Exmouth Fishing Report #11 - Courtesy of Scott Forbes

Peak Season is not far away now with the town filling up rapidly with tourists and regulars in the caravan parks over the last week. The Whaleshark boats are in full swing and the fishing charter boats have also been busy. The fishing peaked before cyclone Hubert arrived on the scene and anglers all around Exmouth were faced with hungry fish in a feeding frenzy.

Ok...here goes....

Not too bad start to the weekend......
Had a short fish at a local rock platform for the usual bread and butter.
Bream gear and bass minnows on 1/8th oz jighead......plenty of herring, gardies to the old men....no skippy which I hoped for.....bang....one bonito....hoping for more it was not to be......

there you go....tomorrow's gonna be even better weather wise.
Stay

[img_assist|fid=18095|thumb=1|alt=Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club|caption=Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club]

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

MARCH 25th COMPETITION RESULTS

With the river mouth still closed to boats only the beach and river sections were able to fish. Some boats contemplated going down to Port Gregory but the weather was not quite up to making the long drive worth it.

There were surprisingly good catches of bream from the river with 5 adults and 2 juniors presenting fish to be weighed. Biggest fish of the day went to junior Jeb Duigan who had a bream of 1.02kg among his 3 fish just beating Dylan Ivey who also had 3 fish. Cheryl Eley had 2 fish and Di Stewart 4 but Brett Bain had 3 live fish giving him the edge on points. Garry Ivey and Peter Duigan both had 3 fish as well. All the live fish were returned to the river.

[img_assist|fid=18098|thumb=0|alt=Jeb Junior Winner]

Jeb Duigan accepts his prize.

[img_assist|fid=18101|thumb=0|alt=Brett Bain Senior Winner]

Brett Bain wins with live fish

[img_assist|fid=18107|thumb=0|alt=Daniel Snapper]

Daniel’s two snapper. And Simon with two species gave him the extra points to win.

[img_assist|fid=18110|thumb=0|alt=Simons shark n snapper|caption=Simons shark n snapper]

The Land Based Section, low on numbers again, was fished by the Tarasek brothers who had some good fish again. Daniel’s two snapper one going 4.5kgs were not good enough to beat brother Simon’s shark and snapper.

The $50.00 Anzac award to the best fish of the comp went to Daniel Tarasek for his very nice 4.5kg pink snapper from the cliffs.

[img_assist|fid=18104|thumb=0|alt=Daniel Winner]

Daniel Tarasek accepts his Anzac voucher from Cheryl Eley.

Peter Dooley picked up the restaurant prize while Peter Jones from Perth won the $50.00 worth of scratchies in the raffle.

Fishing Report 10 – 22nd March’06 - Courtesy of Scott Forbes - EGFC

[img_assist|fid=17793|thumb=0|alt=Gamex Marlin]

Everything’s has been steaming lately with all the recent rain and the humidity, lots of various fishing with the marlin absolutely firing. Other pelagics have also been firing despite the fact that the full moon is shining high. Usually the full moon is a slow time for fishing, but this latest phase has certainly changed the views of some anglers. Team “Waverider” from Broome, here for the tournament, did a few trial days out on the water west of the lighthouse and the Muiron Islands and consequently tagged 11 fish in three days. Most of these were small black marlin and one large girl estimated at 200kg also fell to a lure and was tagged and released.

The Knots and Rigging Session at the Yacht club had about 35 people show up for some tips on tournament tactics and information on tagging fish and other aspects of GAMEX. The session was very useful for some newcomers to the club and the Exmouth Game Fishing Club would like to thank the Yacht club for the venue and Matt Gates for his input.

Visitors to the area Troy and Julia Utan from Perth have been fishing in their Haines Signature boat off Tantabiddi for the last two weeks. They have had up to ten shots a day on various sized marlin, hooking some, dropping some and tagging at least two each day that they have tried for marlin. The two said to us that it was “the best two weeks of their life” and they can’t wait to return.

Learmonth has been teaming with baitschools of late, with queenfish, mackerel and trevally coming in for a feed. The occasional squid has also been showing up, particularly on the high tide.

Don’t forget that Friday night the auction for the EGFC numberplates starts at 8pm. The club would like to thank Gino Garbellini for his help with this auction. The debrief from the tournament is on at the Potshot gantry on Saturday morning at 10am and all input is welcome for comments on this years’ event and suggestions for 2007.

Gamex 2006 is underway and day one has produced some fantastic results;

27 marlin and 5 sailfish on the first day.

48 boats have entered this years competition and it's only just begun!!

More reports soon.........

Well, Gribbo's up at Exmouth for Gamex, hopefully we will hear some reports over the week of how they have been going.

Gully also went up to Exmouth for the 2 weeks, not fishing the competition. They got in at 10am today, were in the water by 1.30pm and landed a black marlin and a sailfish already. Looks like theres going to be some awesome photos coming in over the next few weeks.

More reports to come.

Was driving past the river yesterday and out about 200 meters from point walter there was a flock of birds working like they were onto a school of tuna. Similar frenzied dives and the surface alive and boiling. Was pretty suprised to say the least, looked like a big school of baitfish being herded by birds and bigger fish on the outside. The school would have been nearly 30 meters wide.

Heard that the first marlin, reported, for the season was caught last week, a 140kg striped on 37kg tackle that took 45mins.

Other news is that the derwent still has sambo's and pinkies on it, but if you like 200m jigging with a 4knot current then I wish you all the best.

The boys were meant to head out to the fads today, but looking at that easterly, i think they will have hid somewhere until it drops (if it drops). Most likely chased some tailor or anchored up on a shallow lump somewhere. Will get their report soon, not suprising that we had perfection weatherwise last week and its gone crap again this week, can't win!

With Gamex coming up next week, there should be some awesome pelagic reports and photo's coming in soon!!!! :)

There was some pretty good weather down south last week which gave a few boats the opportunites to get out.

Reports are that the dhuies are in close and seem to be aggregating - a couple of dhuie double headers being the story of the day, with most fish being in the 6-8kg range. Good bycatches of queen snapper and nannygai are also reported and big schools of salmon are just off the coastline. Look foward to easter, can't wait to get south!!!

KALBARRI SPORTS FISHING CLASSIC

20th ANNIVERSARY YEAR 2006

Courtesy of Laurie Malton

The Kalbarri Classic this year again hosted a record number of boats making it a very successful tournament. The final count of fifty boats (17 under 6m, 22 in the 6m–7m and 11 over 7m) spent 3 days fishing it out for $18.000 worth of prizes in 29 categories over the Labour Day long weekend, 3rd 4th and 5th March. 146 anglers fished the ocean and 19 fished the muddy and in flood Murchison River.

The river anglers had quality fish despite the difficult conditions of dirty water flowing from Cyclone Clair last month. As opposed to the mangrove jacks, cod, tailor, mulloway and whiting last year, only bream were weighed in this year. Last year’s River Champion, Daryl Fishwick, returned from Northam again this year to reclaim his trophy with his maximum of 4 bream each day totalling 43.75 points. Paul Allen did well again and picked up the “Skywest Top Gun Award” for the river on the third day, winning a return flight on Skywest to Perth. Paul only just lost to Daryl by 1.98 points.

The seven juniors were very competitive with the lead changing daily. On the last day junior, Chris Miller, brought in an impressive 1.028kg bream and picked up the Heaviest Bream trophy, and released it back live into the river. It was not good enough however to beat Jeb Duigan’s bag of 9 bream over 3 days to win the Champion River Junior. A junior, Riley Eley, whose big bream was only just beaten by 56 grams, weighing in at 1.028kg, won the Meritorious River. Well-done Riley! Runner up junior Mitchell Westlund just missed out with 7 bream.

There were a lot of contenders for the catch and release prize with Brett Bain, catching and releasing 10 of the 33 bream released over the weekend.

The boat section lapped up the better than forecast weather searching far and wide for big fish. A strong current kept most fish hiding on the first day but most boats found some fish to weigh. Barry Court started the ball rolling with a small samson fish but was soon knocked off by Kelly Westlund with a 14.5kg specimen to win Heaviest Samson Fish. Peter Maindok put his team ahead on the first day with an impressive mulloway from the end of the cliffs aboard brother Paul Maindok’s under 6m boat “Mofo”

Apparently the fads were firing for dolphinfish most of the weekend, with Monday being pick of the days. From stories it sounds like they were being caught on everything, even thou there was no real size to them. Out behind the fads there were yellowfin tuna and stripeys everywhere, couple of blokes got yfin that were over 10kg, which is pretty small, but good fun. Streetfighter80 also caught 5 southern bluefin and a couple of stripeys out at the South West Bank trolling the birds. 8 billfish were also raised over the weekend for the Blue Marlin classic, but there were no hookups.

Water temperatures were 24.5 degrees out behind fsc and the water was moving through at nearly 4 knots. The current has picked up its ferocity and hopefully will be moving the pelagics south. There were photos on another website of 6-8kg bluefin tuna free jumping down at busselton over the weekend. Indications of a good salmon season are about as well. Bit unfortunate for us as well trolled the north of the 5 fathom to westend and wider through several schools of baitfish but it appeared the current had pushed the bigger fish wide over the weekend. There were also huge levels of coral bloom and scum lines out from Ocean Reef which made trolling difficult. Reports of 2 spanish mackerel from divers over the weekend, one 12kg fish spotted south of the chicken run and a 15kg fish out from alkimos.

Adam

sunday night down at white hill 5 choppers 3 herring 2stingrays 1 school mully home by 10.30 great night

Lots of tunas round landed 5 sthn blues and couple of big striped ones too. the are feeding an very small bait fish, just follow the birds and you'll find them.

caught 2 harlaquine fish and the dhuies started to bite on the late breeze.

Question: I have only caught 1 pinkie out @ sw bank, andone else caught any out this way??

headed out to a couple of the fads on monday, finally great to see the water temp has finally come up. Club marine fad had a couple of large dolphin fish round it but turned there noses to our offerings, so it was decided that freo sailing club was next on the horizon. This turned out to be a desert with no birds working and no dollies in sight, so it was another cruise to the Yamaha fad which looked the goods on arrival plenty of birds working and dollies free jumping.So out came the soft plastics 1 got one hit but no hookup after watching the dollies follow the plastics but not jump on them was pretty fustraiting.So never less we decided a change of tactics was needed out went the trolling lures and we trolled for a while round the fad but had no hookups, it seemed weird the dolphin fish were free jumping and crashing bait schools but weren't interested in our assortment of lures, fish here were plentiful but still only in the 3-4 kilo class.
2006 fads season is here, do yourself the favour and take advantage of Perth's sportfishing hopefully the next trip will be more fruitful cheers bolts.

Poida has been up fishing Steep Point over the last week, here is the catch so far:
1 spanish mackerel, 2 dog mackerel, 4 pink snapper, 2 blue bone and a lot of fish have been lost to sharks and groper. Shark count has been 3 spanish macks and 2 have been lost at the gaff to groper. They have also managed to hook up to a couple of sailfish off the rocks but haven't been able to land them.
Hopefully they will have some photos to show when they get back on Thursday.

Fishing Report 23-02-2006 - Courtesy of Scott Forbes

Threadfin salmon have been the catch of the week lately with many reports of them up around the cape and along the west side; all from the shore. Most of them have been caught using small 2.25inch paddle tail soft plastic chartreuse coloured lures on light line with a heavier monofilament leader. Other species taking to these lures have been the ever present Charlie court and small trevally. The odd shark mackerel has even managed to stay connected to some anglers lines, even though they have sharp teeth.

Less than a month to go till Gamex and everyone taking part is getting ready. If you are a member of the club and would like to be more involved or contribute some help during the week with the event, please contact president Kurt Decker on 9949 4360. Don’t forget the Knots and Rigging Session on the 12th March at the Yacht club from 4-6pm and the Betta Electrical/NEC Introduction Day on the 19th. Also a quick reminder of the auction for the EGFC numberplates is on Friday the 24th March….. ARE YOU READY?? It’s going to be a big one! Even the marlin are getting a bit of practise in by feeding up on the acres of bait in the surrounding waters. Huge schools of flying fish have been seen scattering across the surface with predatory fish such as tuna, wahoo, and marlin hot on their tails.

Learmonth Jetty has been very productive this week with bait schools close to shore and predatory fish such as queenfish and even big cobia coming in for a feed. A rare sight reported was a small seal which was extremely friendly letting people get close and carefully pat it. The seal seemed to be heading in to the gulf and we hope it stayed well clear of the masses of sharks that have also been reported lately.

FEBRUARY 25th COMPETITION RESULTS

This month’s comp is so close to the “Classic” that we sponsor this comp ourselves, and vouchers came from Kalbarri SupaValu, T-Bone & Sons and The Marina Home & Leisure. The comp was supposed to be last weekend but the weather was not the best, postponing to this Saturday, but the weather was not much better! We fished anyway as it was fine for the riveries and the land based guys. With the river still flowing most river anglers expressed concern over even getting a bite, but found that the fish were there and as hungry as ever.

Eleven juniors fished it out with six of them having good bream to weigh. Lee Ivey had a bet both ways going out game fishing, drawing a blank and then having a go in the river picking up two bream after lunch. Luke Dooley brought his live to the weigh-in to claim double points, Riley Eley’s fish unfortunately did not make it in live but Jeb Duigan’s fish did giving him valuable points. Martin Stewart had a fish to weigh, but sister Amy blitzed the field with 3 bream, two of them live. All the live bream are returned to the river.

The seniors, out fished by the juniors, also had good fish. Jane and Peter Dooley and Brett Bain each had one, but Di Stewart did it again second month running to win with her 4 bream.

[img_assist|fid=15854|thumb=0|alt=Bream1][img_assist|fid=15857|thumb=0|alt=Bream2]
Jeb Duigan and Luke Dooley with their catch

The Land Based Section, low on numbers again, was fished by the Tarasek brothers who had some good fish again. Daniel’s two snapper were not good enough to beat brother Simon’s big shark and snapper. Don Owen had 7 tailor for a combined weight of 2.39kgs.

[img_assist|fid=15860|thumb=0|alt=Snapper1]

No bottom fish were recorded, probably due to the weather limiting boats getting out to their usual spots. Paul Maindok went out in his over 7.5m boat “Santa Barbara”, rather late, only to return empty handed. What happened Paul?

The game section was also difficult with Steve Wiseman and Wayne Dewer aboard “Top Deck” tying south of the river mouth with no luck, while Laurie Malton with Sue Malton and juniors Lee Ivey and Steven Eley aboard “Bulawayo Buoy” trying out on the 3 mile. With no luck there “Bulawayo Buoy moved and anchored just off Black Rock and set baits for mulloway in the chocolate coloured water hoping for a mulloway. With a bit of luck (or was it skill?) Laurie had the only bite of the day picking up a nice sized 7.20kg mulloway on 3kg line to win the Game Section.

Fishing Report 16-02-06 - Courtesy of Scott Forbes

Flies and more flies! We just can’t seem to get rid of them, and what a pest they are, especially when you are trying to fish. Several boys from the Bluewater Perth stores have been on holidays, chasing all sorts of species. Lewis Mounsher caught a mack-tuna on a soft plastic lure near Bundegi, along with some gold spot trevally and queenfish. Dominic Prezwanski caught four bonefish on soft plastics from shore, two Spanish mackerel on shallow diving 190 Laser Pros from the dinghy and got blitzed on spangled emperor several times in both places.

Other anglers have not had such luck with the moon in its full phase, which is always a good excuse. The luck was certainly aboard local charter boats with Reel Teaser raising over thirty billfish in just three days. However, staying connected to the 28 strikes was not so lucky. The crew managed to stay connected to eight of them. If you pass Blair Mc Hutchinson in town I’m sure he is still smiling after tagging two marlin on his first day out chasing them. His parents were also smiling when he brought home a fresh feed of wahoo, which was also a first catch for Blair. Sascha O’Meara also caught her first marlin during her day out and other local charter boat Indizara managed to tag three fish on one day out. Most of these fish were small, although a few big ones around the 200kg mark were hooked and dropped.

Brett Stevens has moved to town to open up the new Exmouth Mini Golf on the old Toll West site. Brett has managed to sneak a few hours fishing in between working hard and landed a beautiful coronation trout and coral trout this week. A great introduction to town!

The Exmouth Game Fishing Club ‘Knots and Rigging Session’ will be held on Sunday the 12th of March at the Yacht Club from 4-6pm. The Sunday session also starts at this time, so come down for a fishy talk, good music and a few relaxing drinks. For those wanting to gear up for the Introduction Day or Gamex the following week, bring your rods and reels down and we can show you knots to tie, leader lengths, suggested lures to use, safe handling of fish at boatside, tagging of billfish and much more. For further information contact Jeni on 9949 1315.

Gribbo and Ryan Thripthorp headed out yesterday for a spot of fishing. North of the five fathom they saw a big bait school with lots of birds working... Trolling a few lures past and around resulted in a yellowtail king taking a skirted lure. Holding the fish near the boat Ryan then flicked a snapback to the kings mates which resulted in an immediate hookup. Trolling to the back of Rottnest they found another bait school being worked by birds, after no luck with the skirts they tried casting into the school with metal slices which resulted in a couple of 5kg southern bluefin tuna being landed. Out at the containers the current was moving too fast to jig properly so they headed back in. A quick stop at mewstones on the way back saw a good sized tailor landed on a red snapback. They only managed to land a few fish all day but said the success of the snapbacks were awesome and the amount of baitfish around was getting them excited about a very late, but red hot pelagic season!

Heard that there are some good sized tailor biting in numbers around sunset down at the Floreat drain, if you want some beach fun, then get down there and give it a shot. Make sure you remember size and bag limits.

Cheers,
Adam

We went down to the 3 mile off City Beach on Sunday morning looking for a relatively close in spot due to the 20 + knot south easterly that was blowing. The Marmion Angling club were hosting a competition which saw us checked by a safety officer for all the necessary equipment. After this suprise we managed to get out there to find it well and truly blown out and way too weedy to troll. We anchored on a lump in around 20 meters and proceeded to berley up and put lots of different baits out. Eventually Mark hooked up on a couple of small bronze whalers which gave a great little fight on light tackle, with one even taking to the air with a full on barramundi jump. The only other catches for the day were a few scaly macks and small wrasse, it seemed that the sharks must have been spooking everything else in the area. We tried changing spots once and drifting along a few pinnacles without any luck. We bled the sharks straight away and lightly beer battered them with fresh bread. Was quite a delicious feed and one that would rate up their next to the best table fish.
Heres a few snaps of the catch:

[img_assist|fid=15297|thumb=1|alt=Mark's Shark's]

[img_assist|fid=15300|thumb=1|alt=Andy with the sharks from today]

Fishing Report 01-01-2006 - Courtesy of Scott Forbes

The easterly winds have finally started to come in which signals the start of calmer conditions for anglers and boating enthusiasts. The waters are still nice and warm for a dip in the ocean and take off that summer heat while out and about. That’s exactly what we did last week in our dinghy just south of the marina in the crystal clear shallow waters. To our surprise two large dugong surfaced nearby and came very close to us. They weren’t spooked at all by the boat or engine and happily cruised around us for some time.

Bait schools have been thick around the entrance to the marina particularly after the high tide begins to drop. Predators such as small mackerel, queenfish, brass trevally and large golden trevally can be seen chopping up the school as birds hover above picking up any stunned fish. These schools can be accessed from the rock long wall on the northern side or a small dinghy, but watch out for the sandflies! Small soft plastic lures in a gold, green or clear speckled colour seem to work well, although the mackerel soon make short work of the soft bodies.

Stuart Watson and friend Brendan Fitzgerald from Bunbury and Bruce Rock travelled to Exmouth for some flyfishing. They have had great success with golden trevally and queenfish along the coast from Winderabandi. At Tantabiddi the two travelled out in the tinny and using lures they caught some spangled emperor not far from shore.

Aarron Rampling from Perth was up here for a week fishing with friends Ben and Shaun, from Exmouth. Aarron blitzed the local boys catching small trevally on poppers while Shaun landed a 16lb painted sweet lip on 6lb braid using a soft plastic. Later in the week Aarron had more success with spangled emperor inside the reef and now he can’t wait to get back up for Gamex.

[img_assist|fid=15306|thumb=1|alt=Trev Hookup]

[img_assist|fid=15309|thumb=1|alt=EGFC trev]

06 Fishing Report 09.02.06 - Courtesy of Scott Forbes

What a sensational week we have had with light winds and plenty of fish action for those able to get out on the water. Mike Micallef and friends from Perth did just that in their 4.85 Quintrex and caught a mixed variety of fish including a 20kilo wahoo.

Meanwhile a few other boats have been finding marlin of all shapes and sizes around the current lines south of Tantabiddi. The number of small marlin is incredible with some as little as 10kg being raised out in 400m of water, while some over 200kg being raised in just 95m of water. This has proved to be tricky for enthusiasts targeting these species. Anglers aboard Blue Horizon using hand lines in 40-100m had a small black marlin come up to the boat and consequently take a bait. The lucky angler managed to hook and land the estimated 20kg fish and take a few quick photos before releasing it.

From the shoreline tourists braving the heat and flies have been chasing various species on fly and light tackle, landing small trevally, queenfish, milkfish, dart and bonefish. After the recent article in the Fly Life magazine on bonefish in Exmouth, all sorts of well known anglers have ventured to the town….and they keep coming. It’s good to see that this area attracts more of these types of fishermen as they are conservation minded.

Young Blake Nagy caught his first Spanish mackerel off Tantabiddi recently after practicing many times on school mackerel inside the gulf. The proud 10yr old is pictured this week with his prized catch and grin from ear to ear! Well done Blake.

If you are thinking of having a small taste of Gamex, why not fish the Introduction Day on the Sunday the 19th March. You can join a team that’s fishing for the week and any points you accumulate go to that team, or you can fish on your own boat for the day. There are many prizes to be won and fun to be had! If you are not sure about how to set up for Gamex the club is having another knots and rigging day on Sunday the 12th March. So bring down your gear and we can help you with everything from knots to tie, leader lengths, lures to use and species to target. Keep a watch out next week for the location of the knots and rigging day.

Now I'm not going to say too much here... But, I have reports which have been confirmed that the pelagic season is here!

Tuna of all varieties and spaniards. Not going to say where or what they were caught on, but, its worth putting the gear out when moving to the next spot. If you want any more details you have to private message me, I'm can't give it out in public or the source will kill me.

Today was one of the most calmest days in regards to the wind that I have seen in a long time. It was almost too calm, with hardly any drift or current with the fishing almanac predicting two tides and a hot day of fishing.

There were a heap of gardies at the Fremantle Heads jumping all over the place first thing this morning. We tried to catch some for livebait, but they were awake to the baitcaster rigs. We moved out to a spot behind Stragglers and managed a couple of small blackass, wrasse and eels but nothing worth keeping. Looking for spots up the 5 fathom we noticed huge current lines which looked extremely promising. There were lots of baitfish on the surface but with nothing really boiling and no birds working we kept on moving. This was when we encountered the first of four hammerhead sharks, all 3-6ft in length just cruising along having a good time. We tried throwing a few plastics and baits to them as well, but they too were also awake to our tactics. The water temperature had risen to 23 degrees out there, finally a pelagic season might be on the way.

After a couple more uneventful drifts we moved to the next spot, until Salmo saw a Mackerel of around 7kg freejump about 100 meters infront of the boat. We trawled for a little while until the weed became too much and caught up on the deep divers. The next lump we decided to anchor up on and berley to hell. Instant success resulted in a nice sized harlequin and half a dozen 1kg skippy. There was also a small pinky and 6kg Sambo which were caught and released. We moved around a bit more and found some more wrasse and sgt bakers on some featureless ground.

After the amount of heat we had taken we decided to call it quits and stop for a squid on the way in outside the sailing boat harbour. Unfortunately it was a little too windy and the squid weren't interested, oh well.

Was quite a quiet day on the water, but it was still magic all the same. Here's a couple of snaps.

[img_assist|fid=14568|thumb=1|alt=Hammer Time]

Boys went fishing today and had great success on the soft plastics and shads in 14m of water out from Rotto. They got into a couple of nice dhuies and blackass with lots of bigger fish chaser some of the smaller wrasse. The usual sambo spots were producing good fish with one monster being snapped off. The fads were very quiet with no fish being landed. The early tailor mission didn't succeed either but the success's of soft plastics on a whole range of species made up for it. Hopefully will get the photos soon!

Well, we went down and got another 20 crabs per boat yesterday. There were some really good sized ones amongst them and a heap of just undersize that were pretty frustrating. Reports were that the size had gone up quite a bit over the past few weeks. Will certainly say that the amount of meat in them had risen as well as a lot of the ones early in the season were nearly empty and just shell.

There were so many boats out on the water yesterday that the undersize crabs must be feeding up plentifully! Worst thing was the wind dropped out by about 8.30 and it turned into the most magic fishing day. Oh well, can't have it all! The boys have gone out chasing tailor and some sambo's today, here's hoping they get into a few and take a few happy snaps.

A mate went down to City Beach the other night and saw heaps of tailor being caught from the groyne and along the beach. There were a few good sized fish in amongst a lot of small fry, but great on the light gear by the sounds of things.
Get down there and have some fun!

Well, we headed out from Ocean Reef this morning at 5am and did near on 70 miles, if not more, trying to find the fish. The total tally was a 3.5kg queen snapper and a big fat breaksea cod, with a lot of released wrasse and a big buff bream. The poor old skipper managed a couple of wrasse and one southern blue devil for the day and couldn't hook into anything serious. We did try trolling out behind direction bank for a while through the scum lines without any success. To note, the temperature was an extra 1.5 degree's warmer in at the 8 mile than 25 mile out. Seems the currents aren't really moving well yet and pelagic season will still be a way off.

Bottom fishing was extremely quiet and the bite only started picking up 2 hours before high tide. Don't know if we were looking in the wrong spots, but the fish certainly didn't seem to be interested in what we were offering, be it fresh occy, squid and mulies with glow squids and shads. There were lots of classic dhufish suckdowns on the bait but they seemed to mouth the plastic and it was really difficult to hookup, compared to the classical snell rig. I must say that I was very impressed with the amount of bites the shad received, will certainly be using them more often for bottom fishing.

But, as the captain said when he got back to the ramp, after an effort like that - its back to sambo jigging! Have a photo of the queen snapper, will post it up once I figure out how to download it from my old camera.

CD Rods – Okuma & Whangaroa Big Gamefish Club’s Small Boats Competition 2006

This two day competition is aimed specifically at giving the smaller boats a chance to participate in a competition, on an equal footing with boats of around the same size, so that all have a good chance of winning a prize. This year there were 31 boats and 85 anglers competing, a good turn out especially as the weather forecast was not too good especially if you were in a small boat. The weather was blowy and the sea was easing down to a 1m swell, and it rained with patchy drizzle. One angler said that the sea outside the harbour entrance was all confused and it felt like being in a washing-machine. Nonetheless, there were 21 catches that first day to the anglers who braved the weather. It consisted of mainly snapper, with the heaviest being 5.4kg caught by Pete Gardiner on Wild Blue, and a few kahawai. This left the competition wide open for the next day, with prizes to be given out for marlin, sharks, kingfish, tuna and snapper.

On the second day the weather was slightly better, with the winds and the swell easing further, it actually became quite pleasant. The weather must have helped, there were more catches on this day, including some of the bigger gamefish. A 6ft Okuma Predator rod and 2-speed reel for the 1 heaviest billfish went to Graeme Bell on Ultimate Mongrel with a striped marlin weighing 104.7kg, and this fish also won him the prize for the most IGFA points. Hard luck prizes were also given for the only other two stripeys to be caught in the competition, but which didn't qualify because they were underweight.

These went to Steve Horton on Knot Home and Mike Hendy on U Wanna Go who both deserve their prizes for landing marlin from a small boat, it was also Mike's first marlin well done. No qualifying sharks, tuna or kingfish were caught but the rod and reel prizes were put up for a lucky draw and the winning anglers were happy with their catch. The heaviest snapper was caught by Jason Cochrane on Pride en Joy, with a weight of 5.9kg on 8kg line, he was happy with a prize of a CD Rods Albagraph rod at 8-10kg. The 2nd heaviest snapper at 5.78kg was caught by John Sharp, also on Pride en Joy, and 3 heaviest was Pete Gardiners 1st day fish. They both won fleece jackets generously donated by Mark Emerson of Cookes Hose Coupling. The heaviest other gamefish section was won by Scott Young, the club light tackle specialist, with a kahawai of 1.76kg caught on 1kg line from the boat Kahlua II. The club also gave away many lucky draw prizes, which included hats, compasses, leaders, sunglasses, and several reel servicing vouchers generously given by Far North Reel Rods, very handy prizes. A high-light point in the prize-giving was the anglers eagerly awaiting the lucky draw prize for a $1500 travel voucher from the Holiday Shoppe in Kerikeri. The winner was Ross Bellingham who was so delighted to win this prize that he did a hand-spring across the floor; pity we didn't catch him on film! Frank Durrand entertained us into the night, at the conclusion of another fun competition at Whangaroa.