After many long days sounding the depths, numerous drops to the depths and cranking back up, tankers full of petrol, a deep drop tackle budget that would support a small Africa nation and even the odd tear, we finally cracked the deep drop.

Myself, my main deckie TimVB and Langa headed out on Sunday to what can only be described as the best conditions I have been out in for ages......simply a sensational day, with glass off conditions out at the shelf for the best part of the day.  We ran two electric reels, with a back-up third Stella 20k with jig.

After a lot of sounding and quite a number of greeneye and spot changes, the "tide" started to turn around lunch with a few red bight fish coming up from the depths, then a few knifejaw.

Langa was first to hook up, and by the look on his face, the bend in the broomstick and the protest from the electric reel, it was big. Then Tim hooks up, double hook-up, yehah! After a few minutes Langas pulls the hooks, very dissapointed, but all attention turns to Tim, who is loosing PE6 at a rate of knots. It was a dead heat for 5 minutes and the fish put up a much better fight than any of us expected.

The fish had no bands in the photos but once back on land, very obvious bars identified it as a grey band cod I think.  Great reward for all our hard work!

After we landed the fish, a few dollies came arounf the boat to check us out.....in mid JUNE!!!! Landed one on a soft plastic, lost another as it bit through the leader, and then got a dhu on the way home. Made for one epic day!

Launched Saturday at 10.30am from Port Geographe marina, had a look around for some ground in the bay or should I say desert LOL. After finding a few small lumps we ended up with a Queen snapper, Pink snapper, Dhuie,Black Arse and a leather jacket, and plenty released, Then on the way back in stopped at the end of the Jetty and picked up some nice tailor and a few squid, a good mixed bag.

My lad Josh got bitten badly by a Tailor, his thumb wouldn't stop bleeding!! I think he just wanted to copy his mate who had the same thing happen to him the week before. 

We Caught a few Gurnards as well, all released. One very lightly stabbed me in the thumb, I'll not let that happen again, bloody painful, I wouldn't want a deep stab from one. Does anyone eat these Gurnards? According to the ID section there not bad eating.

Sorry no pics, I'll get more organised and start to post a few.

Gav

 G'Day,

Put the boat in at Bent Street ramp in Warnbro Sound on Saturday to check the area out.  It was the first time in Warnbro Sound so my girlfriend and I weren't sure where to go or what we could catch there. We decided that a cast over the weed for some squid wouldn't hurt and were rewarded with three squid for dinner. It took us two hours of drifting to get them and we only had mullie coloured squid jigs. I think next time I will take along a better variety of jig colours to try and produce a few more. However in saying that, the three we caught were enough for us and we were happy just to be out on the boat and enjoying the day. 

Cheers

 Went out from woodies pt with the boys for a squid around lunch.  Got into 5 decent ones, a cuttlely and a few herring.  Chad however learnt that when using a hand line for squid and it is directly under the boat, its not a good idea to lean out over the edge to see it come up.

One of the best I have seen in a while!

Just thought i'd post up a bit of a report and some pics of the last trip I did with a few mates, works colleagues and brother in-law up to the Mid Coast section of WA.

It was going to be a bit of a come as you go trip, with us all starting and finishing our trips at mostly different times, but with most of the time us up there together. Basically we ranged from Port Denison all the way up to Port Gregory and fished as much as we could inbetween those towns depending on where the fish were biting or where we thought they might be biting. For the last section of the trip my mate brought his tinnie up so there was to be a bit of boat fishing done too.

For the first few days(Wed, Thur, Fri) it was all Landbased fishing. Our general routine of finding some nice looking onshore reefs to cast lures for Tailor in the morning, spending the middle of the day driving and looking for the night fishing spot then finding a nice suitable looking gutter to fish into the night for Mulloway. The first couple of days proved to be quite slow with me and two of my mates only managing to get 6 Tailor in the mornings all around 65-70cm, with the biggest going 71cm and 6 Mullas all about 60-65cm during the night fishing sessions. Add to that some Wobbys, and Rays :(

By Friday lunch the other 5 guys rocked up in their four 4wds and one boat in tow and our anticipation of getting a fish out in the boat had us excited. So Friday night was spent with a half arsed attempt at beach fishing until the weed moved in(caught one 40cm tailor) then a hasty drive back along the beach, before the tide could cut us off and preparing the boat for the next day.

Saturday started with an early morning LB tailor session. We managed to land 5 tailor averaging 65cm with me also getting the biggest for the trip being 79cm. It was then back to camp to have some breakie and to grab the boat. the Boat fishing started with a beach launch and out to throw some lures for tailor on the just offshore reefs. This proved to be a lot more productive than the LBased fishing had been, with instant hook-ups and 11 fish hooked and 8 landed in about 45mins. The average size was only about 60cm with the biggest landed for the session 67cm, but we dropped two boatside that would have been pushing the 80cm mark. Was cursing my mate for forgetting his landing net :P After we all had our tailor fix we left them on the bite to head out and try our luck at demersals. It wasn't to far to travel before we started getting our first ones. Undersized Dhui's and lots of them! Fishing only 6-12m of water all swam back quite easily. Thankfully it wasn't to long till one of my mates finally hooked onto something more substantial! After a brief fight(only 7m deep) up popped my mates second ever legal Dhui and first on a SP. Ended up going 73cm. On the next drift the lucky bugger managed to get another Dhui, 51cm. So he caught his third ever legal Dhui, but with the 73cm already in the esky we made the call to release this one. After that Dhui the sea breeze started to come in so the call was made to start heading in and try a few spots on the way back in. Well a few of those spots were found to just be harbouring hoards of NW Blowies so we thought better than sacrificing SP and metals to their bolt cutting ways and headed in.

Sunday pretty much followed the same format as the previous day with us starting with throwing lures for Tailor before heading out after Demersals. Again the tailor were there and hot on the bite. As the previous day most were around the 60cm mark with a few bigger ones around 65-70cm. Hooked 10 in total and landed 6 in about 30 mins. at one stage my mate actually had two big greenbacks on his bullchop at once. After our casting fix we headed out to find some demersals again. This day proved to be very slow indeed, with just more hoards of NW blowies being encountered and again heaps of undersized Dhuis. The days only notable capture was my mate christening his new rod and reel combo(Saragosa/MM Max Rod) with his first ever Sambo and the biggest fish he's ever caught. Was priceless watching this Sambo make him piss in about 8m of water. Soon the sea breeze started to move in again so the call was made to head back in earlier and have another tailor session before pulling in for the day. Managed to get another 4 tailor off 6 casts averaging 60cm.

Monday again was the same script as the previous two days with a Tailor session to start with. 9 hooked and 6 landed again all around the 60cm mark. This day turned out to be calmer than the previous two so moving about was comfortable indeed. Thankfully we were also blessed with not having as bad a problem with the hoards of NW blowies we had been having the previous two days. We managed to catch a few undersized Dhuis, before one of the lads hooked onto something with some decent weight and heavy slow thumps on it. We called it for a Dhui straight away and sure enough after a brief fight(only 8m deep) up popped my mates first ever legal sized Dhui! It measured 71cm and you couldn't wipe the smile off his face. We spent a bit more time trying different spots out but for not much else other than a couple of NW Blowies and more undersized Dhuis. It really surprised me that over the three days boat fishing we hadn't caught any Pinkies, Baldies, or Spangled Emperor, all usual capture I have caught there in previous years. In saying that I had never seen so many undersized Dhuis there as we had been pulling up this year. Most of these undersized Dhuis we were catching were between 40-50cm so a lot weren't too far off legal.

Tuesday was the pack up and head home day so it started with an early morning tailor pop from the land and we managed to get 4 with the biggest going 68cm.

Was an great trip for me and I think the best thing about it all is I had all my mates up with me, most of whom had never been to this region before or had never fished it the way I showed them too. I think I spent a majority of my time watching them fish, teaching them, driving the boat and taking pics. Such a great feeling getting your mates onto good fish. Needless to say we are already planning our trip back next year, but I might bring my big boat up next year :)

Thanks for reading, Buz.

*The photo of my mate walking out in the water on the shallow reef is him retrieving my lure. I lent him my rod to cast for tailor, he hooks one but then drops it but forgets to keep winding. On lure stuck on reef and my mates going for a wade! Hahahahaha. He did get it back from me though and said the swim woke him up a bit :P

 Had 2 good days over the weekend! 2 great feeds aswell!:)

 10 miles out and bugger me this jerk sneeks up on us .Anyone know who he is .Was very abusive and was throwing bait at us .Even pulled a couple of dhuies up just to give us the shits.

G'day Fellas

Just a quick report. Me and a couple mates headed out to the west end of rotto, did a bit of trolling around the chicken run for no reward. The sounder on the boat then decided that it wasn't going to work anymore, lucky the GPS still worked. So it was old school fishing, just using the charts to find some ground. Found a nice drop behind Rotto and started drifting. Did alright considering we had no sounder, ended up with 3 nice Break Sea Cod (and a couple undersized), a nice baldy, 5 or 6 undersized Dhu fish and about the same in Pink snapper and some Emperor, which we think were blue lined emporer. We kept one of the emperor released about 10 more of them, the only reason this one was kept was the condition of the fish, swallowed the hooks real deep and was dead as a door nail when we tried to chuck him back. The Sargent Bakers were pretty thick at times too, probably would have got 20 of them between us, some of them were big buggers too.

All in all a good day out on the water and goes to show you don't need all the nice shiney electronics to find some good fish. We didn't get any monster trophy fish, but still managed a quality feed.

Hey guys just got back from an amazing trip to Exmouth fishing with Josh from Onstrike Charters, as usual he put us onto some great fish.

After watching the weather report like a hawk for weeks seeing nothing but lots of wind and swell it cleared up just as we arrived with light winds and hardly any swell making for some great conditions. The afternoon before the charter it glassed off and we decided to buy some cheap spin rods and head down to the point to flick a few lures off the rocks in hopes of some queenies. We each landed a few small queenies and had some good fun before Roger hooked into something more substantial - a short fight and a bit of hopping around the rocks later and he guided in a nice golden trevally on his el cheapo spin combo. A great start to the trip!

First morning onboard Onstrike II as soon as we got out behind the reef at tantabiddi I couldn't believe how much bait was around, at some points we where surrounded by tuna bust ups the size of football fields in all directions! The ocean was literally boiling with fish at times. With that much bait around we knew there had to be some big fish lurking!

First up we decided to troll some deep divers and each boated a couple of smaller model spanish mackeral, a good start to the day! After getting a couple of spaniards each over the morning we moved on and decided to try some vertical jigging after lunch for trevally. Great fun and we all caught and released some nice Brassy Trevally using light gear that really gave the arms a good stretch. We spent the afternoon landing all shapes and sizes of Trevally on jig also hooking into some unstoppables before finally wearing ourselves out as the sharks started to move in so we made the decision to call it a day and head in.

New day and a new goal, after seeing all that bait around the day before we decided to bring out the heavy gear and troll some skirts for billfish hoping something big was taking advantage of all these bait schools. It wasn't long before we had a solid hit and a good run, a few minutes later and a close tangle with a hungry shark and we had our first fish of the morning in the boat - a nice dolphin fish sporting a few battle scars from its close call with the tax man.

Back on the troll again and looking for something bigger, a few quiet hours passed and just as we where thinking it had all shut down the rod buckled over and the drag screamed. A blistering first run! We where all initially calling it for a billfish but after the long first run with no jump we where not so sure now as it slowed its pace. After a good 10 minute battle we had a nice Wahoo on board. After bleeding it out and letting it settle for a few photos we decided to see how much it weighed, it pulled the lie detector down to a solid 17kg - great fish!

With a nice dolphin fish and a solid wahoo on board it was time for a billfish! Over the next 5 hours trolling we had 5 black marlin and a huge sailfish appear in the spread but none would commit to hitting the skirts properly. They where just checking them out and playing with them resulting in an amazing 6 billfish raised but none landed. Josh was not to be beaten and assured us with a change of tactics we would come back the next day and really nail them. 

The next morning and last day of the trip we decided to anchor up and chase some hopefully bigger spaniards on stick baits and poppers in the morning before having another go at the billfish. We set the anchor, set out a little burley trail and started throwing some stick baits and poppers around. It wasn't long before I had an awesome strike on my popper right at the back of the boat, the spaniard came flying clean out of the water and was swimming through the air towards us with my popper wedged firmly in its mouth. An awesome sight, it almost looked like it was going to land in the boat! It hit the water and screamed off at top speed. After a solid fight I had my first spaniard on a popper in the boat!

A small break for some morning tea and a couple more casts before another great surface strike on the popper, I was on again! Another spaniard hit the deck. Having never caught a spaniard on popper I was stoked to have landed back to back mackies on poppers. Was really cool seeing the big surface hits and a lot more fun than catching them on the troll!

Time for the billfish! Seeing as most of the billfish we had seen the previous day where smaller models Josh made the call to bring out the lighter spin gear and troll skipbaits with circles for a better chance of hooking up and landing one. We set up the spread and headed off with high hopes as it was still early in the day and we had seen plenty of action the day before... unfortunately for us that same action from the day before was nowhere to be seen. We trolled from around 10am through till 4:30pm constantly surrounded by bait schools and tuna bust ups but with no action to be seen. Late in the afternoon we had a big sailfish followed by another small black marlin appear in the spread for a look but neither where hungry.

4:30pm of the last day approached and with our hopes all but shot Josh made the call to hold out for an extra 15 minutes, just in case! What followed can only be described as epic and something I'll never forget. I dont have all the footage / pics just yet and think it deserves its own thread so I will put a link below hopefully by the time you get through reading this!

Stay tuned! :)

Edit: Here is the link!

http://fishwrecked.com/forum/500lb-blue-marlin-30lb-spin-gear

Hey FW people..

My first real report post. I could've done one before but didn't think that a whole bunch of sand whiting caught was much to report on. Anywayyyyy.. here's some squid I caught from South Mole this late afternoon/evening
The cuttlefish was from a trade I got from my friend, he didn't want it so he took one of my small squids and I took his cuttlefish. :)

The big squid has a 20cm hood, and wow it was massive!.. Gave a real good pull and fight which I enjoyed. I thought my rod was going to snap when I lifted it up!

PS* This is my first time squidding properly and I'm very happy with the results.. Plus it was good fun, which is the main thing!

First of all apologies to everyone at work... ;-)
We set off again and at our second stop of a 12 week trek along the north wa coast
Arrived in Exxy yesterday and today we headed down the beach to launch the dingy and try our luck chasing a few manna's..
Well it took about 3 hours, but we got our bag limit,
After cooking them and having a good feed.. Yum Yum
This is what is left for lunch tomorrow..
Sorry about the average picture, taken at the last minute and after a couple cans.. ;-)

Gday - the kids started pissn me off this arvo so I went for a quick fish round the corner off the most northerly rock groin at quinns beach to see if I could get some herring for bait - planning on going out past direction bank off two rocks this sunday - weather permitting. I usually get friggin heaps of herring but today nothing - its weeded out bad, just got the usual sand whiting and a trumpeter so hopefully a big dhuey will take a liking to them. Anyway was surprised to see a 5 odd metre half cab boat washed up on the beach there. Its sitting on its trailer which is almost buried - does anybody know the story about it? as far as I can tell you cant get a car there to put it on its trailer in the first place - just seems real odd - cheers dave

We arrived at ningaloo station to find the weather being very uncooperative, only managed one decent fish a 88cm trevally on the second day. Last day of comp seen us come home strongly for the win with 3 Mahi Mahi and a sail fish. A great comp which I would highly recommend. Get in contact with Damian at The Average Angler for upcoming events.

Just a video from the Fads a couple of months ago

 http://ww.youtube.com/watch?v=l3tPwN7QSnl

Gday. Had a killer tinny session this morning in Rocko. Put in at last beach launch in Warnbro before first light. Threw a few glow in the dark squid jigs around for a big zero. Headed over to south wall and started throwing surface lures around into the wash. Had a mate onboard, trying to convert him to lures. He plugging away with a couple of stickbaits while I tried to figure out what was working. Sinking stickbaits the go and I soon hooked up on 50cm plus tailor on the middle rod. A 4000 twinpower, 25lb braid and a brand new 7ft cheapie shimano 6 - 10 kg I picked up recently for throwing lures from the boat. Mate soon stashed his 8lb 1000 size outfit once he saw what we were chasing. Biggest tailor he ever seen, mid fifties. Caught another shortly after while old mate looked at me forlornly with zip on his account. We chopping and changing lures like no tomorrow. Gave hime the 4000 outfit and whacked something onto the ten lb mono on 2500 daiwa aird and flicky and straight of Whammo! Nice tailor that gave me a great run for a couple of minutes. Old mate finally had a hit of consequence on the blues code. Cast again, hit, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, then gone.... soo was the lure.... and snaplock still closed? He had enough by then and pulled out the mulies. Snelled 4/0 or 5/0's and a running sinker started accounting for more tailor and other species. I had my recently bombed out penn 9500 on board for its maiden run and rigged the same. More tailor etc.
Old mate and the 4000 had some fun with an eagle ray, pulled the anchor to drift away from rocks for that one. Then he was bricked hard. Shortly after the heavy rod went off. I grabbed it and set the hooks. Fish turns inshore along the reef. Give it some curry to slow down and it turns. Tighten drag and it turns again. I settle in my seat and the rod loads up. I give it some real stick and crank the drag down. Now I got some major BIG thuds through the line and this thing just goes down and straight for Africa. We about to pull anchor and give chase when ping.... all over. Me thinks bitten off as we using snelled mono rigs. Lost a few already but no, broken hook at the barb. Devod but happy my knots working. No chafe on leader, thinkin I had it either set in jaw of shark or HUOOOGE Sambo.
About 80lb braid to heavy 70lb nylon leader to 80lb flouro snell. Not long after that line goes under spool and comes out covered in firkin grease. I call that would be bad for business and that rod didn't see another fish today. Even tried rubbing some squidgee scent into it to cover it. I'll use this rig again before doing another leader knot to test the theory fully as the tailor had gone off the bite by now anyway.
Continued to berley and started to see some herring about. Old mate picked up a few on softies, a first for him. Herring skittish so old mate throws another mulie out on the 4000 combo and before long he is ON in a big way. It heads straight for the reef wall on first hook up. He relaxes and it comes out a bit, then its off again, up and down the wall, me telling him to just keep steady pressure on and with as much drag as we dare. Try to pull anchor but its furkin stuck this time. Last reposition I dropped us that close to the wall the occasional backwash was breaking into the tinny. keeps you awake when its like that....
Anyway this thing has run us round the tinny three times and I seen some deep colour and call it for a mulloway. I pulled us right on top of the pick so it was straight up and down and that kept it off the rope. It went round once but we got it off. A couple more circles and I can tell we got it beat. Suddenly it appears again properly and we got us a stonking sambo! And its mrs is right there too. Got it inboard for pics and old mate declares it the biggest proper fish hes ever seen let alone caught and his first sambo and hes gonna bloody well eat it! Absolutley no room in the eski for that, its lunch time so we choof off. Sambo went 1.3mts in 5 - 8 mts of water on 4000 size reel. Needless to say my doubts about that reel are well and truly gone and new rod is a bloody ripper. Tailor for us and the neighbours and sambo belly strips for the dogs. Got some good berley stashed away too now with chopped up frames and smashed up mulies waiting to go again.......
Awesome morning fishin for less than a litre of fuel. :)

struggled out to swb today for my first ever time took over 2 hours to get there the ground out there looks great and I am no sounder guru first drop bang jumbo sambo (released) this looks like it might have been worth the struggle to get here, after that we spent 5 fruitless hours sounding around for dozens of drops for two nice skippy , the trip home was better (not pounding into the swells like we were on the way out and there were some big 1s) long way to go for 2 skippy but there is always next time . Probably a sill question but are sambos worth keeping ???

I don't post reports but thought I'd offer up a little something for a change. Conditions were near on perfect with an offshore wind, 2.20m swell & high tide about an hour after sunrise so I decided it was tailor time. First cast of the Roosta & it was hammered by a 40cm  model that proceeded to put on a nice acrobatic display. After a short but very entertaining fight the fish was photographed & returned to the water. Next cast got smashed by another fish but no hookup. About another dozen casts & I  got a solid hookup, this one was a good fish as it was taking long runs against 4kg of drag easily. After it's third run the line went slack, the fish was gone but the Roosta was still there & my leader was still intact so out it went again. Again it was belted, this time by a 42cm fish that put up a spirited tussle before being lifted up onto my rock, photographed & released. Things went quiet on the surface after that so I switched over to a 55g chrome Twisty. Again, first cast, smashed, this fish came in without taking any line so I figured it was a smaller fish but was pleasantly surprised when I lifted a 46cm Tailor up onto the rocks. Another snap & another release. A few more casts & I was on again, this fish went a bit harder taking a bit of line & giving one almighty leap about a meter over the waves. This fish managed to bury himself in the reef so I opened the bail & prayed to the fish gods for a couple of minutes. They must have been happy with me because when I brought the line back up tight I was rewarded with a couple of good head shakes & a nice tailor being eased towards me. This one came in at 47cm & was the best fish of the morning. Again a quick snap & release. Things went quiet after that & another half hour casting got me nowhere so I decided it was time to call it a day. The fish were only average or just above, I was soaking wet & freezing but I had the biggest smile on my face as I made my way back up to the car. Here's a few pics, hopefully they inspire a few people to get out tommorow for a cast.

The long awaited Coral bay trip had finally arrived. Up at 3.00am to get boat out and load gear in. Car was already loaded so once the crew arrived, it was chuck in the fishing gear and hit the road. 

An uneventful trip saw us pull into Carnarvon around 4.00pm. Booked in for the night at the Carnarvon Caravan Park and had a couple of coldies to start off the trip on the right foot. A top steak at the Gassie and a couple of pints then back to the room to watch the Eagles snatch a 1 point win. Back on the road at 8.00 and rolled into Coral Bay just before midday.

Accommodation wasn;t ready so had to cool our heels at the pub waiting before we could unload the gear. Finally got the nod at 1.30, unloaded and on the water by 2.30pm for a shakedown cruise. The weather was fantastic and the boat carpark was chokkers. It was all we could do to find a spot to park. Shot out through the south passage and bounced some metals and plastics at the back of the reef for little return. We were happy with the shakedown so back to the shack to ready the gear for tomorrow. 

Decided to hit the rocks at the marina that night and nabbed 7 spanglies with a couple hitting over 3kgs on the 4kg outfits. Absolutely huge fun. How good was this, Day 1 and we already have some fish to our account. Back to the pub for dinner and an early night.

Day 2 saw us outside the south passage again and working 55- 65m for little return other than a nice Rankin and a couple of sh*t fish. The breeze was well up and we struggled to hold any bottom even with 40 ozs of lead. Didn’t take out any gear that we could troll with so in frustration we headed in. 

That pretty much set the scene for the next 3 or 4 days. Steady NE winds up to 20 odd knots with occasional rain made any venture onto the water and out to the deep very uncomfortable with one trip through the North passage and about 10 NM north an absolute shocker of a return trip. Winds were spinning around the compass and went SE 25 plus knots. The trip back took and hour and a half with wind waves of 2 – 3 m on a low swell. We headed out to come back across it but it was bad whichever way we went. Lucky we were in a 23 foot boat. Anything smaller I think could have been a bit scary.

Then the weather really turned to sh*t and we ended up on the beach for 2 days which saw us do a trip down to 5 Fingers and Waroora and then Exmouth and Bay of Rest on the next day. It also saw us spend too much time at the boozer. We finally got a half reasonable day with the breeze dropping below 15 knots around lunch time and we belted out to 90m and managed to land 6 reds up to 5kgs, 3 good Robbos and a Blunt nose Cod before the sharks moved in. The breeze again was constantly swinging and it was difficult to get a straight run at any new marks we picked up. 

Next day was more of the same although the breeze was a little stiffer and lasted a little longer but we made it out to 120m to try for goldband. Another blunt nose cod and some Red Throat, nothing else so moved back in to 90m. Picked up another Robbo and had 3 biteoffs from sharks. It was getting late so gave up in disgust.

Last day, looked great on the forecast but blew steady NE all day 8 – 10 knots. Again out to 120m to try for goldband and picked up Red Throat fairly steadily, only keeping the biggest models, Again got a couple of blunt nose cod to about 6 -7 kgs and got one goldband up losing the other to sharks which had found us again. Moved out a little further but the breeze turned NW and the bite went off. Motored in and pulled boat for the end of the trip. 

The trip home was uneventful and we had accommodation booked at Dongara (apologies to Rob H, we were going to stop in for that coffee, maybe next time !) Had a great meal at the pub and a good nights sleep before heading off in the morning. Travelling well until just out of Perth and a bearing failed. Heard a bit of a squeak and pulled over to investigate. Jacked up the wheel and took off the axle nut only to see the bearing fall to pieces. Pretty pissed at my mechanic who I asked to replace or repack bearings but looks like he just pumped some grease into them. Roadside repair and we were home early arvo.

All in all, we enjoyed the time away despite the crappy weather (which was very unseasonal by all accounts). We got a couple of fish but nothing that we would deem memorable. I did however get to spend some fun times with some mates and my eldest boy which was all good. I also got to meet Sparrow and Mr Meks. Hopefully next year if they are up we can catch up again if not down here. 

High points were landing 2 x 3kg spanglies on 4kg and catching a bloody big mud crab by hand from the shallows at the Bay of Rest. Some video on the IPhone of the squillions of soldier crabs running all over the flats at low tide also brought back some memories of North Queensland 50 years ago. 

Low points, a dud bearing (although nothing like Sparrows problems !), that crappy Easterly wind which never let up and rain. Looks like the day after we left Exmouth got hammered so plenty of weather up that way at the moment. Time to start planning next years trip, hope the weather is better.

I’ve put in some pics below.

Cheers

Daybreak for a coffee stop at Cataby

Fisrt nite down at the Marina, plenty of snapper (bloody fat ones too !)

Another good Spanlie from the Marina

Efforts from a couple of hours at the Marina the previous night

Day 2 - This is all we could manage - you can see the weather building

A day where we managed to get out to the deep. Bagged out on Reds with this being the largest model (a modest Red by any standards)

Blunt Nose Cod (aka Banded Grouper) good on the chew

This is where the Reds came from - a slow drift over the mark

This is the same spot but underway - you can see the shark at about 75m (bastard things)

Plenty of these around

One of the smaller models that we got to the boat and cut off. The circle hooks work a treat.

Muddy pulled from the shallows at Bay of Rest - released into some deeper water

Got up at 5:00am yesterday to go for a flick at Club Cap.
Get there at 6:00am thinking we'd be the only ones stupid enough to get up that early on a public holiday and low and behold the beach was packed! Not surprising I guess with such nice conditions (sweet FA wind, small swell, no weed, wasn't too cold). Anyway ended up fishing there for about 3 hours with no interest on the big rods, but plenty of pickers so thought we'd throw out the flick sticks and see what happened. Ended up with dozen whiting, 2 very plump herring and a common dart. The guy next to us got a small(ish) tailor but there was bugger all caught in general. Nice monring non-the-less.

Spent the long weekend at Preston Beach, went flicking a metal most mornings and arvo's, Herring were on almost the whole time. Landed 5 from 5 casts at one point.

Was doing the old hookup-and-let-missus-wind-in thing, and the first few times the herring has got off, as they do. Then i've hooked up solid and handed the rod over (with a light drag for fun) and laughed as my missus struggled with a what i thought was another herring. After a short while I realised it wasn't and began backseat fishing until she pulled up a nice little 40cm odd tailor. As i cast again hoping for another a pod of bloody dolphins came through and started chasing fish around. My missus and some other girls on the beach are all "OOOOooooooh look dolphins!"... I hate dolphins!

 went for a salmon fish off of the rocks at bunkers bay thismorning, unfortunatley the tigers got the better of us and taking us for abit of a run around every 10 minutes luckily the leader was bitten off before we could get spooled! other than that hooked 2 salmon and lost both :( still a good day to have abit of fun catching herring and enjoying nature :)

Fair few schools of tuna out the back of the 3 mile off Ocean Reef today. Not sure of type, looked to me like SBT or big eye, lost a few unfortunatly including one boatside ready to gaff that the boy was fighting, oh well atleast he got to feel the grunt of a few runs, was prob 5-6 kg. Water temp was 19 odd degrees, still got a feed of whiting, squid and a 45cm flatty from in close, nice morning, till the wind kicked up 20kn, cheers.

 Well headed out at 7:00 this morning ,flat seas and four guys busting to shot and loop something.In the water at 7:45 Viz was great and after hitting the bottom we were in fish heven .must have been 20 dhuies five had tags in them that we could see.20minutes on the bottom and a quick stop at 3m and it was on the boat with a few hi fives and some good crays and a couple of small dhuies, biggest going 14kg Home 10:00 with a coffee and ready to watch the footy.

I went out yesterday with my friend Ben on his bosses Southwind UB520 yesterday for a bit of a fish.  Ben and Chad had taken the boat before, but this was my first chance to tag along.  We headed out from PT Peron around 8:30 for a bit of a look around the FFB. Conditions were every bit of the forecast 15knt easterly, but once we trimmed the boat up we were able to fish comfortably and using the clears and keeping the speed down we could work our way back upwind to the start of the drift without getting soaked or too badly jarred. We did a few drifts fishing blind over sections of the FFB with a  few shit fish being caught here and there. At one point Chad hooked up to something solid on his light outfit that took off and bricked him at the earliest convenience.

After a few hours we decided to head into the lee of GI which was really nice to warm up for a while.  We went looking for some sand patches to burley up in the hope of getting a feed of whiting and maybe a KG.  The first patch produced nothing but wrasse so we moved after an hour or so, onto the second patch and again got a burley trail going.  After a few more wrasse/cod Chad got a good run again on light gear which brought up a nice 37cm sand flattie.  Iki Jimi'd the flattie, Hi fives all round and more burley distributed.  Within a few minutes I had a few solid thumps and bang I was on with a good fight and I hear from the other side of the boat that Benno is on too! Double hookup with some nice runs on our 2500 reels with 8lb braid I got mine into the boat and its another sand flattie marginally larger than the other0.  At that point Ben had his boatside and we were stoked to see another flattie even larger than the first two.

Bens measured up at 46cms and with more hi fives, burley and beers we were again fishing, Ben managed a 39cm pinky which gave a really good showing of itself which was released in the hope that some bigger models might be around.  Ben and I also caught 3-4 decent sized Trevally which made it into the ice box. We had been fishing the shallows for a couple of hours now always with a large bait on the boat rod out.  As usual I had the drag set low and the clicker on with the rod in the holder hoping for a repeat of the gummy from last week.  The drag clicker slowly started ticking off and I took the rod from the holder let it have some more line before slowly tightening the drag and raising the rod tip.  At this it took off and after a few blistering runs we were treated to an amazing sight of an eagle ray getting totally airborne 3-4 times.  The ray was valiant but 15mins later I had him boatside and on his back and the circle hook was out and he could go back to his ray like ways.  

It was getting on a bit and we pulled anchor and prepared to return home however we saw some interesting ground near where we started the day so we had a few more drifts with nothing but doughnuts.  We headed back to Pt Peron arriving right on sundown for the drive back to Bens in Bibra Lake cold and exhausted, but thanks to a great set of clears, dry.  A great day out, Cheers to Ben, Chad and Bens Boss with the only downer being crushing my finger in the level wind on my overhead while snagged - That will teach me to be lazy!

Only two pics, Chad took a video of the Ray that I am yet to have a look at, maybe I will post some later if its any good. Yes - it was colder than charity

Bryan

got a dhuie and couple of black arse on 5 ft bank Saturday on a well known to this site gps spot

Hay People,

Went out and braved the cold this morning. Only caught a small (20cm) esturay cod or similar that had me confused that the reef was fighting back.......

More importantly though. There is a crazy homeless guy living in the cave down there. He didnt wake up til after sunrise but gave us a bit of a scare. He was being quite aggressive so we packed up and headed home before things escalated. It wasn't a nice situation to be in as he had us sort of cornered on the end of the island.

Just thought people should know.

Cheers,

Tainted.

Had some pretty good weather, managed to get outside the reef on all six of our fishing days. Didn't manage to boat ANYTHING red which was a bit of a bugger. Struggled to find anything promising on the sounder out further than about 40 metres deep. Had to fall back on shallower water spanglies for demersal fillets and in the process were hammered by the greysuits, so much that I doubt my austrian cousin will ever enter the water in WA again haha.

At least there were a few pelagics around which were a bit easier to pick up. Spent a fair amount of time dragging lures around for macks.

This mack picked up a mulie intended for a spanglie, off the bottom in 5 metres depth inside the reef.

This yellowfin nearly cost me my rod/reel. Barstard took off when I grabbed the leader and I had forgot to flip over the bail arm. Whole lot went over the side and I just managed to grab the rod tip.

Found the marlin out on the 80 metre contour. Skirts had been in the water for maybe 3 or 4 minutes, I was still tying off the teaser when it latched on. Danced around on the surface early on then went right down to the bottom. I was watching it on the sounder 70 meters down hoping like hell the sharks left it alone.

The only other signs of billfish we had was a freejumping sail and a rod bounce/roughed leader. We didn't spend a whole lot of time on the troll, I think we did about 3 hours all up in 6 days.

 Was out in the work boat this morning and seen sardines getting chopped on the surface. up close we found tuna to i'd guess 20kgs jumping. followed the action up to sucess bank. If your out for a squid this weekend take your caster and some metals and i reckon your in with a good chance of one.

After my scout MA reported some good intel, I wanted to hit some Longnose Gar this weekend. My friend Richard was busy and couldn't come, but I rounded up Evan and Andrea for the trip.

Andrea caught his first gar last year on the fly...but today was much too windy for fly fishing.

In fact, it was so windy today that our rigs were often blown by the wind. We were fishing from a bridge position and the wind would pick up our lengthy lines and kept our bait from touching water at times, even when we have three splitshots with an equivalent of 3/8oz of weight on the line.

When the gust died down a little though, we were able to present the bait to the gar, if the current was just right. They were often quick to bite, but hooking them was another matter. We probably got over 20 hits each, but only hooked up a handful of fish each. In total, we only landed 3 gar. Luckily, Evan managed to keep one hooked and landed.





I managed two nice gar in the high 30's to low 40 inch range.

Release pic

I was down at club cap Saturday morning having a fish for tailor just next to the rocks, didn't get anything myself only a few bites. A guy about 70m down the beach landed a nice salmon, walked down to have a look at it and I reckon it would have been close to 5kgs. He said he saw a school of them swim past earlier my dad did also hook up but he lost his, would have been a pretty good fish .