Just back from 4 days of cruising around the bottom of the Western Gulfs in the Reefrunner. We usually camp somewhere on Tamala once a year, but decided to make this a shakedown cruise to see just how  well we could really live aboard , as a prelude to going further afield. I badly screwed it up, in a way, as I booked for the week BEFORE the snapper ban came off. just too much going on, too little time. anyway, it just meant we had to listen to the qualifying final on the radio as we drove up, and we'll get to see the grand final on TV. As well, the weather forecast was pretty good for this time of year.

So we drove up on the Saturday, didn't leave Kalbarri until 10am. Weather was warm, variable winds. got to tent landing, tide was up and wind was down. talked to some young blokes just came back in an old tinny, said they were up to their *rses in pinkys out in the channel near Salutation, 580-800mm jobs. we were planning on camping at Salutation, so we had a quick flick with sp's on the way over, but, never having visited the iland before, thought we'd better get there well before dark to pick somewhere to anchor for the night. Ended up between the two headlands pictured below--no wind, light and variables forecast.

Had some meals heating up in the Travel Buddy oven, as we perched up on the bow to toast the sunset I woke up in the early hours, and couldn't hear a thing. Anyone who has slept on board an ali boat knows it's like sleeping in a rainwater tank with someone throwing rocks at it, and fibreglass is much better in that respect, but, nothing? Utter silence. It was so totally glass there wasn't a ripple. A light easterly came up in the morning. Bacon and egg sangers and proper coffee (courtesy of 12v Handpresso machine) for breakfast, then off towards the Guano Islands, with a short stop in the channel on the way. Couldn't see any big showings, but we drifted for a bit over the weed, hoping for a black snapper. All we could get was this 75cm Pink We wandered around for the day, tossing sp's in the shallows on light gear, found a patch of undersize pinks going off, and pulled a nice black snapper from among them, so there was dinner. Sou'west came up a bit in the afternoon, so we chose Three Bays island for our camp for the night. Cooked up the fish and some pasta, and toasted another sunset sitting just off the beach . Good little spot, best in south to sou'east. Left in the morning to look further north, headed up to Baudin island first.  Had a poke around there, didn't look a good overnight anchor, then headed off for Freycinet Island, off the top of the peninsula. It went off to absolute glass, and was quite warm. We poked around Freycinet, and found a tiny bay in the north end, which contained at least 3 dozen little whalers just cruising hard against the beach. We anchored, the odd one came out to look at us, then went back in. One of the little gems you find up here when you are not absolutely focused on fishing. The breeze eventually came up a little, so we anchored up and had another session where we hoped to catch a baldy, couldn't get past the masses of mostly undersized pinks, with just one 55cm fish among them. Breeze really freshened from the south, so we steamed down to Tea Tree Camp and anchored between the point and the camps for the night. It blew hard, but we were comfortable tucked in there. The wind went sou'east after dark, then dropped out at sunrise. As we were pulling out that afternoon we headed back around the peninsula to the west side, and island hopped down killing time, waiting for the high tide due at 4 in the afternoon. Spent some time at baudin, then anchored up on the north side of Three bays island again, this time going ashore for a walk around. Terrific variety of life on these islands, no camping allowed ashore. Rocks are sculpted into fantastic shapes by the wind and salt. The osprey wasn't happy about me being on the island. https://photos.smugmug.com/Shark-Bay-cruising/i-GZFmqsZ/0/a63e09fb/XL/20180925_111550-XL.jpg We left for Tent Landing into a strong southerly pushing into a strongly rising tide, Reefie just ate it up. Got to the ramp, way too shallow, wind howling, so we went down to a beach with the wind blowing off it, and anchored up waiting for the tide. Water was ok, wind was not, but with some help from a camper we got it on the trailer no worries, and packed up and left. Certainly beats packing up a camp :-) Dinner at the Billabong, home after 10. Not really a full fishing trip, but we both really enjoyed it, learnt a bit, even found some new coral lumps around areas I thought I knew. And there is now 19 k's of bitumen at the start of the road in, just gets better every year.

Hi all, havent posted for a while so thought i would put something up. Got to two rocks marina on first light expecting a biq queue due to the great conditions forecast for the day, couldn't believe it only one boat launching and maybe 8 - 10 boat trailers in car park (maybe a few hangovers morning after the eagles win) Went out NW to our usual spots in the 30's - 40's, fish on the sounder and they were biting. First drop and my brother is soon onto something big on metal jig, after a while up comes an 89cm 16kg dhuie( two weeks before he pulled a 17kg dhuie out of the same spot on a soft plastic and I got a couple in the 8 - 10kg range on bait). Next im on to a good fish, called it for a pinky by the way it smashed and grabbed the bait and all the head shakes and up comes my fav eating fish a nice fat baldy went 58cm. A few more drifts with lots of sea sweep smashing the bait and usual king wrasse. Tried a bit more north, got two more duies 65cm and 70cm (returned smaller dhuie) nice breaksea cod (my second fav eating fish) and more undersize dhuies and breaksea. The last few times we've been out we've had descent size bronzies in the range 6 -8 foot hanging around the boat. My mate hooked one deep down and it rocketed straight to the surface behind the boat, smashed around a bit before biting the leader off - gave him a good arm stretch on 80lb braid. The bite pretty much stopped around 11am, we moved around a bit but nothing else much around. Came home in good conditions with 4 good fish and passed a couple of whales cheers for reading! Dave.

Got back late Monday night from 4 days chartering out of Gnaraloo Bay.

After about 3 weeks strait of non stop wind out of nowhere we got a perfect 4 day weather window for our 4 day Gnaraloo Charter. Left Coral bay Thursday morning with a strong easterly but as forecast dropped off by midday. Had a bit of prospect on the way down but not much seen other than 8kg Mullaway from one of our older marks in the 50’s but not much on any of the new spots we marked. Spent most of the day setting up our mooring ready for the strong sotherlys forecast for later in the trip. We managed to float and move 2 large concrete blocks back that we normally use down there, but last year we found that someone had dragged into the reef. Getting them back into the sandy area of the bay. Met the crew of 8 we have for the week on the beach in the arvo and came up with a plan for the week.

Day 1. Plan was to work our way out to fairly deep and try to get onto the Goldband for some kg. First Anchor in the 80’s saw us boat about 15 got Reds strait up. I thought you beuty, fish are on and Gnaraloo was going to turn it on like I know it can. But things seemed to get slower after that with only a fish or two each anchor until about 1pm when the Goldband started to fire on last couple of spots. Having to stop fishing as we had bagged out just as a few horses started to show up. In the middle of the day a trevally that measured 1.2m showed up. It is about as big as I've seen for a Gold Spot.

Day 2. Started a bit deeper in the 90’s and found much the sam with a short morning bite and then slowly came on the late arvo. We found ourselves on some old ground in the 110m when the came back on in the late arvo and finished up quickly with double header horse Goldband causing chaos on the relatively light gear the boys where using. Had to again call a stop right in the middle of it with when we got bag with fish still coming up and lying everywhere on deck most is a mess of rigs o some kind. I don’t normally let other boats bother me too much, and being Gnaraloo we really even see one. But in the middle of the day did have one cat come from nowhere and try to set up drift next to us. But as we where anchored over the small spot I knew he would not even get close enough to see a show on his sounder. Plenty of ocean so I decided to pull Anchor and power 4 mile to leave him to it. Only to have him again come from out of sight and thing time do a full circle of us and then head back to where he came from???

Day 3. Now having plenty of kg in the freezers we decided to have a look around in the shallowes (shallow for us anyway). Starting in the 30's it was a bit of a slow morning with the odd good fish comming up. Reds seemed quite, but where they should have been there was Rankin Cod. Slowly picked up through the day. Tryed a few pinky spots but did not really se them schooling and where not on the bite. Ended up fishing a lot of spots but paid off still bagging out and in the end with at least 20 good sized Rankin amoungst a very mixed bag for the day also including another Mullaway. A few unstopables through the day that I assume where big cods from the was they went, but luckilly sharks whre allmost nos existant with only a coupple hooked during the day. Wind came up as we where finishing and had to punch into a 20kt s/w on way home but where not too far from the Gnaraloo Bay so was allmost (allmost) a nice change from the just about glass conditions we had had al trip so far.

Day 4. Bit of wind in the moring and we knew more was on its way so the plan was to get out there get what we can get back. But fish seemed quite hungy today and starting in the 70's and working our way in with a reall mixed bag we where allmost on our limit after just a couple of anchors. We decided to come out with the 6lb chalenge where we attach the hooks to the rigs with a 6lb bit of mono and the biggest fish landed on that wins. Once snapped off you are out and back to normal gear. With the Rankins still firing and every other fish being a horse Spango not many fish made it to the surface, with a small sweetlip being the end winner. Finished the day and the trip drifting over some mixed ground in the 30's, for a bit of fun catching and releasing lots of little stuff untill we finally got onto what I wanted to show the boys. I think we hooked and list a few but finally got a nice Malabar cod at abut 1.5m to the surface. being 30m it was still quite well so got the deck hose over the gills and after a quick photo it swam off strong.

We love chartering out of Gnaraloo and want to do more so if you are intrested have a look at our website www.seaforcecharters.com.au 

I know it can be hard to get groups together (let alone orginized) So we are looking at trying to put a couple of smaller groups or individuals together with packages including accom at the station and meals. So send us a email seaforcecoralbay@gmail.com or pm us if you are at all keen to register your intrest.

 Hi all 

Has Anyone been to the Perth  Boat show?

Wondering if they have any deals on the Raymarine axiom Pro 9

Cheers

 Hi all 

Has Anyone been to the Perth  Boat show?

Wondering if they have any deals on the Raymarine axiom Pro 9

Cheers

Quick run out Thursday morning. Weather conditions pleasant. Plenty of fish around. Grabbed our bag limit, and headed home with the fish still biting strongly. Unfortunately one of the larger dhufish couldn't be released, so we had to keep him. Some pics below:

 It's been ages since being able to get out for a fish. But yesterday the weather held up nicely and we got amongst a few fish. Nothing huge but a good feed. 

We got out to 42 m and there were a few shows on the sounder, so set an exploratory drift. My brother in law has decided to get on board jigging for demersals and bought a new slow jigging rod and a handful of jigs. So today was the day to try it out. Anyway I go to the front of the boat and Doug sets himself down the back with his new rod but he still chucks out his bait rod. I hooked up pretty quickly but dropped it. Then Dougs bait rod takes off and he's onto something with a bit of pull. Then his jig rod doubles over, so what to do, quickly wind mine up and get stuck into what's on his new set up. It turned out Doug got a dirty big Sambo and me this nice Pinky 

Had a good laugh about that all day. He didn't have to wait long though as the fish were on the chew especially on the artificials. Doug got this nice little Dhu on the jig.

All in all was a great day on the water, a few nice feeds and plenty of laughs. Hopefully not this long to wait till our next trip  

Weekend Fun - Pics Below.

 Arvo run with Bodie, Daz (DazSamFishing), Den and Scano for a jig. Bit bumpy but the Reg loved it. 

Headed out to where we got the dhuies 2 weeks ago, they were still there. 

Nice 75 cm to Scano. 

Huge Sharkie on jig to Daz

Solid 94 cm Dhu to me. 

And a different shot, just for Captain Grumpy :)

 Gents

We are looking for an airmar B260/B265 fairing (the big blue one), lookoimng to make a mould out of it. Hence, does not need to be in good shape. 

Anyone got one the want to sell or donate?

 Took my partners boy out lastnight in hope to get a feed of cobbler, we managed to get our bag in half hour. He was stoked with the results!

Good night in the Sound. Biggest 91cm. Carl was struggling to lift them...

Been a while since ive been able to get out for a fish with work being pretty busy, and lost a bit of mojo on the fishing front lately, howevever managed to get a couple trips out over the last 2 weeks. Been struggling with deckies being unavailable or out on other boats so solo runs it was...time to blood some new deckies i think!!

Do get some strange looks and comments at the ramp when trying to launch and retrieve a 26ft boat on your own!

Went out early Saturday with the light winds, nice morning on the water. Ended up about 14nm out of Mindarie on some older spots, only to find someone had beaten me to the punch and fishing very close by. Kept on moving past them as its not kosha to fish too close. Found a bit more ground another mile or so away and had a fish, first drop on the money with a nice 50+cm baldie coming ove the side. Good start!

Kept moving around a bit being plagued with rat pinks on jig and bait everywher ei went, must have caught 20+ of them. Came acros another piece of coral and looked the goods, i could see some big fish sitting well up and knew they would be sambos. First drop with the KG rig resulted in an instant hookup, but was not thinking KG, then up popped one of the fattest and longest KG's ive seen in some time, going 59cm on the ruler!!!

Couldnt get another KG off the spot so dropped down a jig, only to hook up on a suspected sgt baker.. then nec minute monstered by a Sombo I'd seen earlier.. this happened 4 times and on my little PE 1.2 gear didnt stand a chance! Time to move on 4 jigs lighter.

Couldnt find a dhu to save myself and was time to head in, so thought I'd push back in and see if the boat and left the spot i wanted to try at the start of the day and it had. I had a baited rod ready and my jig and thought, last drop, drop them both over... jig jig and im on, nice fish knew it was a dhu, only to look at the rod in the corner starting to load up... thought up the fish on the jig first and if a keeper i will keep and let whatever is on the bait rod go. Always the way, cant find one all day then bang, Both released strong, no release weight required

The result! Home by 12.30 or so, cleaned up and cooked the wife fresh KG and chips for dinner, needless to say she was suitably impressed!

A bit of Mojo back, Leeman next!

 Had our clubs comp bluewater comp over the weekend. Got plenty of fish that wasn't on the list but was a great weekend. Find out how we did next weekend but unfortunately i wont be there as i go back to work tommorrow. 

The highlight was when a 40kg cobia and a spanish mackeral were circling a floating spanish flag and then a sailfish came through and hung around the boat. Something i wont forget anytime soon!

Also broke my spirit!

Bro and I headed outa Mindarie at 11am Saturday and headed to a coral patch in the 40s and drifted some promising sounder action for a 47cm snapper and a scorpion fish on a jig! Few other boats were in the vicinity and they knicked off so we called it and headed to the bank where it raises up to 30m.

Didn't see a thing for miles but then started seeing floats and a few other boats so begun to sound around and we were getting pretty excited and pulled in a 33cm Blackarse but the bite was terrible and I reckon I had two half decent hits all day.

Called it a day and 'one more drift' and chucked a cuttlefish tentacle on my drift bait rig and started cleaning up throwing the bait in the water and my rod buckled over. Brought up a size pinkie with my bros line wrapped around my rig so he grabbed the gaff and as he reached out his line got snagged on the bottom and his braid sheered through my 30lb line and we watched in horror as the luckiest snapper on the bank swam away.

All up we did about 45 miles over 5.5 hours for one Blackarse but at least the 19 mile trip home was pleasant sitting on 28kn the whole way.

If anyone wants to offer some advice on the ground I was hitting I'll be all ears.

 Couple from recent trips, gotta love it when the blues pop up!

 Headed out at lunchtime on Saturday, me, Den, TimVB and Scano. 

Charged out to the bank, but by 4.30 pm had not cauht a fish and it was looking grim with almost nothing on the sounder all day.......

Then we sounded a nice bit of low reef with some great arches hovering 5 m up.......all 4 of us hooked up immediately......finally!

Tim dropped his and Dens hooks broke, me and Scano landed ours, me on PE2 jig and Scano on PE1 jig, a bloody good effort on the noodle stick. 

Two dhuies on board, job done and likely only dhuies down there so not wanting to have to risk cathing another dhu we packed uo, cracked a few beers and headed home at 38 knots   

 Out of Bunno in the 40's, squid on 8/0 circle. Few whales around so heads up while your travelling fella's. Sorry about the upside pic, f#cked if I can get it right way up, was a nice dhu anyway. While I'm at it a pic of the new rig.

 Big girl arroved from Carolina yesterday......

Unwrapping her.

Carlolina flair!

 6 hunjy horsepower

 Got her wet......AMAZING BOAT!

 Some pictures from the last few inshore fishing sessions this year, been chasing pinkies but haven’t found many. You can’t complain about the by catch tho!

Pulled hooks on two before bagging this pair tonight.

New assassin Beachmaster Zero, 50lb grinder braid and fresh mullet from Shore Catch

Well the weather this year looked atrocious worst in at least 5 years for our annual trip. Wind Wind..followed with 3-4m swells for the entire time. But...we made do in the 7 days we were there. North passage it was for every trip out.
We had about 3 days out there, with a terrible half day. Considering we did.....ok...
Days we couldn't get out, we spent collected big occys from exposed reefs and eating the local pastries, followed by lots of drinking beer and wine. (not necessarily in that order)

No massive reds (10+kg) this year (4-8kg), but found some awesome untouched ground in 100m that held your normal offenders in numbers....Out deep we did our normal annual efforts of bagging out on massive greyband and some average sized rubies, which always a specticle at filleting table. Biggest GB went 26.5kg. 

We did notice, due to what i suspect caused by large swells, a clear colour change in about 80-90m (~15km out), and would explain why it was hard to tempt stuff below these depths. Normal for us to find big reds in 60m and loads of fish. Each mark this year was very....short on life to say these least, until you sucked it up and headed out into those ugly winds and chop past that colour change. 

Sharks were normal, nothing over the top on most of our spots maybe lost half a dozen fish in the days we went out. Until we tried trolling that regular visited place at the back of the reef. Those things are smarter each year. Managed to get 1 of 2 10kg+ mack under the boat before we gave up, the other lasted 2 secs on the lure before it was blasted by big whalers. Better weather and would have liked to have gone North or South of entrances, so no macks were landed this year. 

A fun video we made from occying. youtu.be/GSNI4T3bdxw
Context: I'm trying to pluck one from a hole and your mate just picks a big one off rocks with bare hands. 

I'll upload some awesome drone footage from the shoreline at a later date, when i have a free wifi connection someplace. (Follow the my youtube channel for updates)

 A couple of undersize snapps put back but good a good feed of sandies and a KGW with my young bloke this afternoon. More than enough for us, we left them bitting. So nice to get back on the water 

 All done and dusted for another year. Just finishing up the cleanup after getting home late Sunday. Weather was mostly good, after missing a lot of the first 5 days due to a passing front. Fish had been good prior to our arrival, and were still around for a while, then, bang, one day the water went cold and green, just like it was in Kalbarri all summer, and the pelagics fled.  Really hard going for a while; we actually went four days without losing a lure, as there were f*all fish to take them and then to be taken by sharks. We managed a feed of demersals by working hard at it, but the billfish, Wahoo, Spaniards and even the bloody YFT were gone.Nothing left but ocean cockroaches, AKA Stripeys.

This year was going to see a big effort on the bills out wider--our very first foray , and only a brief one, saw us 2 from three on nice little blacks. way to christen the new rig, which had only had a total of three trips out of home before it was loaded up for the trip north.

Sails were about at first, but we weren't adapting very well to using outriggers for the first time--we usedto run straight off the rod tip, and free spool the monent one turned up. We worked it out in the end, and had a best day of four released, but lost a hell of a lot more than we landed--bill-wrapped leader ( 80lb and 120lb) bustoffs were especially common, but we were using exactly the same gear as previous years when it wasn't really an issue, so ??? We even hooked one on an X-Rap 20, and got it nearly to the boat.

Wahoo seemed to be around in better numbers than previously, apart from the cold, green episode, our best day was 3 and we weren't even targeting them, bycatch to sails, mostly.

Spaniards were about at first, then went quiet, but there were some good fish among them.

The sharks got what was probably the best one--the head and shoulders that were left covered the bottom of a full-sized fish bin

we managed the usual quality demersals, but not as many as last year, sharks make it very hard, and you just give up rather than feed them quality fish.

There were a few of the smelly, bitey buggers around this year--no, not sharks, big barracuda.

This lure had the unparellelled distinction of surviving nearly the whole trip, and ended up looking a lot worse than it does in this pic--it accounted for
5 wahoo, three YFT, 2 spaniards, plus a sharked YFT and spaniard--then was snipped off by a 'hoo where the line cut the water, late in the trip.

Lots of beautiful evenings, sundowners on the beach

Been a bit slack with this years report from May but will give overview;

- weather was up their with the best! fished 7 of 9 days, could have been 8 but were too rooted!

- water temp plus 27oC!! past experience told us this isnt good

- got just under 20kg each but had to work as hard as ever for them

- no great stress though as better than sitting on shore

- sharks were not too much of problem, maybe lost 6 fish all trip

- fished anywhere from 60m to 200m, from well south, to well north

- had the new HDS Carbon fitted for the trip with 1kW transducer

- worked well but to be honest up to 100m didnt show much different (albeit greater clarity) than my 10yo Navman 4500

- reds were hard to find, only 6 whole trip and normally would average that per day

- caught a nice sail in 60m on bottom rig 

- few squid thrown in 

- all in all beer was cold, caught some fish, had the pleasure of seeing Helen (who contrary to what she says was misbehaving badly!) and had a great trip! 

 Any reports of the snapper being caught in the sound yet? Starting to come to that time of year!!

Hit the water late today after seeing that today was probably the only one with "good enough" conditions for the next week. Launched at gentlemens  hours from the club and shot across the Sound in near perfect conditions but as I reached the channel I quickly saw that the swell was much bigger than forecast with one set almost closing out the channel. Choosing a wider approach got through with no trouble and headed out to the high 40's where I have been doing well of late. 48 metres was biteless but I had noted some good fish shows in the low 40's so headed back in to that area.....yup still there!

Dropped three baits and hooked up almost immediately, the head shakes and surging runs were typical of good snapper but within moments of hook up the runs stopped to be replaced by the screaming run of a shark which surfaced quickly exploding on the surface before breaking me off on the sea anchor. Second rid goes off, same result, they were just taking a bit of the fish they were swallowing whole.  Two to the tax man

rerigged .....two more hook ups and two more donations ......stuff wasting good snapper, gave it away and came home fishless. Now I have NEVER lost a fish to a shark in the metro area before but four fish in less than an hour is ridiculous........can we now expect this to be the norm?

Recently myself and my brother have teamed up with Daiwa and we got a heap of new reels for us to use off the rocks. Pretty excited to use them this is the mayhem that happened on their first outing and my Dogfight 8000 certainly got christened with a monster of a fish!

The plan for the day was to film a bit of slide baiting for sambos and King’s and a video we are making on it about chasing them off the rocks. My mrs also came with and she has been wanting to land a good fish for a while now and after her last outing loosing 2 good dhufish and a big sambo off the rocks in one session she was out to redeem herself. We set up my Maven with the Dogfight on it, 200lb leader and 100lb braid. Out goes the first herring and it was her turn first when it went off. Short wait and the rod is screaming in the rod holder. She gets to it and I’ve tightened the drag until I though there was enough and the rod was pretty loaded. Straight into the reef and busted off pe10. Far out that was a big fish!!

Another live herring was sent out after a quick re rig on the same gear but this time a much longer wait. The rod screamed off again and I’ve ran to it and tightened the drag until I was starting to get pulled off my feet and this fish didn’t slow down and ran very fast to my right before a big set has smashed my line and got it tangled onto a bommie about 10m from me. I backed off the drag and let this fish drag 100 odd meters of line through the reef while seeing my line tangled on weed on top of a rock. For 15 minutes I went back and forth with the fish taking line and me slowing and gently pulling this fish back through my line tangled on the rocks. Eventually it came free and I’ve raced to wind up all the slack line. Thinking I had lost it I’ve finally came tight again but the fish was a long long way to my left almost back in front of where I originally hooked it. I’ve put a lot of pressure back on and up popped a huge sambo! Bit of forced direction changes and I had the fish ready to wash into a crack and try leader it up. As the fish came around a large wave has lifted the fish and cut my slide leader off on a barnacle. The fish got picked up and slammed into the crack I was planning on landing it in but no longer connected to anything. I’ve freaked out and grabbed the gaff and somehow managed to get to it before another wave came. Feeling pretty bad about having to gaff the fish to get it up when I wanted to release it, but after the fight and getting trashed on the rocks it was in bad shape anyway. I decided that even though it was a shame to have to keep it I couldn’t let it go to waste so I’ve cut the fillets off and I ended up carrying them out on the hour walk to the car. It made for a painful walk back but it will be eaten, used as bait and burley so it won’t be wasted. This fish is my my second best landbased and made my 105cm Brag Matt look tiny, had to be 30-33kg and what a fish to christen the brand new Dogfight on its first outing!!

Hi all,

Belated report, as I did this early May, but thought I would post in case others considering similar.

I booked a 3 day charter with Whitey on Evolution Fishing Charters to the Abrolhos. He leaves from Kalbarri, and fishes mainly the northern groups, and the advantage of him over others is that it is what I would call a "luxury boat" with only 4 customers on board. You leave early on one day, travel and fish that day, then full day next, then fish and return about 3pm the next day.

I fell in love with Kalbarri - beautiful place I hadn't visited for a bit, and brought the family up for a holiday the next week. Accomodation was cheap too, and good food and family activities.

Anyway the fishing. The truth is was it blew 20 plus knots most of the time. However we landed about 160+ quality fish between the 4 of us in 3 days. The skipper was on the ball (and the decky) and if it got quiet we moved. The negative is we couldn't do much jigging or deep drop due to the wind.

We caught red emperor, coral trout, baldies galore, dhufish, snapper and other emperor, with little interference from sharks, plus a few amberjack, sambos and a few tuna (no mackeral). 

Even at mooring we landed 60 cm fish on the herring gear - good giggles. Meals were great, and as the customers were me, my father in law, best mate and his dad - we had a blast. Mate's dad had never caught a decent boat fish so lots of bucket lists ticked off for him. Leather couches to snooze on in transit and comfy bunk beds and a shower made it comfortable.

We had plenty of fillets to keep, but realeased the majority of fish. It was a super experience, which could only be improved if the wind was lower, but that is always our problem , and we still caught fish. 

The boat is a 15.6m luxury game fishing boat - and they are equipped with high quality gear - top shelf trolling gear, and reels were Penn Slammer IIIs I think which were actually great. No need to bring a thing - all jigs/ plastics provided too which is nice, but sadly we didn't get to use them as much as we could have.

Price was about $1800 or so each I think.

Few pics attached. 

Hey guys,

Just got back from an awesome trip upto Tamala Station. Had to pull the kids out of school on the Tuesday arvo to get a spot at Shell Beach, Tamala.

We left Mandurah at around 2:30am Wednesday and started setting up camp at 2pm Wed. 

Got out fishing on our first day at the leisurely time of 10 am. Was a bit quiet at our first spot, so decided to head towards Salutation Island, on the way over our sounder flashed red. A quick U turn had the sounder lit up red. I didn't even get a chance to get a line in the water, as Scott and Mum were hooked up solid straight away. Jade got some action video and I was either baiting hooks, taking Snapper off or netting another Snapper. Great fun, we had our limit of 6 Pinkies (No license for Jade) in about 45 min. 

The next day was a carbon copy. Except for the Dolphins. They go to any boats fishing, and wait for any undersize fish (Pinky's) as soon as you have unhooked them, they wait until you throw them over and get an easy feed. I even tried slipping them quietly in, but they were onto it. Saying that we didn't lose one fish to sharks. Which at the moment is unpresendented(spelling) Only got 3 sized Snapper that day. My boy, Scott, blamed it on the bloody Dolphins. His sister, Jade was pretty chuffed though and got some cool video's of them.

Our Third day got Scott his biggest snapper to date. It went 720mm. It didn't seem too big to start with, but then sent him on a merry dance around the boat. Jade also decided to have a crack. I hooked her up and she managed the fish above. We got a heap of Pinky's but nothing else (not complaining) but would love to get a few Blue Bone, seen heaps of undersize ones.

Just a p.s. We recently lost our beautiful Red Heeler Yani, 

We got this little dude 2 weeks before heading up there. Meet Rusty, he had a ball.