Well I will start with an apology, I forgot to put the memory card back in the camera so there are no pics .Headed out from Two Rocks at 7:00 only 4 boats out which was a bit of a surprise .The plane was to head out deep but the wind was already up to 15-18 knots so the skipper called off the deep run opting for the shallow 25-30m stuff .Well that did prove a good decision as we found dhuies snapper and Skippy on all four patches we went to .First patch and double hook-up first drop two dhuies both undersize and both released in great condition .Next drift and a snapper and a dhuie were hooked, once again undersize so back down to fight another day. We moved out to a patch we get some bigger fish of and It didn't let us down with four more dhuies coming up ,biggest 6kg and a keeper the others were size but as it was early we released them ,then the fish of the day smocked Jody ,a big dhuie we would call around the 20kg but half way up was dropped $#@#$%%^.The wind still wasn't dropping and I headed in a little closer to some marks I have never fished on before .Rounding up on the first mark a school of fish lit up the sounder ,I stopped the boat and called for all to drop BANG triple hook up mine a dhu 6kg Jesse 5kg as Jody had the biggest still coming up we released both ,as we looked over the side to see a big silver fish hit the surface ,shit Sambo $%$%$%$.OK back for another drift and triple hook-up again this time a nice snapper 470mm dam undersize ,and two more dhuies and a sambo ,we got two more small dhuies and some nice Skippy of this patch as well .The fish shut down from us releasing fish so we move to another spot 50m away ,and you guessed it double hook up dhuies .Yes a 6kg fish and our dhuie bag was finally reached ,one more drift and another dhuie. Well this was a great day out fishing and we only used $30 of fuel. 15 dhuies in total two 6kg fish kept for dinner all other fish released in good condition, needed the release weight for only two. 7 of the 15 were size up to 7kg and the rest were downwards to a small 200mm fish also ,four sambos all released five snapper all released ,sergeant backer and wrasse also a big sting-ray, some good fish dropped as well .well I think I’ll head back out for round two and see if that big dhuie is still hanging around.

Well, I’ve just got back from a 5 day trip to the Three Kings islands off the northern tip of New Zealand onboard “Pursuit” with Rick Pollock. The Kings are famous for fishing, in particular yellowtail kingfish jigging, and it lived up to its name. To say I was happy with the trip would be an understatement, it was awesome and I’ll definitely be going back again. As I was a single booking, Boulder from Boulder Guiding http://www.boulderguiding.co.nz/ helped me get on a boat as it is pretty hard to get a spot without booking the whole boat. He arranged everything for me, including the use of a heap of good gear including Jigging Master and Jigstar rods, Jigging Master, Accurate and Shimano reels, plus a full arsenal of 37kg trolling gear, lures, jigs, hooks, spare line, EVERYTHING!
We boarded Pursuit on a Tuesday afternoon at the beautiful Mangonui wharf and met the crew- Rick, Zane and Sam. The rest of the charter was made up of 5 other Kiwi’s, all great guys including Josh who gets on here a bit as “Accident Prone”. We had an absolute mountain of top notch fishing gear that would have conservatively totalled over $75,000. Needless to say we ran out of rod holders pretty quickly.

A early departure the next morning and we were jigging a reef off North Cape by lunchtime where we all pulled up kings of varying size, with the highlight being a 20kg (I think, we caught that many they all blur into one) fish by Josh on his 150g Synit rod and Stella 6000. We departed shortly after as we had another 50nm to run to the Kings where we arrived in the dark. Pursuit travels at a pretty economical 9-10kts so we trolled a spread of marlin lures everywhere we went.

While we were blessed with awesome travelling weather, the forecast changed suddenly overnight and we woke on Thursday to lots of rain and an easy 30kts of wind so it was decided to hang in close to the Princes Group, where we discovered something we were hoping for but not expecting- surface lure action on the kings. Josh started us off by chucking a Fisherman stickbait and landing a great king of pretty close to 30kg after a tough fight on a 8’ rod.

We ended up getting over 10 kingies for the day, with over half coming off the surface and the others on livies fished down deeper. The weather for that night blew up even more, meaning a pretty sleepless night for Rick and Zane, who had to keep re-anchoring the boat and maintaining an anchor watch so we didn’t end up somewhere we didn’t want to be.

Friday came with clearer skies and a fast improving forecast, so we started with a little in close fishing where I nailed probably my fish of the trip, a 13kg kingy on a popper cast at a wave washed bombie. Rick and I saw the strike and were stoked when it came aboard. That was something I definitely wasn’t expecting.

We did a little more surface stuff, plus a little sight seeing. The Three Kings sit at around 34 degrees South, which is about the same as Bremer Bay/Albany, and you can see this in the type of coastline.

With the weather improving by the minute, Rick made a big call we were all stoked with- we were going to spend the arvo on the Middlesex Bank- one of the 2 main banks around the Three Kings. This is where big fish live and it didn’t take long to find some. The first 2 fish up were good Hapuka, them Boulder managed to extract a 52kg bass (wreckfish) from the reef. There are photos around but I don’t have them so you’ll have to use your imagination. We all got amongst some bass on both bait and jigs, and Bear snuck down a soft plastic on a Saltist 20 with 20lb line and had on a 15kg bass before he hit the bottom.

Fair bucket of fish meat!

Saturday we all voted on hitting the King Bank to have a marlin fish, then chase some of the bigger kings we all wanted to land. Upon hitting the bank, Rick called out “marlin!” and we all jumped to attention. The boys had put me on strike because they had all landed striped marlin before, and as I was clipping the belt on we watched a 110kg stripie dart and slide amongst the lures. It was not hitting them so Zane lobbed back a livie which got mouthed but failed to hook up. Bummer but no one was too disappointed, we still had kings to catch and besides, if I landed everything first trip I wouldn’t have an excuse to come back.

We pulled the lures in and Rick found some bottom, first up were quite a few bass, not what we were really looking for but good fun on jigs nonetheless. A short shift and the call was kingies, and they sure were.

These were all 15-30kg fish and were pretty keen on the jigs. It isn’t like sambo jigging where you drop, lift and you’re on, you actually have to jig well and think about jigs and techniques, but the rewards were there. We had multiple hook ups and Josh landed the biggest again at 30kg.

Rick tags all of the kings he releases and has had recaptures all over NZ and even on the east coast of Australia, which is a straight line swim of over 1100nm or 2030km. Pretty amazing for kingies.

The next day was our last and we had plans for a blue nose (blue warehou) fish on the way home but seeing as this is done on 350m of water, old Huey had other ideas. Steve and I had big kingies flashing in our eyes again but we all decided to have a soft plastic snapper fish instead. Drifting along in 40m of water in Parangarenga Harbour (place names are hard to say over there), we landed around half a dozen, with the last fish taken by yours truely at a “pretty happy with” 9.2kg or 20 good old fashioned pounds taken on a “fanta” coloured McCarthy placcy and on light gear.

We tied back up at a drizzly Mangonui wharf later that arvo and my long awaited trip was over. As we were unpacking 3 or 4 Orcas (killer whales) came right along the boat chasing stingrays and put on a show for around 30 minutes, catching a few and giving us a good look at them from only a few metres away. It’s a real pity it was raining as it was the perfect photo opportunity.

Like I said earlier, it was an awesome trip with things to do in all weather, Rick and the crew couldn’t have been better, the boat was perfect and the company was excellent. While we didn't get any massive kings, I am going again and am keen to take some WA people along too. Rick wants to get some West Aussies over to confirm which fights harder-kingies or sambos, so why not. We could probably fit in a trip in May 2011 (March and April are booked out) or if you want to wait a little, get March or April 2012 for the more stable weather and better marlin numbers. For info my whole trip cost $2600AUD total for 8 days away (5 days fishing, 2 flying, 1 driving). This includes all flights from Perth to Auckland, food, charter, everything! Compare that to some of the Australian trips and it is the best value charter in the world I reckon, I know I’ll go again. So, who wants to come???? PM me if you do and we can have a little pow wow about dates and numbers.
ps. Kingies are tougher, they fight all the way to the boat.
Catchya,
Tim

A great time was had in Exmouth despite the numerous bad weather days.  We punched it out every day and did as much as the conditions would allow.

Many thanks to Till and Alfred -  two of the best deckies about.  Life was much easier with two competent lads onboard in the sometimes trying conditions.

Many thanks Adam and crew for organising the comp and for your hospitality for the presentation night.  Big kudos to the various prize sponsors too.

Well Team Social did some damage and it wasn’t to the Exmouth fish stocks.

We had;

A full teaser lost as a welded ring on a swivel failed.

Smashed cup holder on the boat (Jamie lost balance in the rough water)

I snapped my Pflueger Medalist  trying to leader a long tail tuna in (the crew were busy on fish)

Jamies new rod ( some fancy 2 piece), became a 3 piece from a back cast from someone on the boat.

A few eye lets went missing in action.

Dented marlin board from Jamies head (lucky he didn't go unconcious - it was a big hit..ouch)

Busted toes

Weld on bowrail failed

2 inch split in prop blade from turtle strike

Chipped transom corner from bundegi  jetty strike

New 27 Mhz aerial fell apart

Destroyed Soft Oscar from Spaniard in 70 metres

Snapped rod gimbal from big marlin

Spooled 15kg reel whilst doing 21 knots (who can hear a ratchet at that speed)

Soiled jocks from shark attack whilst swimming with Whale sharks.

Oh well , we had fun.

 A few pics;

Typical day out from Tantas

The spread;

First stick face aboard my boat;

 (appropriate it was my strike too!)

Sucker fish from the Marlin;

Dolly Release;

Something from the gulf;

Last day in Exy – heading for Long Island;

Only cray for the trip;

Popped Trev coming in;

One of many Whale Shark encounters;

Sea snake;

Moray;

Deco Time  (thanks Gully & Ewan for a great dive);

Till next year.

Cheers Pete

gday crew....

thought id post up a bit of a thread on a quickie i did to the abrolhos last thursday. Main plan was to spear again with my buddy rob but first priority was to get the girl onto a good dhu. Fished some of my really hot spots but the fish where just shut down - strong north current didnt help at all. In the end with time slipping away she was content with her pb groper of about 6kg... a very nice fish indeed... we did catch 3 just legal dhus along with 2 big trout and another couple of baldies but these where released as rob and i wanted to throw some jewelery around for a nice trout or groper to wear!

Ended up doing 3 different drops - the first promised a bit but after doing a few dives we moved on - seen one thumper groper that didnt wanna play and left a nice trout in the hope of something bigger. rob picked off a 60cm groper to open the account... some of the ledges full of crays have to be seen to be believed.. the 2 pics i have here are nothing compared to what is there... amazing to see crays so thick standing on top of each other off the roof the works... and they are almost all well over size... a shame we are not aloud to nab a couple at the abrolhos.. anyways back to diving and the 2nd spot proved fruitless.... murky water in 14m with a 30m drop not far beyond didnt feel all that comfortable and the lack of fish didnt help either...

the 3rd spot was unbelieveable - took abit of coverage to find in 9m but suddenly the fishlife just blew us away... the amount of buff bream phenominal mixed in with countless big skippy and big sand snapper some that where well over 8kgs... again ledges full of crays everywhere and the odd nice baldie about.. i knocked off a nice one not long into the dive after chasing it with the safety on lol - one silly groper thats for sure... then we stumbled along the trout honey hole... they appeared from everyyyyywhere! i got the biggest of the 2 at 680mm not a monster but a damn nice fish.. this bugger didnt wanna know me took 3 dives to knock off but in the end a long shot ended his day... this spot was unreal and after stoning our last fish a beaut groper right under the boat rob and i took the cameras back and spent maybe 1hr chasing picks... the trout where co-operative with one thumper bearing the scar from a spearo from awhile back... there would have been maybe 10-15trout in a space of 20m square it was awesome...

anyways hope u enjoy the quick write up and pics crew

poddyfish! 

A few pics taken by Pete D.

On watch duty




Hooked up to my first gulf longtail




Caught on a Jackson Pintail Tune, Major Craft OB 76M and a Diawa Seagate 4500H




This was the first of several thru the trip and a decent size too!






Rankin




Baby mahi mahi

Five of us keen lads hit up Yanchep this morning for a bit of a bash at 4am. With moon up, sun up and high tide occurring around the same time, plus some blustery weather it looked like it was going to be a great morning to fish for some tailor.

My first and only bite was from a big lump of seaweed. My mate Simmo Ryan on the other hand, trying out his Nuclear Chicken Gulps caught seaweed just about every cast. The rip coming through the lagoon was simply too much for even our biggest sinkers and we could not hold bottom.

The other lads were the smart ones. Greg went for a kip in the back of the car, while Shawry and Nick caught some Z's on the beach (although I'm not sure how in the wind and rain).

The highlight of the morning was a chicken burger for breakfast from the Lagoon Kiosk. The lowlight was the girl behind the counter informing me her boyfriend caught five tailor in the lagoon last night - "this big" she says - with arms about seven meters apart.

It's funny, I started fishing mid June last year and my first trip out was with Simmo Ryan to the Lagoon. We got rained on and caught stuff all that day. My year of fishing really has finished up exactly how it started!

That is OFFICIALLY it until the baby arrives due in less than seven weeks (but what's the odds I convince the mrs to let me go one more time???)

:-)

Headed out at 10 to the back of rotto, caught an array of species, including hammerheads, fox fish, pinkies, and sambos.

This 54pound sambo stood out tho! 

Up at 0630 and took the 2 minute drive down to the boat ramp. Filled up the eskies from the free ice machine. After Claire finding out the hard way the ramp was slippery, we headed off.  Gentle eastly blowing as we headed out under the the wharf.  We first headed over to the west side of Connexion Island, and had a hunt around for some ground.  Sounder was starting to light up.

The current is pretty strong around the islands, but we opted to try a few drifts over this flare up on the sounder. First drop we both hooked up to what i think are some kind of sea perch (anyone knows tell me cheers)

We drifted over this mark three times, and each time Claire and i both hooked up..very fishy!

We then headed off as we didnt want to rape that spot, and headed over to the east side of Connexion Island. We have been told by the locals, if you cant catch a Tricky snapper (blue lined emperor) in the channel, you might as well give up fishing. Well they were not wrong, they are in plague proportions in there. There was alot of small ones arond 30cm, and we kept a few around the 40cm mark for tea.

There was plenty of birds working, so we decided to throw the lures out for a bit of a troll around. We didnt have much luck there so i decided do some popping over the shallow reefs around the island. Had a few chases but no hookups. I saw a Barracuda around 150cm chase my popper to the boat, i near on shit myself when i saw it. I was also wondering how long it would take to spool me.

It was near on lunch time and the Heat was kicking in, and we decided we had a great day and headed home. We learnt on our first trip out, that coral is bloody sharp, and shite did we lose some rigs.

Well, this year saw the crowds swell for the Fishwrecked Invitational, 65 competitors from Kununurra to Bunbury joined us in Exmouth for a weekend of fishing and frevolity.  With 21 teams registered for the comp and many stories floating around the place of the trip up, some include, wheel bearings, running out of fuel, nearly being side swiped and feral backpackers things were going to get interesting!  Other notables include a rather large vessel in the fleet (the bling king) being towed in after getting mono prop wrapped in nasty conditions, one competitor having his boat key stolen and tackle bag, one team getting gastro on the best day weather wise we were going to have for quite some time and to top it off another team somehow managing to avoid D/D after drinking makers mark for the last few km's into town.

Unfortunately the comp got some pretty bad weather over the weekend, with the saturday effectively being blown out with 25 knot easterlies (a couple of crazies did get out there and into a few fish though)  The Sunday was forecast as much better and most of the fleet got amongst it (even though it wasn't special out there) and most of the prize categories were claimed, below are the winners:

FW Opening night - Till ($100)

Red Emperor - Ewan (61.5cm) $750 custom baitboard from Commodore Marine

Longest Spanish/Wahoo - Steve/Freofish4 (147cm) $150

Longest Spangled - Adam (70cm) Car Cooler/Warmer unit thanks to Just Dhu It

Longest Coral Trout - Unclaimed (Random prize draw winner - Rob/Deckie)

Longest Trevally - Dave/Gully (97cm) 10 Weezel Poppers thanks to Andos (3 handed out to crowd)

Longest Rankin - Dave/Gully (76cm) - As Dave donated the prize he gave it to second place - Potato cod print (Simo - 65cm)

Longest L/B - Kal ($100) 2.5m Shark

Longest Marlin - Brad (Team Mako) Custom Game Rod thanks to Mako Magic/Tackle Shack

Longest Queenfish - Unclaimed ($100) (Random prize draw winner - SamC (Cough cough - theres a story there!!)

U/16 Longest - Kye (Paul G) - 125cm Spaniard ($50)

Most Marlin/Sails - Brad ($250) - Bad luck C-Wirthy, always next year.

Catch Card lucky dip - Mako Magic ($100 bluewater voucher) Thanks to fisheries research

Best Overall Photo - Kal and his condom....($100)

Best Bling Award - Mako Magic (thanks to Decella)

Well, even with the weather not being special it was awesome to catch up with everyone again and boy did I have a SERIOUS hangover yesterday.  I'd like to thank everyone that managed to make the effort to come up and get out there amongst it.  I have a few ideas on how to continue the comps growth and will be making it a 2 day comp with an extra 1 day optional depending on the weather.  I will also be deciding when it will be held next year as even though we did have it as a vote last year, I don't believe the new moon with big spring tides to be the best for either bottom fishing or game fishing - but never the less I had a bloody good time (even if being flogged out there) and hopefully next year will be bigger, better and with some good conditions to go with!

Here's a couple of pics as a teaser, I will post more up soon.

Cheers,

Adam

Did anyone get any in the last night or two? We went last night and got a whopping 5 prawns!  There were more seen, but out of reach, also we didnt get out till about 6:30 and it looked like you could walk from one side of the river to the other with all the boats with their prawn lights.  Anyway at the end of the night with the prawn action not super hot most boats had left we had seen couple of crabs on the surface.  I went for a quick freedive a nd it was hard work with the current.  We were in 5 mts and I would pull myself down the anchor rope swim a bit further, get a good breath and head for the bottom.  Once down it was a hell of a rush moving with the current but there were quite a few crabs.  I would cover the 20 mts back to the front of the boat in a breath but it was cool on the bottom picking off the biggest crab that challenged me.  3 pretty good crabs in 5 dives and I was back into the boat and we were on our way home in magic glass conditions.

Had the crabs, prawns and remaining squid from sunday for dinner late last night. Delicious.

Wondering how everybody's metro fishing went over the weekend as we've had two great days for boating.

Hi all,

Hot off the back of last weeks 'epic fail' in Port Denison, the boss granted me one last leave pass for the season before the baby arrives. I took off to Hill River yesterday afternoon, hoping to finish up my fishing north of Perth the way it started back in October, with a mulloway.

The drive towards Cervantes was magnificent, with the sun setting behind the hills as clawed the last 50k or so towards the coast. I love that stretch of the drive. The winding narrow country road, scrubland and the odd roo, rabbit or yesterday a first - an echidna wandering alongside the road.

I arrived at Hill River to find a few cars parked up but my favourite spot clear. I had my gutter all to myself. I just needed it to be full of fish! Got the berley trail going and chucked out the old paternoster with a scaly on 5/0s. Parked up in my favourite chair and watched the stars come out.

With a receding tide I didn't expect much and that's exactly what I got. A couple of random nibbles from the pickers - but no runs or signs of anything bigger lurking. I called it around 9pm and decided to get up early to fish the rising tide.

Dragging myself out of my makeshift bed at 3:30am was no mean feat. The fog was in and I reckon it must have been around 5 degrees. No amount of layers was going to keep me warm so the doona followed by down to the beach.

Out went the bait and the wait began.

5am came around and there was no sign of life in the water. The shooting stars were incredible though (no 'anomalies' in the sky this week :-p).

6am came around and I got the distinct feeling that I would be going home without a fish to my name. I decided it was time to throw a mulie on as if the tailor were around they would be on the bite shortly.

6:30am and the sky starts to brighten gradually. I felt that little change in temperature the signals the start of a new day. A few minutes later and theres the distinct 'nip nip nip' at my mulie. The herring are on the bite.

I grabbed the little rod and flicked out a tiny bait to confirm. A few seconds later I bring in a decent sized mullet. Fresh bait! I throw a fillet out to soak and continue to work the little rod.

Plenty of herring and some reasonable sized ones too. In among them the odd big gardie, another couple of mullet and a heap of sand whiting. Kept my quota but returned many more.

After 30 minutes or so I decided to throw out a livey on a balloon. So a quick rig change on the big rod, in comes the herring, out goes the herring and the waiting game begins.

I'm still waiting.....

But I had great fun catching a feed. :-)

For anyone heading up that way for a fish, the water is in good condition at the moment. There is a bit of weed in the gutters but it does not really impact on the fishing. One of the locals reported a school of salmon patrolling the beach yesterday too.

I planned to head out again next weekend with user Simmo Ryan....but Simmo, if you're reading this...according to the mrs I have buckleys.

Ever the optimist, I reckon I still have six sleeps to get into the good books and win a leave pass.... :-)

Thought I had better write up and circulate a report of the fishing in Fiji as this was a trip of a lifetime!! Better a late report than no report.

Off we trolled and a mix of big dollies, wahoo and more of the jellybean fin. I am sure I am forgetting some more will have to go back through the pictures..

Now my mate Mike is a bit of a whizz with the surface lures. In sydney he constantly outfishes me with small poppers on the flats for whiting/bream and sure enough upsizing the popper only upsized the fish for this keen young angler. Mike had watched the first GT come in and then went to work with his popper landing it right in the strikezone. Blooping the sucker back almost to the back of the boat and no $hit just as I looked up at his lure about 10 foot off the stern a massive take with a tail the length of my forearm explodes from the water as this monster screams back to the reef. A smoking run- have never seen anything like it - and Mike and Trinkler were trying desperately to stop the fish from making it to the reef (I got it all on video!). A top of the line reel had its drag fused solid and Trinkler literally burned his hand as he was trying to slow down the locked up spool. Mike was holding on for dear life as this fish was finally turned from what must have been inches from the reef. With a fused drag Mike had to fight the fish for the next 10 minutes pretty brutally and despite being taken elbows to the gunnells a few times eventually the
biggest GT ever brought to this boat was dragged through the marlin door. This was Mike's first ever GT and was honestly a fish of a lifetime. Will let the pictures do the talking but we conservatively estimated him at 45kg. Needless to say the beers were cracked and we trolled back into the anchorage for the
evening. A great end to Day 1.

Trinkler and Captain Tom wanted us out there fishing and a quick Plan B was hatched and implemented. Mikey and I grabbed a few popping rods and jumped into Baa's longboat intending to head out to the open side of the reef and get into some GTs before breakfast. Mate first cast and we realised what a mistake it was
to not bring gimbal belts and try to tackle these brutes from such a primitive boat! The old Tohatsu motor kept carking it which was exciting as we were in the bloody surf zone in a reasonable swell.. Anyway I managed a nice 20kg odd fish  which I will never forget given the way it was caught! Then Iron Mike
(he was renamed from Mikey to Iron Mike after his brute GT on day 1) gets his popper into the 1-2 foot of water in the suds and he gave out that oh no that I think all GT fishermen must be able to relate to as you just know your going to get smashed and smoked. Explosion on the surface and a much better fish then
tries to bust Mike up multiple times. Those poppering rods are brutal on the fisherman and from a longboat in a swell with no rodbucket again made Mike feel the pain!

Day 4 we cracked the beers at 9am, cranked the tunes and were trolling around the Eastern side of Kadavu on our run back to Suva. We caught a stack of big dollies, wahoo, a couple barracuda (stinky buggers!), and I caught a nice YFT a bit bigger than the smaller models. The mighty Trinkler quickly turned him into a couple backstraps for sashimi lunch and we ate like kings an hour later once the fillets had cooled in the fridge. On food - the villagers were bringing us out mudcrabs each morning which were bloody awesome in exchange for some fish at the end of the day. Good deal if you ask me. Not every day you can chow down on muddie claws while trolling for marlin in paradise!

Only one slight issue was niggling us - we hadnt landed any doggies with size. I was keen as to get some metal in the water and jig hard. All day if need be - I wanted a doggie!

In the last hour of fishing on the last day we mark up a big pyramid school of tuna and I drop the jig with only half hopes. We had jigged quite a bit for not much which was disturbing to me. I was wishing I had
my sounder within arms reach and the center console over the reef - something about not being able to see the sounder was bugging me and it was the thing I was thinking to myself as being the reason we werent picking up the fish. Who knows if I was right or not but hey you get these things when you go fishing especially dropping jigs 150m and cranking them back without interest..!

Anyway the Captain was confident - so confident he came down from the flybridge to help handle the fish. First time he had done this during the trip so my interest sparked.

Headed down to Warroora station damo6230 and bluetonic and met up with a few other guys (Stoinka and a few mates).

Headed out Tuesday morning and the fish were working. Got a plastic snipped off by a shark mackie, got my line snipped by a bird and lost my only pencil popper, dammit. Did get to see a school of sharkies swiping at it before pinging off on a cast beforehand though (and all missed). Thats fishing for you sometimes.

Went back in to drop a surfer off from the break to the beach when we saw bait swarming right up against the beach. Then bait started busting up and birds diving everywhere and we got to have a nice little session casting into erupting bait getting a fair few species (spaniards, shark macks, YFT's, stripeys, mack tuna) and some great fun all on light gear or the fly. Good fun.

Not a bad little fish to blood in a new rod. Good fun on the light gear with the reel screaming off.

Good fun on light gear. 
 

Hooked up on fly (cant remember if this was the stripey or the shark mack)

Another species ticked off

First tuna for Garry (not a bad species to start off with, a nice YFT)

Hi all,

Those that saw my earlier post know it was with great excitement that I left for a LB adventure early Friday morning.

Departed at 2am for Hill River and after dodging a couple of roos arrived there soon after 5am for a tailor session. I had big blue macks which I threw out on two 9/0 snelled hooks. I tossed the first bait out and proceeded to rig up the other rod. Thought I felt a bit of weight there so slow retrieved....blue mack was gone. This happened to all four macks in the space of about 20 mins and it was not until the last mack that I felt a solid bite. Struck into it but missed out, the last time retrieving a third of a mack and seeing the nice chomp marks.

Caught a herring on the other rod (5/0 gangs and mulie) and proceeded to put that out. About five mins later pulled in a PB tailor at 47cm. Was quite stoked. All went quiet after that with the sun coming up, but the herring stayed on the bite. My baitcasted mulie was getting follows from half a dozen herring everytime but I knew there would be plenty more chances to catch herring later on.

I packed it up about 8am and decided to head to Cervantes for some ballooning. Unfortunately when I arrived there were a few crayboats on the service jetty, so I headed on to my next destination north of Leeman to see what was around.

With high tide around 1pm the service jetty in Coolimba produced plenty of bites but was a bit slower than previous experiences. Caught a few herring - but these were unusually quiet of not of notable size. Popped a small weight on to see what junk fish were on the bottom and caught a small flounder - a first and very next cast some type of wrasse / cod which was as big as I've ever caught (unfortunately dead weight and very little fight). Some sand whiting around too. Tried the squid jigs but to no avail.

Packed up around 2pm for a break and watching a cray boat unload.

Headed back for the evening sessions about 4pm. A major down turn on the trip when I hit a roo with joey in pouch. It was badly hurt and the joey too young and sadly I had to put an end to things which is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. How some idiots can torture these creatures I will never understand.

Things at the jetty had gone downhill. I was already on a downer after the roo and nothing was biting except for a couple of baby pinks. No amount of burley seemed to get even the herring on the bite. The sundown session produced nothing and it was down on confidence I put out a lump of occy on the balloon. It was cold, and the insects were biting (I left my repellant in Perth!).

This is where some people are going to think I'm crazy. I noticed an orange/reddish light - looked a lot like a star - perhaps 10k or so distant. I thought it was maybe a satellite or star at first but then noticed it was making some really unusual movements. Up, down, left, right, speeding up, slowing down, speeding up. This thing started in the middle of view then made it's way toward the left hand side heading south. I thought, maybe an insect so killed all my lights but it was still there. I rubbed my eyes, thinking perhaps I was seeing things....nope, still there.

So this 'light' then proceeded north again tracking erratically back towards where it started. At this point I was a bit scared, on my own in the middle of nowhere. I kept asking myself "what the f*ck?" - but watched on in amazement. Next the light started to drop towards the horizon, as if it was now moving away at high speed. It gradually faded from sight.

I started sending a text to a mate who was on his way to meet me. Halfway through the text the drag started going on my reel.

Battled something that felt good for a couple of minutes...then started to really give it some and whatever it was let go - I didn't have the hookup. The balloon was right in front of the jetty now and there was no wind to get it back out. Waited a few minutes....and sure enough the fish came back. A few big tugs and the balloon popped. I let it run with the bait knowing that it was a big lump of occy with only the one hook so I needed to give it time to have a chew. Waited a minute or so and struck in - it felt like a hookup.

Whatever it was felt really heavy but did not have that much fight. After a bit of work I managed to get a small shark to the surface with one hell of a lot of weed attached to the bait (the extra weight). Unfortunately the shark was still not hooked and as soon as it surfaced it let go of the bait.

Cut the bait back to improve the chances of a hookup and put it back in the water, now on the bottom.

15 mins later, the light comes back. I watched it with interest for a few minutes before the drag starts creeping again. Another little battle...and whatever it was lets go.

Try again. 10 minutes pass and an aircraft is en route to the spot where I saw the light. The aircraft circles once then heads west. Clearly someone else saw it too.

The drag creeps again....a let it run for a minute or so then set the hook - this time I feel confident I'm hooked up. Within 30 seconds or so I called it for a ray, and it's about now that my mate arrives from Perth. Tell him about the 'UFO' and get laughed at, while patiently working the ray. I've still got the 120lb braid on the reel and even that was straining. The rod was at full flex trying to budge this thing and everytime I took 6 inches it took 6 feet.

Took me about 30 minutes or so to get this thing in and I was surprised to see it surface. It was one of the really big stingrays you see around the jettys up that way - a bonnet size jobby. Cut the line and let it swim. At least I got to fight something and truly test out the tackle.

We fished on for a couple of hours but nothing happening. I caught two herring on the little rod - both were really damaged fish with dodgy tails. Again, half the size of the herring I have come to associate with that area.

We decide to call it a night.

Next morning we head out early to 'Taylor Bay' just north of Leeman. Fished it for about an hour and absolutely nothing happened.

Made a call to drive to 'S Bend' for the day as we have both wanted to check it out for a long time. We stopped at Port Denison bakery for a feed - best sausage rolls in the world. Went for a look on the marina and the outside wall appeared to be teeming with fish of all sizes.

"Stuff S Bend" we proclaim. "Lets have a bash here". Long story short, we spent 10 hours on the marina south wall for a silver bream, a small trumpeter and a few juvenile pink snapper. About halfway through the day someone kindly told us that nobody ever catches anything on the 'reef' side of the marine so we switched to the inside. Went down to the point for sundown and it was interesting to note that the locals who had been down for the afternoon session were all taking off. Apparantly they knew something we didn't because nothing was on the bite all night.

Back to the house at 9pm with nothing to show for our efforts.

I'm a big believer in the lunar cycles and on the Friday the tailor and herring were mostly full of roe. Coupled with the 'dodgy' herring I caught I reckon the tailor and herring are in the middle of spawning which would explain why we caught bugger all. I will be interested to see if LB reports from other people are similar for this weekend.

The fishing was average, but the weekend was extremely eventful so I can't complain. Plus I caught my biggest fish yet...albeit a giant stingray.

hey guys,

thinking of going up to two rocks tues afternoon for a fish.or even yancep lagoon if the weather is okay...has anyone been up to two rocks lately?..whats the best spots up there?.also had a look at the weather for tues..its ene winds 5km all afternoon with wave 2.1m waves with a low tide of .75m i think...so what do you experts think of them conditions for fishing?any good

thanks guys

Well, got back from the Abrolhos on Saltwater Charters early on this week and had a great trip.

Ah, the Abrolhos, where practically every sunrise and sunset is a work of art

On the first day we started a bit of trolling and soon picked up a triple hookup of mackies. A few more passes around similar areas and we got a few more. Good to tick off (and got one on my lighter trolling gear which was fun).

and my biggest, on a chrome head richter waaaay out the back. Took heaps of line and burnt my thumb. Excellent!

We were getting too many mackies, so decided to head off bottom bouncing. Basically we spend the trip moving between bottom fish lumps, chucking poppers and stickbaits at busting up birds or trolling lures around. 

Heaps of great trout were caught, with pretty much everyone getting at least one over 3kg. Damn they pull hard. A coronation and a few tomato cods too.

A fair few pinkies were pulled up and some reasonable sized ones (but no pics on my camera). Last drift of the last night we managed to pull several pinkies off from a spot barely 100m away from the mooring.

Managed to get into quite a few spanglies with them popping up over the place like this one that smashed my plastic

and another patch on the third day where we just got spanglie after spanglie after spanglie.

Got lots of opportunities to cast at the bait being herded up against the shoals, or just birds diving at bait. We'd all have stickbaits ready and as soon as we saw bait schools, four of us were up the front chucking away. Several sharkies pulled out of them, as well as mackies and tuna, including a few YFT pushing about 6-7kg

Fish of the trip was this biiiiig kingfish out of one of the bustups. Must have been pushing almost 20kg and on 30lb line too.

Lots more fish out of bustups but didnt get pics of everything. Had one bustup with bronzies and birds smashing it. We cast a few lures but nothing hit until the bronzies swam off. After that there was a tightly bailed ball of whitebait clinging to the boat and hundreds of tuna smashing it. Lots of little mack tuna, and a few bigger stripeys to about 6kg (damn they go hard on light gear). Everyone had fun catching tuna for over half an hour as the bait school balled up against the boat. Some catching over 20 mack tuna, while others hooking into the bigger stripeys. I have some awesome footage of the baitball getting smashed but for some reason my camera sped it up parts of it when i went to view it on my computer. Weird (and annoying).

I didnt end up doing much jigging myself as for most of the days the drift speed was up a bit due to the wind (but still quite fishable) and I mostly had 80-150g jigs (really needed 200g+). Did manage to get a coral trout, a good tuna hookup that dropped me, a few mackie snips and a this dhuie though.

Oliver however, decided to try jigging for the first time and didnt take long to be rewarded with a great sized dhuie.

His jig was on fire, landing a total of 9 dhuies over the trip (and a small coral trout and pinkie). Biggest was this niced sized one of 12kg (biggest of the trip).

Oh, and i also managed to finally pick up a dollie for this season from a pack that came a marauding while we were bottom bouncing. I know its a small fish, but I love dollies so was very happy to catch one.

Oh, and the Russel Coight moment for me. Was walking up to the front of the boat to do a bit of jigging on the last day. Not the best conditions with a few whitecaps around (but still fishable at least). Stepped up on the gunnel and grabbed the rail at the front, rod and rail in one hand when a perfectly timed wave hit the boat just as i was shifting my feet, slipping over. I managed to grab onto the rail with both hands though, toes dangling in the water, rod fallen but resting safe on the walkway. Pulled myself up no problems and got on with jigging, haha. Wave coulda been a fraction later or a fraction earlier and wouldnt have been a problem, just unusual timing. Yay for reflexes though, hehe.

Not a huge number of really big fish caught, but heaps of great sized mackies, spanglies, coral trout, pinkies, dhuies, etc with pretty much everyone getting multiples of each. Geeez its tough when they're the most common species
Quite a few tuna, sharkies and good sized skippy caught too. As for crap fish, I think we got a single sargeant baker, a single scorpion fish and a few charlie courts and redthroats (which arent bad fish but went back as they werent big) and a few sambos here and there, so quality fish outweighed the others by a nice big margin.

Overall, although I didnt get many fish on jigs, I still got a heap of fish, including a fair few on plastics, and spinning surface lures. Went pretty well with the pelagics though getting a fair few species (mackie, shark mack, stripeys, YFT, sambos, dollie, skippy).

Everyone got into some decent fish (and a fair few fillets brought back) and everyone had a great time when fishing and when not. Awesome trip!

Cant wait for July!
(one spot still left )

Well, its been a pretty full on week.  Ended up going out three times for work and ended up with 1 x whale shark, 2 x sails, 2 x dollies, 30 x striped tuna in not bad conditions and also dropped one black on thursday.  Jeffo hadn't been for a fish in a while and wanted to get out there and with an arvo glass off forecast, that is what we did.  Got out there about 1.30 and trolled around for 3 hours with no joy and things were starting to get a little disheartening.  All of a sudden we found a baitball that was getting worked, upon closer inspection it had a massive shark on it (we think it may have been a white) but didn't get close enough to examine before it went down.  Seeing as it was on a current line we decided to troll along it and see what was there.  Within 10 minutes we had what we think was a billie come up and give the shotgun a smack, less than 2 minutes later we both watched an eruption on the purple shotty and bang, we watch a solid black erupt in the distance and peel off some serious line.  Waiting to get a few shots the billie decided to sit below the surface, after about 20 minutes we got a couple of small jumps, but just enough to get some evidence before it spat the hooks. We estimate it at about 110kg, but it could have been easily more than that.

Continuing on trolling we had a couple more hits, a nice hookup on a dolly and had his mate sit under the boat for 10 minutes watching the commotion (released) and then hooked up a couple of 3kg stripeys.  We had planned to do some bottom bouncing but seeing as the surface had some action we gave it a miss and focused on trying for another bill.  Unfortunately we couldn't find one, but headed in just on dark to a beautiful sunset with a school of spaniards chasing flying fish in an airborne frenzy, was a top way to finish the arvo session!  Hopefully this sort of billie action will keep up for the FW comp next weekend.

Cheers,

Adam

Well we have arrived at groote safe and sound. 4wd has arrived, and boat should be here thursday on the barge. Last 3 days have been calm, and the rain has stopped..im itching to get out for a fish. Been and checked out the boat ramp, and come across this bag limit sign. I must say they are generous up here..no more 3 month bans, yipeee!

Coupla pics from wednesdays outing. Good sized sharkies on sub-surface, goldens on plastics, and a fiesty lil black to start the morning off!

we hit the back of the islands yesterday and came up with the goods. first drift Amanda got a 45cm Red and a big Rankin double, I got a Crimson. Second drop I pulled up a 63cm Red. After that I decided to throw a jig down and scored a Coronation Trout, A first for me on jig.

It was a lucky catch as something big grabbed the trout a few metres off the bottom, after a few mins it let it go and I pulled it up just in time to get it away from a shark that was chasing it

We headed out for work today looking for dollies but all we could find were these pesky buggers.  We ended up hooking 6, landing 3 and seeing 2 freejumping sails and had one free swimming marlin cruise under the boat.  I handed over my first billy to Richo to try and get a few photos and then the lucky pink took care of the rest.  The water was cobalt blue and near glass for most of the day, awesome viewing conditions.  As I was the deckie for the day I sat and watched every billfish come in and attack the lures, was awesome to watch with the last billy absolutely smashing the lure.  We also landed 3 striped tuna and dropped a yellowfin tuna.  We were only out for 4.5 hours, it was unfortunate not to get our target, but theres always next time. :)

I managed to get a few good shots before my camera battery died.  Hope you enjoy.

They were pretty close in today.

was over rotto over the long weekend and decided to leave the boat at home as a mate was coming over for a few days anyway.

fished westend on the sunday and landed 21 salmon up to about 7 kilos and 2 ytk about 6 kilos. wearnt really schooling up just random small schools, had to troll real slow about 4 knots and were using river2sea trhio's and bombers, then casting lasers back when we hook up.  We wernt really prepared as it was a kind of a spur of the moment thing but was a bit of fun for the boys that havent really fished before.

doubt they will be hangin arround for much longer as they have broken out of there schools

cheers

Gday

Just got back from a 4 day annual trip to Wagoe. Thought it'd be a good chance to post up my first comprehensive report on the site. :)

A decent weekend weather wise was forecast, as many of you know this place can be unfishable if the weather and swell are intolerable. So we were happy to have timed it right this year.

Arrived 10:00am on the friday, settled in at the chalet had a big barbeque for lunch then headed down the track to the beach to find the wind blowing its box off with a South Easterly and a large swell. Decided it would be safer fishing from one of the sandy openings in the reef south of the reef at wagoe. Not much happened all afternoon with only a few dart finding their way to the sand.

My brother Dave (fellow fishwrecked member) decided to drop down to a smaller outfit... threw out a mulie on his 9' starlo shore spin and 20lb seido combo in order to have a bit more feel in the wash and immediately come up trumps with a 58cm 2.5kg personal best tailor. Happened to be the only one landed that evening.

Dave with a 58cm 2.5kg Tailor.

Me and my 60cm 1.75kg Swallowtail Dart.

Got to an early start 4:30am Saturday morning thought we'd fish a structured spot for a few hours off the reef at the entry to the beach. Seemed to be going slow with not alot happening off the reefs. Mulie were coming back untouched, the squid baits we casted out were only accounting for a few to many different species of cod and a small spangled emporer. Feeling hungry the guys made the choice to go back for a feed of our own.

With a large bacon, sausage and egg breakie in the stomach a few of the older blokes decided to head into Kalbarri. The younger guys took up an oppurtunity to head back down to the beach and wait for the wind to swing from a south easterly to a more capable ballooning breeze. Come 10:30am the breeze had finally changed to an eastern direction and out and about like fleeing ants we get our setups ready for the unknown. Both myself and my brother being complete novices at ballooning for macks we didnt know quite what to expect.

With immense anticipation i start to let out my helium balloon from my shimano tyrnos 30 / tiralejo combo and finds its way out about 400m offshore. Having not ballooned for mackies before on prevoius trips to wagoe we were there to primarily learn just how to go about it. Dave started letting out his skipping gardie from his daiwa sealine/ live fibre lbg combo no further than 100m-150m. A half our in his balloon hits the water and his line goes limp. Not knowing whats going on he begins reeling in profusely. Immediately after he starts retrieving some limp line we see the balloon snap and sail off into the distance and thus realises he has missed a chance to strike as the fish has already taken the rigged gardie and the hooks from his trace. A steep learning curve, undiscouraged we now have some vital knowledge for the next day.

My gardie remains untouched for 2 hours so we decide to pack up and head out to see if any one else had any luck with the easterly. A few blokes camping the north side of the reef faired well with 2 spanish mackerel landed that morning half an hour apart.

Sunday morning we are greeted with a lightning show as we hit up another spot on the reef. Flood lights glaring out onto the reef and what felt like a terential downpour we realised the flat yet stormy conditions allowed us and many other weekenders to produce fish from the reef this early morning. With a soft easterly all morning conditions looked favourable for a great days fishing. Immediately from the get go our squid baits were getting hit after hit every cast. A few small tailor were landed, huge skipjack trevally put on a great fight on the rocks as did the painted sweetlip, large spangled emporer, and another thumper dart of 61cm. 

Bruno with a 61cm Swallowtail Dart 

With all this unexpected great fishing commotion going on i forget to keep an eye on the water. As a large swell comes over the ledge and sends me floating a 1m or so back over the oysters on the reef i suddenly realize i have simultaneously hooked onto something worth my attention as the 50lb braid starts screaming from the spool of my spheros. This unexpected suprise was putting my 12' tiralejo under some major stress. Everytime it would stop running and i thought i had the upperhand in the battle it would see the reef and decide to run further. After a good 5 minute tug'o'war and a 100m dash along the side of the reef on rockhoppers in the limited morning light, i catch a glimpse of a tail slapping the surface of the water. A quick dash over and a hand around the fork of the tail and i had captured my first ever amberjack. What a thrill.

 Captured 86cm 5kg Amberjack

A mate of mine finally hooked another species we had been unsuccesfully targeting all weekend. With big bust off after bust off during the weekend he finally turned his luck and persisted with his light 10' spin setup. Managing to outsmart an over aggresive head shaking fish of considerable weight, he dangled at the risk of his own life in the whitewash of a dangerous rock dropoff. Out goes a large shout "PINKY" he finally landed that pink snapper everyone was after.

Daniel with his 46cm 2kg Pink Snapper

Come 8:00am my old man sends out the 1st of 3 balloons we have in the tackle box. Before the gardie has a chance to venture out no more than 100m the balloon takes to the water. This time he gets a head start and started retrieving line fast as he makes sure we wont be made a fool of twice. The rod loads up, with a bit of weight he sets the reel to strike and off flys the balloon with the drag screaming for the deep blue. After a short 10 minute tussle of drag screaming and short bursts he finally gets the fish to the reef only to discover the fish has one last dash left in him and makes for covered ground amongst the reef. Another failed attempt at gaffing and landing our first land based mack. While this had been happening i had setup my outfit ready for another assault only to find my earlier fortune elude me as my baloon some how gets dragged into the edge of the reef and bursts leaving the group with the one and only last balloon.

My old man once again decides to take control of the situation and sets up the rod and balloon. We all watch as the gardie starts to skip out further and further from the shore line. Once again no more than 100m the balloon takes to the water. STRIKE!! We're on.... Having never experienced anything of this sort before he decides that we all take turns to fight the mackie and gain knowledge for next year as the fight lasts an exciting 15 minutes. Before the mack gets to the ledge of the reef, i decide to hand the rod back to my father as any responsibility for losing this fish would then be placed on him. With a laugh he takes the rod... 5 or so minutes go by as he attempts to wear it out. Around the reefs ledge taking extra precaution not to miss out on this our last attempt, my brother manages to gaff it first shot.

My old man with our 8kg Spanish Mackeral

Success! Our first capture of a Spanish Mackeral from the land. What an eventful weekend. Surely an unforgettable expierience and another fishing story to be shared between a few coldies in the future. Excuse me if i have ranted on a bit, but as you can probably tell experiences like this fills the average fisho full of exstatic emotion. These experiences are no doubt what keeps myself and you so involved in the recreation of fishing.

Thanks for reading.

Rob

Hi all i have lived here for a few years and the family has come up for 2 weeks. 
they got here saturday arvo and out we went.  in 3 hours we managed to raise 4 billies, lost 1 marlin and landed 1 sail. 
day 2 we got a few goldies out in 150m and raised 1 billy and in all got 10 stripe tuna all reliest. 
day 3 up to the islands we got 4 snapper and a 7m whale shark that swam around the boat for about 40mins. 
so far they are loving exxy and booking for next year already.  today is a lay day out in the gulf squidding. 
sorry no pics just yet, getting them soon. 
jeff