Just thought i'd post up a bit of a report and some pics of the last trip I did with a few mates, works colleagues and brother in-law up to the Mid Coast section of WA.

It was going to be a bit of a come as you go trip, with us all starting and finishing our trips at mostly different times, but with most of the time us up there together. Basically we ranged from Port Denison all the way up to Port Gregory and fished as much as we could inbetween those towns depending on where the fish were biting or where we thought they might be biting. For the last section of the trip my mate brought his tinnie up so there was to be a bit of boat fishing done too.

For the first few days(Wed, Thur, Fri) it was all Landbased fishing. Our general routine of finding some nice looking onshore reefs to cast lures for Tailor in the morning, spending the middle of the day driving and looking for the night fishing spot then finding a nice suitable looking gutter to fish into the night for Mulloway. The first couple of days proved to be quite slow with me and two of my mates only managing to get 6 Tailor in the mornings all around 65-70cm, with the biggest going 71cm and 6 Mullas all about 60-65cm during the night fishing sessions. Add to that some Wobbys, and Rays :(

By Friday lunch the other 5 guys rocked up in their four 4wds and one boat in tow and our anticipation of getting a fish out in the boat had us excited. So Friday night was spent with a half arsed attempt at beach fishing until the weed moved in(caught one 40cm tailor) then a hasty drive back along the beach, before the tide could cut us off and preparing the boat for the next day.

Saturday started with an early morning LB tailor session. We managed to land 5 tailor averaging 65cm with me also getting the biggest for the trip being 79cm. It was then back to camp to have some breakie and to grab the boat. the Boat fishing started with a beach launch and out to throw some lures for tailor on the just offshore reefs. This proved to be a lot more productive than the LBased fishing had been, with instant hook-ups and 11 fish hooked and 8 landed in about 45mins. The average size was only about 60cm with the biggest landed for the session 67cm, but we dropped two boatside that would have been pushing the 80cm mark. Was cursing my mate for forgetting his landing net :P After we all had our tailor fix we left them on the bite to head out and try our luck at demersals. It wasn't to far to travel before we started getting our first ones. Undersized Dhui's and lots of them! Fishing only 6-12m of water all swam back quite easily. Thankfully it wasn't to long till one of my mates finally hooked onto something more substantial! After a brief fight(only 7m deep) up popped my mates second ever legal Dhui and first on a SP. Ended up going 73cm. On the next drift the lucky bugger managed to get another Dhui, 51cm. So he caught his third ever legal Dhui, but with the 73cm already in the esky we made the call to release this one. After that Dhui the sea breeze started to come in so the call was made to start heading in and try a few spots on the way back in. Well a few of those spots were found to just be harbouring hoards of NW Blowies so we thought better than sacrificing SP and metals to their bolt cutting ways and headed in.

Sunday pretty much followed the same format as the previous day with us starting with throwing lures for Tailor before heading out after Demersals. Again the tailor were there and hot on the bite. As the previous day most were around the 60cm mark with a few bigger ones around 65-70cm. Hooked 10 in total and landed 6 in about 30 mins. at one stage my mate actually had two big greenbacks on his bullchop at once. After our casting fix we headed out to find some demersals again. This day proved to be very slow indeed, with just more hoards of NW blowies being encountered and again heaps of undersized Dhuis. The days only notable capture was my mate christening his new rod and reel combo(Saragosa/MM Max Rod) with his first ever Sambo and the biggest fish he's ever caught. Was priceless watching this Sambo make him piss in about 8m of water. Soon the sea breeze started to move in again so the call was made to head back in earlier and have another tailor session before pulling in for the day. Managed to get another 4 tailor off 6 casts averaging 60cm.

Monday again was the same script as the previous two days with a Tailor session to start with. 9 hooked and 6 landed again all around the 60cm mark. This day turned out to be calmer than the previous two so moving about was comfortable indeed. Thankfully we were also blessed with not having as bad a problem with the hoards of NW blowies we had been having the previous two days. We managed to catch a few undersized Dhuis, before one of the lads hooked onto something with some decent weight and heavy slow thumps on it. We called it for a Dhui straight away and sure enough after a brief fight(only 8m deep) up popped my mates first ever legal sized Dhui! It measured 71cm and you couldn't wipe the smile off his face. We spent a bit more time trying different spots out but for not much else other than a couple of NW Blowies and more undersized Dhuis. It really surprised me that over the three days boat fishing we hadn't caught any Pinkies, Baldies, or Spangled Emperor, all usual capture I have caught there in previous years. In saying that I had never seen so many undersized Dhuis there as we had been pulling up this year. Most of these undersized Dhuis we were catching were between 40-50cm so a lot weren't too far off legal.

Tuesday was the pack up and head home day so it started with an early morning tailor pop from the land and we managed to get 4 with the biggest going 68cm.

Was an great trip for me and I think the best thing about it all is I had all my mates up with me, most of whom had never been to this region before or had never fished it the way I showed them too. I think I spent a majority of my time watching them fish, teaching them, driving the boat and taking pics. Such a great feeling getting your mates onto good fish. Needless to say we are already planning our trip back next year, but I might bring my big boat up next year :)

Thanks for reading, Buz.

*The photo of my mate walking out in the water on the shallow reef is him retrieving my lure. I lent him my rod to cast for tailor, he hooks one but then drops it but forgets to keep winding. On lure stuck on reef and my mates going for a wade! Hahahahaha. He did get it back from me though and said the swim woke him up a bit :P

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