Had a mixed day out today.

Matt had something come up and couldn't make it so I headed out on my own, was on the water late at 10am and started out for the Hillaries FAD instead of the Derwent. Already with HYC FAD I was cutting it close with my afternoon commitments, but I figured it would be worth the trip even if it was just to see if the mahi were in.

The wind was starting to blow abit and the swells were huge but far apart, so it made for a easy ride out, infact, considering the conditions, the hull only slapped a few of times on the way out when I ran out of water, when a wave rolled away from under me. I managed to head out at 23-24knots and stayed dry.

About 24 nm out, I saw something that got me all excited! I can across a large weed clump ( about the size of two cars and it also contained the vital ingredient for mahi - a buoy with some rope still attached! I slowed and circled the clump looking for tell tale signs that there were larger fish underneath, then I saw it. A quick flash of a fish coming out to inspect me! I didn't get a good look but I did see something and that was good enough for me! The sounder showed a few fish under the boat, so I baited a hook and at the same time threw a few cubes of mulies over. When I looked up from cutting the mules, I saw a few small mahis taking the cubes.

I tossed the baited hook over and bang, I was on! Only problem was ........ there were all still tiny. I didn't even bother to measure, I knew they were all undersized. I was hoping that there would be some larger ones mixed into the school, but no luck.

I can't figure out why the mahi are so late this year and still so small. Anyone have any clues?

I only did a few drifts and when it was clear that none of the bigger ones (if they were there) wanted to play, I started in. Stopped at what I called my YFT mark and drifted a bait. I got a couple of taps then a solid hook up. I was on, good fight and all, then I got colour. Sigh! Sambo.............

Headed back after that. On the way in, the wind went south. The swells got larger and longer apart and this is where I had the most fun.....

I managed to average 35 knots SOG all the way in! Not bad for a boat that tops out at 32 knots on mill pond days! I just surfed the swells. I realised the swells were moving very fast and I don't recall exactly, but I rode only about 10 waves in total and before I knew it, I was back in at OR! Not one slap, the smoothest ride I have had since I got the boat here. It was like surfing the waves back in Hawaii.

Was a great boating day for me.

Two questions.

1) I don't see weed clumps out here, in fact today's was the first one I have seen. Why is this?

2) How did everyone else do?

Thursday saw me packing the car to head down to Hamlin for our annual salmon trip.

I was packed and ready to leave at 6 just in time time to still be stuck in the Traffic from the narrows all the way through to Roe H/way.
Rest of the traffic waas nice and quiet.

As it was my b/day, I thought it to be great to head down to the boat ramp, sit around, listen to a few tunes and have a vouple of nice quiet ales. Well someone had other idea. Light showers the whole way down and constant drizzle when I got the hamlin bay boat ramp.

So it was a comfy night trying to sleep in the car, yeph right, upright in the drivers seat. Sad.

Friday morning after a very poor sleep I woke up at 6, still dark but no rain.
I was out of the car and getting my rods and boat ready.
Sure enough, as I was ready it started to rain.
Isolated showers was the forecast so I knew it wouldnt be long.

Hmm how wrong was I.

6 hours later of me just sitting in the car reading the paper, doing the cross word, reading the weather, doing the puzzles, checking the weather yup isolated showers, isolated showers my arse.

1 oclock the rain stopped for long enough to get out and stretch.
I was ment to be meeting friends around this time but they were no where to be seen.

Stuff it, Ill go out for a look.
Quick launch the boat head out a way only to remember I had put the bait back in the freezer when it had started to rain.
"$%#)* ^$*@@#@ $*#&# "

Trolled around for a while with no luck.
Saw loads of dolphins but little else.

Headed back in hoping to find my mates but nope they still hadnt rolled up.
3pm I headed out to the Karridale tavern just to see if they had gotten stuck. Smile Nope not there so headed to the beach track to see if they were on the beach.

Who was I to meet coming out of the track. yup, mates had just got there and had done a lap of hte beach to look for me.

The track had a bit of work sinceI had been there. Erossion control mounds that made the drive in very insteresting towing the trailer.

Did a lap of the beach to find a likely looking spot.
Set up the tarp and through in some line to wait, and wait we did.

A few Herring and crabs were the only thing biting.
Our other mates rocked up a little after 10pm as the had to work Friday.

Oh well nice night anyway, stars are out, after having plenty of beers crashed for the night.
Well untill it started to rain and my dodgy swag was getting me wet so it was back in the drivers seat to sleep.

Saturday had the surf up with no chance of a beach launch, the track was so crappy I wasnt going to head out until it was time to go home so beach fishing it was.

Saw a big school of Salmon heading south through the bay but were well out of casting range.
We did manage to get 3 stragglers just after the school went past.

The south wester was blowing a heap of weed in, you couldnt leave your line out for more than 5 mins without tangling up heap of weed. Any longer than ten mins and the surf was making some really nasty tangles.

After a day of catcing half a ton of weed only one of us was tempted to fish after the sun went down. That was short lived as reeling in the weight of the weed snapped his line.

So it was beer time until crashing, with the clouds total covering the sky, no chances this time. passenger side with space made to recline made for a semi decent sleep.

Sunday dawned and it was time to pack up.
Mate had a home open in the afternoon so we had to leg it early.

3 salmon, a dozen herring and 6 sand crabs.
Not a bad effort for 6 people fishing for 2 day.

I was really surprised by the lack of anything else. we usually get a number of rays, sharks, shovel noses and skippy but they didnt even put in an appearance.

Oh well, here to a better trip next year.

KALBARRI SPORTS FISHING CLASSIC

22nd YEAR 2008

The Kalbarri Sports Fishing Classic this year was a little down on numbers, but still a good turn out of 30 boats. The 23 river anglers of which 13 were juniors were also down and that can be directly attributed to the Murchison River in flood. The flooding river does make fishing difficult but did not seem to upset the black bream as lots were caught.

The river anglers had quality fish with lots of anglers bringing them live to the weigh-in to be weighed and then released. Fisheries awarded Di Stewart a comprehensive fish identification book for the most caught and released bream. Only black bream were caught this year and that was due to the flooding river.

The river competition was a close fought battle between a number of the Kalbarri locals with Cheryl Eley placed third this year, Brett Bain a close second but Di Stewart had the fish this year and took out the Champion River Adult. The local juniors also did well but a commendable effort from Marlin Heaney had them worried. Jeb Duigan brought in the biggest bream on the second day, which worried Lee Ivey, last year’s winner, but Lee managed to make up on the last day landing the biggest bream, a 788 gram fish, for the comp as well as taking out Champion River Junior.

Jeb Duigan’s fish and Lee Ivey with his biggest bream winner.

Di Stewart also won the Skywest Top Gun Award for her 4 bream in the river on the third day

The boat section was hampered by the less than perfect weather, which turned pretty ugly on the Saturday afternoon forcing a lot of boats in early. Some quick thinking anglers anchored in the river mouth the first afternoon and fished for the numerous mulloway that were foraging in the dirty water. Junior Jared Malton fishing aboard Bulawayo Buoy, was quick onto a mulloway and was able to weigh-in for the bottom along side junior Mitchell Westland who had a bag of reef fish. The other two juniors, Luke Maindok fishing aboard Santa Barbara and Steven Eley aboard Air Bourne also had reef fish. Daniel Tarasek and Josef Duff had the best bag with mulloway, dhufish, snapper and mackerel to take an early lead.

The three boat category sizes made it a lot fairer for the anglers and a healthy competition spirit was alive between The Master Baiter and Jak Shitt in the 6-7m bottom category. The game fishing section saw some very good catches come in. Laurie Malton, Sue Malton, John Hoye and Jared Malton aboard Bulawayo Buoy want the wrong way the first day along with Steve Wiseman, Steve Gilders, Ian Jarvis, Wayne Mitchell and Harry Capeling aboard Top Deck, and only landing a couple of fish between them. Steve Wiseman’s only fish a tuna of 7.35kg on 3kg line was an outstanding catch wining him Highest Point Scoring Tuna. The rest of the boats went north picking up mackerel and tuna.

Westside Autos team of Paul Youngman, & brothers Steve & Bob Fisher aboard the new 7.8m Murchison Boat Hire boat had a burster of a day landing 5 mackerel on 4kg and 6kg line. Paul Youngman’s biggest mackerel of 13.1kg caught on 4kg line won him the Highest Point Scoring Mackerel as well as Highest Point Scoring Game Fish. John McCarthy with Bridie McCarthy led the 6-7m boat game section on the first day with a good mackerel from Bridie, which won her the Ladies Meritorious. The under 6m boat game section was close with Top Gun bringing in good mackerel the first day with James Scovell, Andrew Wooley and Joe Abberton all adding good points. Daniel Tarasek and Josef Duff put in a late run aboard Quintrex with some very nice line class mulloway giving Top Gun a scare but just not good enough to Beat Top Gun from winning the Champion Boat Game under 6m.

Westside Autos with their catch that won them Champion
Game Boat over 7m, Highest Point Scoring Mackerel, Highest Point Scoring Game
Fish to Paul Youngman, & Champion Angler Game went to Steve Fowler.

Champion Junior Game Jared Malton

Josef Duff with one of the several mulloway that he landed and Daniel Tarasek’s line class mackerel.

The first day was the best and many of the winning fish were weighed in. Biggest dhufish went to Josef Duff who had a burster of a comp, it went 9.1kg. He also had the biggest snapper of 8kgs and picked up the Skywest Top Gun Award of a return flight to Perth.

Biggest dhuie and biggest snapper for Josef Duff.

Mitchell Westlund

Biggest groper went to Kane Higham and Mitchell Westlund, Junior Bottom Champion.

Meritorious bottom went to Graeme Black for his red emperor.

Think Big with Bruce Eldridge, John Matson and Steve Creusot aboard, were in with an early chance fishing out of Port Gregory but failed to put many points on board the last two days, letting Quintrex slip away.

With the weather changing on the Saturday few fish were caught, but a couple of catch up tuna by Jared Malton & John Hoye were enough to win the Champion Boat Game 6-7m boat.

Jared & John with their catch up tuna caught on 3kg line.

Heaviest cod went to Ken Nylander, a small 1kg specimen this year, and Nic Bramwell took out the biggest whiting, it being the only one caught!

Heaviest Samson fish was caught by Daniel Tarasek, just a small 4.5kg fish.

Lauren Rose, crewed by Norm & Vern Godfrey and Ian Walsh did the hard yards and ended up only 1.12 points behind Santa Barbara who won Champion Boat Bottom over 7m. Well done Paul Maindok, Peter Maindok and junior Luke Maindok aboard Santa Barbara. Luke Maindok also won the Men’s Meritorious for his efforts

The Master Baiter with Paul Loffler and Mark Flannigan just scraped in over Jak Shitt and The Grumpies to take out the Champion Boat Bottom 6-7m, and Daniel & Josef aboard Quintrex the Champion Boat Bottom under 6m.

The presentation dinner at the Golf and Bowling club with a sit down dinner served by volunteer golf club personnel rounded off the evening Overall it was a very successful competition, only possible with the support of all our great sponsors. We would like to thank them most sincerely. Please show them your appreciation by using them whenever you can.

Final results and runners up

Champion Angler Game: Steve Fowler with 597.5 points

Runner up: Paul Youngman 483 points

3rd Bridie Mc Carthy 373

4th Jared Malton Junior 325

5th Rick Clarke 322

6th Andrew Woolley 301

Champion Angler Bottom: Josef Duff with 333 points

Runner up: David Douperousel 152

3rd Paul Loffler 148

4th Daniel Tarasek 138

5th Kale Higham 100.8

6th Trevor Skeels 100

Champion Boat Game over 7m: Westside Autos, Steve Fowler, Paul Youngman, Bob Fowler. 1363 points.

No runner up.

Champion Boat Game 6.7m: Bulawayo Buoy: Laurie Malton Sue Malton Jared Malton, John Hoye. 448 points

Runner up: Sirocco 373 points

3rd Reel Colour: 283 points

Alliance: 145

Champion Boat Game under 6m: Top Gun: James Scovell, Andrew Woolley, Joe Abberton, Brett Maloney. 876 points

Runner up: Quintrex 590

3rd Silver Medal 322

4th Fish Wrecked.com 300

5th Hurricane 295

6th Rip Tide 133

Champion Boat Bottom over 7m: Santa Barbara, Peter, Paul, Marty and Junior Luke Maindok 33 points

Runner up Lauren Rose 31 points

Champion Boat Bottom 6-7m: The Master Baiter, Paul Loffler and Mark Flannegan 118.5 points

Runner up: Jak Shitt: 112.6 points

3rd: The Grumpies 106

4th : Buckshot 86.5

5th: South Bound 44.6

6th: No Orange Hat Allowed 37

Champion Boat Bottom under 6m: Quintrex, Josef Duff and Daniel Tarasek 235 points

Runner up Think Big 83

3rd: Patch 72

4th Fish Werecked.com 43

5th Silver Medal 35

6th Hurricane 29

Highest Point Scoring Game Fish: Paul Youngman 13.1kg mackerel on 4kg line 328.7

Champion Junior Game: Jared Malton 325 points

Champion Junior Bottom: Mitchell Westlund 86.6

Champion River Adult: Di Stewart

Champion River Junior: Lee Ivey

Ladies meritorious: Bridie McCarthy

Men’s meritorious: Luke Maindok

Highest Point Scoring Mackerel: Paul Youngman

Highest Point Scoring Tuna: Steve Wiseman 245

Highest Point Scoring Snapper: no winner

Meritorious Game: Daniel Tarasek

Heaviest not game snapper: Josef Duff 8.00kgs

Heaviest Dhufish: Josef Duff 9.1kgs

Heaviest Groper: Kale Higham

Heaviest Cod: Ken Nylander

Heaviest Samson Fish: Daniel Tarasek

Meritorious Bottom: Graeme Black (Red Emperor)

Heaviest Whiting: Nic Bramwell

Heaviest Bream: Lee Ivey

Meritorious River: Brett Bain

Tag & Release River: Di Stewart

Hope we see you all next year,

anybody seen any metro salmon as yet? Uncle

Hey guys,
Matthew(Makomagic)came for the ride today.We also went out with Alfred and Vin on Alfred's boat and Paul and Leigh went out on Paul's boat.We all went out to deep water(90 metre mark).We all fished there for awhile but didn't get much.Matthew got a nice Queen Snapper and a small Pink Snapper and I caught a Gurnard(which dad got stung by and complained the the next 5 hours he stongly recomends dont worry about your hook just cut it off lol he said the pain was like having a hot cigarette on your finger, his hand and finder swelled up and finger turned black),I don't know how the others did though.When we stoped catching fish we all split up.Alfred stayed out deeper Paul shot off south and we moved into the back of the bank were we picked up 4 Dhuies (3 relesed) 6 Sambo's (all relesed) 4 Baldchin Groper and one more Snapper.The breeze came in so we headed in.On the way in Ispotted a big school of bait fish on the surface Matthew recomended throwing out some skirts, it took about 1 minute(or less) and we were both hook onto some nice tuna around 4 kilos both were relesed.In all a pretty good day.When we got in we called Paul and he said he only got 1 sambo and 2 snapper, then we called Alfred who bagged out on snapper and was harassed by black tip reef sharks.

Thank you Matthew for coming and hope that you had a good day and will come again soon

Cheers Jesse and Paul

(more pics are coming, still tring to figure out.)

Me and Scano, went for our weekend fish last night.
Mainly went to get extra bait for boat fishin saturday with Bodie.

We ended up going down to a spot where i hadnt been for a while which some of you may know but i dont want to say it on the forum as this spot only has limited room.

On our way there we were that keen to get fishin that we didnt want to go out of our way to get dinner so we stopped at IGA directly next to the location we were going to fish at.

Scano went cold baked beans, i went cold alphagetti and loaf of bread:lol:

After a feed we were ready to fish :lol:

Herring were on the bite which was great because they would make great bait saturday :wink:

Scano got this mint tailor! I was so sure i would bite through his 8lb line :wink:


I hooked one similer size but bit through my leader :cry:

Nice pike ;)

we got some great bait now ready for a big dhu :)

Well, the trip was great! I can't say I have been to any place like the Monte's before, it is so full of promise that you could spend months out there and only scratch the surface.

As I have said in earlier posts the water temp virtually switched off the trolling action completely. The absence of all bird life was kind of strange, given that you would expect the place to be alive with baitballs, tuna and mackies.

Despite our bad luck with the pelagics we still managed a couple of nice fish, which will feature in subsequent FWA articles. Aside from the lack of billfish, we made up for it with some of the best quality bottom fishing you could ever wish for. I forget the species count, but it was right up there. No small fish and no inedible fish, except for one Norwest Blowie someone pulled in to riotous laughter from the rest of the crew.

Day one was spent trolling over there and accounted for a nice Mackie and a couple of Dollies. Day two and we hit Archiong Island , where Nathan scored a massive GT even before I had managed to set foot in the zodiac to get over to the island. Unfortunately I didn't get any footage of him fighting the fish, but the pics are awesome.

Archong was definataly a highlight for me, as Andrew (the senior deckie), Mark and myself had an absolute ball chucking poppers at hundreds of Goldspots and bludgers that were harassing bait in the shallows.

We did some more bottom fishing in the arvo and moved camp to pick up the dingy that evening.

Tuesday saw us head wide as the weather was perfect for a night broadbill fish. Bernie had scored one the trip previously and we carefully planned the trip to try and replicate that. We headed out wide trolling all the way and spend most of the day trolling "BIG Baits" for Big Marlin, ( I have some good video of how Bernie rigs his trolling baits) but as mentioned before the water was shut down at 31 degrees. To break up the day we stoppped at a spot where Bernie promised us a couple of Ruby Snapper. An absolutely georgeous fish, that has been fished commercially before but rarely caught by rec anglers. They grow to 18 kilo's and look awesome. (You will need to check out the FWA article when it comes out to see what I mean.) We picked up one each and then headed out wide for the night.

Most went to bed early but I stayed up with Andrew and Tom to catch squid for broardbill bait. Believe it or not we had a 60 - 80kg marlin freejump over the marlin board at the back of the boat chasing a baitfish at about 1.00 am. It lit up electric blue as it porpoised over the corner of the boat. I was gobsmacked and so was Andrew. Unfortunately we were the only ones awake when it happened.

The next day we moved to the calm cyclone mooring to check it out (just in case) and ended up splitting up with some going mud crabbing, and me, Andrew, Mark  and Nathan popper chucking around the area instead. I nailed a big cobia, which spat the hooks after a few minutes, but all other fish were few and far between.

We played around in the dingies the next day while a few of the boys went diving, that's when I nailed a big Spanglie on one of those Gulp Crabs and that little GT, plus a heap of other trevs on various poppers.

 There is plenty of more things to report and heaps of video footage that I will get to cut together sometime soon.

I hope you will all forgive me for the briefness of the report at this stage as I am very busy at work and also need to write several articles for the magazine.

To give you an idea I took over 600 photos and truckloads of footage. So once I know what pics will be in the mag, a lot more will be put up on fishwrecked.

Cheers

Andy Mac

Mandurah is still holding some good crabs and we picked up 15 in less than an hour using nets.

Snorkeled around some structure and got a load of mussles aswell, good size at around 10cm long each, and full of meat.

Southerlies were blowing Sunday so again decided Long Point was the go for a bit of shelter from the wind. Because it was a long weekend every man and his dog were there. Families with 4WDs on the beach, yachts moored in the bay, the whole beach was pretty packed.

Got there about 7pm and had to walk West up the beach for about a km to get a spot.

With the wind behind us, and a welcome abscence of weed, we thought it could be a good night. We were chucking out squid and bloodworm on single hooks while the sun was still up, on the off chance there were decent whiting around...we have caught yellowfin and King George from the beach there in the past.

Unfortunately it ended up being butterie after butterie, with a few trumpeter to mix things up.

As the sun was setting we got into a few small herring, a few went out on the surf rods as live bait or fillets. They hardly got touched all night unfortunately, but I did have a live trumpeter out that got taken by something. When I got the rig back in the livebait hook was gone and something had bitten clean through the leader.

Brendan was having a go baitcasting mulies and got a few small tailor, and one keeper of 32cm.

I decided to have a baitcast sesh after a bit, and again, a few undersize choppers were caught, a few more herring, and this hungry little tarwhine, caught on a set of gangs as big as him.

So not a great night at all, but something to do nonetheless.

MIKE

went to white hills with a convoy on sat for a all nighter. when we got there it was blowing a bit hard so we set up camp and had a fish anyway, it was really quiet and only a few herring where caught so we decided to hit the sack and get up early. that morn started off pretty quiet again with only a few herring but at least the wind had gone away. i decided to put one of the herring out live to see what would happen. it was out for about 20 min we my baitrunner tookoff i got a solid hookup but was burst off in seconds. my firty thought was a big ray but it seemed to move to fast, when i got the line back in it was a bit frayed at the end so then a thought maybe a shark. i set up with a wire trace and sent it backout about 15 min later it went again. this time it was on for a bit but my 30lb mono was no match :( it was gone but it was bloody good fun.

all in all it was a bit quiet down at the old white hills but it is a great place to have a good night.

Went out fishin 40mile offshore this morning :wink:
Looks like im finally gettin my sea legs yay! but then again it was really flat!

On the way out we decided to troll for a bit. Scano hooked up on his rod and brought it in. It was a nice Bonito!

I did pretty well with my first hookup bieng a legal sized snapper!

My second fish was a nanniguy *spelling*

3rd fish was a thumper of a skippy!!!! Check this out!

I hooked something not long after the skippy that kicked very very hard then bit my hooks off. Im thinking a noah :shock:

More pics to come soon...

Great day weather was good ,met Matthew (Mako Magic) and jody. Fish caught.
6 x dhuies 3 released
6 x breaksea, 3 released
1 x snapper released
1 x sambo released
3 x sargent baker
1 x blue spot flathead

Well im back in Perth unfortunatly :(

Just days before leaving to go to Karratha i knew i would be having some crappy luck when i seen the weather and noticed a cyclone brewing off the coast.

All i cared about was getting there before they delayed the flights.
Finally the day before i flew out it was confirmed, my plane will be flying :D

Took off 6.00am took a few pics while on the plane :lol: and watch a bit of inflight tv and before i knew it we landed in Karratha at 7.45am, bloody quick flight!

Leaving Perth

Arriving in Karratha

My mates g/f was there at the airport to pick me up and went back to there house to help pack up for cyclone. It started to look like it was going to be cat 4 direct hit at one stage.

Spent the whole first day packing up the house. Next day, my mate Kristian arrived in Karratha and spent that whole day sitting around because weather was terrible.

3rd day luckily the cyclone went around Karratha but weather was way to windy to fish :twisted:

4th day finally! we went to a spot not far away to get some live mullet and we did very well. Ended up getting 25 perfect little mullet and even a queeny in the net lol!

I quickly chucked one out and within 5 mins there was a big tail wash right where i had cast my bait. After a brief hookup it spat the hook :evil:
We also took the tinny around the creeks trying our luck.
I ended up catching 1 catfish and a cod. My mate Kristian got 2 mangrove jack that he released.

Next day we took the tinny out around the burrup and that water was starting to clear up and look blue again :D

We trolled 3 lures around some really fishy looking area for 3 hours with not 1 hookup :cry:

Next day we teed up with a local bloke to take him wicked boat out 80mile to a gas platform.

More to come soon...

I went out with Ray the Trumpeter King on Sunday. Once again he gave me a lesson on catching Trumpeter.

We also got a few squid.

C'mon

Trumpeter King strikes again

Flipper

The Trumpeter King 

nice feed

Squid rings

hey guy's...juz wondering how did u guys go??/at the swan fish/....any good fish??i caught about 5 tailor's and two bream....anyone caught a decent fish?

Hey y'all!  Well, I figure I may as well let you guys know about my misadventures in learning about saltwater fishing, maybe it will help some other new fish someday! ;)

 Was supposed to go to Coral Bay last week but our friend Nicholas derailed that plan, so we went down to Busselton instead.  It was me, the wife, the in-laws(from the states), and a mate and his wife from here in Perth.  We had my mate's boat with us and hoped to get into some good fish, though we had to put in some fam time and knew we wouldn't be able to fish the whole time.

 Wed. we went out in the morning for some trolling around the cape, but it was blowing and we were really getting bounced...no joy, so we headed back towards Bton, stopping at a likely looking spot in about 20m of water to bounce the bottom.  We caught too many fox wrasse, a few 'cod-like' fish that I couldn't identify, and I had a nice fight with a 2kg skippy on light tackle.  We took the skippy home for tea and returned the rest.

Later that day and Thursday continued the close in fishing with family that didn't want to get out in the chop, looked for salmon from dunno to the cape but saw nothing.  All three days we were on the bay we had an easterly blowing us around.

 Here's where I reveal my inexperience....we wasted three days bouncing around in the cape.....and friday was gonna be our last day there.  Friday we get up and decide to take a ride out to Canal Rocks for some rock-hopping and snorkeling.  After climbing around for awhile, we decided to hike up to an overlook and check out the coast....WOW!  As soon as we got up there, we couldn't believe two things:

1. The seas were flat as a tack...

2. and there were bait balls EVERYWHERE!  from just south of Canal Rocks up to south of Sugarloaf we counted 10-12 baitballs in the course of just a few minutes, from within 100m of shore to as far out as we could see.

My mate and I made our apologies and pushed everyone into the van so we could race back to Bton for the ute and the boat!  took us almost an hour to get back, fuel up and get the boat in the water.  We had two med/heavy baitcasting rigs for trolling and two med. spin rods for casting.  Within a few hundred meters north of the boat ramp we saw a small school of what we think were salmon working some baitfish.  We stopped off for a few casts but the school had already moved on by the time we got there.  We were keen to get out into some tuna/mackeral so we headed out.

As we got out into 20+m of water off Smith's beach we started seeing huge schools of bait on the fish finder just under the surface, along with continuing to see baitballs around us.  None of these lasted for more than a few minutes....is that typical for them to last such a short time?  We saw a pod of dolphins working a school, which was pretty cool.  Saw some fish that looked like mackeral leaping out of the water within half a kilometer from us at one point, don't know if they were feeding or getting fed on....

We ran out our two trolling rigs, one with a red-head Halco LP at 3m depth, the other with a met. blue Halco Crazy Deep.  With in 15 minutes we were hooked up in about 25m of water.  Enjoyed a decent fight from a small mackeral.  He measured 35cm and we thought he was a shark mack so we bled/iced him.  I'm now pretty sure that we got that one wrong.  This fish was blue, not greenish and had horizontal stripes, not dots.  When I fileted him later, his flesh was very dark, but when we fried him it was a nice flaky white....tasted beautiful.  Any ideas on the id? it was defnitely a mack head(sharp nosed with plenty of teeth), blue body with horizontal striping.  definitely need to get a pocket id book until i figure out more about what's what!

So we're super-stoked and ready for the best afternoon fishing of our lives.  Then somebody flipped the switch, all the bait balls disappeared, we couldn't coax a thing, on the fish finder all the schools of baitfish had moved to the bottom.  We continued trolling for awhile...nothing.  We went north to see if the fish had moved....nothing.  We tried bouncing jigs around some good marks on the finder....nothing.  switched to cut bait...nothing.

Overall, we had a blast last week, but can't help but think that we might have missed out on some great fishing while we goofed around in the bay!  lesson learned.....know I've got a lot more to learn! 

Had an hour or so up my sleeve this morning and the wind hadn't started blowing too hard yet so I went down to Kwinny beach with some soft plastics and a small rod.

The tide was pretty low and the water was fairly clear. I walked a hundred metres or so, casting and retrieving a small squidgy wriggler on a light jig head, nothing seemed to be happening where I was casting, but there were mullet out a bit further jumping and carrying on.

I had something bite of the tail off my first wriggler, probably a blowie. I put a fresh one on the jig head, and started making my way back casting and retrieving. I was doing it a little faster this time, as the wind was starting to pick up and the water was starting to lose its clarity due to the surface chop.

Felt a little strike, probably a blowie I was thinking. Reeled it in and it was a baby lizard. Better than a blowie I guess but bloody small! Took photo, then released.

On the way back got another strike, but he threw the hook right at my feet. Was about the same size as the first, so no worries.

Looked out at the mullet, made 'note to self' I should have brought bait and more tackle. Went home.

Was a bit blowy on Sunday evening so went down to Long Point for a bit of sheltered fishing. A few chopper tailor around still, although not as many as we have encountered previously, and nothing legal size either, with our biggest being 28cm.

I was amusing myself trying to hook pickers on the small rod (herring and trumpeter) while soaking a fillet of herring on the beach rod.

After a while I looked up to see the rod tip bouncing. It wasn't bent over that much, just bouncing a little. I started to reel it in and there didn't seem to be much of a fight, just the occasional tail flick and mostly dead weight.

As I got it close to shore I saw an eye reflecting the light from my LED headlight (just bought one the other day, how good are they?).

A shark? A ray?

A bit of both.

Shortly after, my mate accidentally jagged a small tailor, I have no idea how this came about.

Obviously it was a goner, we throw all undersize tailor back all the time, but because this one was not going to make it due to the holes in its guts, Brendan put it out on his big rod.

It was out ther for half an hour or so, and then as he was having something to eat the big rod bends over and the drag starts cranking. Any attempt to get line back was answered with a screaming run. We watched his full reel of 30lb line get fed into the ocean, and just as the spool started to show, the line went slack. So he lost a set of gangs to what I'm guessing was a big ray. We have landed rays before on the big rods loaded with 30lb, so this one must have been a monster.

Went squiding in the sound today with Gaymond Gason(the Trumpeter King)

I got 6 squid, Ray got 2 squid and cut one up to catch his favourite fish the trumpeter. Well done Ray

Nice shallow water Spango on 5kg

Coronation Trout couldn't help themselves

Fun size GT trolling the back of the reef

Did something very very different for valentines day last night :wink:

A girl i know (Sarah) accually begged me to take her fishing because she has never been in her life or even seen a fish been caught.

So the weeks before i arranged a custom made ugly stick off the one and only "Jim Head" to be built in black with pink binding around the eyes.

I then wanted a little message written on the rod for her to finish it off.

Her name is Sarah but people call her " Bear" for short so i had
"miss Bear happy V day 08" put on it and Jim did me a good deal with reel $80! What a legend!

I also got her a bottle of her favouite champaine , red rose and a card and i was set now to be a smooth operator :lol:

Picked her up at 8pm and headed to palm beach jetty because i knew there that she would be able to land her fish fish even though it may not be anything great.

First cast she got a trumpeter, second cast some milk fish thing , then gobble guts etc rest of the night.

All in all she was having a absolute blast and even by 12am she wanted to stay and keep fishing.

All in all she said that my gifts to her and doing something totally different and stress free was really great but she is spewn im headin off for 8 days now haha.

Oh yeah and i nearly betterd my PB starfish :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
What is it with me and these stupid starfish :lol:

I also had out some whole scailies . Got 1 wicked run! Got talkin to a local who told me that there were snapper caught recently!

Here are some pics...

Headed out to the FADs this morning, even though it was starting to pick up. I was taking a calculated risk hoping that Seabreeze got at least the wind direction right. Was helped out by the NE winds, so the ride wasn't too bad.

Went to check the spot where I saw the YFT a couple of weeks back, but there was nothing there. On reaching reaching the co ords for the HYC FAD, I could not see it. Drifted awhile to try to locate it visually, but no joy, so I decided to head to Furuno to see if it was there. I figured that if the FADs weren't there, I would head out to the Derwent.

About 5 minutes into the trip to Furuno, I saw the HYC Fad about 500m to starboard, so I headed over. By now the winds and swells had picked up and it didn't look like there was anything in the water. I sounded awhile in the general vicinity and kept throwing cubes of mules over, but nothing appeared, but I learnt something from Andy last week - even if there is nothing on the sounder, you can still catch fish!

I decided to drift a whole squid back and 5 min later, line started to peel off my reel. What happened next really took me by surprise! I fought the fish back to the boat and when I got colour, to was clear that it was a decent bluefin, BUT it was NOT hooked! The braid was tangled round the lower jaw! I managed to gaff it and then I realised that there was another fish at the end of the line! Turns out it was another blue of the same size, this one was hooked in the mouth (fish was released in the water using a dehooking tool). I suspect that when the first one hit the bait the rest went into a frency and in the twist and turns, one got tangled in the line. Never caught a fish like that before!

Did 6 drifts, hooking up each time, all blues and of the same size. I released all except for the one I gaffed. That one I bled and put on ice. The family already had some sashimi and BBQ tuna kama.

What I was really itching for though was mahi, so I went to look for Furuno, but after reaching the co ords and searching the vicinity, it was not to be found. The wind and swells picked even more, so I decided to head in. The wind changed direction, but it only went W with sometimes with abit of N in it, instead of my preferd (and the earlier forcasted, by seabreeze) SW.

All in all I got beat up abit by the seas, but it was a decent trip.

When I reached OR, I was the last boat out of the water! The carpark was empty and that also meant that I didn't have to rush to flush the motor. Infact I decided to clean the whole boat and all my gear there!

how is everyone

i just came back off the mills charter and it was a great day, first drop was a little quiet untill my mate hooked up with a mako shark which came in around 5 foot and around 40kg bloody great site of it jumping around. then there where a few good snapper and blue bone. then my old man caught this massive amberjack that wieghed 23kg. i have photos that i will post later

If you get a call at 4.30am from Andy Mac, be weary.

He said "I couldn't sleep so I went outside and pulled my finger out of my mouth and held it up into the air and I am pretty sure that the wind that is now blowing 16-20 will drop by 9am and with the 1m swell, it will be a great day on the water - pack you gear and head over pronto! I have been looking out at the water every morning and I can see the Spaniards hitting the bait on the surface - let's go get a few and after that I will bring you out to the "Dropzone"!

Still half asleep, I gather my stuff and load it in the car, make my way over, to find Andy having a coffee by the boat. I am given instructions to load the boat, cooler, ice, gear , bait and what not. Then I am told that his jock wheel is not working and we have to jack the trailer up with the car jack. With that done, we head off to fill gas and when it comes to paying, he "has to do something on the boat"!

We pull up into the rigging area at Mindarie and he subtly mentions that the parking machine is over that way...........

We head out with a spread of lures and troll the back of Staggies several times and "zilch O". We head out wide to several spots - nothing, then he said get ready we are heading out to the "Dropzone". The only things we dropped there were rigs - lots of them!

Another thing - the fish attractant that he asked me to use looked suspiciously like sunblock and he didn't seem to use any himself.

We spend several hours on the water, getting wet and banged around so much that I was wondering if Andy and a chiropractor had agreed on a cut for introductions. I am also beginning to wonder which end of his anatomy he pulled his finger out of in the first place when he did the weather check!

Not only that, when we get back, I am given the bucket, brush and rag and end up cleaning the boat.

How about that!


Well all was not lost, we did get one decent fish and of course with the Dhuie Master on the water after a 4 month break, he would be the one to catch it.

:P

Thanks Andy Had a good day and it was nice wetting a line with you!

Keep checking the weather, next flat day, we will go to the FADs - my boat this time!

Hey everyone, was going to go down south to a spot I found last year for a Salmon hunt. Just wondering if anybody has heard of fish schools going by close to shore(LB'sd) near Dunno yet?

P.O. Box 350 Kalbarri W.A. 6536

Only three boats competed, probably due to the less than perfect weather, but all caught game fish. Jamie Waite and Steve Wiseman were out early the first day aboard “Alliance” recording strikes north of the river out in about 30m of water, while Laurie Malton with kids, Rebecca and Jared aboard “Mzilikazi Roller” tried in closer to shore missing out on the action “Alliance” was experiencing and keeping quiet about. Jamie Grieves, son Jack, Stan Sutherland, Brad Jols aboard “Leg” were further north keeping radio silence.

Laurie’s 5.9kg tuna on 3kg line

Stan Sutherland’s great catch on 2kg line

Rebecca shows her 6kg tuna on 3kg line.

The biggest bream for the year for Steven Eley.

Junior winner Jared Malton, Rebecca’s 2 macs that gained her the overall Ultralight Champion.

Jamie Waite’s 4kg line class winning mac and Steve Wiseman holds his 5.6kg on 4kg line fish

Gary's Bream

Daniel holds up his biggest for the year mulloway, a 19.1kg specimen

ive just purchased the latest mag .man oh man have a go at the size of the dog tooth tuna .what a bloody BEAST ,i just had to buy it .also massive tigers caught on 15 kg .
i usually woul;dnt rant about this sort of thing .but they are MASSIVE
i know what ill be doing for the next hour or 2 reading about it

G'day guys and girls

Has anyone heard any reports of snapper being caught since cockburn and warnbro sound were re-opened  on 1 Feb. I am thinking of going out for a fish tomorrow.

Cheers

 Dewy

Got up at 7.30am and headed down to Rockingham . I go to start fishing and i see a nice size cobbler!

It swam into a clump of sea grass where is hid. I then dropped my bait infront of it and BANG! it came out and chomped it!

I got it in for a few pics then released it. Came close to getting spiked aswell :lol:

I took a girl i know and a mate and yep you guessed it! Ladies luck! 1st cast she get a very nice YF whiting!!!! For the next hour we were getting herring , small flounder and about 5 just legal KG whiting that were all released.

tryed another spot closeby got a really nice silver bream and a few wrass!

In total i took home 2 nice yellow fin whiting, 5 herring and a silver bream.

Very nice day out! Bit burnt and tired now :lol:

Was at hillaries last night. saw a guy using a roosta popper but it got busted off by something. dont know what it was but it wouldve been a keeper!. I started off using a river2sea 25gm searock that i picked up from bcf for $2 and then soon changed to a 14gm river2sea searock (again for $2). ended up downsizing the trebles and had a few hits, one average hookup but no fish. We moved to just in front off the lighthouse facing north. after a while the tailor picked up. caught a baby tailor and then a bigger one spat the hook on me. i soon picked up another and dad got a double hookup of baby tailor on his alvey. the guys next to us got into the same baby tailor and one of the guys pulled up a crayfish tangled in his line. i had a goooood hookup to an average tailor but it spat the hook. just as we were about to pack up, the same guy who caught the cray pulled up a occy that looked about a kilo. overall it was a good night with just enough wind.