Got out for an arvo/evening bash on the FFB off Mandurah on Friday night. Quiet on the Snapper, lots of little ones. As it got dark we got 2 undersize Dhu. I got snagged and snapped off so decided to tie on one of those larger style bait chaser rigs with the lumo bead at the front. Managed a 52cm Dhu and a nice little Nannygai which was a suprise in only 14m of water. Got snagged again and lost the lot, by this stage I was convinced the lumo beads had been working as the brother in law hadn't caught anything except Pike. So had a ferret around in the tackle box looking for something that glowed and came across a Pirate jig with a Lumo squid assist. Gave that a blast with the head lamp and chucked a strip of mullet on one of the hooks and over the side she goes, not long after got this little fella, he put up a good little tussle in the shallow water

Sorry about the shitty sideways pic.

At the boat show at Hillarys today, gotta say it was small but I love boats so always enjoyable checking out other boats......good, compromised, bad and ugly.

GOOD

28 ft Fury dual console.I don't like bow riders, but man, I could live with this one. A beautifully built boat with some cool features, would need several tweeks to make it useable for me but I could own that boat. $250-300k is the compromise......may need to win lotto......

COMPROMISED

Regulator 23 ft CC. Bloody awesome 24 degree hull, would ride brilliantly in chop, but talk about unstable! I stepped on the gunwhale and it moved over 15 degrees.....two blokes on one side and it was 20 degrees. You would get out to your fishig spot bloody quick in this boat, but then turn around and go home to get a proper fishing boat that did not flop all over the place.....also, where the seat mounts it looked like there were stress cracks in the fibreglass on a new boat....$200k for a 23 ft CC.......pass.

BAD

The plethora of cheap and nasty ali boats with huge reverse chines that would slap like biatch in chop.....price tags suggest they come with a happy ending every night for a year......

UGLY....and worse than BAD

Don't know if this was a joke (I could not stop laughing.....), but this thing (I think it was a boat) was "pop" rivited and glued together and looked to be made of 2 mm galv sheet (I assume it was ali but it was very thin and flimsy....truly scary heading out past the 3 mile in this thing. Is this for real, it looked like a set prop?

The moral of the story....all boats are a compromise, but after seeing a heap of different boats......I am very happy with my Boston Whaler Conquest 235, and would not swap it with anything else....maybe a Fury if I had unlimited coin......

I did a solo launch yesterday (all deckies engaged) and decided to chase some Salmon as they have been around our Metro since before Easter.  The initial target area was the shipping channel in Cockburn Sound where Gail and I had witnessed a large school the weekend before. When I arrived at a position north of Woodman Point I was met by a large school busting up bait fish.  I decided to use the fly rod as I am keen to get one of these feisty fish on fly, but one cast and they all disappeared.  I remained in the area for another hour even going as far as the Ammo Jetty without any success. Well it was going to be Mewstone even though I knew that the water was going to be busy with other keen anglers. 

On arrival at Mewstone I was met by more than 30 boats and although it was busy, there was a sense of “organized chaos”.  The Salmon were definitely on the chew and I often witnessed several boats with anglers hanging on to their rods as the “scaly torpedoes” tried throwing the lures.  One boat even had three anglers hooked up at the same time and I stopped fishing for a while to watch them clamber over each other as their fish swam in various directions.

Gladly most anglers returned their fish back to the water ready to breed and fight another day.

See my experiences in the video below.

https://youtu.be/gHbSvS2XqLE

 Just a quick laugh at my wife Hannah .

Decided yesterday to look for rubies on the 300m mark at ningaloo station, and after half an hour or so thought with the water temp at 28.3 should put out a couple of pushers one black Bart on only 10 kg line and the other a blue soft grassy on the 20 kg . 

20 minutes later the black Bart takes off and I gun the engine , line screams off and Hannah grabs the rod, solid hookup ! 

Fish jumps quickly and I just know we are undergunned massively, Hannah however is and I quote so excited she could wet herself.

I think to myself that attitude is not going to last  if we stay connected.

One hour in she's still excited, fish has jumped a couple more times about a hundred meters from the boat but we are staying close now.Two hours in she is starting to feel the burn in her arms but is staying positive , we only had the crappy travel camera so fish has jumped again and we've got a few photos, (hope can download some to laptop when we get home)I still believe she doesn't realise just what she has hooked because her last black was under a hundred pound.Two and a half hours fish has sounded and Hannah is almost done, but wants to see it jump one more time....

Three hours and Hannah is finished fish comes up jumps 30 m from the boat grey hounding across about 70 m and that's when Hannah realises the blue she has hooked isn't even tired so at the three hour and twenty minute mark she asks me what to do , I take the rod and bust off the line as estimated weight of fish was 250kg and on the gear we had would probably taken 5-7 hrs if at all . Hannah was happy with her ruby though today is suffering from some very sore arms and sunburn !

Was out last weekend having a troll for an elusive metro mack around the back of FFB behind Garden Island when we came by a small salmon school - only had my 3kg flick rod for casting so went well on the light gear.
Thanks to my buddy Dave who skilfully manoeuvred the boat during a few tricky moment during the fight.
Looking like it's going to be another good metro salmon season was surprised we saw fish as the water temp was around 23 deg.

Cheers

Heathy

I spent Easter in South Africa at Shelly Beach watching the guys launch and retrieve their boats.  Really appreciate our boat ramps.

See footage below.

https://youtu.be/tGn2lbfEqVk

Just wondering how the crays are going at the moment. I thought i read there is another "run" of crays around this time of year around April / May is that right? just wondering if its worth putting the pots out of Mindarie or Two Rocks  cheers Dave 

 Hi crew, Ive been a bit busy with work, but  managed a few days on the river last week.

With the rains at Easter, the upper river started to go brown realy quick, this kickstarted the Bream to head towards Perth holding up in deep corners along the way.

For me, the lures have not been working, both plastics and hard bodies. So i resorted to the old bait again and started to land some fish.

Some of the bait i use. Mullet cubes and River Prawns.

When the Bream run at this time of year, you realy need to search out the best snags, drop off's and structure. Snags like this one just can't be over looked.

Get the bait or lure into the edge of the stucture and if you don't get hit, get it into all that mess and hope for the best.

Sometimes you lose and sometimes you win.

Other areas to spend some time can be right in your face, don't be scared to investigate them, even if they are right on someones door step but respect their property.

This spot produced a very nice fish right on dark, but i didn't have the camera on. I asked a fellow fisher to a snap shot and was quite happy with the result.

I was even more happy to see this old beast swim away again, I hope someone else gets the pleasure to hold a ( now becoming rare ) beauty like this. 

Cheers Grant .. 

With all the reports of inshore pinkies being caught lately, it was time to start the 2016 “campaign”.  Past experience is that the fish start to come in close by March/April. 

The weather was really good on Saturday so why not give it a try?  Michael (zOOm) was keen to take his boat so a 5am departure from Hillarys was arranged.  The wind was light but the swell was at 2.5m, which means it is not wise to take on the crossing of the near shore reefs in the dark.  The “plan” was to stay in close, burley up and fish sunrise for the pinkies with good quality rigs and baits.  There was no spot, we just looked at likely reef structure, anchored and set up a burley trail.  Let’s just say we didn’t go more than a few kilometres.

A customer ordered 20kg of burley last week so I made a “special” batch.  Lots of fish, lots of oil and a high proportion of pilchard.  I must admit I had my first “2016 pinkie trip” in mind and It was a high strength fine grained burley that dispersed at about 1 to 1.5kg per hour, enhanced with pilchard shred every now and again.   

Within 20 minutes, Michael’s bottom rig went off.  This fish was a pinkie of about 450mm so back it went, but the signs were good.  About 10 minutes later my bait runner made that sound that you love to hear.  Wait, wait, wait and when the fish clearly had the bait set the hooks.  This was a nice solid fish that was peeling lots of line with the characteristic head shakes.  Very pleased to see the big pink flash as it came into sight.

I have imported the Big Angry Fish Release Clips and will have them available in a few weeks.  We got a small shipment to start with (which I have sent all round Australia) but kept one for me to test.  I also had some small vacuum sealed sand whiting so rig one up and out it goes on my spin outfit.  It didn’t take long for the line to pull from the clip with plenty more line being pulled from the open spool.  When I set the hooks, this was another nice fish but after its first run it turned and swam back towards the boat?  It did “wake up” and after a good fight was in the net too.

The fish were about 5.5kg and 75-80cm.  Not huge but still very solid.  Can’t complain about that bag within the first hour though.

After first light, and after the pinkies, we headed deeper.  Anchor and burley again and the results kept coming.  I got another good pinkie (released) and Michael got a nice baldie.

My bait runner went off again on another solid fish.  This was a good fight and then up popped a very solid baldie.  I had my bag so this was a lucky fish as we treated it with a lot of care, got a photo and released it with a weight.  It came up slow due to its fight and we are fairly positive that it released well.  We estimated it at about 5-6kg (very fat fish) so it was a lot of “quality” going back in the ocean.

We then decided that we didn’t want to risk harming any more fish so packed up and came in.  It was a lovely morning on the water with some quality fish, including a bag out on the target species just as the sun came up. 

Brilliant day on the water on Sunday with TimVB. Greeted with a big swell but no chop so we headed wide and did a few drops in the deep, bagged out early on a mixed bag of yummy ooglies (bloody Tim caught all 4!!!!), so trolled a few FADS and jigged a few barges but not much happening there, then had a quick KG fish on the way in with our new KG outfits we got from the Campbells closing down sale (little baitcaster outfits that are perfect for the sneaky KGs). I managed to at least catch a few of the KGs.....

Cod was well over 20kg.

Launched at woodies before sunrise and headed out between Garden and Carnac hoping for a pinkey, after a couple of hours with nothing to show we headed out a bit further looking for a feed of whiting. We both changed to our 2-4kg outfits and baited the tiny ganged hooks with a whole whitebait. In 20 mtrs we both dropped our baits over the side...straight into a school of salmon passing under the boat. The sons rod was the first to go with the fish going airborn a couple of times before the leader knot parted. Then my rod bent over and it was on. It took about 50mtrs of PE1 on the first run followed by some spectacular jumps, the whole time we were both waiting for the tiny hooks to pull or the thin leader to go. After about 10 very anxious mins we finally got it in the net. What are the odds of dropping straight onto a school after a random stop in 20 mtrs over nothing but sand. With the school gone we headed in before the arvo traffic jam at the ramps. Salmon patties twice in a week....

 Gday all. Damn we were surprised to hear of the 4mtr swell yesterday while we were already underway at 4am. Was an interesting ride in the pitch black at 16knots. By 623am had a dhu and pink onboard. Had me thinking real early demersal bag then move in closer for some different action. Wasn't to be. Bout 1030am and no more keepers headed in due to low fuel. At back of the 5 we stopped at some spot i marked a while ago and the spare 20ltr jerry can would easily get us back to peron. Jim sets anchor, i drop plastic over side and within 5mins the spheros starts singing a wonderful tune. BingoBango in comes a good pink. Bout 20mins later Jim totally changes direction of his cast,due to the burley trail, and again Jims on and landed another nice pink. So all in all a good day.  I didn't get s pick of the whole catch. Just missing Jims 2nd pink which was a tad smaller than my placky pink. Results, me 1xdhu and 1x pink. Jim 2x pinkies. 

Gail and I did an early morning launch from Woodies yesterday in search of Pinkies and Dhuies.  First stop between Garden and Carnac Islands and the first Snapper was on board as the sun was rising.  From there we made our way to Rotto to be spoilt with more Snapper, Dhufish, Shark and other species.  On our way back we managed some bonus fish in the form of Salmon caught between Carnac Island and Woodies right in the shipping channel.  Overall another great day on our wondeful waters.

See YouTube clip below:

https://youtu.be/RV6FTN22N8A

we collected a heavy submerged object on the way to FFB on Wednesday ........flat calm conditions so travelling at 24knots in deep water when we hit a speed bump......bent prop but absolutely no scouring, bent shaft, damaged gear box and huge piece missing from skeg ....assume a submerged piece of timber or turtle

Thank goodness for insurance as damage quoted at almost $9000

 Be aware that you can't always see obstacles .....roughly 4nm @256 from the GI Carnac channel markers 

Went out for a bash today weather was to good not too. Took my latest addition to my quiver, 2015 Saltiga 15h loaded with Ocea PE 3. Had a little jig and bait fish with it. Ended up with a nice breaksea cod and kg whiting, both on bait. Looking forward to tangling with some solid stripey eyes with it. 

Hit the water at 830 from woodies, headed out between GI and Carnac. As the swell was so low I risked anchoring shallow in amongst the reefs and started burlying. All was quiet for the first hour then started getting hits on the PE3 outfit but no hook-ups. Changed to the light gear (Nitro distance spin 2-4kg / Stella FE 3k Pe1) using small gang hooks and white bait. Instant hook up and it had some grunt in 3 metres of water. Soon had a very solid skippy of about 30 cm, they go hard in shallow water and was great fun to catch. Spent the next hour catching and releasing skippy up to 35cm. Best session ive had on them in years. Then I hooked something a bit bigger that had the rod locked up and the little reel shedding line at an alarming rate. Had the drag as heavy as I dared and just stopped it before it reefed me. Then a long slow fight with the fish seeming to take 20 - 30 meters of line whenever I thought I had it done. Finally got it to the net.... a little rat sambo of about 50-55 cm. awesome fun. Released the sambo and went back to the skips but a 4ft bronzie decided he would move in and that was the end of the skippy. Was contemplating what to do next when a massive bust up 40 meters from the tinny made up my mind for me, lucky I had set up my tailor/salmon outfit (nitro magnum butt/branzino )and quickly cast a waxwing into the turmoil, flipped the bail over and I was on. wasn't long before I had a fat salmon in the net. Quickly fired another cast out to where the school was and two turns on the handle saw the waxwing smashed by something with a bit more grunt that a salmon. After about a 5 min fight in amongst the reefs and bommies out comes a very respectable 45-50 cm skippy. First time I have caught one on lure. Quickly released it and went hunting for the salmon for about half an hour with no luck before heading in. All in all a great little sesh.

There was plenty of action at Mewstones yesterday with a school of salmon taking everything thrown at them. Even my girlfriends young bloke caught his first salmon which almost pulled his arms out his sockets. We had a bit of a laugh when we had a double hook up only to discover my girlfriend and I were on to the same fish. we got it along side and both mullie baits had been taken by the same fish. I claimed it as my hooks were in deeper so therefore taken first..
All up there was probably a dozen boats out there and most were well behaved although some tangles were encountered with overcast lures travelling further than needed. All up it was a great start to the salmon season for us. I kept 5 salmon for some older blokes at my local pub who put them in the smoker and I get a bit of that..

 Headed out from Two Rocks on Sat arvo after a long time getting my mates boat, Justwright, up to fishing specs. Been on the hard stand getting a new paint job and a stack of other things fixed.

The weather reports were looking good for an overnighter earlier in the week and, as usual, changed to a bunch of mixed reports, depending on which site you checked, including a severe weather warning from BOM. Well the severe weather warning was removed and we were desperate to get a fish in so we headed out to the 40's in a light drizzel with light winds and started our night off.

The fishing was pretty slow and the light rain/drizzel continued until around 3am but the bloody wind just kept picking up.

First fish landed was a small Dhu by Darren and as it was size, well a fish in the hand...

Next on board was a nice Pinkie by John. His first fish for over a year i think.

We headed out to some nice Baldie ground that usually produces well around 2am. 60-70m with the wind still manageable but picking up and the rain still coming down.

Managed to get sweet FA but sharks and rays out there so around 5:30 started moving in stopping on any ground that looked good and had some fish shows on the sounder.

Darren again got the goods and picked up this nice 80cm Dhu.

The SSE wind was getting uncomfortable by mid morning so we started the long, slow, trip back to TR with a nasty cross sea.

The weather didnt play the game and the fishing was slow for us but we had a good night anyway. A lot of laughs that night and we dropped a few cracking fish that, as usual, were called for 17-20kg Dhuies. We released a stack of undersize Dhu and a few pinkies so it is good to see the stocks there for next year.

Love Rotto......quality fish within 10 minutes of Thompson Bay, which makes it easy to able to take the son, grandad, uncle and nephew out for a fish and get blackarse, baldies, KG's and even the odd dhu for the skipper.

Eating like kings for the rest of the week over here.

Nephew pretty pleased with one of 3 KG's.

Live bait tank wit some tasty morsels.

One for the Skip.

 Hi guys

Went out today and landed my first ever south west baldie.

Not a big one but it was sized so I'm pretty happy.

Congrats to Eddy and his crew on Pelagic Hooker for another amazing result.

Tough week for Pelagics, but a few crews seem to find them.

Callums 6.2kg Dolphin Fish on 1kg was an amazing catch for such a young kid. A pending WA and national record. Well done Mystic Knot.

Well, this was a bloody surprise. TimVB jigged this up on the weekend. It went bloody hard on PE3 and we were expecting a MUCH larger fish. Tim was very disappointed.....

Dirty Buff Bream I presume, but fought like 10 bastards! If only they took jigs more often....must have been Tim's weed like jig assist......haha.

Arrived 5am at the boat ramp on sunday with the aim of getting into some pink snapper off rotto. With a decent easterly at our backs and a 1.6m swell we arrived at our little spot on the north side of rottnest with 5 minutes to spare before sunrise (6.10am). A strong current moving in a east direction made it very tough to anchor as it was stronger than the 15 knot easterly blowing in the other direction. After 2 failed attempts we were finally where we wanted to be and quickly started floating mulies down in the current. Instantly we hooked up, excitement quickly disappeared as we realised it wasnt a fish but a big mutton bird, unfortunately for us we'd been spotted by a massive flock and we now had them hovering above and floating at the back of the boat, they would dive down over 10 metres to grab the sinking mulies which were weighted making it almost impossible to get anything down in the stroke zone. We were close to giving up when one rod went off and started pulling down, not up in the air. With massive head shakes I knew it was a snapper but after a short fight and me not putting enough drag on the fish I felt the line hit reef, snag up and it was over before I knew it. Thinking that we'd missed our only shot we were pretty gutted and over pulling in birds (we caught and released 8!) 30 minutes had past and all seemed quiet when another rod went off, after a nice fight on the light gear a 68cm model hit the deck and was quickly dispatched to the esky. Within minutes of pulling in the first fish we had a take on the soft plastic rod and up come a very nice 83cm pinkie. We went on to catch another at 75cm and also lost 2 more before the bite went quiet. Finished off the morning with a quick drift to pick up a solid harlequin and black ass. It was a rough ride home but we'll worth the effort in the end.

I decided to do a solo session on Sunday even though the forecast was not great with moderate easterlies predicted.  The forecast put the missus off and I did not have time to put a crew together.  

On the water at first light and by the time I passed between Carnac and Garden Islands, the sun was peeping over the eastern horizon.  At this stage I was dragging weighted scaleys behind the boat in anticipation for a keen taker.  Within minutes of the drift the Shimano Tekota 500 attached to the Shimano T-Curve Jig-200 started screeming summonsing me into action. After a decent tug it was time to land the fish only to have the landing net tangled with the SP rod - where was the deckie when I needed them!  After a short battle the first snapper for the day was boated - a pan sized fish of 70cm. From here I moved to FFB only to find the conditions pretty sloppy and uncomfortable causing me to change plan and head off back towards Garden Island.  

I eventually anchored up off the western shore of Garden Island and added a fair amount of burley to the water.  After a short while I landed a small shark and as the hook was being removed the rod with a scalie as bait bent over and started donating line at a rapid rate. I quickly got rid of the shark and after another decent fight landed a snapper of 76cm.  

The next couple of hours were uneventful with three rays testing the breaking strain of the braid on the reels.  I was back at the ramp just after midday to clean the fish and make my way home to prepare fresh snapper for tea.

Another wonderful day in this great country!!!!

YouTube clip  

https://youtu.be/NvytT9f64HM

 Had a great day today.

I'm on holidays at the moment, woke up and got ready, didn't launch until 8am.

Awesome weather landed a dhuie by 10 and went home. Mrs was nice to me at lunchtime.

Spent the arvo driving up the beach with the family and a couple of coldies. Just cooking some dhuie now.Perfect day.

off bunbury friday , found a new bit of ground for a pinkie , rat sambo , tiger shark even came up sussing out the rat sambo but kept he's distance from the boat . Back to the dhuie , my oldman was down again after he's yearly overseas cruise towards the end of the day he hooks what appears to be something decent , i get a bit excited calling it a dhuie but oldman recons bloody ray when the line comes up closer to the boat realize it's just a eagle ray , unhook , reposition for another drift , 5 minutes in same thing he's on calling another bloody ray with the line coming up well away from the boat finally color broke with he's PB dhuie and was lucky not to loose it after giving it hammer and tongs thinking another ray

 First post appears to be irretreivably broken, error messages, etc. Try again

Took 2 pots back out this morning, planned to fish after. Tried trolling, water dirty as usual inside, fresh easterly,  nothing after an hour, so i anchored up in close not far from town. I was intent on getting a livie down, so I gave my wife a 10kg baitrunner outfit with a lightly weighted mulie to go on with . Before I could get anything she was into a decent Golden Trevally. Put him back, still trying to get a livie, she has a big Silver Trevally. Then a small Goldspot Trevally, 67 cm Pinkie, legal size Spangled,and a fair Cobia. Meanwhile, i've been dusted twice on the baitchaser rigs between tying baitchasers back on, dealing with her fish, a spot of jigging, and re-rigging after being sharked, and everything else, I still don't have a useable livie after 2 hours-a parade of footballers, baby blackarse, scalyfins, undersize baldie, spinefoot-aaarrrgghh!

Eventually i just give up and start floating a mulie ,  things have gone quiet. So we move a bit, burley up again, and I get smashed on the PE1.5-3 jig outfit floating a mulie--call it for a sambo after 10 minutes it turns out to be a solid Gold Spot Trevally,  nearly as thick through the shoulder as a sambo, must have gone 10kg.

Jesus, am I in the tropics? I mean, I have caught all these species individually before around here, but never on the same day.

 left hillarys this morning on a mission to find some new spots, pristine conditions shot out at 25 knots and hardly felt a bump. 

Sounded around for a big portion of the day and only fished 3 or 4 spots and the result a 93cm 15kilo bundle of joy. 

took a few of the boys from work out wide for a drop had a great day!!!!! Had to hang in close for the weather to drop but when it did it was on!!!!!

Managed to get away for the long weekend with good mate and Fishwrecked member Chinbald for a few days fishing.

Had a top weekend despite fairly stiff off shore  breezes in the mornings and good sea breezes in the arvos.

Fished out of Chinbalds Reefy and left my new rig at home as I still haven't fully sussed the electronics out.

Got plently of quality fish including our bag of Dhu's all 3 days fishing.

Fished depths from 12m through to 70m, with all producing good fish.

Got some good variety on the jigs using the jigging sports assists (cheers Oceanside) for the first time which I was pleased with untill the last session for the weekend when I got completly blown away and lost it including a new Haoli Kanpachi 2. $50 odd bucks worth gone in about a 5 second run, ah well I recon I got my monies worth out of it the couple of days before hand anyway.

A few pics from the weekend.