Reports

Where are they biting at the moment

SA Bluefin Tuna Trip Report

Got the weather gods onside so Monday we went out wide from Cape Jervis SA heading south past The Pages. Had a bit of a look around the Threshold Bank but no schools visible so continued south to Saunders Bank. Once there saw a few birds diving and small bustups so lures out.

About 15min or so later hooked up and reeled in a nice bluefin around 15kg. 15 min later another hookup on a dropoff. got colour and noted it was a kingie so a nice by catch. Bit more trolling but nothing happening so headed a bit further south following the 50m line.

Skipper was tired so handed the wheel to me so he could grab some kip. 5 min later I told him to get off his arse as tuna were busting up all over the place directly ahead. trolled around them a few times but no takers.

Noted the baitfish were all around an inch long so tied on a slim profile lure onto my 30lb outfit and cast this to the edge of the school. Third cast landed around a foot from the bust up. reeled fast them saw a tuna breakaway and chase down the lure grabbing it off the surface. about 15 minutes later boated a decent tuna of around 25kilos or so.

Still busting up so started to throw out pieces of pilchard and next thing there all around the boat. Pilchard with a hook in goes over and we're on again. dropped a couple and then managed to get another tuna around 25kg or so on board. By this time we are both stuffed and the cooler is chockas so decided to head in to clean the fish and head back home. Great weather and all in all a good day and the freezer is full. Will put up some go-pro footage once I get the chance to edit it. Cheers


canning & moore river bream

 heres a few pics of some of the bream ive caught in the past year from the swan, canning & moore river.


Tailor reports

 Any tailor around metro beaches at sunset lately might go have a crack 


Fridays fishing Mandurah

 With the weather looking like playing the game last Friday, decided to give it a crack in the 40's out from Mandurah. Last full moon out there I got onto a few small to just legal pinkies but no Dhus. Well a month has changed it quite a bit. Within 20 minutes the bro in law and I had a double hook up on a pidgeon pair of Dhueys. Doug hooked his first and while I was getting the net organised and untangled. My Stradic that was off the front of the boat bobbing a Daiwa Pirate jig got nailed. The dhu's went 5.5 & 6 kg each. 

Now we just have to get a couple of snapper and we'll be done I told him. I went over to where I got the snapper last time but only managed to get a nice Harly and a couple of smaller Dhus that went back well. Also got a couple of nice Skippy which had us thinking we had the snapper we were looking for.

Doug then hooked a nice fish but took his time getting it to the surface as it was pretty clear it was another Dhu and wanting it to swim off strongly. Then he felt a strong tug on the line and up came this.

Doug has fished out from Mandurah for years and has never lost a fish let alone a Dhu to sharks, and it wasn't to be the only one for the day. I hooked a Sambo on the drop a while later at a different spot. That put up a spirited fight for a few minutes until it turned into a freight train and took off under the boat, I finally got the head back from another hungry shark. Hope the Metro area isn't going the same way as up north!

Anyway it was a great day out on the water and a few fillets in the freezer. We ended up keeping 2 Dhu, 1 Harly, 2 Skippy, 2 Sambo's (thai fish cakes yumm) & managed a small Southern Bluefin that went 5kg! Sorry not great or many photos, too busy having fun.

Cheers for reading

Chris

 


Snapper run

Pinkies..

 


Xmas crays.

 few crays over xmas and interesting find cleaning out the boat. .


Swan Crabs Tonight!

 Gday all,

I saw Ryans post and am so stoked with tonights efforts thought I would post.  

Not much free time atm, but managed to sneak out tonight on my lonesome for a crab in the river.  Hit the water about 4:30 from pt walter, headed to mossies and dropped down in the deep 18-22 mts.  First crab about 5:30 not heaps, but as the sun set seemed to pick up.  Had four gooduns on board and moved the pots 50-60 mts closer in among the moorings and struck gold.  Hit my 10 by 7:50, home by 8:30.

Tuna head FTW!

First one:

10!:

 

Go the swan 2014!


Aus day tiger

Finally got out for a fish on Aus day with a couple of mates who don't really fish much. Let them do most of the work getting the tiger in, then couple of guys fishing down the beach helped land it luckily, it would have been a mission by myself. Cheers guys if your on here. Hooks came out well and it swam away strong. Was a great night, always good getting away with friends, then a fish is just a bonus.


MAAC Bluewater Seriola Session

Me, TimvB and Langa headed out with the rest of Perth's boat population from Hilarys at 6 am yesterda to have our first crack at a fishing comp.

 

Pretty hectic 10 minutes clearing Hillarys and then the washing machine through the gap (sorry to the dude I almost ran over as a waved flung me sideways....).

 

Stuffed about for over an hour trying for live bait before we even got half way to our destination, that was a resounding fail.......so we headed out with the aim of having a quick crack at a Dhuie and then the main target for us was the Sambo/Amberjack prize and the tuna prize.

 

Langa got a good dhuie arounf 65cm and we released it, as the aim was to win the comp, not catch to eat. 10 minutes on and a substantial upgrade dhu, but it broke the line right at the hook......damn!

 

Time marching on, we trolled across to our sambo spot and Langa picked up a stripie, that in restrospect woud have won the tuna prize......more of that....

 

The sambo spot had a few marks on it, and in the past few times we fished there it has resulted in lots of 20 kg sambos and lots of unstoppables.....first drop, both Langa and Timvb are on, high up in the water column. Langa a nice Sambo, but we knew bigger ones were there so released.

Tim landed and reasonable stripie on jig, certainly nothing huge.......but turned out to win the Tuna comp. GREAT JOB TIM!!!! Tim then landed a few sambos in the 15 kg on his new overhead JM outfit, very nice.

 

Next drop, I am on big time, shiiiit, this thing went hard. Ended up being a good amber......next drop a sambo for me about the same size, the amber would pull it backwards easily!

Then Langa is on....and not making progress and loosing line against locked up Stella drag. Looking grim, so we motored off and got its head up and 15 minutes later up pops a cracking amber. Langa  not thinking bled it like all fish we keep.......hmmmm, about a kg of blood came out...... that amber ended up being pipped by a sambo 300 grams heavier......bugger.

Anyhow, great day out on team Whaler, first in the tuna division, a close second in the sambo/amber division, a few beers at the MAAC with Baron and the boys made for a great day. 

 

 


My favorite Combo

Shot out near Rotto. Tanks on for a few crays and then time to blood the new spear gun.
Dived through a big school of YTK with the tanks on but they never came back when I had the gun :(.
Anyway managed a good haul of crays and a tasty sized Dhu.


Swan Crabs yesterday!

I've got a few days off between filming so I thought a bit of crabbing yesterday was on the cards!

Caught up with me good mate Shaun (Shabba) yesterday on the Swan for a crab hunt!

The plans was an arvo crab sesh and work the lower reaches around Mossy Bay (Swan)!

We ended up with a nice feed indeed including many big blues ..... as we were de-baiting they kept on producing (good problem) ....... but it was near sundown and we'd caught enought for a feed!

Was a great arvo Shabba, good to catchup mate ....... cheers 

 



Saturdays dhu

 


40's yesterday (Friday)

 Fished the 40's for little result, water was brilliantly clear and 22c but no bird activity whatsoever, got a great breaksea but had a day where anything large was dropped, they seemed really picky and all hookups were light.

Dropped a large fish, called for a dhuie hooked using a small western king wrasse with the fillets reverse cut to flap in the current, good fight only to end with the hooks letting go.

Very strong current flowing from the North meant that the drift was almost due south despite the easterly, and what the hell was the bright orange jelly like material (you couldn't see it in the water but it deposited itself on the top eye of the rod on every retrieve seemingly collected on the rougher surface of the braid ,, coral spawn perhaps?


nice busso squid

 Managed a last minute booking down at Busso for the last week of school holidays.

Bugger all crabs but did get into some nice squid and a coupla whiting.

Hood measured 33cm, the entire thing was almost as big as my 3yr old when he held it up.

Fresh chips from the local and squid rings from the day....nom nom!
 


Metro Trawl

Hello FW Junkies

Was curious to know if any FW Members are having any luck on the Trawl of late, the Leeuwin Current seems to of heated up of late yet quite a bit of ribbon weed was about last 5 days way south of Rotto?

 

Yep its been windy too!

 

We caught a some spaniads & tuna but it was bloody hard work

 

Would liek to know if any one else is having the same luck

 

R,

 

 

 

 


Steep

 Heading the steep Friday week - weekend of the 21st Feb for a couple

 

anyone heard / seen the track condition (in particular after the tyres down sign)? 

 

Also keen to hear water colour / temp if anyone knows?

 

and of course - how's the point fishing? 


sundays effort

Heres my sons catch from sunday

Hes turning into a real Rex Hunt lately well done m8 2 more dhues were released


Busselton Jetty

Hi all,

 

We are heading down Busso at the end of the month for our annual week of fishing and relaxation.

Any reports on how the jetty is for Taylor and Squid?

 

cheers

Jason


Black Bream Bremer Bay

Visited Bremer Bay for the first time this week and was keen to know where the good fishin spots were. Staying at the Bremer Bay Caravan Park which is very good and clean. Met some older gents at the fish cleaning area opposite the caravan park and they mentioned that the Wellstead Estuary has some some good sized bream and some extremely large ones have been caught there in the past. The estuary is currently closed and has been for a few years apparently but does open up to the bay when the water level rises. They were cleaning their catch at the time and they said that the bream weren't biting much at the moment and they "only got half a dozen each". There were three of them and that makes 18 fish. If that was classifed as "not biting much", it sounded like a good invitation to me. They said the estuary was quite shallow and had a lot of rocks. They had a small 3m tinnie and we have a 4.2m Stacer so with the engine up a little, we should be ok. There is a boat launching ramp on Bennet street which looked ok so I pondered whether to take the boat out. Meanwhile, Bill (the bloke staying next to us in a Caravan) said he had been to Bremer 3 years ago and seen people bring in big bream from the jetty so I decided to give the jetty a go the next morning.

Got to the Jetty (which is located on Bennet street just down the road from the general store - there is a small parking area there and then a very short walk to the jetty). Nice jetty, just wide enough for one person with rod holders conveniently located on the rail. Got started at 6am with my rods with paternoster rig, small sniker and 1/0 suicide hooks using the coral bay prawns. Nothing happened for first hour. Not even one bite got me thinking that there were no fish in that Estuary (or at least not many or not here). Decided to change from Prawns to strips of herring. Caught some small herring the day before to use for bait. Scaled these and cut into small strips (5mm wide by 25 mm long) and threaded onto the hooks. Cast out as far as my small rod would cast directlyin front of the end of the jetty. Wait 5 min, 10min then small tap, tap, dont strike - you know the drill with bream - tap, tap, small pull then strike softly and feel the weight. Could tell was a good sized bream but strangely did not fight all that much, not like the bream I have been used to at say Lights Beach - Denmark or Sydney for instance. Just a few short runs and then came to the jetty and lifted up easily - 35cm and nice and fat. Over the next 2 hours caught 6 ranging between 32-35cm (along with one suicidal crab caught on the hook). Filleted these and had them for lunch the next day with the family. Delicious. Next day, repeated the routine and got 6 of the same size. Caught 6 more and released them. I experimented a little with the hook size and strike time to try and avoid the bream swallowing the hook. Increased the hook size to 2/0 and strike a little earlier so the fish are hooked in the mouth.

The bream here are large and patient. Generally, you have to wait around 5-10min between fish for the next bite. This is just like bream in an estuary and you have to be patient but know they are there and checking out the bait. Don't move the bait around and leave a little slack on the line. When the first tap,tap comes, don't strike and be patient. I had to leave after 3 days but am convinced there are some very large bream in there of the 40-50cm range.

 

P.S I also put out 2 crab pots and got 10 crabs all up - all females released (where are all the males?)


marron in northampton

 caught these a few weeks back in the yarda gully in northampton

biggest went in at 115mm

 


lancelin this weekend

 hey fellas, new to the fw website, just want to kno wats been happening at lancelin recently, are there any tailor or mulloway running?

any info would b much appreciated and wil upload photos sunday. 

cheers.


Metro Tuesday

Headed out for a look tuesday as i wasnt going to let the good weather get away. The red arrows seem to few and far between at the moment. Lets hope march is a glass off! Anyways first drop paid out with decent GB. Second drift we picked up a 14kg trevalla which fought hard all the way from 300m to the surface.  There after we dropped a couple of fish and the action went to ground. Nothing from there on untill late in the arvo where we boated a snapper and a small GB. Had Manta ray circle the boat for a while but wasnt holding any cobes. Late in the arvo the pelagics seemed to turn on as we spotted numerous birds working bait on the way home. Spun one small yft and dropped one which felt much better. The little yft gave and impressive battle as at a guess a 3 meter whaler was hot on its tail all the way to the boat. All up a good day.


Walpole Trip

Just a quick report from the trip down to Walpole over the weekend. We mainly fished the inlets due to a fairly large swell.

The whole system is alive with all sorts. We used plastics and jigs for the whole weekend.

we caught Whiting, Flathead,Bream, Flounder and more Herring than you could poke a stick at and a few Salmon.

The mouth was fairly easy to get out of and we could make it about 500m out around the first couple of points before the swell started to roll through. The first couple where sheltered from the headland. We where catching some undersize pinkies out there aswell.

Crabs where around aswell but not in huge numbers.

 

Sorry no photos. Some of the flatties where big fish 50-60cm.

 

Cheers Jayce


early morning + low tide = no whiting

 Not very interesting, but... Had a go for whiting this morning at mandurah, went near the mouth of the Serpentine. Arrived at 6.30, in the middle of the bite time of 5.30 - 7.30. Tide was low (bottom of the tide was at about 5am). Used r2s bubblepop and berkley popdogs, all variety of retrieves. Fished the flats and the river channel, nothing except a few blowies. Heaps of mullet jumping, also heaps of small female crabs, was like walking through a minefield in places, got nipped a few times as well (might have squealed like a girl). Never saw a whiting.

So on this day, early morning + low tide = no good in my books, bite time didn't have any effect. 

 


Assassin Land Based Fishing Club Competition Report

The latest monthly competition was held over the weekend , fishing Saturday through to Sunday morning north of Perth . Sea conditions were pretty good with not much weed in the water but the wind was constant all day and most of the night.
Club members were spread out over a wide area with some finding good fishing and the others having plenty of time to contemplate life.
Greg Uren has a stellar night and produced the goods , he was the eventual winner and has the highest tally of points awarded for a single competition. Shaun Visser caught a beaut Mulloway which was released after a quick photo.

Results were Greg Uren 1st Place
Vincent Stacey 2nd Place
Shaun Visser 3rd Place

Next competition will be a lure competition in a couple of weeks , check your emails for details.


Quick Wednesday Trip

 After 10 straight 14 hour days at work, it was great to get on the water with my brother for a quick fish on Wednesday this week. Out from Ocean Reef, with only 3 other trailers in the carpark, we managed these couple of keepers, 1 at 65cm and 1 at 45cm, and a nice bonus of a dozen or so fat sand whiting. The early easterly was fresh, and the southerly too...but about an hour and a half in between was sensational!


Wedge weekend report

11 of us (dad's and son's) headed to the shack at Wedge a few weeks ago and the kids had an absolute ball. Not many photos taken but here are two magical ones.

We decided to head down a little over a km from South Rocks for some tailor (and possibly mulla - no luck) which only the one was caught. Was entertaining watching an 8 year old try to reel in a tailor with a 12 foot rod. Naturally I had cast out the bait - he did the rest.

Looking at heading back up in a few weeks.


Jurien FADS

Gday Guys,
I am considering a trip up to Jurien in 1-2 weeks time for a few days.
Anyone have any reports on the FADS?
Are they still deployed? Any fish around?

Thanks


fishing spots

 weres a good spot for bream useing hardbodies


Quick fish on the Canning

Went for a quick flick and got a 37cm, it went pretty hard I thought for sure I was in for another forty... Can't complain though happy with a 37.

Had a couple more casts and got me a nasty wind knot, while I was trying to sort out the knot I heard quite a few splashes in the water when I finally looked up I saw some pretty big fish, maybe mullet I not too sure launching out of the water getting pretty good air.