Went out on charter this AM targeting pinkies.

Was very windy at the dock, and I was worried we'd have to 'pull the plug'.

Anyhow, we headed off and experienced an awesome snapper bite, bagging out in around an hour;

www.shikari.com.au

Can't wait to do it again!

 Went for a quick marron this afternoon, caught a few average size and a couple of good ones.

Pic of the two bigger ones next to a two litre juice bottle.

Marron season 2014 started 8th Jan (Wednesday) at 12noon and both Blake and Ryan got into them. Ryan went to Harvey Dam with good mate Scott (Soupster) and they bagged out (first pic)

Blake and good mate Dan went to the Murray River and got into some descent marron also, the biggest going 120mm carapace (second pic)

Marron season runs until 5th Feb 12noon 2014

Caught this from our boat 20m of water 14.4kgs it has been an amazing time for us these holidays on the water, have caught 3 different species that we have not caught before, and only a few klicks out frome the shorline. Back to work on monday was gonna try and go sunday, but the weather has changed as sunday was looking good but not that flash now, still might sneak out for a couple of hours anyway in the morning.

I always thought my trips were pretty epic...but whenever I come on this forum, I feel less than worthy all the time...how do I even compare with Vanautu???

I tried to be brief this time since there were 19 days to write about. Most of the pictures taken were of new species caught. I added 30 new species on this trip to bring the total number of new species added in 2013 up to 103 species. I would say I've probably easily caught 50+ species of fish on this trip. Fishing in Florida is pretty insane!

Just to tease you a little...

...and also this...

Check it out on my blog...all the juicy details are there!

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2013/12/florida-road-trip-2013-day-1.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2013/12/florida-road-trip-2013-day-2.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2013/12/florida-road-trip-2013-day-3.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2014/01/florida-road-trip-2013-day-4.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2013/12/florida-road-trip-2013-day-5.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2013/12/florida-road-trip-2013-day-6.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2013/12/florida-road-trip-2013-day-7.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2013/12/florida-road-trip-2013-day-8.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2013/12/florida-road-trip-2013-day-9.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2013/12/florida-road-trip-2013-day-10.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2013/12/florida-road-trip-2013-day-11.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2013/12/florida-road-trip-2013-day-14.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2013/12/florida-road-trip-2013-day-15.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2013/12/florida-road-trip-2013-day-16.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2013/12/florida-road-trip-2013-day-17.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2013/12/florida-road-trip-2013-day-18.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2013/12/florida-road-trip-2013-day-19.html

Thanks for reading!

there was a bit of swell yesterday at rocky point and all the young fish retreated to a little hidaway in the rocks where we were catching quite a few young mulloway ranging from 100mm to 250mm. spotted a few herring but they wernt going for the prawns just having a look then swimming off.

Back in December myself, Tim (aka Tim VB), John (aka JoRn) and Dale (aka Wydra) did a lodge based trip with Ocean Blue in Vanuatu.

Shortly before the trip I found out I'd be moving to London immediately after the trip was over and so this was to be my farewell trip, so was certainly more than ready for a few casts!

The trip which we booked was 6 days based out of the Trees and Fishes lodge. In contrast to my Eiao trip 6 weeks prior, this trip was certainly far more luxurious - fishing off the excellent 32ft Edgewater and returning home each night to 3 course meals and more Tusker (beer) wine and spirits than you could poke a stick at.

As with many people fishing this trip, our target was doggies and GTs. We didnt get large numbers of either, but the fish were present and we certainly missed more chances than we converted with at least a couple of very serious dogtooth being lost (including one that absolutely took me to school on a Carpenter Monster Hunter 80H, Stella 18K and PE10).

Between us we landed 8-10 doggies and a similar number of GTs (including a good one for Dale on popper) as well as red bass, coral trout, jobfish, yellowfin, reefies and more Whalers than ideal - including one which won Tim the much coveted title of 'Whaler Master 2013' - a title which he's told me he hopes to vigorously defend in Oman later this year.

The trip was now over a month ago and my memory is a little hazy (probably in no small part due to the surplus of Tusker cartons that we brought on our first day) but some highlights for me included:

1. the couple of brief windows when the doggies were really 'on', which usually resulted in multiple simultaneous hookups followed by multiple simultaneous bust offs;
2. taking out the combined whisky drinking and night time kayak fishing challenge, by landing some mysterious emperor looking thing in around 50m of water on a kayak with no torch one night (not recommended);
3. a couple of great sessions catching rat Yellowfin tuna on PE3 casting gear, including where a big Sailfish swam up to the boat, was hooked by the skipper on John's popping gear and then won its freedom; and
4. the look of pain on Tim's face when the leader slipped out of the deckie's hand while still attached to the massive whaler he'd just battled up from 140m of water, which then proceeded to saunter back to the bottom under full drag - much to the delight of all aboard (other than Tim).

I'll let the pics do the rest of the talking - but all in all it was a fun, professionally run trip with a great skipper, excellent boat and fantastic facilities and I'd certainly consider one of the Ocean Blue liveaboard trips in the future.

Dan

 I've had family over from NSW since Boxing Day and fair dinkum hasn't the weather been average for playing offshore tour guide?! As you would have it the weather came good on the day they were due to go home so we pushed their flight back and I threw a sickie to get out on Monday. First on the agenda was to check the pots which we hadn't been able to get to for the last 6 days due to the poor weather. Touch wood I've been lucky with my pots with just a float being chopped (easily found as rope was dog boned) and what I think what was a diver raid as 2 days prior we bagged out with all pots having crays then after a 2 day soak with the following pull resulting in many an empty pot. All of them are in the one area with no sign of relocation, one pot had the gate pulled wide open and bait lid wide open as well. There were divers on the lump so it's my best hypothesis. Anyhow we pulled 11 crays by 8:30am of which 3 were jumbos. This was a PB as we've only managed 1 jumbo max a haul. It appears the whites have moved on now but feel I've had my fill and will probably pull the pots out in the next fortnight before my luck runs out.

The tourists were keen to see Rotto so over we went in favourable seas to parakeet bay where they got some snorkeling and swimming in as well as a nice "expensive" lunch in Geordie Bay. The kids wanted to go on the inflatable water park in South Thompson so we ducked around and dropped them and the girls off and the brother in law and I headed back around off the Basin to burley up. Within minutes we had Skippy in the burley and had a blast on light gear  floating slightly weighted mulies. We had half a dozen and wanted to get to 8 before 4pm before heading home. We had a 3kg and a 4kg outfit floating. I picked up skippy #7 on 4kg and the 6'6" brother inlaw had his bait taken right on the buzzer and was into an tough fight on 3kg. 10 mins later we had a 45cm breaksea on board.

What a great day, I was able to get the tour guide thing out of the way and managed to get a few days feed for all of us as well.  We were home in time to eat the blackarse and some skippy along with crays in a carbonara style dish my sister whipped up.

After reading a previous post I purchased a vac sealer from Oceanside and would have to say seeing that Skippy isn't the best fish to freeze, vac sealing takes the pressure off having to eat them so fast. I'm able to get a couple of extra days which gives you something to look forward to through the week.

Thanks for listening and to my boss thanks for understanding :)

THE Assassin Land Based Fishing Club held there monthly competition two hours north of Perth on Saturday, conditions were ordinary with strong winds for the first 10 hours of fishing.
Fish were hard to come by , Eagle Rays made up the bulk of the catch , the biggest caught by Shaun and going 116 cm . Tailor were around but not in huge numbers but were eager to take a bait, Sherbie can testify to this having caught two on the one gang.

Results for the comp were David 1st Place

Shaun 2nd Place

Vince 3rd place

Went crabbing with a mate on Sat, up early and grafted until 11:30, for 10 crabs.

Caught some beauties, went down a treat with an ale and a touch on vinger, this is fast becoming my favourite sea food.

 Went up north around the jurien area over Boxing Day to New Years. Weather was shocking only managing a handful of fish but at least I got my cousin and his wife from nsw onto some good fish for their first trip out fishing in Western Australia. They were stoked and already planning to fly over and come up to exmouth with me. Thanks and happy new years

my son got these today out in the boat, it is our first mulloway  from our boat. small boat fishing has been good to us  these holidays. first kgs and now first mulloway.

 Hi anything biting around busso land based lately?

heading down for our annual fishing trip, busso, albany esperance fishing for 3 weeks. 

 Took the family out crabbing on the swan.  Dropped the nets to the west of the brewery in close to the rock wall.  Drifted down the channel waiting.  Decided the boat wash from passing boats wasn't going to be too pleasant.  Pulled the pots for one good sized  blue.  Moved over to the canning. ...  nothing, not one crab.  Moved to perth water....  nothing.   That lucky crab biding his time in the live bait tank went back to be caught another day....

 Hey guys im a long time reader first time poster love the site lots of interesting stuff to keep me going while im at work. These pics are all from a trip i did last year with my mates, im quite a keen land base angler and try to do it least one big trip a year to such places as steep,quobba, esperance and others. Hope you guys like the pics and ill try and contribute more when i can 

cheers for reading Craig

Took the boat out yesterday withe my elsest boy and his mate for the first run of the year.

Ran up to Ocean Reef and launched and went out to a couple of spots that I had marked years ago. It was quite bumpy on the way out with a steady seabreeze and swell so it was a slow trip out into the 40's. Arrived to find that over the years several other boats had located the lumps that I used to fish and there were about 4 others all over it. Moved away to another close spot and picked up a few fish on the new Furuno and took a couple of drifts. Ended up with a nice KG, a 54cm Dhu and a solid Gummy Shark. Picked up the inevitable crap fish, Wirrahs, Scorpion Cod and Sgt Bakers.

My son got to try out his new outfit and although it was not overly taxed he was very happy, especially with the new Talica.

Pleased with the way the boat went after the layup through the ban. The conditions were not all that pleaseant with a short sharp seas but we travelled OK with it on teh way home.

Anyone fished wilbinga including the areas North and south?

couple of us going on sat arvo for an overnighter....been at least 5 years since last there.

targeting tailor but will soak a bait for the yet to catch size mulla from the sand.

interested to hear how people have gone recently with hooking up and also conditions ie weed and soft sand

(will ensure take a bag of someone else's rubbish out with me - last there was glass and crap everywhere just back from the beach).

any advice/ comments appreciated.

thanks

Me and me son went for a fish this morn finally got the elusive kidney slappers that I have always wanted to catch also Aidan got the biggest nor western blowie that we have ever seen and also pulled in 3 rays and a fiddler

went for a Murray River overnighter on Monday, managed to get over 40 redfin (some crackers 38cm)and landed my first wild rainbow, went 32cms, was stoked with it, sent it back for another time. Hopefully will be there again for next time, also saw three in the morning rising, one was probably around the 45cm mark. was an awesome sight to see with the mist rising off the water, the things you see when you don't have a fly rod with you.

NYE celebrations curtailed to a degree, got up at 0430 & headed out with Dave from Outdoor Sportz. We met Seaquest & his crew at Quindalup & headed out for what I consider the best way to bring in the new year.

Giddy up, I got a nice dhuie.

Dave "The Dolly Whisperer" beating the hoards of Kingy's to put this one on ice & have some fun on the rest (I failed miserably to get past the kings & or lose tackle)

Good bream gear fun on YTK's & Dave's Dolly's to end the day after bagging out

Freezer looks healthy again following the ban with some nice dhu fillets

Cheers & Happy New Year to you all

Hey guys

Gonna drop the tug in the river for the first time tomorrow morning for a cruise, coffee and lunch. Starting at Matilda bay, question is, where can you cruise to and tie the boat up and get a nice coffee then another location for lunch?

Cheers

The missus and I took a quick trip up to play deckie for my brother and his family. The idea was to get Narelle a good fish as she had not been on the water for a while. As usual she gets the best fish of the trip, a 91 cm Large Mouth Nannygai (Saddletail Snapper) which I believe overtakes Nikko's record on FW!! We got a few more good Nanny's plus a couple of Cobia to round out a good haul in just a few hours.

 Hi all, new to the forum - Going out from Mandurah on Tuesday first light - where can I go to get some pelagic action - Will be in a Barcrusher 680HT with twin 4strokes and game poles - Thought about hugging the coast until piont peron then heading outy wide for a blast - Any one else have some tips ?

Cheers in advance.

 Heading down in a couple of weeks to Busso with the boat.  Have the KG's and/or Snapper been active in the bay?  

 Apologies for the late report but the last few weeks have been hectic.

The last competition was held just north of Perth with 10 anglers participating. A total of 42 fish were counted for the comp.

Fish caught included Tailor, Snook, Dart, Eagle Rays and 10 Shovel Nose Sharks.

Results were as follows      1st Place    ALan

                                                2nd              Andy

                                                3rd               Jason

Overall standings are          Alan              122 points

                                                Dave                88 points

                                               Sherbie             84 points

Hi all
Had the daughter and hubby come up for a few day just prior to Christmas day..
Poor bugger (Ash)had to be back at work Christmas day.. Never mind..
So while they were up it was my job to take Ash out fishing and get him he's first ever sized Dhuie..
I have had Ash out a few times before and lets just say he's nickname after those trips became "Wrasseinator" ;-)
As they live down in Bunbury and he's favorite pass time is chasing Bream on 4lb gear, he has previously had trouble getting he's head around this bottom bashing caper with near 4lb sinkers... LOL
Well we cracked he's sized Dhuie drought with this nice size 9 keg 800mm male.. Albeit caught on a Wrasse that he had foul hooked but opted to leave it bouncing on the bottom for a bit..
The day totaled 4 dhuies, (2 Released) 1 Black Ass and also landed / released a number of solid mid size Sambos..

 After being hit with the dreaded Kidney Stone (a sign of getting older) a few months back I haven't been on the water at all until yesterday. So after a trip to hospital on Thursday to forcibly remove the stubborn little bastard, I decided enough was enough and I'd better get back into it or lose my mojo for good.

We headed out from Mindarie just on day break and with the wind at out backs headed out to the grounds only to realize on arrival that the wind was way too strong to sit side on to the massive wind chop that was breaking all around the boat. So we draggeda few lures around for an hour until it eased a fraction. No hits on the troll but a few new lumps located for future exploration.

The day was reasonably eventful, with the first fish a good size Dhuie that jumped the hook next to the boat as I was getting the tagging kit ready. Estimated to be around the 60cm bracket. Ah well it was only 7am so a full day ahead

We ended up tagging 5 Dhuies plus another two lost boatside and one that I kept for Xmas day lunch, a sambo, a Baldie/red throuat double header,

a KG,

a few Blackarse (kept one for Xmas lunch), a Blackarse that still had one of my tags in from maybe 12 months ago... definitely one of my tag numbers but I need to research the fish to see how much it has grown (haven't got around to it yet).

YES ANOTHER RECAPTURE>>>> THEY DO SURVIVE RELEASE WITH A RELEASE WEIGHT!!!!

The end of the day Darryn managed to capture an awesome Harlequin. This one would have to be up there with some of the biggest I have seen out from Mindarie, so a great capture to celebrate Xmas.

The new Buzz cut I am sporting didn't effect the mojo so it will be here to stay.

Merry Xmas everyone.

 I caught three paddle crabs while chasing blues around fresh water bay keep an eye out for these pests!

Left Mindarie Marina at 6am, trolled 2 deep diver xraps and 2 halco deep diver redheads from Mindarie to two rocks in the 20 - 30m line in a horrible stiff easterly for lots of seaweed and no mackies or tuna. Waited for the easterly to back off and headed directly west of two rocks about 25 kms out to the 35 - 45m area. There were 4 or 5 boats spread out so we decided to fish in amongst them. Usually we get 2 or 3 sargeant baker in a full day of demersal fishing but it seemed we were in sargeant baker city, they were in plague proportions like blowies we kept getting double headers and they were all full grown.   Managed to land 2 dhueys at 48cm and 49cm each (bugger) and 3 baldies (tiny - 30 - 35cm bugger again) 4 tidler breaksea cod  and just crap loads of sargeant baker never seen anything like it before. It was like the demersals down there couldnt even get a look at the bait before it was attacked by sargeant baker. Only good thing about the sargeant baker we found was that when we snagged up you just let out a crap load of line wait a minute or 2 then up would come your rig with at least 1 or 2 sargeant baker attached they were actually unsnagging the sinkers for us !! Water temp 21.8 C lots of flying fish, didnt see any bust-ups on the surface or birds feeding. How did anybody else fishing in that area go?

Once again it my great pleasure write this catch report for Dave- an avid angler from america.
The main agenda of this bkk fishing trip is for Dave to have a shot at his dream fish- The Arapaima.
He has been to the wild Amazon at Brazil every year for this annual fishing trip but hardly got a chance to catch this magnificent arapaima- The biggest freshwater fish.

He hookup with me early Dec 2014 for a 4 DAYS fishing adventure.

We have a 4 DAYS wonderful fishing, all non stop actions and many memorable catch especially his 1st encounter with his dream fish- Arapaima.

Dave landed a total of 4 arapaima, redtail tiger, countless redtail catfishes, alligator gar, thailand famous mekong catfish at BSR and having aerobatic fun with barramundi on lures.


I have complied his 4 DAYS fishing adventure in Thailand into this 6mins youtube clip below.

Do ride with us and enjoy his wonderful fishing trip in Thailand.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpiINC1F4BU




Highlights photos of this trip.

Arapaima & predators fishes...












Mekong Catfish.....





Barramundi....