hoping to go out tomorow, arvo looks allright. Time will tell! Nothing wrong with a bit of chop, just makes it more interesting :P

Having dialup down south is awesome. :) todays report was all good. Best on deck fisherman had to go to bruiser with a 25 pound dhuie, 2 queen snapper x 3kg, 2 blackass and numerous sgt bakers. Skipper Brian landed the biggest cuttlefish I've ever seen, a couple of queen snapper and a great breaksea. I managed to get a triple header of a 4kg queen snapper and a 5kg cuttlefish which has attached itself to a fox fish I had hooked. Overall it was a pretty good day out even thou the noreaster blew pretty hard. I have a few photos that I will upload when I get back to Perth. Looking to go out as a late start tomorrow depending on the conditions.

Will report in tomorrow night if we manage to get out.

Cheers. :)))))

fished cockburn sound today cleaned up on some really nice kg's and couple os squid on the way home. bit bloody windy though

went out on shikari with robc and mav today. Was rough as buggery in the morn so we fished close to rotto for a while , at about lunch headed out deeper and i managed to jig up 2 sambos and 1 skippy. Other guys got Heaps of skippy on baits with some horses landed. Couple were jigged up. Other catches of the day were a pink, big leather jacket and some bakers. Started off slow but turned out to be a great day.

Gday everyone , yeah Satdy was a shitty day for sure , should of got more fish but all the rockin' and rollin' makes for a hard day out on the water .

End tally was , Skippy ( plenty), Sambo's , goldfish, snapper, leatherjacket , black arse cod , not bad for only 3 good hours fishin'.

PS the Sambo's that were kept were filleted and the frames were dispatched to the research fellows .

CHEERS, THE EVIL RAYMAN ( MAV )

Nice tally.....any pics??

Was a bit too windy to go offshore this morning, even thou an afternoon seesion would have been ok. Trolled up and down the river and managed 25 salmon trout on hardbodies, lotsa fun on the light gear. Also bumped into a guy from Murdoch doing fisheries research. Will elaborate on that more with some photos when I get back to Perth tomorrow.

[img_assist|fid=23622|thumb=1|alt=Small sambo jigged up 27th may 06]

Theres one of em, unfortunatly only the baby sambos around 10kg came out to play, but better than a poke in the eye with a pointy stick!

Nice rat there Shizza. Starting to get me amped about the pending season, here's hoping they are out there in big numbers this year.

Hey don't forget the BIG skippy are only a few weeks away and they may not be as big as the Sambo's ( up to 9 kilo's)but there are just as many and they eat jigs too.

The big ocean Skippy that we nail out there are full of power and fight all the way to the top and they are worth keeping a couple to eat as well , I had some sashimi'd on the boat satdy night and the whole fillet got eaten by every one ( around 700 gramms worth), a little dark soy and some Wasabi and it went down fine , next time I will take a couple of limes out to help cook them a bit first them into some soy and wasabi.

My kids aren't big on fish but when I bring something off the boat from out in 100 +m of water they look forward to eating the fish . there is something special with fish from the deep water , tastes like the fish caught from up North nice and clean .

we pluggin out tomorow morn, mate reckons the rough weather gets the fish goin at his secret spots.hope he's right, oh well got plenty of beer and chips to kill time if theres no fish :P ill report back tomorow ;)

nice as till 9 then it blew HARD for 3 hours, was shocking fishing couldnt make it out to the secret spots, fished out deep till about 12.30 then sat on 3 mile for couple hours for 1 stinking ray :P Plenty of beer tho ;)

Tally was about 3 undersize/just size black arse, 3 bakers, 1 leather jacket and the ray. Crappy effort, but oh well you get days liek that i suppose.

Went out Sunday and we managed a few fish , Mulloway, skippy , black arse, Red snapper , yellow eyed red snapper, some cod ,Sambo's and I landed a blackspot pigfish I thought it was a Wrasse till I was told what it was and that it is one superb tasting fish , I put a pic of it up on Wangler if anyone is interested in seeing it ( in fishing reports) it's not often caught from what I have been told , got it in 80 m of water about 10 miles out from Garden Island .

CHEERS , MAV.

no ambers this time mav ?

First trip out for a long time we didn't get an Amberjack , got a couple last week end , but the weather was crap and we didn't hit the deep stuff and only stayed in the 100's for a little while , actually had a 9 year old out and the father didn't even give the kid a sea sick tablet before going out , the kid had never been out on a boat before and was dry retching all day , didn't have any breakfast , and only had about 100ml of water for the day he was sick the whole day and the father didn't stop fishin' to look after him , it was not a pretty sight.(must of wanted to get his money's worth)

I recon that kid will be put off boats for the rest of his life after that , such a shame he was a good kid till he got sick and was enthusiastic till the rockin' and rollin' started.

AND before anybody has a go at us , we are not baby sitters there are other fishers on board and you can't spoil their day unless it's a medical emergency , WE monitored him (the kid) the whole day and WE tried to get him to drink and keep his mind off the rockin and it helped but not enough , I recon he's scared for life over it JMHO

I told the father not to sit down stairs if they were feeling sick , first thing he done was go down stairs and only came up when the boy wanted to throw up , by then it was too late, you can only tell people what to do you can't make them do it .

Not going to have a go - I a with you in that it is the fathers responsibility!

That said - a day will come where a kid (who is after all still a paying passenger too) will end up with complications and be impaired or worse die!

Then the law suits will start and the dad won't be held too blame!

We Charters ops will cop it in our insurance premiums and increased 1st aid training occ health safety @ sea & duty of care requirements etc!

At the endof the day we can't escape that duty of care, whether it's someones kid or a drunk or whatever - ultimately we will pay one way or another!

Maybe a different "policy" is needed in such a case!

Skippers call at the end of the day and his responsibility especially when something goes wrong! Kid convulses and chokes on chunder - whatever, someones gonna go down for it! Ain't gonna be dad - he;s not in control of the boat or responsible - he's just another paying passenger!

Always a tough one - so many seem to get crook on charters! Probably why they don't have their own boat!

Can't even get em to sign a waiver to abrogate their rights these days under duty of care!

$50 grand PERSONAL liability for the Skipper and up to $500 grand for the business owner!

Who wants THAT responsibility for the beer money charters make!

Worst thing is - like you said - will the kid ever come back from an experience like that?????

I know I did - had the same thing as a kid but conquered it eventually!

Plenty others likely have too - but there is a beter way IMHO.

Sadly few have the time or patience to bring their kids along slowly slowly catchey monkey!

I have 2 sons - one who doesn't suffer at all and one who gets crook criossing the estuary! I treat each one different and we go at the pace of the weakest link in the chain!

He will get there one day!

Damn I hope it's soon - tis drivin me nutso!

Cheers!

Compared to some other fishing ventures like Cray fishing for example - theres not a lot of $ in it!
Oheads / compliance costs are high!
Since Fisheries Dept "regulated" the industry (charter licenses) theres a heap of boats out there, who all seem to have such licenses!

The thing is - if you watch the commercial page of the Sat's West, theres always charter boats and licenses on the market! When you then look at the Trade a Boat magazine, and web sites for boats you see even more boats with licenses for sale.

It appears to me that there is too many boats for not enough marketshare for them to be all that profitable!

If they were, more than half the comercial charter fleet wouldn't all be for sale at the same time!

No one in industry wants this word to filter out into the public arena, because it would devalue the assets of the industry! Everyone who's a keen rec fisher dreams of a life getting paid to fish as a TV preseter or charter operator, which luckily is great for selling such businesses!

The ones I see who seem to be the most fiscally stable, all seem to be in it for the lifestyle! i.e what I'm saying is - they made their $ in some other industry & semi retired with a charter boat as a way to subsidise their desire to go fishing, with a few paying passengers along for the ride, as the occasion demands.

They don't largely seem to have to go to sea every day as a fiscal imperative! i.e. I don't see a lot of them working full time and making great profits solely from chartering!

When you speak to the naval architects etc who design these new boats for the new Charter industry prticipants they all seem to say much the saem - someone has a bundle of $ from some other enterprise and spends a small fortune on a charter boat with dreams of makin a small fortune.

Some of them want their company bought gin palace to be run as a $ losing charter enterprise, as a company tax deduction dodge! ;o)

Theres a old saying - the way to make a small fortune in charter fishing is to start out with a large fortune and just wait!! ;o)

There are an awful lot of 'illegal charters' operating in WA, it's not hard to get a ride on a great number of boats as a defacto charter - some dry hire guys even 'ride along' as the "paid guide" putting the hirers of the boat onto fish etc etc - tis rife up n down the coast!

Who needs a charter license to do that?

About one of the few guys I know who does well owns a resort in the Pilbara, where he accomodates and feeds his clients as well. His resort cross subsidizes his fishing charters by providing a captive and willing passenger market! He just built a new boat etc...he is doing quite well by all accounts.

If you search hard you'll find most of the charter ops on the coast listed for sale somewhere!
If the owners were killin the pig, they wouldn't be selling up in the numbers they are!

Fisheries Dept in their wisdom have basically killed off the industry IMHO!

Guys who had either wetline licenses or cray licenses etc as well as their charter licenses, could likewise cross subsidise their offseason charters in the past!

If all you have is charters for income and no other form of investment income to carry you thru the lean times - your going to do it hard makin a living in charters in WA IMHO!

I know of one guy who camps his clients on the Abrolhos out of season (when no ones sposed to be living on the islands) in his cray fishing hut, and transports them in his cray boat with SPV survey!

If your cray fishing is paying for the hut and boat - then a few charters out of season is just cream!

However - I see they guy with the Charter license for the islands has his boat and license up for sale! The guy before him did likewise!
At the same time, Fisheries Dept is about to issue 3 NEW charter licenses for the Abrolhos to a guy whos never been in the charter industry in his life!

All because he is the developer of the new resort on long island at the Abrolhos, and has demanded offisheries as partof his development proposal that they grant him 3 licenses so he can employ skippers to drive his boats and sack them if he doesn't like the way they work!

How can licenses be worth anything if any developer with a spare few $million can buy 3 from Fisheries Dept, at the same time as he's puting the other legitimate licensed operators outta business??

The whole Charter Industry is scewed at the moment IMHO! A LOT of the responsibility for that lies with Fisheries Dept WA and how they can be bought for a fist fulla $. They have no integrity and while thats the case any investement i a charter boat andlicense is risky at best!

Thats how I see it - no doubt others will have their own view!

Cheers!

What do you mean change , I thought it was fact , HMMMM a weather man changing his mind ........ NAHHHH could never happen ,
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