With reasonable weather conditions forecast for the weekend, hopes were high that we could get a few captures.

Started out with a pot pull on Saturday morning in moderate easterly winds, that continued to deteriorate.  In fact, it was pretty unpleasant.  Managed to get a few including another jumbo – we seem to be getting these on a fairly regular basis now.

It was certainly not worth staying out with the gusting easterly, and the chop produced by it, so we came in close to troll the nearshore reefs for tailor.  Managed to get a few, including this nice model for the young one.  The highlight, or lowlight, was a massive greenback (estimated 800mm) striking and missing our surface lure on a couple of occasions.  There were some good fish around, given it was mid-morning, and these spots are certainly going to get another go.

Once conditions had calmed off a bit we headed out again to fish a bit deeper.  It was fair to say the bite was fairly slow, although there were lots and lots of fish on the sounder.  My mate has some live baits out on his new Stella 18000 and Saltist PE4 combo got hit, smoked and busted off a couple of times by very big angry fish.  I had a floating pilchard out and this on got taken and I hooked up.  First call when the hook was set was “this one is not too big”, and how wrong I was.  I proceeded to play this thing on my heavy snapper gear (baitrunner 6500B, 50lb braid and snelled 4’0’s) and all of a sudden it headed off.  OMG, this thing was peeling line like you wouldn’t believe and we had no choice but to fire up the boat and follow it.  Over the next hour or more, this fish dragged us more than 3 miles towards shore and let’s just say I was in a world of pain.  We initially picked it as a really big ray and the boys were laughing at my pain whilst taking shots of the “beast” on the sounder when I could get it under the boat.  I certainly didn’t have the right gear for a fish like this.

We slowly started to lift the fish towards the boat after about 90 minutes.  I couldn’t believe it when we finally got the leader back and the fish came into view.  It was a massive shark.  My mate who is a bit of a shark expert, came out with “that’s a white” due to its pointed head, huge pecks and thick tail structure.  No way, this thing was 3+m, a couple of hundred kilos minimum and had a big cobia as its “companion”.  We got a rushed photo, that doesn’t do it justice, before it saw the boat and turned around and just smoked us.  The 50lb like busted in an instant but at least we got to see it.  Really, I don’t even think it knew it was hooked and my 4’0 must have got it right in the corner of the jaw to hold for so long.  There was no way we were going to bring this thing onto the boat and I was happy, although very worn out, that we got to see what it was.

This “capture” was certainly one of the highlights of my fishing career, however what happened later in the night probably ranks higher.  The young one and I fished the MAAC competitions all year and the presentation was last night.  I was stoked to see Luke go up and capture his Junior Champion award after a solid season on his behalf.  It really was a good season and he has come on so much in his ability to fish Perth Metro waters, culminating in the month that he actually won the seniors and juniors in October.  He couldn’t believe that he actually won cash as well as the trophy.

Not to be deterred, we headed out again this morning (although a fair bit later than planned).  The pots had some more good crays so the season goal is almost there.  A couple of hours fishing were intended in the “fog”?  The bite was certainly a bit better than the day before and we boated a few undesirables and upgrades in short order.  A big wrasse went back on the mate’s heavy gear and within a few minutes the line was peeling off.  Awesome, finally a sambo to test the gear and it did really well (landing a 8kg model in short time).  They were thick and the young one landed a nice fish on a live Sgt Baker before deciding to have a jig for them.  Not long after, a really solid hook up resulted in a big fish that ran him around the boat for 20 minutes or more.  This fish brought with it a 2.5+m tiger shark that surfaced just near the boat but the sambo “got through”.

The next one was not so lucky.  After being jigged up, a solid fight was going on.  All of a sudden those “terror” runs by the sambo before the fish was taken by the tiger and the line cut through.  Not surprisingly, the bite shut down after that.

What a great weekend.  It finished with the young one going out to spend his winnings on upgrading the Ugly Stick to capture a Saltist PE 2-4, which is so much better than Maccas, KFC or computer games.  He can’t wait to get out there tomorrow afternoon/night to give it a go.

Image Upload: