Hi all! I havent put a decent report up in a while so here goes! Enjoy...

After reading that Oceanside was a having a sale over the long weekend i thought it was time to get a decent rod and reel to use the on the ski. Went in to the shop Friday arvo and was greeted by Shaun who put me onto some gear with great enthusiasm and knowledge. Ended up walking out with the rod/reel, Mcarthy plastics and jigheads and a Yozuri squid jig. Thought i would get a half decent jig after reading some comments on my last post about squid on the ski, and a few members said imagine how many i wouldve caught if i had a decent jig. Travelled down to mandurah later that arvo to stay at my grandparents for a couple nights and headed down to the cut to flick some lures around after dad had caught one the weekend before. With no luck there, we headed to the Jolly Frog jetty after dinner and while dad pulled in some small herring and a thumping KG, i caught 3 decent squid on my new jig. Stoked!

Headed back to the cut in the morning and things were pretty quiet for a few hours, with only a few herring and 1 or 2 fussy salmon swimming past sending me and my little brother into a casting frenzy of lures and new mcarthy plastics without any luck. Not long after the tide turned and started to come in, the salmon started to show a bit more interest and what was only 1 or 2 fish had now turned into a school of about 25 fish. The school was swimming up and down the rocks every 5 or 10mins. Got a few chases but no strike on my rapala xrap, then Dad hooked and lost one using a half a fillet of herring. This happened again a few minutes later and this fish also spat the hooks.

Things went a bit quiet and the salmon started to swim deep so dad let his herring fillet drift to the bottom. He had a couple of "pulls" on his line so started reeling in after he felt a bit of extra weight on the end of his line. Next thing i know he's screaming his head off saying "GET THE SQUID JIGG GET THE JIG!!" and thats when my brother turned to me and all i remember him saying is "Its HUGE!"

In all the mayhem i told dad to keep the bait in the water while the squid was latched to it to give me enough time to put the jig on. I climbed over the rocks and saw this huge squid on the end of the line!! Dad was convinced the squid was hooked on the gangs but i knew otherwise and when he tried to lift it out the water it fell off and thats when i cast the jig in a meter behind and lost the squid in the glare of the sun. Next thing i know the line goes tight and theres ink squirting everywhere. I didnt want to risk the 8lb line snapping so i got my little bro to net it.

Im not sure if i can claim it as my catch but if i do its definately my PB!! What do you guys reckon??

This is the same squid only a couple minutes after putting it in the bucket! Amazing how much they change colour!

After the excitement of the squid, the salmon showed up again and i hooked up on my 2-3kg graphite outfit, 8lb main and 19lb leader, on my lucky Rapala Xrap in ghost white, a lure that claimed 11 salmon this season! After 5mins, the sensible 4kg fish that took the fight out to open water rather then me having to chase it up and down the rocks, was ready to be netted. My bro couldnt reach the water with the net from the rock we were standing on, so the plan was to get a bit closer to the water, and after taking one step to my left, the fish took 2m to the right and the leader touched the rocks and snapped instantly!! MY LUCKY XRAP!!!

I was in a pretty foul mood and wanted to leave straight away and watch the Footy grand final so we left. We went back down there late arvo, and got told by other fishos that 2 salmon had been landed in the last couple of hours. After casting for about half an hour without any luck, i saw a guy fishing from the beach pull a smaller salmon in, probly around 2-3kg, then his mate pull another one in after 5mins, so we made the call that we'd go try off the beach.

We fished about 50m up the beach from the other guys, i was throwing everything out there, slices, richter plugs, roostas.. Everything except mulies! The other guys pulled in 3 more salmon on mulies and we got nothing. You could see the fish swimming around in the swell, coming right in about 5m from the sand! Dad also caught this snook (?) in the arvo on a laser pro.

Dad went back the next day while i was having an arvo kip. I wake up to my phone ringing and its Dad, "HURRY! SALMON EVERYWHERE! HUGE!" *then i hear his mate in the background screaming and yelling in Balinese* so i mumbled that i'd be down in a couple mins and then screamed at my lil bro to move his ass and get in the car. When we got down to the rocks, Dad had just got one 5mins earlier using a mulie.

*Dads balinese mate was yelling and screaming that another school was swimming by just as i took the photo, note Dad looking in that direction!*

So after dealing with alot of fussy schools of salmon, and when i say fussy i mean, hitting them in the head with mulies as they swim past and dont even get a look at, and a handful of chases on the xrap and mcarthy sp's, we ended up with only 1 salmon, 5 squid, KG and a dozen herring.

If you are chasing some late season salmon, i highly reccomend the beach north of the northern groyne at the cut!!

With my lil bro on school holz, and me working on night shift, i decided to take him back down to see if we could luck into some salmon. Coming over the hill as we got to to the beach, we were greeted with glassy conditions and crystal clear water. Got halfway down the dirt track you take towards the rocks we noticed a school of fish just off a reefy ledge so i parked up and noticed they were only buff bream, but Cody got his rod out and started casting a 30g slice just to try jag one for some fun. Then he yelled out that one fish chased his lure and said he think it was a salmon.

The next pic is of the same photo, just zoomed in, and you can see the buff bream hanging around the reef, and the small school of salmon swimming in from top left.

We couldnt get another chase on the lures so we threw out some mulies but the fish still werent interested. I followed the school north about 100m to another reefy ledge where there was also another school of much larger salmon! Out went the mulie under a blob and with the ledge only being about 8m from where i was standing, i could see the salmon start to swim around the mulie, slowly getting closer, kind of egging each other to eat it, but never actually doing so.

I watched a banded sweep start gnawing at the mulie so i pulled it in a bit closer but the bait fell off, then a salmon came straight in and ate it whole! Thought i would never say this, but i think salmon are actually smart fish! I used to think they were ultimate predators, eating everything in there way, but they obviously knew there was a single hook hiding in that mulie, and waited for the bait to fall off before eating it!! I cast out again and they did the same thing, swim around it and wait for the bait to fall off the hook. Thats when i spotted a rather large lump of swell heading right for me so i started to reel in the bait pretty quickly and the blob making a popper effect, attracted a salmon and it chased the bait for about 3m before i realised so i stopped and the salmon took the bait! BANG! Nope, fish was gone, i struck too early!

I have never caught a salmon on bait before, only lures, so it was a totally new experience for me, and one that i couldnt overcome, because the exact same thing happened 3 times after, all fish chasing the float if i reeled in quickly, then taking the mulie when i stopped. By the time i changed tactics and threw a popper on the fish had moved on..

Took Cody out again during week, this time on the ski, hoping to get him onto his first pink snapper. Only managed smaller ones around 25cm and some skippy around the same time. Is it illegal to target snapper during the ban, even if you are catch and releasing and only want the fish for a photo? Cody did manage to catch this nice flounder, and found this shark with its head wedged under some rocks on challenger beach. Anyone able to identify what type of shark it is??

And im going to throw this pic up just to show the versatality of the Panasonic Lumix FT2. Such an awesome camera! *NOTE: Ive had to downgrade the photo quality on all these photos to be able to upload them to the site*

Hope you enjoyed my blab and pics PLZ COMMENT!