This trip materialised last minute when I was thinking of going Jurien Bay with Whitey but ended up hooking up with Hlokk and going to Abrolhos. Apparently there was a spot due to someone pulling out last minute and hence I got it. Thanks to Hlokk for inviting me along. I had heaps of fun, popped a few cherries and beat some of my own PB's, not to mention meeting a few fishing legends!

Lost only 6 jigs due unstoppables, bust-offs by razor gangs and one which was snagged.

No monsters were taken but we had a great variety that came onboard.

I am not much of a word-smith and so will let the pictures do the talking.

We started the day by trolling towards Abrolhos and Chris opened the account early with a spaniards on Halco Laser Pro. There were times when multiple hook-ups took place with spaniards and sharky caught.

My first coral trout after climbing out from the bunk, half awake. This fish was taken on an Ofmer jig 150g.

Foul hooked coral trout on Duel Tamentai 150g

Another one of the many trouts taken on jig.

Good old Gorilla jig did the trick on this trout.

This trout was taken on a knife jig worked fast to entice a spaniard. I saw the sounder lit up in mid-water so I change my demersal jig for a knife jig to catch the spaniard but it was intercepted by this coral trout at mid-water.

Matt's impressive trout

This spangle emperor gave a good account of itself. I thought I hooked something three times as big! New found respect for this species.

As you can see, it was a clean hook-up

Jono's dhuey

Sean's dad with a stickbaited yellowfin tuna.

Sambo....

Pinky on Metal Flicker

Matt's coral trout on Smith Jack knife ?

Another trout...

Another one of my trout at the end of first day before we moored at the island for the night. It was taken in relatively shallow water -12m on a Saltiga Sacrifice Stick.

Matty's impressive double header on Smith Jack Knife

Moses perch ? on Zest jig

Not too sure what this is about ??!!!

Snapper on the same jig again!!

Amberjack on the same jig again!!

Dhuey!

Jono's estuary cod that ended up on the table.

Fillet packed, labelled, vacuum sealed and ready to go

Yum....fish wings on the barbie..

Matty's jigged leather jacket. It was huge!

One of Sean's many surface lured fish. On one particular morning session, he caught and release more than a dozen spaniards & shark mackerals on stickbaits. Unfortunately, he didn't take any photos. Shimano Ocea Stickbaits come to life in Sean's hands.

My juvenile dhuey on Fanky

My PB snapper @ 6.9kg on the digital scale. This fish was taken amongst 2 baiters on either side of me. Apparently my 180g jig hit bottom faster than their baited rig and this snapper slammed it on first crank of my reel handle. It cracked my 2.2kg pinky caught at Carrums Down in Melbourne.

Check out the hump on the head!

My first sharky taken on Rapala Sub-Walk retrofitted with singles. 

Rapala's one fish wonder X-Rap Sub-Walk. It only took one sharky to puncture the stickbait. Notice the battle scars and water seepage into the lure's body cavity.

Check out those colours

 My other sharky on a 60g stickbait. 

This picture tells a very sad tale. A spaniard estimated to be 15-20kg by others on the boat who saw it at boat side took a lot of line at serious drag. It finally won its freedom when this pre-made Halco wire with snap gave way. My main line was only 30lb!!!  I was so gutted not because I lost my Duo Press Bait Saira Sinking stickbait with it but because that could have easily been the biggest spaniard caught for the trip, not to mention my PB! NO MORE HALCO WIRE SNAP for me for sure !

This hammer head was seen circling the boat when we were at 300m. So someone toss a big chunk of fish with a hook in it and caught him.

We were at 18m and spaniards, sharkies and tuna were seen spearing out of water hitting bait schools. Everyone was plugging away trying to land one on stickbait. I decided to have a change and rig up a long jig and do mackeral jigging (ie. fast stroke with fast cranks) and this mack got fooled. The mackeral must have smashed the jig so hard that it bent it.

This amberjack gave me some serious grief because I forgot to tighten my drag before dropping the jig over! It took a 150g Ofmer jig with home-tied Mustad Hoodlum assist hooks. 

My double-header Amberjack, taken on 150g Daiwa jig. Craig - the skipper told us that was a new spot to him and a school of fish was seen suspended in mid-water. So it turned out there was a seriola's gathering going on that morning.......

Sambo taken on the same jig, same spot, same outfit on the 2nd drift. Unfortunately, the kingies weren't out to play. :( Otherwise a seriola grand slam is on the card.

A sharky took a swipe at my Smith L-Dorado timber stickbait and miss. Look at the damage done to the lure and assist cord.

Damage done to my twister octopus used to dress up my assist hooks.

Arguably the biggest fish caught for the trip. Jono's estuary cod taken on bait.

Just got back from shark bay had a couple of days good fishing before it started to BLOW

Day 1

Launched from Denham and headed for the Dampier reef , Trolled and bottom bounced the reef for a couple of hours for some shark macks, lots of Trevally and some just sized red throats,  not alot happening so went down the ocean side of Dirk Hartog

looking for some new ground to try out, and found a cracking spot, 5 guys on the boat and we bagged out on pinkies in the first  2 drops  , then  we got good size rankin , estuary  and tomato cod. Then followed the boats first Red Emperor and Cobia .The

wind was getting up so we headed for  home trolling all the way up to Turtle  Bay for only a blowie and another shark mackerel.

Day 2

Had a late start to the day as the weather was forecast to improve in the afternoon , once again headed up to the top end of Hartog and started to look for similar ground, different story today with only a couple of  size pinkies and blackies and lots of undersize fish landed, with darkness approaching we decided to give some of the ground around Dampier Reef a crack at night,. By 10 pm we had bagged out our limit for the day on pinkies, blackies, a mulla, estuary cod ,rankin cod and spangled emperors that you could put a saddle on and ride away into the darkness. The dark hours were broken up by sea snakes coming around for a look see and a monster tiger.

At 10 we decided to clear the deck and head for denham , conditions were good with an expected 1.5 - 2 hour run back to denham, less than 5 minutes into the trip home with the boat traveling at 33 knots there was an almighty bang , shit we had hit something and hit it hard. It was all hands on deck all compartments were opened and checked to see if we were taking on water, engine up and check the prop and leg for damage. No visible damage so we started to plan for beaching the boat on turtle bay if we started taking on water. Looked at the brand spanking new plotter to plot a course to turtle bay , Zip, Nada no satelites found  dead in the water between Dorre and Dirk Hartog.After just spotting a big tiger there were some nervous faces on board.

When my mate  had the new plotter installed he decided to lave all the original navman cables in case he had any difficulty with the new system, and the navman was on the boat and up and running in a couple of minutes and heading for home after reaching denham we checked the boat and found no damage , we figure that we hit a turtle or something but it scared the shit out of 5 grown men.

The next couple of days were bad but  we ventured out to the island and got some red throat and pinkies ,blackies but no sign of macks anywhere

We did not have a  big problem with being sharked as every spot we fished we tied a couple of fish frames to one of the heavy rods  dropped the over and it kept the sharks from most of our fish.The new sounder will be back with the dealer on monday looking for some answers.

I did not see any macks landed all week but heard that some were being caught in the shipping channel for the salt mine, over all we got some great fish but nearly filled our daks too.

Cheers Vince.

a few tailore from the last few weeks

 Got this one in the sound this morning on 10lb gear 

Measured up at 78 and weighed in at 6.5 :), makes up for the cold i guess haha

The winter fishing has been excellent over the past few days with plenty of bread and butter fish being caught as well as squid. Mulloway and the odd pinky are being landed in the shallow water before the bend with runs being early in the evening. Chopper tailor around 20-25cm are being caught on the second half of the jetty in the deeper water. The herring are around in good numbers along most of the length of the jetty. I have been having a heap of fun over the past few days catching them on small Gillies whitebait metal diving lures. Good sized squid can be caught all along the second half of the jetty after dark, my mate caught 6 within 2 hours during tonight's session. Skippy can be found near the pylons along the entire length. If you are planing on heading out make sure you take a heap of warm clothes since it is freezing cold at the moment especially at night, I could breath frost on the end of the jetty last night, it was very cold.
 

After spending many hours building the boat it is now time to give it its first fishing trip and how excited i was. now Another year is over and i have been back for 6 weeks and i thought i better put some pick up of the holiday as i have been busy organising to build a house display homes how awesome every weekend hope you enjoy some of my photos

brekky at cervanties and a photo of mthe boat on the cruiser it all towed gr8 on the new trailer i finished 1 week b4

fishing started off slow the first week the weather wasnt bad just hard to find fish

as we begin

i get the first first

trent gets a bigger one

then trent gets a 9 kg red and all i could manage was a 8 kg red all trip unfortunatly i didnt get a photo of my red on the boat

so towards the end of the trip i said i would love a coral trout i have never caught one less than 5 mins later guess what a chris with a 9 kg on the left and hayden with a  7 kg on the right and i didnt get one surprise

 I finally got the girls onto rod and reels and away from the deck winches nothing to break them into it just 120m water and they did well double headers of goldband, rosy jobfish and cleaned up that day

c

what a way to finish the da 5.30 25nm out and sitting on 28 knots on the way in it was dark by the time we reached the south passage but worth the day out

Even mum and dad and finally got a sized red emporer on a rod and reel so as another year goes by time to start to look forward to next year it was harder to find fish this year and with so many poeple following and pinging us we had to go alot further away from coral bay but it was worth it in the end and to see all the family get into good fish this year made the trip so much better i have some underwater photos so will post them up soon but for now seeya out there.

Hi All

Has anyone fished the upper swan, around Guildford lately? I’m looking at doing a SP Bream session this weekend and would like to know if anyone has had any recent results?

Cheers

Jarrod

 hi guys n gals

after seeing the post of the write up in the west etc most have probably seen i thought id throw a quick report up on the day and the encounter for your    

?pleasure? and just so that everyone gets the exact story! we all know how the media can wriggle words! the article in the todays west was fairly decent tho besides the fact it said we contemplated spearing it??? not once did we think that

anyways here goes

Dave had come from perth to dive with the dropping swell and clear water we expected. I had taken the saturday off annual leave for that "extra" day of fun!

Thursday we headed north approx a mile from the exact spot we had our encounter. similar depth of water and pretty average viz but we managed some good fish. Got lucky and got onto a fairly solid common trout of 76cms and 6.8kgs which is a good fish for inshore waters. We burlyed hard for dhuies and not once did it feel sharky nor did i get that feeling more divers would get when we arnt alone.

Friday i headed south - beautiful day but a north tide kept the fish quiet. viz varied from very good to pretty average. bought home some nice trout baldies and a 6kg dhu between 3 of us.

Saturday - The Day...... Now ill tell all id bought my GoPro Hero 2 for to make filming abit easier - hands free to hold a gun etc etc. If id had my contour this day it could have been a tad different. Ive got into the hang now of turning the GoPro on for every dive and id been getting some nice stuff...

We left the ramp and headed north.. Magic condition and arrived at some hour i cant exactly remember around 9ish?? Not wanting to hit our spots from thursday we headed further north to sound ground. approx 7-800m off the beach and in 11m of water we stumbled upon some interesting looking stuff.

Dave kitted up and did a quick jump in to suss the spot hanging off the back. Looked good so we set the pick

Viz was magic - i est 12-15m horizontally in the early morning sun? The bottom was alive with fish and it felt so right , so good and i thought we where going to be in for a cracker....

Not 2mins in and a large trout stared up at richo and i so we decided to film the dive and take the shot. Richo and i breathed up and dropped. It was a good fish - maybe 65-70cm and then a rather large baldie mooched in. Then a dhuie! Richo held back on the shot to see if something else would rock up. We surfaced and just layzed for few moments. Another massive baldie mooched in... Then another dhu - not massive but i wanted to film it and check out the cave from which it had come.

I informed richo of my doings and commenced my breathup as i turned on my camera. Richo is facing north west and im opposite ina trance like state. focusing on the bottom - relaxed... Breath in , Breath out.

Drawing my final breath and milliseconds from decent i heard a shrill scream of my name. Something ill never forget and immediately i knew it wasnt a "Normal" bronzie or tiger that had mooched in. Everything from here is nuts.

I spun on a dime to see a site ill NEVER EVER forget as long as i live. A Head over a metre across , Massive black left eye , that frown looking jaw - It was fucking MASSIVE! I swung my 120 riffe euro around and the shark was that close ive got marks where the sharks skin rubbed varnish off half way along. I est it was 1-1.5m from my face.

Massive surface disturbance and the shark went south. Immediately i swum towards richo as the shark turned on its own length and came at richo. This is where the shark appeared to get aggitated and chucked her pecks down. It glided under richo as you see in the wests pic - came up to guns lenght and then turned and came straight at me again. Another poke for her trouble and she seemed to settle a little and glided out to maybe 6-7m distance. It seemed she had cruised in to suss us out. When we spotted her our heart rates would have sky rocketed accordingly and this is why i think she behaved abit more erratic at those moments.

Now side by side and headed towards the boat she glided to our east. I think she knew we where retreating here and as we approached the boat she turned and came straight at us again...... My god the girth was unreal!

She cut us off and this is where i gave her a cracking smack just infront of the gills. She didnt like this and took off to the edge of viz.

Richo was in like a shot while i stayed put and wasnt taking my eye off or turning my back on it til she was out of view....

Handing richo my gun ive never climbed in fully kitted fins and all so quick!

That was it - we never saw her again!

The day my perspective on diving and the things that live in the water changed forever!

It wont change me going diving and i am thankful that i can sit here and type this report!

The footage i cant release until a later date due media this n that....

Ive just watched GWNs quick rap and i want to clarify that i DID contact fisheries Geraldton and they told me i had to contact CALM and shark watch. The lady there took my number and was going to contact them immediately and i was to expect a phone call very soon.... 

im still waiting!

Hope you all enjoy the footage!

Poddy 

MAMA toman aka Giant Snakehead of Thailand, the fishing season is here. I've my own team of boatmen and contacts, who ..... one the first sightings of the toman fry, will report to me at once... By still, the successful landing of the MAMA toman lie on each angler fishing skills. A good knowledge about the behavior of mama toman is very important. The mama once been caught and released before, will not be so easy to catch again. Thus choosing the correct lure, is the key to successful landing your prized mama toman in the wild. Every anglers want to fish the easy fry (so called virgin toman fry)..Meaning to say, there is 1 pair (both mama N papa toman) guarding the fry.

 Usually the papa toman will make the first move to attack any intruder which swim near the baby fry. If the papa toman has been caught by someone. The mama toman will be unwilling to bite so easy. We need to constantly pestering the baby fry to make the mama toman provoked then she will attack your lure. I'll demonstrate how it is done in my " Hot Pursuit of MAMA toman" youtube clip. Do enjoys the photos and topwater actions video clip.

Thanks for reading my catch report.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6BCCZFQK-o

Some of the highlights photos...

G'day fishwreckers,

Went for a holiday to Coolgardie- the rumours are true- no fish there. Packed up the car 6 total people and one keen fisherman off we went 4hrs to Esperance. The weather forecasts were pretty bad lots of rain and swell plus wind. Fishing minutes were at a premium with this crowd, one quick trip to the jetty and id resigned myself to another empty bag unlikely to get another chance. Went for a drive the next day sightseeing and we found a likely spot given the conditions(!). I unpacked the 12' telescopic, tied on my khawai lure from a past holiday and hooked up a couple of these bad boys all within 30min before the crowd wanted to move on. Wish I had longer!

These blokes made there way to the table for the 6 of us- turns out theres a lot of fish to be had from just the two.

How big/heavy do you reckon they are?

I look forward to returning to Esperance!

Cheers and thanks for reading

Took a mate (Chad) out today to show him how to get Herring and Gardies from the shallow water of Mindaries. With some nice weather and very clear water we got the burley going, but after 30min it was not looking good.

Chad then hooked a nice fish as we were thinking of making a move out deeper. I was surprised to see a very nice Skippy come onto the boat. 44cm . Ive caught them there before but not quite that big .

The next 40min they came in and out of our burley trail and we had a great time on the light gear . Bagged out pretty quick and decided to call it a day and head home early for once.

I filleted up all the Skippy and shared them out with most being cooked within an hour . Also tried some raw and found it very nice indeed. I got a bit of footage as well so check it out. The water was so clear we could see the fish zipping around and hitting our baits.

 http://youtu.be/OnQOlXar3EE

 Cheers Grant ..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg-mYPmBg9k

hey guys

he's a short vid that was made showing the last trip i was on at the mackies.  Best fishing experience ive had!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg-mYPmBg9k

Hi Guys

I'm driving from Perth to Exmouth at the start of the school holidays coming this weekend and was wondering if anyone iwas interested in sharing the driving/expense?  I'm a very serious fisherman and have all my own gear including boat, softbait and fly rod equipment (fished Exmouth once before but just for 2 days).  I also intend to rent a boat, I have a skippers ticket and would be interested in having someone share the cost, either a serious angler or I might consider someone who wants to give fishing a go.  If you're going to be there during the school holiday feel free to give me a call and we can meet up.  You can reach me on my mobile 0414473467 but once I arrive there it would be best to e-mail b_newmark@hotmail.com.  Even if you can't make it but have some up to date fishing reports please let me know what going on.  Thanks

*

My wife and i headed out off Mindarie around 1pm sunday as the wind was dropping off, great afternoon on the water and we managed 5 snapper 2 of them at 65cms and three under size,my wife got a just sized dhu released of course.

 A mate flew in from over east on Sunday night and was too keen for a bash and with the weather looking alright it was on. We hit Woodies at 7 and plan was to head deep but the 15kn NE’ster didn’t want to back off till late arvo so we decided to just hit the Dhus. After we both dropped good fish we thought we were in for one of those days when i pulled a nice baldy.

The fish shut down with a few size but not big dhu’s and baldies coming over that we decided to release. As the wind dropped and the 2kn drift slowed down i switched to a pirate and before it hit the bottom i was on, called a Dhu from the second it hit and it fought more than any dhu ive ever hooked so knew it was big. A few tense runs later he popped up 50m away and my second meter plus dhu in under a month was brought onboard, It measured 1.04 but he was really skinny and much lighter than my last one.

The wind disappeared and made a few beers possible on the way home.

Thanks, Miles

Got an email from my old boss last week - his property manager does a lot of fishing and caught this off Rotto 2 weeks ago... Thought this would be pretty rare and had to share. Im used to getting photos of dhuies and mackies from the same guy and used to work in the same building, so i know he lives in Perth!

Hi All,

Well on Saturday got out for a few hours before the footy started in the arvo and had my first real crack at jigging. Armed with my new T-Curve revolution and a shimano stradic 4000fj loaded with 30lb tournament braid I was pumped to get into it after reading up all week about jigging and watching as many You tube videos about jigging as I could. Well we headed out of Ocean reef early and to a spot in about 40m where we had a little success on some fish a few weeks ago. On my second drop I hooked up solid and was pumped. My mate had not even got his line in the water yet. Nothing huge but still pretty excited with a small sambo boated. Thinking this is going to be a great day, quick snap of the little fella and back down he went. From then on it was a few hours af jigging with no return. a couple of hits but no hook ups. we moved in a bit as the boys on the boat had tickets to the footy and wanted to get in closer for a quick trip home, onto some ground where they picked up a couple of snapper and a dhuey before. down goes the jig after a few drops I come up solid again. a little battle and my PB flatty is boat side measuring 64cm and weighing in at 1.7kg. Mate picks up an undersize pinky that goes straight back in and also and 45cm KG Whiting. with bouncedown getting closer we head back in.

All in all, not the species I was chasing but still good to hook into a couple of fish on my first crack at jigging. even better to come home not stinking of bait.

Im hooked now. 

went down for a fish at eshed markets today no mullaway but a brown crab with very fat nippers got tangled in my line when i pulled it up a small crowd of people gathered around and sed it was a mud crab and very rare around here then i chucked it back. do mud crabs have a size limet? has any one ells seen a mud crab in the river before?

 Saturday 29-6-12

Milsey, a mate (keith) and I hit the water around 7ish, headed straight out to try a spot found last time out but hadn’t dropped a line on. Was a reasonable quiet start, pulling a small baldy, little red, small dhu etc. Keith landed a solid 49cm blackass.

This was followed by milsey pulling a dhu going just over 70.

With two fish to the eski and only two licences on board we decided to head out for new ground abit deeper. Found a few small spots to drop on around the 100m mark producing swallow tail, yellow eye reds and two bust offs. Decided to get out to the 200+ mark and start looking for some ground hoping for something holding gray band. Sounded for a while without much to show, finally found a spot that looked to be the goods with 30minuets to spare. It was hard work with strongish current, gusty easterly and all using manual gear but we managed to land a few fish. Got swamped by pinkies, pulled 5 or so between 45-70 in the 3 drifts.

Milsey pulled this cheeky little guy

Hooked up to something feeling abit more solid to disappointingly see a sambo break the surface. Keith also landed his first Sarah Jessica Parker fish aka Chinaman leatherjacket. Sorry to any fans

Thanks for reading

 Hey guys anyone been catching any decent fish in and around Cockburn sound lately going out Sunday any tips would be great thanx 

 Hey guys anyone been catching any decent fish in and around Cockburn sound lately going out Sunday any tips would be great thanx 

howdy all heading to exmouth very soon

just wanted to know is the much action happening

lanbased and on the boat

would love to get into some good size lanbased fish

thanks all for the help and reports

We headed out Sunday morning from Freo where we had our mates boat moored up, heading north to waters just out from Scarborough. Lucky its a big rig, it was a bit choppy early on from the east, and bloody freezing the boat provided good cover! After passing a heap of tinnies out squidding (looks like) near Cott, we headed to a spot were some friends had supposedly cleaned up on pinkes just the weekend before.

After some intensive berleying not a thing even touched! so we headed out a bit further and found a nice lump going 15m up to 10. Small fish on straight away with wrasse galore coming up. After a bit of berlying the skippy turned up in droves and i decided to downgrade from my spinfisher to my Penn Applause 2000 with 8-10lb braid for sh1ts and giggles.

Managed a pb king george of 55cm, a few decent tarwine in the 30's (cant get away from them), some solid skippy and a whole bunch of other species. Soon after i had my reel being seemingly spooled and realised how under powered i was. After a small struggle a nice just undersize sambo came up, and another soon after. Another 1 or two were pulled along with a collosal cuttlefish and we were done for the day. Unfortunately no pinkies or demersals but given our lack of experience of the area still managed a modest feed.

This is a clip of me and dirt ,last saturday, out of dawsville, battling shitty seas jigging for dhuies.Sorry about no sound,dunno what happend to the download as this is my first go at utubing.                                                                                                                            link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9yefn9ybAA

Puerto Vallarta fishing report summer 2012

Summer time is here and the fishing is heating up in Puerto Vallarta Mexico.

During the months of June through October we have some of the best fishing in the world.

In the month of June usually around the 15 th . Of the month we get rains every day about 6 to 7 pm in the evening. This is a good thing as it cools everything off and creates superb fishing in and outside the bay.

Summer time fishing in the bay can produce a lot of action with bonita,yellowtail,tuna,mahi mahi and even sailfish. This is because the water temperature reaches about 80 deg. And stays there until the winter months roll around. There will usually be a trash line that is created from all the stuff that come out of the rivers here in Puerto Vallarta and surrounding areas. We have 5 rivers that feed into the bay here. Early morning fishing on this trash line can put ya on mahi mahi and selfish almost everyday. Be sure and have lots of live bait. Trolling with lures and sewn baits such as mullets work great as well. These bay trips are great for the families or someone looking to catch a trophy fish.

For those who are serious about catching the big one such as marlin and tuna summer is the best time be fishing the outside of the bay. With the water temperature around 80 deg. There are schools of bonitos everywhere and the marlin and tuna follow them here to Puerto Vallarta. Just out past the Maritas,Corbetena and El Banco are just a few of the places we fish for the big ones. Plan on a 10 to 12 hr day for the marlin and tuna trips. As you can see summer time fishing in Puerto Vallarta can not be beat so come on down and wet and line and have a cold one.

Two up coming tournaments July 12- 14 th for marlin and tuna, lot of prizes and money

Tight lines

Capt Pete

www.travelvallarta.com

Toll free from U.S. 1 877 301 2058

Off local 22 10920

Cell 322 29 46240

Awesome is the only was to discribe the day!!!

Went out off two rocks last week to a spot that has previously bought me fish home. Weather was ok but nothing great.

Took along two mates who dont really fish and had a all night bender the night before. One who's previous biggest fish was a herring.  Left just after sunrise and was back at the ramp by 12pm. Started off a bit tragic for one of the boys as we were only 2km out and already had a spew.

Got to the spot and nothing on the sounder but thought we might have a fish anyway. Had only two of us fishing now as the other bloke retired for the day without even wetting a line. He chumed up for us for the next 4 hours. NO MERSY RULE!!!!! Had my mate who doesnt (didn't) fish on the bait and me on a soft plastic.First drop my buddy says to me i am having bites but i have a curse so i wont catch anything. Then wham!!! struggles for around 10 mins and then emerges a nice 14kg dhu. Not bad for your first dhu!!!!! Took the photos then went back for another drift. My turn now bang a nice 60cm dhu. Photos then made the call to release him hoping it would be good carma.

Around again, Buddy gets a nice doubble header of dhu and baldie. Baldie in the esky dhu released.

Around again, carma is great. My plastic is slammed by something big. 10 min later a nice 13.5kg Dhu. Bagged out on Dhu thanks for comming!!!!!!!

Around again, double hook up dhuies again both 60 cm.

Around again, this was getting crazy now. my soft plastic got smashed by what felt like a fright train. 45 min later and with my arms now 6 inches longer a 30kg sambo appears on the surface. this is the most fun you can have on a boat. 20lb line on a saragosa 4000, t curve 5-10kg. doesnt get much better.

we went around for a few more drifts and pulled more dhu and a few small pinkies.All in total we got 9 dhu, 2 pinkies, 1 baldie and a sambo.

What a day. Catching fish is great fun but watching a rookie catch his first decent fish at the age of 30 and seeing his smile is GOLD. Thats what fishing is all about. Oh and watching you mate vomit all day while the fishing is fantastic is priceless!!!!!!!!  He is now hooked!!

Well Ive just purchased my first demersal jigging combo and decided to head out on saturday to test it out.We were on the water as the sun came up and it felt like minus 2 degrees,with a slight easterly breeze behind us we were siting on a comfy 22-24KN.We were lucky enough to get onto some nice dhuies,not as big as last week but still nice fish.We had to work hard for them because once the wind picked up it got rough as gutz.The combo I decided on was the new catalina 4000 rigged up with daiwa braid and a lemax slim max pe1-3 rod.Absolutly stocked with the new combo,reel is smooth as and the rod feels soft but has plenty off balls if that makes sense.I was on a mission to catch a bigger dhu than dirts horse from last week but wasnt to be.Once the wind picked up we found it impossible to hold bottom for any length of time so after 5 dhuies,and a couple of nannies we headed back in.The trip back in was horrid,straight back into a 15-20KN easterly from 34 Miles out.12Kn all the back in saw us hangin to get off the boat.Here are some pics of the effort.Will try to upload a vid of some of the action soon.

Had a very quick soft plastic sess late Saturday arvo with Daz and TimVB, at the Marina at 4pm so only got a few hours in, fished until fuly dark.

Just blind fished the 3 mile as no spots close to Hillaries, and after 30 minutes of nothing, was thinking it was a mistake but then the sounder lit up and we had 30 minutes of SNOOK madness. Two tripple hook-ups and many others, and as long as we kept one in the water, they stayed around the boat and we were watching them take the plastics......good fun! Daz caught a hooter, looked like a baracuda!

A few skippy were also caught, kep one for sashimi.......if you have not tried it, have a go.....best sashimi going IMO.

Then I got busted off on a nice fish after a 15 second battle....pinky or dhuie most likely. Then once it was totally dark, hooked up on a non glow, non scented placcy on the bream gear (retired the soft plastic outfit after getting bricked), and landed a nice just size dhu banger which gave me greif on the light stuff....man they hit hard.

Made a nice dinner tonite, skippy sashimi and baked dhuie.

after 6 months of planning and anticipation it was finally time to head to gero and out to the abrolhos islands. we arrived there thursday night to head out with saltwater charters the decision was made to steam off in the morning when the wind was a bit more decent so thursday night was filled with a lot of drinking and antics with craigo and ryan on the boat in the marina.

the next morning we steamed off early and it seemed the night before had taken its toll as there were many sick fisherman on board including myself! we dropped the lures out the back for a troll with no success so pulled in the spread and headed to the first spot. we were all so excited to see what this place had in store for us and on the first drop and it definately didnt dissapoint. myself and jc85 had a double hook up of coral trout which was a new species for both us so were pretty happy to say the least. after that it was chaos for the rest of the day catching fish after fish until the late afternoon on bait(yuk) soft plastic and jigs. we bagged out no worries and retired to a bbq of fresh fish and more beers. out went the shark rig with a coral trout head on a floater balloon and it didnt take long to pay off after a nice fight matt020 pulled in what we all expected to be a shark but turned out to be a nice cobia once surfaced.smiles all around was a good end to a first  day.

early start again the next day to steam out to a spot where the pinkies and baldies were eating everything we dropped in front of their face. i used soft plastic today for a change from my usual jigging. the outfit i was using for placcys was a jigwrex pe3 rod and stradic ci4 4000 with 15 pound line i was a bit worried about being undergunned but managed to land some nice fish including a nice trout and abig sambo near the 20kg mark which a was wrapped with and definately was my fish of the trip or was it? after some dramas withe the boat we ended up at anchor where we caught baldy after baldy for about 3 hours. i was up front casting wax wings at some birds when matt offered to get me a beer and handed me his rod. i casted the wax wing and decided i would let it sink for a bit before winding this time and it definately paid off as i hooked my pb coral trout and the biggest of the trip (photo underneath).

all in all we had an awesome trip and will definately return next year the the beautiful abrolhos islands. we would all like to thank and recommend saltwater charter for any trips to the abrolhos islands craigo and ryan did a great job of showing us this crazy place and fed us like kings for our stay there thanks guys.

here are a few photos from the trip

cheers sammy