Thought i would share some photo's from  my weekend away from Perth.

Spent Friday night at Lucky bay and Saturday night at Dongara.

Below are the photo's from Dongara.

Tailor were on the bite for the first half of the night and Soapies for the remainder.

Hope you enjoy the photo's

Kris

sweltering conditions on monday convinced me to head out to garden for a swim and abit of a squid session, after a nice swim and about 45mi of squiding we had 3 nice size squid in the tank, to my surprize a dolphin came along side the boat stuck is head out of the water looking for food i moved here from sydney about 10 months ago and this is not something that happens everyday so my wife, son and myself were very excited we hand fed the dolphin on fresh squid and fish for about 15min which is one of the most amazing things to happen to us on the water just wondering is this a common accurence in wa or we just lucky to find a friendly dolphin

cheers warren 

started the weekend on saturday at woodman point boat ramp at about 2pm headed straight to garden island for some squids after about an hour had 5 nice size squids in the bait tank so decided to head out to rotto for an afternoon dive to see what was around no crays wich was disapointing so called it a day anchored up had a nice bbq and a sleep to head out for a fish first light wind was abit disapointing early morning but died off about 9am, wind was coming from the east so decided to start drifting off westend in about 30 meters drifting west wasn,t long before the fish started biting by time we got to about 50 meters we managed 2 baldchin gropers around 45-50cm, 2 undersize snapper, 2 undersize duies, 3 monster sweep,1 cod, 2 red sapper, a few in red fish in sydney we call perch, plenty of wrasse, and to my suprise a nice size chinaman i thought you only catch them up north a good weekend plenty of fish and beautiful conditions.

hope the weather is the same this weekend

cheers warren

Yesterday ( Tuesday ) we decided to spend the day down the beach with Alex to get his Competition entries rolling in and we had a pretty good day.
We started out going straight to Learmonth Jetty for High tide which is normally pretty good for a few Trevors and Queenies. We got down there and the water was still pretty murky in places . I normally net a heap of hardy heads for bait but there was none a decent size, plenty of them but they were all too small so we got out the bait chaser rigs and used the little ones with smaller hooks...lol .

Well it did the trick as fast as i could get the hardy's the family were pulling in the queenies, there were plenty there!! we lost a fair few on lures , as well as a couple of mackies and some GT's. There was plenty of action in the water including a manta ray and some sharks as usual.

Alex ended up with 4 Queenies , the missus caught 2 and released them and i got 3 and released them all as well. Axel ( the little brother ) just stop there eating..lol.

A very good day was had by all and no doubt off there again within the next few days.

Jeff

Went for a run out the back off Rottnest chasing tuna schools last Sunday in near perfect conditions, apart from a few fast moving fish in close on the south west side of the island it was pretty quiet plus all the floating weed was making it difficult . Decided to bottom fish and sounded around in 40/50 metres, after a bit of exploring for a good hour trying to understand how my new FCV 620 Furuno works properly ( heaps to learn) found a great fluctuation and set up for a drift which yielded 2 nice dhuies both around 6-7kg plus a just undersize pinky. It was so calm I could not resist going out further towards the closest FAD approx 10km away. Noticed a cluster of boats jigging and went in for a look, not crazy about sambo jigging but it was interesting to watch for an hour and see how it works. Saw around 12 fish hooked up ranging from what looked around 20-30kg down to 5kg. Went off trolling skirts back towards the island - all quiet. Pulled in to Geordie Bay for a swim and a burger then skimmed back to Freo on glassy water - a great solo trip out on the water!

After a gentle ribbing from Daz (DazSamFishing) in another post, I made the offer to take him down to Harvey to see how we would go with the trout and marron and to show him that I can (and do) actually catch fish despite not posting pics.

We picked Sunday hoping it would be a bit quieter, but hadn't planned on the blisteringly hot weather. The trout were definitley not interested, but luckily the redfin hurled themselves at our lures one after the other after the other!

Didn't really catch anything worth bragging about in the redfin category, some we caught were barely bigger than the little scorpion 38's we were trolling!! In the end we caught about 15 redfin and dropped maybe another 5 - 10? The best hit we had all day was nearing the end of the day when it had cooled off a little - Daz's outfit got hit and this fish took drag from his Stradic 5000 with a fairly taught drag setting - hallelujah I thought, we are finally going to bring a trout to the boat. But then the line went limp and the dream was over. In the end, we never boated a trout, but I bet that dropped fish is still haunting Daz (I know it's still annoying me!).

With the sun setting, we then layed our chook pellets out and had a few beers waiting for the baits to do their job. We then started our rounds, checking the baits. First run, we got to the first bait and just as we shone the torch down, ping off it shot. Not a big one, but its shocked Daz at how quickly it took off. He was expecting it to be a bit easier and the marron to be somewhat more lethargic in their escape efforts!  We checked a few more baits only to have yet another small ones shoot off as we were walking up to the bait. Encouraging I thought, at least they are about. We then did our second run and I had a very small mnarron sitting on one of our close baits, got the noose in position, edged him back beautifully, but due to its tiny size I wasn't quick enough to get the noose shut on it. Disappointed but happy that at least the marron were around - or so it seemed. That was it, last marron we saw for another 2 hours of checking baits. Bit of a let down with the early indications of them being around, so we jumped in the boat and motored around to the ramp and called it a night.

Highlights: crabs I caught the day before for lunch, Little Creatures Rogers we consumed while trolling, daz getting his first redfin. 

Lowlights: lack of trout and marron, pinjarra bakery was shut so we couldn't get any carrot cake.

Anyone got tips or suggest a better place to go??

whats rigs and bait work well

A mate of mine works for Fisheries research and said he's needing fresh frames (tissue samples) especially Hapuku and Bass Groper. He's studying the Biology & Genetics so I said any excuse will do, we'll get out on the next best day. Monday's weather was looking sweet so off we went, fished the deepwater but had to find the buggers!

My mates second drift/attempt with 3 big baits going down, result a triple header of Hapuku;

Two were similar size, the other a bit smaller (not in picture), the biggest Puka (weighed) 16kg;

I did a few drifts after that, with missing the fish/drift & them just not bitting so I went and looked for them again and dropped on top of em...jiggy jig jiggy jig and whamo i'm on!

Bass Groper weighed 26kg on Sanme jig!

Was a magnificent day on the water, much cooler out there and an easy ride in!

A mate had spoken about a guaranteed feed of whiting behind carnac at a particular depth. "Just find the water at XXm deep, directly behind carnac and u'll be straight onto em, guaranteed."

Well on the way out we saw a heap of bird working the surface and i was keen to give it a go, as i have never really done any of that sort of fishing. raiding trough the miscellaneous section of the tackle box, and managed to find a 4" stick bait lure that i thought would do the job. Coasted up to the action and cut the engine. Worked the lure hard for 20 mins with no hook ups. Very frustrating when i could see the little tuna right infront of me, following the lure but not striking. finally managed to nail one and get him into the boat. little tuna at 40cm. Little schools kept popping up all over the joint and we  kept playing chasiey with them, picking the drift and stopping just short of the action and drifting through it before the disappeared to the deep only to resurface  100m away in 2 different directions. 

A huge bit of action was spotted "just over there". My Mate Jemma was behind the wheel and she dropped me right on the action (she's a much better deckie that any of the boys). By this time i had switched to a small halco slice in a bid to replicate what they were feeding on. amongst the tuna where a heap of YTK at a respectable 60 to 80cms. hooked another tuna. in the eski and back to it. got a solid hook up right next to the boat and i could see it was a sizable YTK, I was surprised at how little fight he put up, considering i was only on 2kg line and as i reached for the landing net... POP. a bust off. So much for the lack of fight, probably didn’t realise he was hooked until the bust off. Very disappointing. I knew that drag was set too tight. No one to blame but me.

Try as we might we chased the school around for 2 hours in total and only managed 2 fish. It was an awesome sight to see these fish right at the boat and following the lures but very frustrating not to convert to strikes et alone hook ups.

Anyway, change of tactic and off to hit some whiting...... and it was a total non event. not a one.

So home ward bound with only a hand full of squid and a couple of little tuna in the eski; but I'm glad to have put another species on the board albeit with the frustration on nearly putting 2 species on the board. I also saw my first flying fish. Great day in all. beats going to work on a Monday.

Now to the questions. Has anyone had any success with casting into these schools and if so, what sort of lures where you using and what breaking strain line would be best?

Also, has anyone stumbled onto schools of tuna in that area that are bigger than 40cm?

And lastly is it a good idea to bleed out tuna as soon as they are caught? I didn't think about it all the excitement of all the fish exploding around the boat and when i went to fillet them, i found the flesh around the lateral line very bloody. Haven’t cooked them yet thou.

If anyone needs a deckie or a boat to go and chaise tuna, drop me a PM. I'm keen to learn. Cheers

Adam

yay a weekend off :)

glad the weather was getting better today so the decision was made to go catch a few more tuna and see if the bottom fish would play today .. and what a day it was :)

left the marina late (8am) as the weather was starting off a little crap but getting better as the day went on. we headed out the 30mile to get to nato reef straight up as my dad has never caught a tuna before so that was my main object for the day. when we got there the chop and swell was still up so the tuna where hard to find so i decided to have a few drifts for demersals.

things started off a little slow untill my dad got a nice k.g in 37m, so i made the call to drop the pick and was rewarded with 2 more big k.g's a huge fathead and a very solid baldy. after things slowed down i saw a pack of birds diving so i made the crew wind up to have some fun. i set the lures for a quick troll on 8kg gear and hooked up to 2 tuna in less than a 5 minutes . as we delt with these guys the rest of the school mad camp under the boat again so out cam the bream gear :) my dad got one on 8lb gear and a smilin jack - that was bloody funny as it took 10 minutes to land.

after getting a few tuna we made a run for the reef and bashed around for a while for nothing :(

i decided to sound around a little more in areas id never been to and found a really nice lump that screamed dhu's so the other 2 guys dropped down patternoster rigs while i goofed around with some new gear i wanted to try. within seconds they both hooked up to solid fish and up came a good dhu and a large queen snapper.. not to be out done i had got my "gear" ready and with a laugh for the crew dropped down a little zest jig on pe2 gear and within 3 lifts had some serious weight on my poor little rod ... and the rest is in the picture :)

my first ever jigged demersal ... woohoo :) .. got to thank ryan and honsu for the gear and advise (was landed on pe2/certate hyper 4000/eupro pe1.5-3 twincraft rod) 

hi all sorry no pics as we all had no phones and no cameras (bugger thats for sure). i went out with a friend for exxy for a trip out off tantabidi for a fish,we went straight out and got a dolly in the first 5 mins of lures in (a great start) off the passage ,trolled for 20 mins and nothing,we got to the spot and pulled the lures in and there was a sailfish ,so we put a skirt back in and the sail started chasing ,after 1 min no hook up (bugger)so we went back and got 2 goldband and went to the next spot .it was afue miles way so out went the lures again As wew were trolling down we passed the Reel Teaser ( charter boat ) so i thought we would be on the fish , so with in another 5 mins a marlin grabbed our short corner and shot off and had a coupe of jumps and spat the lure ( bugger ) so kept on trolling passed out spot by a bout 3 miles as we had a good piece of hot water. In that time we lost another Marlin and coming back up to our hot spot in 80m a sailfish chased our lures for a good minute and a half but didn't hook up ( bugger again ) Nothing on the last spot except a pan sized Pinky , went back in for a swim inside the reef and that was the day over!! Totally tally 2 Dollies , 2 Goldband and a Pinky , awesome day for a friends new boat. Thanks Cliff

Jeff

Went for a crab session with the kids this morning. Very impressed with the amount of crabs around. We got our boat limit of 20 in 90 minutes
Rosco

Here's my very first angry red fish coming in right on 50cm. To say I was stoked would be an understatement. Weren't able to stop a few others going under the category of 'unstoppable' but hey, that's fishing.

Here are some pics from the rest of the trip.

The last pic is of me hooked up to 1 of 3 8ft+ sharks on a little Curado and 15lb braid while chasing mullaway 

Thanks for looking.

went shark fishing off ocean reef last night didnt get any big ones - 1xbronzie about a metre long

                                                                                               - 1x massive electric numb ray

                                                                                               - couple of snook and a squid

pictures later wen can be bothered retreiving camera from boat etc

Hi guy's

Just back from Walpole/gracetown for chrissy with the family so throwing up a few pics. Bear in mind this wasn't a fishing holiday so only got the line in a few times :(.

It's been some 17years since i was last at Walpole but the place is pretty much the same as i remembered it. We stayed at rest point caravan park which was in an awesome spot. After not fishing at Gracetown i was keen to wet a line and first morning at Walpole i jumped up early to sneak off for a fish but realised i had forgotten to get any bait. I thought stuff it and went anyway scabbing around the rocks for crabs and stuff. I managed to get two small bream around 250mm as a double hookup and after a quick pick they both swam off strong. With the weather so nice it was a little dissapointing not to have the boat but good to get back to basics and remember where my passion for fishing started.

So after a couple more days sight seeing and doing family stuff like the tree top walk, bush hiking, reptile park etc, etc it was time to take the kids for a fish. We headed out to the only spot i know in Walpole whish is out on the knoll past coalmine beach on rocky point. There were heaps of fish but they were only small. The bigger kids lost interest pretty fast but my young fella Kyle, who's 4, was having a ball and was about to make dad look fairly ordinary. I cast his river prawn out and went to bait my rod when his buckled over i could see it was a decent fish so i grabbed the camera for a couple of snaps. He was stoked with his bream that was 360mm. As we were getting ready to go and didn't have any other keepers for a feed, i talked him into to letting it go.

I got a chance to go back with out the kids and my mate and i had a ball with a fish a cast. There were many small fish but we got a couple of very nice bream in the mid 30's but it was the skippy that stole the show with half a dozen plump ones in the esky for a feed my friend got a cracker that was easily over a kilo, unfortunatley we didn't bring the camera. Then it was back home to have a feed and feed stumpy the stingray the scraps.

Cheers

Ryan

Hi every one me and a couple of mates headed to kalbarri for 7 days ova christmas and hired the 7.8m walk around from laurie at murchison boat hire . As we rolled ova the hill into the town the wind looked bad and gave us worrien thought of not bein able to fish but talked to the bloke at the tackle shop and he informed us it would blow itself out by the mornin . We launched early and went for a troll along the cliffs to get nothing so we headed ova to sand patch and got some good hits which end up bein spotted mackrell and small long tail tuna which was a good wind up for the days ahead .The next couple of days where amazing as we headed a bit further north just past sand patch and started trolling in about 23m when we started getting smashed by spanish mackrell triple hook ups one quad hook up landing all the fish all around 10 to 12kg this happened every day bagging out on fish before 10 o clock we went home with so much mackie meat handed round to friends every one loves it sent in a heap of photos to laurie at murch boat hire so the will be in the next news letter and he emailed me and said since we left hardly no one has seen and mackies

Hi

Am heading up to moore river next week for a couple of nights, wondering whats on the go up there at the moment?

Havent fished there before so any info is greatlyy appreciated.

Thanks

Tom

just wondering if anyone has been fishing blackwall lately going there sat night on the boat wondering what to expect?

Went for an overnighter to Rotto with Tiiimbo on Wednesday, with conditions looking good for that day we headed towards West End with the plan of jigging and dropping sp's for demersals. Armed with some cray info off Bodie (cheers mate!) we dropped off the pots and got some lures out to troll towards the lumps after hearing reports of tuna and mackies, I put a skirt out and Tiiimbo chucked out an X-Rap (i think mate correct me if I am wrong) Tiiimbo struck well on the lure and landed a nice one and had me changing to an X-Rap as well. Only problem was our noisy 2 smoke kept sending the schools we spotted down even with a wide circle, so we changed tactics and got up wind and then drifted towards them.... time for light gear fun! Tim's got a yo zuri popper in on the action which got serious attention and I went with the trusty slice which also went well. We had a ball forgot about demersals and buggered off back to Thompsons when the onshore got too much and hit the quokka arms for some sneaky pints.

Pics to come later this arvo and if anyone that is keen to jump on board to jig or drop sp's for demersals send either of us a pm we are keen to learn the fine art.

Cheers,

Lamby 

hey guys, anyone been catchin taylor along the metro coast? i been to floreit drain about 12 times in the last few weeks and there has been nothing. 

just got back from pippidinny and got a few 35cm tailor.  nothing special tho.

has anyone been doing anygood in the swan lately?? i have heard of a few tailor been caught but not till 3 in the morn

Well we (the family) took another trip up to Kalbarri hoping for some nice fish arrived 21Dec left 06Jan.

We towed the big boat up and got it all setup bearings checked, engine serviced, some minor upgrades tweeked before the trip.

Anyway boat fished the whole time apart from chasing whiting from the banks of the Murchison.

Up early, each day tying something a bit different, travelled up to the sand patch, on further to bald face, down the cliffs to Wagoe.

We  trolled Wagoe to Bald Face and everything in between, the picture on the sounder attached, was last day I think, down at Wagoe in 30m, we had 30 water

under the boat 15 m of bait and STILL couldn't catch.

In all our tally for the trip, one size flathead, two small flatties thrown back, one undersize pinkie went back and two NW blowies.

The boat ran a treat with the new engine and we did 30 plus miles per day spent 30 to 50 in fuel per day depending on where we went and the fuel used,

i was averaging about 10 L/hr trolling or cruising which I thought was good.

Unfortunately we just didn't get the fish, but we had a ball, learned heaps about the boat, spent hours sussing out the smartcraft engine management on the sounder and getting to know the best trim and speeds for the boat in following or head on seas, came back from Wagoe at 28 to 30knts with a following sea on about a two meter swell

and it was comfortable. And slowly got to learn about the sounder. On the pic attached I'm sure it's showing some predators below that bait school but we just lucked out...

One of the things to look at here was just how much we spent, how much money we put into the local community in fuel, accommodation, groceries, bait, etc....

It's amazing the impact the tourists have on these communities in funds.

I knew the Tailor were running and my Brother in law and his son got (10) on their first morning at Wittecarra. We persisted with the boat. 

And my eldest would say, "I like just being out here", so it gave us plenty of time to relax,

we sussed out launching and landing the boat in all sorts of winds and conditions at the ramp and got that down to a fine art.

Maybe next time we'll get some fish. ;)

Headed out on saturday morning early for a fish.  Headed out behind Carnac and tried fishing the bombies/near the cray pots, tried about 5 different locations between 12-19mts.  Caught heaps of Wrasse/Rock Cod but nothing worth keeping.  Went to a whiting spot closer to Garden Island as a last stop before heading in.  I changed rigs to a running sinker on the main line and couple of longshanks on the mainline.  Got the burley cage out and within 5 mins we were into some skippy.  We caught about 12 in the next 20 mins or so, including two double hookups on my line, but I dropped one of the fish boatside on the first.  I landed the second double header in the boat to find that the strain had turned my leader into a clockspring. Bloody good fun fighting fish on light gear and good to finally catch something worthwhile.  We kept five skippy all around 35cm and chucked back all the others which were between 28-34cm.

No photos sorry:/

Having nothing to do in the arvo after church, decided to go and wet a line. So I brought my housemate (who doesn't fish at all, but loves to eat fish), up river of the swan. Got there at about 1700hrs and set up shop. Pretty quiet for the first hour with a few tugs and 1 undersized (24cm) black bream being pulled up. We moved away from the jetty as a bunch of kids were making a nuisance of themselves by being really noisy and jetty jumping into the water. My housemate hooked up a black bream (23cm) from the bank of the river, his first bream caught. 

The kids then cleared the jetty and I decided to go back on there and cast along the walk way nearer the bank of the river. First cast and waited. BAM!!! Something took off and I pulled it in, a 30cm black bream. Sweet! A keeper! My housemate then went to the spot I was at and cast in the same direction and BAM! another 28cm black bream was pulled up. After that, we fished around that spot but all went quiet.

So I concluded that the bigger bream don't tug and test the bait but they just take the whole thing and run. Not sure if this is true but seems to be, or maybe it's just because of the bait that I used. Cos I switched halfway. 

Was a good day out eventually with 2 fresh fish for tea.

We smeared 1 with teriyaki sauce and the other with tom yum paste and chucked them in the oven for about 12 minutes. Yummy!

My mate from Sydney & I were fortunate enough to book in a last minute spot on Al Bevan's boat on Saturday. My mates charter trip was axed (not naming the charter) because they've concluded that Sambo's have 'moved on' & it's not worthwhile targeting them...

Our first stop was in 100m's & we were all onto Sambo's within moments (nothing large all day, biggest going low 20's). The best fish was bitten in half by a shark.

The weather was too good to stick around in close, so we all agreed to head wider in search for some deep water ooglies.

We jigged the 170m line & 230m line & only ended up with a couple of good size snapper (pinkies). I hooked & lost something reasonable in 230m's, but I was confident it was a rat sambo. The jackets were around (lost several assist hooks & jigs).

Al got a few good bass grouper the previous few days, but unfortunately we didn't have any luck on this occasion.

Dollies were spotted at one of the FAD's (Al hooking & losing 1 on a lucanus jig). Tuna are also around out wide.

It was a great day out & I'm looking forward to another deep water adventure.

Pics will come in due course.

Daz

Just got back from Exmouth last night after a great trip with pretty ordinary weather but a few good fish. (Can’t get lucky every January…The last 4 trips in January have been glass) The game plan was to get my son Joseph (12) and my Nephew Michael (15) into some good fish and get their arms stretched a bit while initiating them in the sport of game fishing Exmouth style.

Arrived on the 2nd, unpacked and headed straight out to the Gulf to give them their sea legs and troll up some dinner. Plenty of little School Macks cooperating and dinner was caught.
3rd of January just happened to be the best day for weeks in Exmouth (our neighbors had been up for a week already and not gotten out once!!) so it was up at 5.00am and off to Tantabiddi. The weather conditions did not disappoint with the boys catching Wahoo, Mackies, Dollies and Cobia. Arm stretching 101 was in full swing. No Billfish but we did see a Marlin jump out the water feeding on flying fish.

The rest of the week turned to SHITE with most days blowing 22knots plus! We still fished Tantabiddi every day with 5.00am starts except one (where we went 16km’s up the gulf for little reward) Tantabiddi was hard going but the kids caught a lot of fish for their efforts and determination in rough conditions.

Highlights for the week were double hookups on Wahoo, A huge Rankin for my brother Shane trolling an XRap, A Mackie caught on the 850 Penn that went 18kg when weighed back at the ramp gutted and cleaned, Michael casting to a Dolly with 850 Penn and hooking and landing it, Big Cobia and Macks for the boys, A shark taking an XRap in its mouth and getting our lure back, a 9 foot shovel nose on a lacunas jig, a hot Spanglie session in 2 metres of water where most of them went well over 60cm, a huge Chinaman for my cousin Marco on a flick rod with 8kg line and a Barracuda on the eggbeater that was close to 6 feet long!

It was a tough week at the office with a few bruises and scratches to remind us but the boys had an initiation of fire to the awesome fishing that Tantabiddi has to offer . They loved the heat, loved Exmouth and loved having their arms stretched passing “Arm Stretching 101” with flying colours......Just Quietly.

I was hoping to catch up with Adam up there and buy some merchandise but we fished all day every day so another thing on the “to do list”. Will post some pictures as soon as I download them. Off to unpack the boat now. Tight Lines.
Rosco

Well last night I headed down to "Secret Spot X" with the lads to pick up some tastey treats and get some exercise wading the shallows. The forecast was for some wind during the beginning of the night so out came the mega prawn light. It's so much easier to see things with a light under the water when theres chop instead of trying to shine your light through it.

2 x Prinecton Tech Shockwave LED dive lights = 800 lumens of power! Rigged up on a shovel handle for easy manouvering. Works a treat!

Weapons of choice when it comes to the crabs!

Well the forecast was right and it was pretty windy and the water was really murky until we got out further, but it wasn't long until things turned on!

Double header of nice sizers!

The beers were quickly replaced with crabs. Lots of crabs!!! It didn't take too long (4 hours.. time flys when you're having fun!) to all get our limit (many mouths to feed!) so we left them biting until next time. The size is definately bigger now with the average being over 140mm. Still plenty of undersize ones around too. Things are looking healthy! Also got a few small prawns to tickle the taste buds!

Mmmm tastey!!!

Rallying the troops for dinner! Come along now!

My share of the bounty. It's good times to be able to head out and get a feed of some of the tastiest sea creatures around right on our doorstep! 0 ten is going to be a good year!

At around 7am this morning my mate hooked onto something when fishing for tailor? just wondering if its worth fishing there with heavier gear? any thoughts..

On wednesday headed out to the back of rotto as the weather was lookin good.

First started with a troll around the containers with out much luck. Hit a patch of boats and sure enough the sambo's where on the bite. Dad used baits and he managed a few sambo's however his rig kept getting sharked. I dropped a sea-rock jig to pull my first sambo of the day. got busted off a fair few times but we managed to get a few. All sambo's where released to fight another day as they where quite big.. and all swam back down (we did have to chase after one which was on the surface.. but we managed to get him swiming strong and off he went). Nearly got pulled in by a sambo as i used my new tyrnos 50 II speed with bait and i had the drag up to high (bloody good reel, tho not suited to that style of fishin). Every plastic dropped got cut clean off at the middle of 150kg leader (im asuming sharks).

After blue juice came to join in on the action, we decided we had enough of the sambo's and moved on to try and troll tuna. after about 400m of trolling with a christmas tree and a 13cm williamson pusher, we had a double hook up. landed one.. the other got off. kept trolling and kept geting striped tuna. on one troll we hooked up big.. something bigger then the strippies maybe longtail im not sure but due to my own stupidity and bad luck once at the side, the tuna decided to head straight for the prop. after a bit more trolling i hooked another stripy and at the side of the boat dad accidently gaffed my rod tip.. snap!

on the way home stopped on some lumps in the 50's first drop produced a dhufish which was released to fight another day. All in all awsome day out on the water only kept 2 tuna's (mum makes really good canned style tuna)

Flat as:

firsts for the day:

Tuna/snapped rod:

Weather looked great on seabreeze and bom.gov was good considering they are usually pretty conservitave. Headed from Port Bouvard around 6 with my lovely wife Kelly & 4 keen customers, with 240 degrees on the compass I eased the big girl up to 2700rpm and a comfortable 20kts and sat back with my coffee contemplating the day ahead.

Some birds worked a bait school and the tuna broke the surface so we pulled up for a quick troll to get the day started. The small school soon went back into the depths and we dicided to continue empty handed.

Arrived at our destination in 42m (a couple of patches of ground that had been productive for us in the past) deployed the lines and quickly picked up a nice pinkie, black arse, kgw and a few other randoms. Good to see the other boats in the vicinity come over to say gday and see how we are going, usually doing a lap around our boat just out of 16oz sinker throwing range (b@#$%^&s). After a boat set up a drift straight in front of us we pulled up and moved.

A quick 15min steam put us at the 50m where a couple of long drifts to the south put a couple of dhuies in the esky and a couple released sucessfully with the release weight. Kelly did battle with something that looked real good, pulling hard with some short runs. Up comes a sting ray from the depths, a first for her and she described it as wierdest fighting thing she had caught.

Headed back in to 40m but a lot further south than before and caught a harliquin fish, queen snapper, kgw and released another undersize dhuie. Almost time to head in and and one of the customers informs me he had never caught a dhuie before and it was on his wish list. Moved to a spot we call DC (dhuie central) and dropped in for 1 last drift. Double hookup, the dhuie virgin knocked his over pretty quick and he was no longer dhuieless, a fine 56cm version was secsessfully released by kelly while I struggled with my beast. After a good fight the fish broke the surface and revealed itself as a fine speciman of a dhufish. The big fella pulled the scales down to 16kg and was shared between the two people that didnt have a dhufish in the esky.

 A good day on the water, happy customers and the skipper with the fish of the day!