu of around 10kg was on the surface. We hadn't boated one yet so it was dispatched and put into the kill tank. We decided it was time to get another dhu so went back to the same spot as the other day, which we were now calling "the shop". We got there and I said to Rex - "watch this" and put the jig caprice down - jig, jig, jig, bang, the same as yesterday!!! Mick also got onto a nice fish and we got them up at about the same time. Mine was in good condition and not as big as Mick's (around 10kg) so we kept his and sent mine back down. We set up another drift which produced another small dhu for me and a serious hit for Rex. He was fishing a Stella 20k with a fair bit of drag which got peeled off in no time! Not long after the hookup he dropped the fish, which he was calling for a big dhu. On inspecting his rig his 6o gamakatsu circle hook had been straightened..... We had one more drift and caught a few more dhu's each then decided to leave to avoid catching any more! We tried some more spots that produced a decent bb and a good baldie then it was time to head in to try and haul the 4t cat out of the water. We'd timed it so that we were retrieving at low tide so we'd have a decent run up to get up the beach. On the first attempt we mucked around too much and the trailer tyres sunk in too much and we weren't going anywhere. On the second attempt we were quicker though, and giving the 7.3L turbo diesel v8 all it had as well as nailing both the 175hp outboards the boat was luckily on its way up the beach.

All in all a great trip with some of the best dhu fishing I've ever seen, with at least 20 fish pulled off one spot over the 2 days. Both Mick and Rex were surprised how well the jigs worked, and are both keen to have a go now. Here are a few of the better fish caught:

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