Went out Friday talk about a perfect day it was mill pond conditions,fished shallow to stat off to pick up some wrasse for bait then headed out to the 30mt mark first drop dhuie 1 which was undersize,second drop another drop another undersize this went on and on till I had caught 5 undersize which were released to fight another day when larger using a release weight.Dropped down again and caught a nice 6kg dhuie,then a 9kg,my mate Feral was busy catching some decent Skippy to a kilo or 2,he then landed a nice dhuie that went 8kg,followed by a nice sized wobblie gong that gave him a workout on a threadline outfit.By the end of the day we caught
7 dhuies only kept two
10 Skippy
1 Wobblie gong
1 large Banjo shark released
1 black ray released
2 Fox fish 1 released
5 pink snapper all released
2 Nannagi released
4 Small blackass released
3 scorpion cod released

Well its been over a week since Deefa and I have got back from Exmouth so here’s a report. We fished 100% off the shore hence our trip name ShorEX and about 95% of the fishing was done with bream gear on soft plastics except one night chasing spangos where we geared up.

We got into Exxy on Thursday at 2pm after blasting up in 11 ½ hrs and the first stop was the marina for a lazy arvo flick. Started off slow but we got into Queenies ~2kg, Diamond Trevally and Deef got a nice flatty which went hard for its size (unlike the others caught later). Here’s a couple of pics of the diamonds.

Unfortunately the swell was up (the same time as those massive surges at Shark Bay) which made fishing the west side very difficult the next morning, nevertheless we bashed Bundegi up towards the Pier for a few hours. Caught a nice mixed bag comprise of Dart, mini Gs, a Flutemouth and a Grinner.. all on SP.. the Flutemouth was the weird capture for the week how it managed to pick up a plastic I don’t know…

That night we hit the marina again with some stinky mulies chasing Jacks and Gribbo’s girlfriend Bel was lucky enough to get one. Deefa met his match with the rocks and ended up worst for wear.. thanks to the ladies at the servo who helped us find some Dettol and gave us a bag of a dozen pies for free (really fixed the munchies)

Day 2 we hit the west side again to be plagued with big swells this time we wet a line but had no luck. Back down to Bundegi were we found a bait school but nothing wanted to play.. had a couple of follows but no hookups. Due to Deefa’s leg we decided to camp and berley up and see if we could find some bities that night but we were plagued with small bream and fingermark. Deefa got a slightly bigger mini G that night which kept him happy.

Day 3 we pushed right round the cape and well into the national park and tried a couple of spots. The first spot we tried looked very fishy with some nice structure close to shore and a sandflat.. I managed to pull two big lizards both close to 60cm from the sandflat but we didn’t get anything else despite deef throwing the tacklebox at the reef. We pushed onto spot #2 which we had planned to hit just before the high and fished a sandspit and channel… first cast and out comes flatty #3 for me, another 60cm monster. Out went a bit of berley and in came a nice 3kg golden for me on 2kg… Just when deef thought he was having a slow trip he managed to hook up to number 8932174892374109 charlie court which was then swallowed by what he called a very large golden… out flew the line into the backing and then close to being spooled on 4lb and his tiny heartland z. he managed to get the line back and the fish close to the sandbar we were fishing when the golden decided he wasn’t hungry anymore and the Charlie was kindly returned to deefa.. he wasn’t happy. He plugged the same spot where he hooked up to be reefed pretty quickly… there were some decent fish there. We finished off that day with one more fish for me … ANOTHER 60cm flatty from that spot. Surprisingly all of them caught that day fought like a dead sock… lucky they’re very tasty!

That night was spent chasing spangos out on the tip of the cape with Gribbo… we 4wd-d a track which took us past where we wanted to go and after a mammoth hike we found water… I took the GT gear out that night and churned up the water for no result then switched to bait. Gribbo showed us in true local style how to catch spangos and pantsed Deef and I 4 to 1 undersize to 0.

Day 4 we fished the west side at one of the closer accesses as the swell was down a bit where we found a baitschool and several large turtles… deef managed to hookup to two of the bohemiath turtles … accidentally… well they fell for what the locals told us was “the plastic of choice” chartreuse atomics they seemed to only catch Charlie courts and turtles! (to all the greenies out there… he busted the line off as soon as he knew what he’d hooked) There were a few queenies around but it was mightly hard to set the hooks on the SP jigs we were using and so we only managed few trevs. Lesson learnt when catching queenies on plastic really set the hook hard!

Last stop was a quick trip down to Learmonth after sampling some of the best gold band fish n chips I’ve ever hard.. yummo!... we fished the flats near the jetty for another couple more mini Gs then decided to see what was happening on the jetty only to find a heap of squid hanging around the pylons! And there was my dinner!!! Key to catching squid.. small pink jigs… sorry to the poor girl with the huge blue jig that I showed up handlining squid in off my loomis.. one of the guys on the jetty lost a huge queenie on a live hardyhead close to the jetty.. only shows you shouldn’t rush things when you’re close to landing the fish of a lifetime!

That was pretty much all the fishing we did.. we were spent and hit the hay early on the last night rather than trying to fish again… There’s a few pics we didn’t take many concentrated more on the fishing. 4 days in exxy shore based was hard work but still great fun!

[img_assist|fid=184404|thumb=0|alt=Mini G|caption=one of many mini Gs we got on plastic]

[img_assist|fid=184383|thumb=0|alt=Deefa in action|caption=hooked up to a little diamond]

[img_assist|fid=184387|thumb=0|alt=deefa's diamond|caption=deefa's diamond.. aint it pretty]

[img_assist|fid=184412|thumb=0|alt=Hooked up|caption=hooked up to a nice golden on 2kg]

[img_assist|fid=184407|thumb=0|alt=jack lives here|caption=Gribbo's girlfriend Bel's Jack]

[img_assist|fid=184425|thumb=0|alt=the chaser|caption=Deefa chasing down the bohemiath that took all his 4lb line! i wont post up the pic of his face when the bait got thrown back :P]

[img_assist|fid=184419|thumb=0|alt=the golden|caption=pretty little 3kg golden.. sorry photo is a bit over exposed!]

went out fishing out of rockingham yesterday,stayed in close most of the day and fished near the cray pots on the other side of the 5 fathom bank,picked up 4 dhuies,returned 3 (undersize),the keeper was 55cm.also caught a xl large king george,1 black ass and a skippy and released 2 pinkies.took the camera on board but no batterie in it,and to top the day of went to leave at 3pm and the boat would not start,i think a starter motor prob ,will take to mechanic this morning.had to call sea rescue for a tow,got home at 7pm,wot a day.
how did anyone else go ,i heard the boats out deeper did very well.
cheers ray

its been 6 days since the pirates got back from our annual may camping fishing trip and as none of the other boys have reported i thought ide better share a bit of trip with the rest of the fishwrecked readers.

it might not be in order of events but ya get that after at least a million brain cells have been burnt from my memory bank in just a 12 day trip.glug glug
in all there was 4 boats involve and 9 drunken fisherman
first day its anearly start for jack and his 3 crew Ab Rod and heath.they leave tomporice at 3 in the morning as theyve got the biggest boat and its a 5 hour trip to onslow.myself pete frizza and spurrie get away at 4 and on the last bend into onslow we catch up with jack .
we all meet at the boat ramp and load the boats with all the gear.and of we go .hours later we are all at CANT TELL YA bay unloading all the stuff .the weather is tops.needless to say all of us are half cut already.and buy the time we all go to bed three blocks of cans are gone
the first morning we hit the water all three boats are in sight of each other cruising aroun looking for some ground to bait fish .its not long before the call on the radio is BLUE DOTS in the boat.cool the first good fish is landed.after that its a fish fest with blue bone. chinamen cod, sharks and what we are all after coral trout being landed
that night is much the same as the first .and pretty much every night pans out the same .i think i can actually remember going to bed 2 nights out of 11 .
next day its time to find somwhere new.an hour or so on the plane and the sounder stars to light up with good ground .we do a bit of trolling a bit of bottom bouncing and all 3 boats land good fish .
myself and my deckie spurrie are starting to get into a good routine spurrie catches all the fish i let him know he sucks as thats the same fish i just dropped im sure.
well spurrie with out dout was best on ground for fish . i saw it with my own eyes this bloke was a fish magnet.for the trip he had bought out 2 overhead combos one to troll with the other baits .the bait combo was a tica gemmini.on a solid rod loaded with 50 lb braid .the thing had barely been used.buy the end of the trip it well was farrrrrkkked.he got that many unstopable fish that we didnt even see im surprised the rig held together .for example buy day four the anti reveres was gone .when casting 50 persent of the time the spool would lock and thered be a hook and a sinker sailing around ya ears. on one occasion less than a minute after toseing a 5 foot shark one side filleted of for bait over the side .spurrie does the usual flick and bang the whole lot goes over with spurrie nano seconds behind.im pretty sure that the rig is gone ,nup spurrie pops up and like JC is back in the back holding his trusty combo.i sweaer to ya theres not a shits chance in hell i would of gone in as we had already been sharked about 3 times in five minutes ,bloodied the crap out of the surounding area .another fish was a 15.6kg china man this fish made the man piss blood for a good ten minutes absolutly bruitilizing spurrie ,only doing short runs but hell power..we were fishing in real dirty soupy water of about 5 metres deep .and when we could finaly get colour i picked it for a monster coral trout.it took me 3 attempts to gaff the fish as it was coated in scales that were like thick finger nails BULLET PROOF a few photos and the fish was released .buy this stage of the trip i called the other boats telling them what we had landed .and the return call was "let me guess spurrie caught it "."bloody spurrie who invited you".he was loving it burnt drag thumb an all.

[img_assist|fid=180346|thumb=0|alt=my deckie spurrie|caption=spurrie was bye far best on ground for the trip .hauling in over sized everything]

day 5 saw jack and his crew head home .leaving 4 of us out there to continue enjoying our selves .a freind of ours Dan, back in TP had called saying he might come over for the weekend .cool .jack and the lads caught up with him at the onslow boat ramp with a list of suplies to pick up for us and a mud map on how to find us .he made it night with more grog a pie an sausage roll each .next day we had a shore based fish flicking lures of a rock ledge with frizza landing a nice 54 cm mangrove jack and the rest of us pulling trevaly evewry second cast of about 50 cm.next day dan was gone
somwhere in all this spurrie and i had found some new ground which looked real good.i let frizza and pete know i was gonna give it a crack .faarrrkk was it real good.5 drops later myself and spurrie had landed 2 trout 2 spangled emperor and i had dropped a horse at the boat ,we just stood there laughing at each other as the boat got tossed around in some hell chop created buy 10 knots of run and a bit of wind
it was getting a bit uncomfortable so out went the lures to troll home.bang double hook up on trevaly not huge but fun a couple more double hook ups and we decied to head home only problem was winding in the lures without hooking up as the trevs were schooling around tthe back of the boat .wind real slow i said as to hopfully not get a hit WRONG another double hook up but this time it was no average trev

[img_assist|fid=180350|thumb=0|alt=trevonski|caption=this fish was the first bigger trev for the trip and how we found "hurtsville" shoal]
back at camp spurrie an myself told the other lads about what would later be knicknamed hurtville shoal as the last few days concisted of a bottom bounce then hit hurts ville for the arvo troll and basicaly get hurt .buy trevs a tuna or two some good size queenies,oversized barracuda, mackies like sharkies doggies spanish with the odd coral trout,all sorts of cod just to keep it interesting we left behind a lot of lures a lot of busted owner swivels hooks an split rings to unstopable trevonskis that i would estermate be up there with any trev WORLD WIDE,and next year im gonna pin one of these beasts get a pic and give a good old war cry then send him home

geeze it looks a bit rough
[img_assist|fid=182733|thumb=0|alt=petes tuna]

mister fish magnet

[img_assist|fid=182738|thumb=0|alt=spanishspurrie]

this one was about 4 foot long
[img_assist|fid=182744|thumb=0|alt=jaws]

not the best way to handle a big cod but he did swimm away strongly

[img_assist|fid=182747|thumb=0|alt=twin brothers]

[img_assist|fid=182762|thumb=0|alt=nice queenie]

[img_assist|fid=182753|thumb=0|alt=another trout]

[img_assist|fid=182765|thumb=0|alt=hangoverheavan]

so ya:s get the idea .it was bye far my best camping trip with a few PB,s added to my personal list and a few more PB,s added to my boats list and could ramble on and on about what we caught and what our days and nights consisted of .hopefully frizza will get online with a few more quality pics and a bit of bullshit to go with it.
thanks to everyone that came out and made the trip great .only another 11 months and ill get to wake up looking out at the sunrise from my tent

[img_assist|fid=182759|thumb=0|alt=sunrise]

friz has got some great pics and footage that hopfully youll all get to see soon.and im betting hes gonna be right up there for photo of the month with some great fish and alltime back drops

[img_assist|fid=182781|thumb=0|alt=jollyroger]

if any of you want to know where this adventure was
it

was

CANT TELL YA BAY and thats all i can tell ya

MAY 19th COMPETITION RESULTS

A strong river section again this month with 14 anglers catching 13 fish, all of them bream kept live to be returned to the river.

The beach section and boats were down again, but some outstanding fish were weighed in.

A big thanks to our sponsor this month, Rob from Jakes Bistro who donated five $20.00 vouchers.

Cheryl Eley won the river section with a thumper bluenose among her 3 bream weighing in at 1.368. This will probably be the biggest for the year, but we will have to watch the weigh-ins this year.

Di Stewart had 4 bream, Gary Ivey 3, while John Stewart and Leah Skinner 1 each.

Junior river winner went to Beau Ivey, the only junior to weigh-in, so is off to a good start.

Daniel Tarasek again romped it in for the land based section with 4 big pink snapper and a spangled emperor, easily beating Karen Hartig and Lui Palamara who had 4 garfish each.

Charlie Messina with Tony Smith were out around Baldface but failed to put any fish on board. Same with Bulawayo Buoy with Sue and Laurie Malton and Junior Steven Eley, they tried game fishing but the water was cold and dirty and came home fishless.

New member Nic Bramwell went south of the river mouth fishing from his 4.5m tinny & recorded an outstanding catch of 4 big pink snapper & a big samson. His 6.4kg snapper and 15.25kg sambo are the biggest for the year and will be hard to beat.

Nic made a big splash by winning the RSL Meritorious award of a $50.00 voucher for his snapper and went on to pick up the $20.00 mystery fish voucher as well! The restaurant draw was won by John Stewart and Bill Tolson won the $50.00 worth of scratchies to celebrate his 50th comp fished! Of note to date Di Stewart has fished her 56th comp and juniors, Amy Stewart 43rd and Steven Eley 38th. Daniel Tarasek has fished 44th, and Laurie Malton 78th.

Gary Ivey was the mug of the month after nagging his kids to get out the mud, don’t fall in & stay away from the mud, promptly fell in himself!

Next comp will be on Sat June 23rd.

hey just came back from palm beach jetty and caught a bag limit of herring few squid around and during the week a few mulloway were caugt off yacht club jetty on live yellow tail from 9.30pm to about midnight cheers jettyboy

Went for a flick at the "stones" this morning and yesterday. Got drenched wet!

Caught about 4 Bonito :)
The one 2nd pic below was a very good sized one!

Took 2 home and just whacked em on the BBQ! Very nice!

Out of everyone on the mole i was the only person catching them :oops:

Here is some pics......

We had glorious weather yesterday with it peaking at only 11 knots. Made for a nice calm day. Worked hard all day for only one estuary cod, a small rankin and two blue-lined emperor. Bit of a dissapointing day but we've never done well with minimal tide movement. How did everyone else go?

anyone want to hook up for a fish on the swan friday pm me or give me a call 0433999064

Went out with a mate today as the weather looked like it was gonna be great. Bit breezy early on, which was uncomfortable at anchor. Burleyed up inshore,we got some nice skippy on baits and softies, along with a nice blackarse. Headed a bit further out for not much.. Fished a by a marker and saw an abudance of baby sambos swimming below, nailed two on softies before they buggered off and they herring came in.

Headed out deeper near rotto as the wind had dropped, found some ground(gps wasnt working ) and began to soak some baits. Nailed about 4 undersize pinks, a few more size black arse, massive bluespot flatty and the usual reef fish. No dhu's or kgs unfortunately.

After losing one of my outfits overboard thanks to some freak swell whilest driving,i used my lighter outfit and jigged up 1 or 2 bakers and then got hit by what i think was a small tunny/decent bonito which i dropped just by the boat. Using raider 40g rigged with Gamakatsu G-stingers, worked a treat!

On way back in saw some bait schools getting harrased for a good half hour , trolled and casted at them tirelessly for zilch.

Overall numbers wise we had a ball, fish werent that big but good fun on the light gear. Looks like ill be shopping for a new combo now :p

On the piss Thursday night at a mates house when they mentioned that all they were doing friday is cleaning the truck.I made mention of the up and coming comp and how i didnt have any spots out that way so ,i really need to find new ground out there.They are keen to join the comp too ,(will put there names up for it tommorrow) any way lets just say i didnt even have to twist their arms a bit,the only thing was they had to be at my house at 5am ,that should get rid of a couple of people ,nup it didnt work.Steve had some work but manage to some how get his boys to do the work for him.We sort through the freezer find some bait and all is set for tomorrow,My phone rings at 4.30 am with a voice that says meat pie and ice coffee for breakfast i say yep.Any way after pulling myself out of bed and having a morning crap (hehe),every one is starting to rock up,i get a jerry can out the shed for extra fuel as we are planning to head out wide.

We are on the road by about 5am with just one fuel stop just to fill the jerry we get to the ramp at about 5.45 and head out in search .We head out about 10nm and spot some nice looking fishy ground
http://fishwrecked.com/img_assist/add?textarea=edit[body]
Click to add image.
(this adding photo has me stumped.)

we did a few drifts then kept heading out wider ,we then got a few more on board then called it a day trolled for a bit had one hook up ,but hooks pulled ,all in all a good day out.
Ps can some one tell me the easiest way to post pics as a picture tells a thousand words.

Gave the call out late Friday arvo to Shamu who is becoming a bit of a regular deckie for me and also Ox who I had promised I would get a trip out back in January. Ox was due to go on night shift and would finish at 6-00am Saturday morning. That didn't deter him and sure enough at 6-15 as we launched there was Ox rigged and ready to go after pulling an all nighter. The man has the constitution of an ox let alone the size and strength.

We headed out at first light and did teh customary troll behind staggies for zilch. We then decided it would be kind on Ox to catch a few whiting first so he could get his released fish to the fish gods squared away before we hit and big fish. So we pulled up on one of my whiting lumps and I pulled out a ready made rig and proceeded to fish, well 10 minutes later after I had pulled in a dozen fish Ox has finally tied his rig (poor fella must have had his eyes hanging out of his head after a big night at work) so with the bait in the water Ox had his baitcaster loaded up and on the way to the surface only to pull the hooks with 1 meter to go. "that doesn't count mate" was the reply and down he went again. Meantime I've caught 15 whiting by now and Shamu is having trouble with 30lb braid on his jig rod. I tossed him another pre-made rig with the right size hooks and next drop he is pulling up double headers like me.

Ox in the meantime is still struggling and finally lands a nice big fat juicy whiting and duly released it to satisfy the fish gods. We went on to claim about 30 whiting over 30 minutes and when we had enough for a "trip saver" plus bait for dhuies we decided to head out wide to the spot we found a few weeks ago when we went out with Alfred.

The water was glassy all day and made the trip out a pretty quick event. The sounder was reading pretty well at 26 knots and I was doing my usual one eye on ythe sounder one on the water trick, when I noticed a small rise accompanied by a thickening of the bottom sounding. A swing around and slow pass confirmed a nice coral lump with some fish sitting on the northern side.

The first pass gave us nothing to work with so a subsequent one was lined up. We past the lump and nothing again, but I let the drift continue a little and "whack" something monstered my bait and came up solid. A pretty weird fight ensued and whilst it had no significant weight it fought pretty well. A slow retreive saw a very very healthy flounder hit the surface. Unbelievably it had hit the "super snell" and engulfed a whole calamari. To say I was stoked is an understatement as this was clearly a PB.

[img_assist|fid=158865|thumb=1|alt=Hows this for a Flounder!!!!]

We gave this lump a few more passes and I nailed a smallish dhuie of 57cm this time on the single hook with a SW Labs pink squid skirt as added attraction.

One more drift and nothing so we continued on our way to the chosen start point for the day. We stopped at a couple of other marks on the way out and Ox claimed a small blackarse which went back and Shamu got a nice fox fish.

Disappointingly when we arrived at the spot I wanted to fish there were pots all over it. I sounded around to see if I could pick a safe drift line but it meant only touching the north western edge of the lump and there weren't too many fish on there that I could see. We gave it a couple of drifts but only managed a couple of hits. We decided to move again and hit a spot I found with one of my mates about 4 years ago. Given that it is out a bit further I rarely fish it but we decided to give it a go. What do you know....more pots. I was a bit cranky that we didn't have the room to get right over the lump but we gave it a drift anyway. After a couple of passes I picked up another dhuie about the same size and Ox picked up a nice little pinky.

As we were dipatching the pinky a cray boat came flying up to us and stopped and pulled the pots. Woo Hoo now we could hit the spot properly. We set up a few more drifts over the lump and I think on the second pass I came up tight on a big fish. This fish took line at will and shook its head violently to try and get rid of the hooks. After a great fight on the penn 320i (LH) and Ugly Stick combo (old faithful) a beautifully coloured pink snapper surfaced. This was shaping up to be a great day for me but my crew were looking like they were about to commit mutiny.

[img_assist|fid=158877|thumb=1|alt=Pinky-Dhu]

One more pass on that lump and we high tailed it in to some of my prime ground. I hit several spots on the way back in towards the dropzone and on one of those spots Shamu nailed a very tasty kidneyslapper size KG. His first for the species and a pretty good benchmark PB at the same time.

[img_assist|fid=158871|thumb=1|alt=Shamu's PB KG]

We accounted for a few more fish that went back and a nice Blackarse for me plus a 18 - 20kg sambo for me. One more lump had us getting busted off on something, before on a final drift I called lines up only for my bait to get smashed half way up. A little fight and a few minutes later a nice Bonito surfaced. I asked the guys if they wanted sashimi but they opted for using it as strip bait instead so it was dispatched along with a Sgt Baker Shamu has caught earlier. We finally worked our way back to the dropzone and sure enough on the third pass both me and shamu got connected in a big way, within the first couple of minutes we had both been taken to the reef and busted off. The fourth pass had Shamu hooked up again and this fish was a brute. He was pretty well locked up on this thing and it was going hard. Then after raising the fish 15 meters the fight took on the usual big kick and rest cycle of a big dhuie. We weer all getting very excited about what might come up until we saw that Shamu had caught a big sambo but had tail wrapped it at the same time. That's why the fight was a bit weird. After releasing the fish with a dozen sinkers as a release weight we decided enough was enough and headed home.

[img_assist|fid=158874|thumb=1|alt=One of our unstoppables]

Now I may have got a few of those spots mixed up in order of capture but I am pretty sure thats how it unfurled. A great day on the water and a couple of great blokes to share it with, thanks guys we had a laugh. Ox will be glad to know I didn't mention the attempted "half flex" rod at all in this report.

It was also great that when we got back to the ramp the fisheries guys were there to check our catch and safety equipment. They thought our bag was one of the best of the day and mentioned that they had seen a few flounder of that size being caught lately, so perhaps that should be a target species on the North Versus South comp. I know just the spot to try now (hehehe).

Went fishing for salmon yesterday.
While fishing i took the time to think of the diggers who put there lives on the line and gave there lives so we have a free country to fish and relax like i did today :)
Went wih a few mates.
I lost 2 Salmon.
One was average size and the other was a HORSE!!!! My guess would of been 9kg!!!! It had a float haing from its mouth that someone else had lost before.
It now has a set of gang hooks to the list because i lost it :twisted:
VERY rough swell today! In the pics it looks calm but there were some monster waves coming through!

I was soaked most of the day.
Here are some pics below....

Mate Scano landed the salmon in the pic

Hi Guys just returned from Kalbarri,sadly not much happening fish wise up there (for me anyway). I put about 2 to 3 hours a day of good solid trawling for mac's and tuna over the 3 days I was there and only one tuna landed with about 2 good strikes what i thought could have been a mac.
There were no signs of tuna on the surface feeding either. Each day I must have seen 15 to 20 boats trawling up and down nobody seemed to have much luck.
I did try for tailor at whitekara creek for one night but no luck, a local told me he did well tuesday and wednesday night but since then nothing.
It was still good to get away and give it a go, now im really hanging out for Dirkhatog in a month.

Hi boys, just got off the phone to a mate that lives in City beach and he said thats theres schools of salmon running up between there and floreat drain! That report came in 2 mins ago so if your in the area stop and chuck out some raiders baby and hang on!

Section 1 - IGA Exmouth
HPS Gamefish other than Billfish or shark weighed in on 1 - 2kg line
3rd Jamie Snook 4.4kg Queenfish on 1kg 440 points
2nd Jan Prince 10.3kg Golden on 2kg 515 points
1st Andrew Snook 6.6kg Queenfish on 1kg 660 points

Section 2 - Sam's Cellar
HPS Gamefish other than Billfish or shark weighed in on 3 - 4kg line
3rd Robyn Fenech 7.9kg Mackerel on 3kg 263 points
2nd James Russell 14.5kg Mackerel on 4kg 362 points
1st Jan Prince 13.6kg Mackerel on 3kg 453 points

Section 3 - Exmouth Automotive and Boating
HPS Gamefish other than Billfish or shark weighed in on6 - 8kg line
3rd Jamie Snook 12.2kg Mackerel on 6kg 203points
2nd Chris Hanks 17.5kg Mackerel on 8kg 218 points
1st Jamie Snook 13.2kg Longtail Tuna on 6 220 points

Section 4 - Home Hardware
HPS Gamefish other than Billfish or shark weighed in on 10 - 60kg line
3rd
2nd Keith Evans 12.2kg Mackerel on 10kg 122 Points
1st Wayne Roberts 20.7kg Mackerel on 10kg 207points

Section 5 - Kailis / Exmouth Pearls
HPS Billfish weighed in on 1 - 15kg line
3rd VACANT
2nd
1st

Section 6 - Exmouth Smash Repairs
Heaviest Billfish weighed in on 24 - 60kg line
3rd
2nd Tracey Rushford 87kg Broadbill on 60kg 72 points
1st Milton Landon 173.9kg Blue Marlin on 37kg line 235 points

Section 7 - Budget Car Hire
Champion Boat Tag & Release Shark
3rd Reel Teaser 5 Tags Average Line Class 60
2nd Awesum 5 Tags Average Line Class 12
1st Catch It 6 Tags

Section 8 - Toll West / Toll Ipec
Champion Angler Junior
3rd
2nd Andrew Snook 1 Species 1 L/C 660 Points
1st Rhys Clatworthy 6 Species 7 L/C 3360 Points

Section 9 - Opal Strike
Champion Angler Female
3rd Tracey Rushford 4 Species 3 L/C 3072 Points
2nd Robyn Fenech 5 Species 4 L/C 3110 Points
1st Jan Prince 6 Species 9 L/C 5236 Points

Section 10 - Engel
Champion Angler Male
3rd Gordon Lyon 4 Species 3 L/C 2732 Points
2nd Matt Niikkula 3 Species 3 L/C 3100 Points
1st Gary O'Brien 6 Species 5 L/C 4343 Points

Section 11 - Hotbite
Champion Angler Tag & Release Billfish
3rd Gary Miles 8 Marlin 4800 points
2nd Peter Versteeg 4 Marlin 5 Sailfish 4500 points
1st James Rosic 9 Marlin 5400 Points

Section 12 - Taylor Marine
Champion Boat Tag & Release Sailfish
5th Stray Cat 3 Tags
4th Jamaica 3 Tags
3rd Bill Glass 3 Tags
2nd In Deep 5 Tags average L/C 60
1st Reel Teaser 5 Tags average L/C 48

Section 13 - Reel Teaser Charters
Champion Boat Tag & Release Marlin
6th Touch of Class 9
5th Indizara 11
4th Chuditch 11
3rd Blue Horizon 12 Average L/C 52.3
2nd Reel Teaser 12 Average L/C 50.5
1st My Vice II 12 Average L/C 30.5

Section 14 - Starmart Exmouth
Champion Boat Overall
3rd Catch It 6 Species 9 L/C 4887 Points
2nd Orange Peel 8 Species 7 L/C 6083 Points
1st Awesum 7 Species 11 L/C 6328 Points

TOTAL:
52 Boats
180ish anglers

169 Marlin tagged
1 Marlin weighed
1 Broadbill weighed
53 Sailfish tagged
36 sharks tagged
3 sharks weighed
16 other gamefish species captured

Just got off the phone to a mate in Marndurah and said the salmon are there already! Mandorah bay and white hills have both been sighted for salmon in the 6kg class. He couldnt land any because they were to far out but smallish schools of around 20 to 30 fish have deffently been seen. Im heading down tonight for a try as ive got a mates wedding on saturday night down there. Ill let you know how i go. That means metro catches are just around the corner. See ya monday, SPESS.

As a preamble to a report I will hopefully be writing early next week, here is a sneak peek at the prize list for the event along with the points scoring system.

Champion Boat: $100 gift vouchers courtesy of Joondalup Compleat Angler plus the perpetual Coipasa Classic trophy.

Champion Angler: 800mm size Aquarium valued at $995 from Unique Aquariums. Plus $50 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

Biggest Dhufish: Bob Slight Boating Course valued at $330 plus $50 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

Most Species: Voucher for two people for one nights accommodation including breakfast at the Duxton hotel in Perth, valid to the 30/06/07 valued at $200 plus a $50 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

Classic Catch: Deep Fryer courtesy of Retravision Joondalup valued at $145 plus a $20 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

Biggest Pink Snapper: Dinner for two at Oscars Restaurant Currambine valued at $50 and 7 days free hire of a 120-litre esky from Perth Esky Hire valued at $45 plus a $20 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

Biggest Sand Whiting: 7 days free hire of a 120-litre esky from Perth Esky Hire valued at $45 plus a $20 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

Biggest Blackarse/Harlequin: A voucher for $50 worth of Fruit & Veg from Garden Glow plus $20 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

Biggest Other Snapper: $50 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

Biggest Baldie: $50 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

Biggest KG: $50 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

Biggest Skippy: A $20 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

The points are as follows:
Max weight listed first which carries 500pts above which 100 bonus points added irrespective of weight for anything exceeding that max weight, then points per kilogram listed second. So a 10kg dhuie will score 250 pts but a 501g Whiting or a 2.1kg Harlequin will score 600pts.

Dhufish 20kg + 25pts
Pinkie 9kg + 55pts
Whiting 500g+ 1000pts
KG 2.5kg + 200pts
Black Arse 2kg + 250pts
Harlequin 2kg + 250pts
Queenie 6.5kg + 75pts
Red Snapper 1kg + 500pts
Skippy 5kg + 100pts
Leatherjacket 4kg + 125pts
Flathead 3kg + 175pts
Tuna Blue 10kg + 50pts
YF Tuna 30kg + 15pts
Spanish Mac 20kg + 25pts
Baldchin 5kg + 100pts

Hope that makes sense. Should be a lot of fun.

We headed up to flatrock as you well know with Sid joining me and Sherbs at our fav spot. Pretty dead to start with, with sherbs getting stuck straight into the herring with the help of spess's burley theyre useally not to far away. No tailor to be had so i sent out a balloon with a fresh herring under it to see what was hanging around. Nothing touched it for half an hour but i left it alittle longer. Sid hooked up big time on the new rod and i helped leader the big banjo onto the reef. Great capture bu sid and a beautiful fish to boot. I went back to satr winding in me line when i seen Sids rod load up big time! Big head shakes and runs with the fish giving no sighns of giving up in a hurry. I got mine line in asap a headed over to asist in the landing. I was thinking a big mulla but it was a decent reefy of around 1.2m and hes wasnt happy! Shark snapping at your feet in a foot of water brings out the old foot work believe me! Sherbs was laughing like bluddy usall! We got her up for a few shots and placed it into the esky as old sherbs got the butchering days back for a great job of cleaning it up for the fridge. 3rd cast in followed for sid only to land another banjo of smaller size to the 1st. Not bad on 3 mullies, equals three fish. He wont be asked back agin.lol. Na good to get some new faces up there and cant wait to do it again. Yeah i only got a small flattie and herring for my day, so clearly out fished. Sherbs took us for a detour on the wAy home which ended up getting us lost for a while! Next time yopu get u map off the net mate it might pay to make sure its the right region and dont forget to get some fuel next time either. Cheers guys and thanks to sid for keeping the team alive with a few ggod fish.

We headed to the end of staggies first up and tried valliantly to cast to the breakers, with a big crayboat sitting 20m away watching us. Unfortunately it was a bit rough and without risking the lives of my crew we decided to give it a miss.

Next we trolled the back og Staggies up to the Alkimos and I nailed a little Bonito (not much bigger than the lure). We trolled a bit more but no further takers.

Headed out a bit wider and settled on the first lump for the day. This was a spot where I had been busted off about 3 times in successive trips by BIIIIGGGG fish. I had just finished telling the story to Tapout and Shamu when my rod came up tight on that unknown beastie from down below.

I was fishing with a new reel and 300m of fresh braid so I felt I had a good chance. I struggled to get its head up under maximum drag and extra thumb pressure. I stayed connected for about 5 minutes on the first fish before the hooks pulled. Next drop and I hooked up again this time I was connected for a fair bit longer only to have the braid snap at the rod. (Ouch) I had been lazy the night before when I pulled a rod down off the rack to connect my new reel to. It was my father-in-law's rod which rarely gets used and I had switched the reels over rather than buying another rod. Well the end guide looked fine so down we went again for another drift. Wouldn't you know it another big fish. This time I got him up off the bottom and was gaining line. A few big runs and clawed back some more this fight was looking like we might actually see this brute. Then all of a sudden "ping", the line snapped again. A more thorough inspection by Tapout as I lay crying on the deck, revealed a break in the third guide which had caused the problem. The rod was retired for the day and I lifted my whiting / tailor rod out of the launcher. I was dreading hooking up to that fish for a third time on such light gear but I had no option.

I needn't have worried because next drop Tapout hooked up with baitcaster. Wouldn't you know it it was the big momma again. We had most of it on video and Tapout did very well to stay connected for 14minutes before the line broke. We had entered "The Dropzone". Fish 4 Fishwrecked 0. Time to move.

We fished a few lumps before deciding to hit the spot where Shamu and I had nailed a few good dhuies a month or so ago. Second drift and Tapout nailed a nice 5.5kg dhuie to at least get some respectability to the esky. Oh I forgot to mention his first fish (released to appease the fish gods) was a small dhuie which was sent back down with a release weight.

I had been fishing all day with one baited hook and one squidgy or power grub. The grubs kept getting hammered as did the squidgies, again some big teeth marks in the tails of the power grub.

We managed a few more fish, a Harlequin, blackarse and skippy to Tapout, a little flattie to Shamu and a size pinky for me which I decided to release anyway. We started to head back in when we encountered a few baitballs on the surface so out with the lures again. Unfortunately several passes resulted in nothing so we fished another lump on th eway back in.

Second drift and I loaded up on the whiting gear. After a nice little battle a 3ft bronzie surfaced. Shamu was keen to make shark fin soup so we kept him and dispatched him to the esky after the usual surgery to remove all vital organs etc.

We ran three jet heads on the way back in and passed more baitballs on th esurface but again no joy. In th eend it was a magnificent day on the water. We had a laugh all day long and took home a feed so not that bad considering none of my spots really fired today.

Thanks for sharing the day Tapout & Shamu. Video footage will be edited hopefully by the end of the week.

I cannot believe todays weather would probably have to be the best its been all week and I am going to be stuck at home with 12 screaming little monsters around for a 2 year olds party whoa is me
Might have to have a visit from Mr Jack Daniels without the Mrs finding out
Looking forward to going out Wednesday counting the days

On the internet the weather looked good, but no one took me up on the offer to fish the FADs today, so I decided to make the hike out on my own.

This is the first time I launched The Outrage alone and I am glad that it turned out to be no dramas.

I decided to leave a little later as Seabreeze indicated that the wind would only drop late morning and by the time I got ice, bait, finished rigging the boat and got it into the water it was 9.45am. The ride out was lumpy and I headed out between 19 - 25 knots and by the time I reached the Hillary's FAD it was close to 11.20am. On approach I saw 3 boats there, so I stopped about 800m away to rig my rods and got the boat ready for fishing. The guys out there were right on top of the FAD and I joined in, but off to one side. It looked like no one was hooking up and a friendly shout confirmed it.

The mahi were there, but for some reason they weren't biting. After I had 2 drifts, two of the other boats decided to try their luck some where else and took off. The remaining boat looked like a really fancy "flats boat", twin 50's, t top and a small radar arch.

Once the other 2 boats left, I set up for another drift chummed a mixture of mullie cubes and squid chunks and this time hooked up!
All the mahi were the same size and as usual, once one was hooked the rest lit up.

I was ready for this and once the first one was alongside, I put the rod in the rod holder (drag loosened) and got my other rod and offered another bait to the bunch hanging around - instant hook up!

I kept the first two and released 9 others in a span of 2 hours. One of them actually took me on a tour round the boat twice! All jumped except for one. Also hooked a mutton bird!

The guys in the fancy boat managed 5 and 2 mutton birds!

The wind did not stop till it was time to go at about 1.30pm. My last drift was almost motionless. I had drifted down to the FAD and actually within 10 meters of it for about 5 minutes!

I took advantage of the flat conditions to make my run in as I had a doctors appointment to go to and managed 30 knots for 21nm! It was only lumpy close in.

All in all, I had a good a day. I have been waiting to catch my first Perth Mahi and I have finally done it. Can't wait for April or May to come, I suspect they will be bigger by then.

Don't know if I should polish off the FAD paint

Sorry about the crappy pictures, came off a cam corder camera, so very low res. Was alone, so no action shots.

Been back a few days from a week in Exmouth. Me and mate Johnny took his Kevlacat up there and managed to get in a few days good fishing.

day 1 was trolling behind the reef in about 30m with laser pros and a small richter soft grassy lure. Managed to land a nice spaniard and some yellowfin tuna.

Next day went out and as soon as i dropped in johnnys mackerel mauler lure while still letting it out something hit it. Brought in a small yellowfin. Was all good until when i went to get it into the boat I copped a treble in the finger The tuna was still on but luckily jumped off the lure leaving me with a mauler in my finger. I tried to get it out but the barb was right in so took the lure off taped the treble to my finger and decided to keep fishing. Johnny got a couple of spaniards then i decided it was time to go in and get the treble out. Of to the exmouth hospital and not long after the treble was out!

Next day went bottom bouncing near murions. No reds or spanglies but a couple of big rankin cod and some red throat still made for a nice catch till the weather turned a bit nasty so in we headed.

The following day we concentrated trolling the 100 - 200m mark with teasers and some pushers. Within literally 1 minute of a pusher being in the water a small marlin hit it and started jumping around a bit. It threw the hook not long after that but made a great start to the day thats for sure! A couple of hours after that a nice wahoo hit the soft grassy. After that was dispatched not much more really was happening. With not long left in the day Johnny seen a billy following and have a swipe at my pusher. I missed it but a matter of seconds later my rod was bent over and i was on! After a good fight my first sailfish was brought along the boat, dehooked and sucessfully released after swimming for a few minutes. What a rush! That was it for that day but wheere hungry to get out chasing billfish the next day

The next day Ant from bluewater came out with us chasing billfish again. Trying in the 100 and working up to 400m of water we raised a couple but no hookups Ant and johnny seen a wahoo come vertical out of the water at the pusher and i just seen the splash as it come back in! Not Long after 2 rods bent over, I managed to land another yellowfin while johnny was bitten off after the tuna was put on ice the lures were back out and after a while johnny was hooked up to something. Another nice wahoo was brought in before trolling some more. In the arvo we seen another follow on the lure but no hookup. After that there was another follow on 1 pusher, then all of a sudden the rod on the other side of the spread went off! Johnny was connected to a nice marlin which was going absolutely crazy jumping all over the place After a long run the line went slack and threw the hook Trolled around for a bit more but the day was over.

That was the last day as the cyclone was moving in and the 40knot+ winds didnt seem too appealing
What a great trip now just gotta get some gear to tackle these billies!

Also one night up there went for a walk to the navy pier throwing poppers for GT's. Johnny managed to land 2 small ones but got busted up by 2 big boys! I managed a gold spot on a fat R but no G's for me. still great fun seeing them attack a haymaker popper!

We seen Adam Gallash also at tantabiddi boat ramp. Sounds like your having fun up there Adam! Bloody paradise up there.

A big thanks must go to ben and ant at bluewater up there. Theyre helpfull service and advice certainly made the trip a whole lot better. Cheers fellas Pics to follow

Headed out Today for a in close bash with Hoju. Left Freo at about 7:00 and punched into some pretty nasty chop. Got to the spot anchored up and started to burley. Nothing for about half an hour until a decent hookup on my bait caster wich peeled line off like a train. After about 5 mins fighting Hoju hooked up and then we had to juggle rods to avoid tangles for another 5 mins. After a good fight 2 black tip reef sharks to about just over a metre each hit the surface. Trying to remove the hooks on the side off the boat resulted in both sharks busting the leaders and taking our rigs.After that pretty much every drop resulted in instant hookups on sharks with them hitting the baits on the surface next to the boat and even jumping clear of the water during the fight. We ended up hooking around 20 between us, loosing 15 rigs and landing about 5 each. I managed 1 under size snapper and Hoju 2 rat sambo,s and a decent Tarwine amongst all the chaos. All in all good fun in bad conditions and back at the ramp by 11:00. Well done Hoju hope you had a bit of fun cheif.

Hey Guys,

Up in Exmouth and well settled in. Went out for a fish today in pretty nasty south easters. We landed one grey mack about 1 metre, went wide, raised one marlin - about 45-50kg range and had him in the spread for about 30 seconds, had him hookup for a good 60 seconds before the hook pulled. SPEWN! Had something 20 minutes later hit the spread, but didn't hookup. We landed one more stripey tuna of 4kg, but a very quiet day on the water and rather uncomfortable. Might head out tomorrow arvo for a bottom bounce and see what we can find, see if this bloody wind drops off.

Will have a permanent internet connection soon and will report more.

Happy fishing guys,
Adam

On friday straight after work we set out to our desination from the launching ramp in Butchers Inlet (Cossack). It was a little rough but the 2 boat convoy made it there in reasonable time. After we arrived the other boys chucked out their crab pots and we went for a troll/explore. We didn't get far before we almost got stuck.. the receding tide was going out very fast and these were the biggest tides we'd ever been there on.

The Para boys

Once the tide got a bit lower it was time to find some bait. So we anchored in some shallow water, jumped out and took a stroll to find some mullet. We did reasonably well with around 15 odd good sized ones that would last us the remaining afternoon and evening.

By this stage it was nearly dark so it was time to anchor up and have a fish. We pulled the anchor and moved to our spot. The tide was making it difficult to lock on the bottom so we had to stuff around a bit. Once we'd successfully anchored we realised our bait bucket that was tied to the back of the boat (to keep airated) had been smashed by the prop so we had no mullet for the evening. DAMN.

We fished for a bit with poppers/fizzers but they were proving unsuccsessful and the beers in the esky looked a bit more appealing hehe. After knocking off quite a few drinkies we headed off to bed at around 2-2:30am.

Woke up the next morning to a glorious day and a chronic headache. Not to worry, a couple of panadols and a huge drink of water did the trick.

We pulled up to the bank and went to get some mullet for the day. It was a bit harder than the previous day but we managed to get some good ones. We waited for the tide to go down a bit more and then started to fish.

It started out a bit quiet with only a few catfish caught but soon enough I was on. I could tell by the jump that it was a big fish. I knew it would be in the 90's and possibly a meter fish. After a tussle I got him in and after a quick photo and a measure the big girl was released to fight another day. She was 94cm, my 4th barra over 90cm.

After this I thought it would be the start of a good session but it quietened off a little before Glenn hooked up some time later.

Glenns fish pulled a bit of string and got completely airborne but we realised it was a much smaller fish - the small ones go hard! When we got it in we measured it and got a photo. We decided to keep this one for dinner.

This barra was also tagged. I called up ANSA and here are the details.

Tag number 24464.
tagged on 7th Sept 2003.
by Jay Wheelock (member of Nickol Bay Sportfishing Club)
tagged in jones river 1.

recaptured 24th Feb 2007 ( thats 1267 days at large.)
angler Glenn Hall.
caught in jones river 1
700mm long and kept.
growth of 180 mm.

So theres a little bit of interesting information for yas.

After this the tide started to come in fast. I started to think we had come to the end of our fish but at the last minute Glenn hooked up again. I didn't think it was going to be a barra as it didn't jump nor did it take much line but sure enough when it came in it was a 65cm barra. We decided to keep this one for the paraburdoo boys that didn't get any barra.

After this fish it was time to head home. The tide was coming in fast and it was too high and fast to continue fishing effectively. The trip home was uneventful and just about as rough as the previous day.

All in all it was a good trip out. The catties were a serious problem but we've found this quite common on the bigger tides. Barra numbers were a little below average for this spot but this is something we've also noticed on the spring tides (we usually fish the neaps with much better results). Considering the difficult tides and a slow season in general it was a good trip.

Too windy...ah well time to unload the boat again and crawl back into bed. At least I don;t have a hangover, unlike some of you guys.

Went out with my next door neighbour Greg and his son Matt. We decided we would try to find some new ground and plotted a course for some spots we had been given but never fished before. The day started very slowly with the first 4 spots not looking like anything but sand, so we moved on and kept looking for fresh ground. We ended up about 19nm west of Ocean Reef and found a boat already on one of the spots we had been given, so decided to head North a bit and zig zag around until we picked something up.

We hadn't traveled far before we found a nice lump with some fish on it. The fickle Northerly wind made the drift a bit awkward but we managed to get it over the spot a few times and Matt landed a nice Morwong.

A few more drifts and a small baldie was landed (Matt again).

We moved further north and found another new lump. We gave it a few drifts and on the third drift I pulled in this beauty. Went 9.5kg and made me a happy camper, yet again.

Later we moved again and found more good ground. Greg managed a small dhuie around 55cm and then repeated it a bit later with another fish around 58cm. This one had a twinkle in its eye when it saw me.

We fished on until about 5pm and I landed a pb flathead (no where near as big as Sherbert's but a big'n all the same). We moved back in to the nine mile reef and had a heap of fun with skippy on light line. Matt was the champion skippy man.

A great day on the water and that spot that the other boat was on when we first did a pass left the scene and we had a couple of drifts over it. WOW!!! a mountain of fish and lots of big ones amongst them. Nothing would take a bait and I even tried jigging for no return. But it is marked in now and we will be back for sure. looks like it holds a lot of promise for the future. Thanks to Greg for a great day out and for getting us onto some nice fish.

Went down aiport creek yesterday. Left at about 6:30am and got into the creek just after sunrise. This was our first time down airport and I think it's a good system even though the barra fishing was a bit slow... definately be going back there soon.

Trolled up a nice flattie within 30sec of trolling, also got another couple of smaller ones which went back. One thing I noticed is that there was mullet and bonies everywhere! only a couple of good throws with the net accounted for heaps of plump sized barra mullet. The amount of mullet possibly accounted for the number of sharks that were there, we caught about 4 and busted off on a couple, and the number of sharks could have made the barra anxious. The water temp was down a bit which might also explain why there was no barra.

After having our livies out for a while I saw a massive bow wave on the surface. Got my heart going and I soon realised it was in the vicinity of my bait. My line had lots of slack (due to my livie swimming back towards the boat) so I decided to see if it had taken interest in my bait. I wound in the slack and came up solid. The fish went straight to the surface and I initially called it for a barra but then it breached and it looked odly like a shark. Since we'd been catching those I called it for a shark. I played it for a while and got it close enough to the boat for a good look and I realised my 'shark' was a massive giant threadfin. The pressure was on now! Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be my day though, we had several obstacles we had to overcome before we landed this fish!

Firstly, my line had tangled with glenns so there was several tense moments as there was slack line while trying to untangle the lines. Ended up cutting glenns line and winding the tangle onto the spool. I worked the fish some more and got it to the side of the boat. Glenn made a shot with the net and got it's head in gave a heave... my braid cut the net and the fish dropped through the bottom. Now I've got my line going through the net with a huge fish on the other end! While we were trying to sort out the net situation the thready decides to head over the other side of the boat and gets the line tangled on the outboard. The 30lb braid snapped shortly after and I sat there weak at the knees. What a fish! Would have been a good photo of the month contender! I was sooo angry at the time I almost threw my baitcasting outfit into the water lol. Not only was it the only threadfin I'd hooked since I've been fishing karratha, it was the biggest thready I'd ever seen. We decided it would have easily gone over a meter and probably would have been somewhere around the 1200mm mark. Another bloke we saw said he got a 1170mm threadie last weekend. I'll be there to catch her again!

Apart from the it was a less than average day. Didn't have any interest from the barra and the other blokes didn't get anything other than sharks. We picked up a couple of last minute jacks on the high tide and then headed across the bay back to the ramp. Hopefully the weather heats up a bit and warms the water up a bit before we head into winter.

A very busy Christmas break with all the boats going out every day. Thanks to the great weather over the holidays and abundance of large mackerel and yellow-fin tuna everyone had a very productive and enjoyable time. Almost too much content with lots of pictures this month & had to exclude some anglers! (I can’t help it if every one catches fish)
One group of guys had a burster of a trip. Mike Irvine and crew consisting of Tim Storer, Pat, Byron and Chris had the 5.3m boat for 5 days over the New Year break catching 12 spanish mackerel, 3 spotted mackerel, 1 what looks more like a big-eye tuna a dhuie and snapper and a variety of other bottom fish. They lost a hell of a lot of fish as well which is the norm for mackerel fishing and Mike tells me that there was no paint left on his king brown Halco lure at the end of it all!

Spotted mackerel.

A first mac for a happy angler, Nice little yellow-fin tuna.

The King brown coloured lures were the mackerel’s undoing.

The King Brown stripped of paint from so many teeth marks. Note the upgrade to chemically sharpened Owner Stinger Trebles. Code ST-41BC 2x Size 2/0. They do make a difference!

The macs were big as well!

Here are a couple of pics emailed to me from Matt Ryan and John Veerhuis’s trip. They took the 6.1m boat up to the Sand Patch with John picking up this solitary mac.

The second day’s hire was in the dinghy, as they wanted to do some fishing up river. They took the advantage of a quick troll early in the morning at the Sand Patch again and dropped a mackerel, but it all went off for them up river by Castle Rock with the incoming tide in the afternoon. They ended up catching and releasing 30 undersize mulloway among the estuary cods and bream!

Black bream, little estuary cods and 30 mulloway this size made up the catch. ( The mulloway were released)

Now that the river has settled down and a defined deeper channel formed, I have put a series of yellow floats marking the channel at the very shallow first bend in the river. The trick is to keep the yellow floats on your left when going up river. It is still very shallow at low tide but passable at high.

At the beginning of the year Damian Sheridan called in and picked the dinghy up for the 3 days that he had booked. The weather gods smiled on him producing 3 very good days in a row. He emailed this pic saying they headed out to just north of the Sand Patch and in only 10 metres of water picked up a half dozen pinkies with a few bust offs. The pic is of Jonathan Baulch who caught this 7kg monster on a mulie on this first cast! Well done Jonathan, Nice fish!
Damian said “It was a great day for us seeing we didn’t really know where to go”

Jonathan stands in the dinghy with his monster pink snapper.

Matthew was up with his family and friends. I know Matt from mates from Perth and he is a very keen angler. First night he was out at Chinamans landing this little greenback releasing it to grow bigger. Last year it took him all week before he got his first one, he tells me.

Matt’s Chinaman’s caught tailor

With a fair swell running I was sure it would go off at Black Rock. We took a few big waves from surf as shown above but the tailor were on!

We landed 8 just as the sun was setting, this being the smallest and all released.

Here is an unusual catch. During one of the rare days when there is a boat available during the school holidays, I like to get out with my kids. The overcast day was not that good with a 12-knot southwester blowing, but we had a go anyway. After an hour and the lures constantly snagging up on weed, I switched all the rods to skipping garfish. This method keeps the baits free of the weed. Blanking out at the Sand Patch without a hit for 2 hours, despite the blue 23.5-degree water we headed back to the river mouth. Halfway back my daughter Rebecca took a hit on her garfish.

This 8kg broad-barred mackerel was the result. We don’t see them here very often; identified by their smaller and upturned top jaw, very distinct markings on the forward dorsal fin, smaller head proportion and very indistinct broad bars on its side, which fade when dead.

Broad-barred and narrow-barred with the heavier & thicker jaw right

Now have a look at this!
Dewayne with his 35kg plus yellow-fin tuna!

This is the biggest tuna caught from any of my boats and it was in my dinghy.

Matt Radbund and mate Dewayne grabbed the 4.3m dinghy and trolled around the Sand Patch eventually giving up and started a slow troll home when Dwayne took the hit. Chasing it down with the dinghy and 50lb braid Dewayne made short work of it and had it to the gaff within 15 minutes! A huge effort Dewayne and a fish of a lifetime!

Up river later in the day with their partners they had fun on small mulloway and mud crabs.


Phil Kear and his boys also had a good trip up river catching baby mulloway and bream & nearly bagged out on tailor at Wittacarra Creek!

The Kalbarri Sports Fishing Classic preparations are well advanced and ready for another successful event on the 2nd 3rd and 4th March this year. The 5.3m boat and accommodation was snapped up pretty quick for the “Classic” weekend after the cancellation so only the dinghy left now. If you would like info on the classic just email me you address and I will mail stuff out to you. You can download an entry form from the Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club website. Just go to the Kalbarri Classic Sports Fishing page.

The caravan park at Port Gregory is under new management and a booking agent for my boats. You can now book a boat and pick it up in Port Gregory.

Remember if you rent our accommodation you get big discounts on our boats. Have a look on my website for the details, and check out the savings.

Big bait – big fish
Laurie

Murchison Boat Hire
PH/FAX (08) 9937 2043