I had the chance to head up north with a mate to a remote area near Cape Levique, about 2.5 hours north of Broome by car. There was no shortage of fishing talent up there aswell, with Peter Tucker, Robert Vaughen and Mark Jones all up there with their families.

Day 1: We arrived in the afternoon, so didn't have enough time to go out on the boats, so we ended up casting maribou jigs along the flats. Although it was an outgoing tide, we still managed a fair sized queenie (81cm) and small flathead between the 3 of us, a bit slow but the fishing picked up over the next few days.

Day 2: We went wading in the bay early in the morning and managed many queenies and trevally up to about 3kgs. There were heeps of bust ups happening offshore so we were licking our lips when we got to take the boats out. We headed straight toone such bust up of mackiescrashing baitfish, but only managed a few small fish to about 3kgs. We headed off trolling and found a steep drop off, going from 13-18m. First drop had me calling it for a small reefie judging by the small taps, but the little 4-6kg rod with 20lb line buckled over with the reel going berzerk, before the inevitable ping on the reef. looking the drag pretty much exactly the same happened, except the tug of war lasted about 10 seconds before yet again another bust off. This continued on for about an hour, with not one of the monster reefies being landed, only a 6ft bronzie and countless goldband being caught along with a nice bluebone. we suspected massive fingermark (10kg) were the culprits, but we'll neve know.

The afternoon session proved productive, with birds crashing the surface we had mackies all around the boat, first cast yielded a hit, then second cast a hit then from underneath the boat a mackie smashes the jig right infront of my eyes, and then goes on a blistering run of about 50m, a second about 20m then it started circling underneath the boat. This was my first properly big fish and when it hit the deck it was high 5's alround. it went 101cm and about 8kgs, and tasted just beautiful. there was more action like this and then we headed back in and called it a day.

Day 3: We started the day throwing jigs at exposed bits of reef, with queenfish to around 50cm being the only fish showing up, along with a black trevally. We continued on to another reef with no results, then decided to go for a troll around the edge, which yielded a 10kg golden trevally within 10 seconds of the lure being in the water. we had to head in early due to going on a toor around the islands.

On the tour, we had a fishing rods there just incase, which was very lucky, as on the way back we saw an enormous bust up of tuna and trevally. We fired the jigs into the pack of fish and within 2 minutes I was on, and not long later a 5kg goldspot was in the boat. He was released quickly so we could get stuck intomore fish, and we didn't have to wait long, when i hooked up again to something a lot larger, and 10 minutes later after a solid fight, an 8kg goldspot hit the deck. With 2 ther mad keen fisho's who didn't slip a rod on board, I gave the rod up and let them get into the action, which lasted 15 minutes later wit another 3 fish being caught. Not one tuna was caught, but one followed a jig right to the boat. The others onboard went for a swim, while we retired to some rocks to try our luck, and the fish were biting. A stripy seaperch was cut up for bait,and a small bluebone was pulled up, with my mate being done up by something big. A school of juvenile gropers swam past, but failed to hook one. The scenery on the way back to camp was stunning, tall cliffs with tidal water rushing through it, and water draining off reefs.

Day 4: It was our final day and unfortunately the fishing had tailed off completely, with only a under size bluebone and coral trout being caught, along with a few reef fish. We trolled the jigs as they catch pretty much everything, but eventhey couldn't manage any fish, only a few cut offs from mackies. It was a dissapointing way to end such an extrordinary trip. It wasn't jus the fishing, the camp was really well set up and with the water being 30 degrees, we couldnit resist having a swim at shell island.

We also had a fish off the main jetty at Broome, with only a few snappers caught, but my mate having a massive run on a mackie, before the hooks pulled, probably a 15kg fish.

Gear used: FWA 4-6kg spin 7ft, Quantum energy 50 with 20lb braid

FWA 4-10kg baitcast, Shimano Caenan with 15lb braid

With all this pretty average weather of late for landbased fishing I thought of maybe giving the swan a bash for some flatty's. Got to my trusty hot spot about 4:30 in the arvo and away we go. The black bream were like blowies, we couldnt get through them, not one under 25cm and ranging around 30cm mark (mind you they werent the fattest bream i've ever seen) but every one was sized! As soon as it got darker we finally ended up landing heaps of flattys most of them undersized with the odd one or two going over 35cm and onto my dinner plate. We caught a range of different species. We ended up landing heaps of tarwine with one pretty nice size, a few tailor, couple of small pink snapper, flounder, snook and endless amounts of black bream. I reckon the river in the upper reaches is as healthy as ever, I've never caught so many fish in sesh in the swan river before.

one of the many black breamand tarwine

blackie release shot

double header

not a bad tarwine

nice little pinkie

one of the few tailor that came to play as soon as the sun went down on the flatty rigs

the only ones we kept the others were all released

OK

So I believe that this is the place to brag about your latest fishing conquests. Cop a load of this flounder that I caught in the swan this morning

thought it was a leaf then it shocked the pants off me when it wriggled - likely to take an arm off when it grows up..

Finally managed a leave pass on Friday 27th to get out for a much deserved fish, Met up with a couple of mates and went out in awesome conditions for a bit of a troll around Cockburn sound for sum tailor. Spent a ½ hr at the first spot but no hits, was a little bit of weed around which was fouling up the lures so we decided to move. Next spot we thought we would up our chances and run a 5 rod spread and a couple  of minutes later all hell broke loose when 4 out the 5 rods got smashed just as we hit the mark. My 11 yr old son was going to have to learn pretty quick how to land a decent tailor as all of us were hooked up and he was on his own, he had a good fight all the way to the boat only for it to flick the hook meters from the boat then mine to follow, with both my mates managing to land a couple of 35 cm plus choppers to start the count. Over the next 2 hrs it was on for young and old with fish flying over the gunnels and heaps more not wanting a bar of it and flicking hooks during their amazing aerial displays. At one point the lure would get smashed as soon as it was thrown out in the spread(Mainly the shotgun which was mine).Catch of the day went to my son Hayden with his PB 40 cm specimen (pretty sure it’s the biggest fish he has ever caught) Needless to say he was stoked and so was i as we had the 2 biggest tailor for the arvo, Mine going just over 39 cm. 

Headed out NOR in the perfect conditions on Saturday.  Trolled for ages on the way out - nothing except a few kilos of weed.  Hit up a few lumps in the 30s - nothing.  Drifted along the high 40s among all the other boats doing the same - nothing.  Well, except for a few wrasses of course.  Then we decided to move away from the crowd and target a few spot that didn't look very likely, but we got a few decent bites.  Within a few short drifts, we had these on board.  We couldn't see any bait on the sounder, but there were obviously fish there!

the dhu and queenie went 65cm and the flattie went 60.  The pinky and a breaksea were just under and went back for next year.

trolled back in too with no luck.  water was 24oC.

feeling a tad insulted at no responses and ran out of tissues to cry in thought ide post a couple pics to keep everone happy, keep in mind will not be posting pics of myself until after my plastic surgery and my facial deformitys are fixed.

• Reports

Hey guys, had a few days off this weekend so my best mate and I decided to head down to down the bay to Rye for a few days on the water. Our goal was to bring back a fair bit of fish for the freezer so we decided to Target flathead and gummies the first day and whiting and squid the next.

First day went really well, got about 12 good sized flatties ranging between 35 and 62cm. The 62cm was the biggest I have seen caught in the bay so we were wrapped with that. Probably caught around 40 odd all up, but we like to release anything under 35cm.

Next mission was to go get a gummy, neither Ben or I had caught a gummy except on a charter boat so we were a little sceptical leading up to the tide change.. We fished through the last hour of the tide catching a few rays, banjo sharks and port jacksons but still no sign of our gummy. We were loosing confidence and thinking that we'd miss out again when we got the mother of all tangles, pretty much every rod was involved except one which had to be pulled out of the rod rack and left at my feet. While we untangled the lines I looked down and lucklily remembered to back off the drag.. seconds later.. BANG!! Knew it was a gummy straight away as it went for the anchor rope (which it got wrapped up in). Finally got it aboard for our first gummy on our own. We were wrapped (went just over 6kgs).

To top is all off, about 20 minutes later Ben snagged one aswell that was just a little smaller than mine which we released. Day one a success!!

Next day we were going to target some whiting and squid, had a pretty good day out again with about 17 good sized KG's and our bag of squid which is 20 in Victoria.. So we ended up getting into every fish we wanting too and came home with a heap of fresh fish and our first gummy which was sooooooooooo good!!

My share of the fish which we split four ways

Good weather, awesome fishing, great weekend!!

Thanks for reading!

 Well the weather has finally turned to crap and given me a chance to chuck a few pics up of the last few days. A mate and I spent a few days at Rotto over the Aus day break and we lived off fish, Baldie and beers went down a treat the first night and mahi the next was a nice change. We made a late call to head to the fads for Aus day and were surprised to be the only ones out there and could see plenty of fish jumping well before we hit the fad and it was on for the next hour or so with some good sized fish coming up on light gear. We then headed back Friday morning in mirror like conditions.

The weather was looking the goods for Saturday and a few family members were keen to get out to the fads for the first time and my uncle, dad and grandad had a ball catching some small-medium sized fish on light gear.

Once they had had enough and we were bagged we decided to have a look at some ground I found a while ago and first drift produced a BB and a couple of sambos and we were close to calling it a day before dads new combo went off and was losing a bit of line and had everyone calling another sambo when a nice 12.5kg dhu popped up and topped off the esky. Was good to be back on land before the wind came in and with a full esky and smiles all round.

Miles

We have been fishing around the capes (southwest) of the state for the last week or so on and off when we can. Have been lucky and getting on to some nice size Dhuies, we have come across some schools of dhu which must be coming on to sporn. Headed out today and nearly fell over board when I spotted a massive fish trawler working these grounds and it is not far off the coast. Why do the fisheries department allow this ? These trawlers will smash the Dhuies when they are sporning and tear up habitat etc. I can not believe it and fisheries department are off their heads if they think they are doing the right thing in regards to management of Dhufish. Sure we catch a feed but dont go around wiping out schools of fish. Fish trawlers are not healthy for fish stocks.   

Organised a fishing buddy to come out on my boat down in Mandurah to go out with my Uncle and his boat. Got a message at 2:30am saying he couldn't make it as he had come down with the flu so it was a lonely drive down to Dawsville at 4am with no boat in tow as I was going to make the third body on my Uncle's boat. Launched my Uncle's boat at 5am at the Dawsville boat ramp and it was a mill pond. Long story short, 23Nm out with very flat conditions and hungry fish. Caught our boat limit before 10am and on one block of squid between three people and that was the only bait we were using. The Blue Bone next to the Red Snapper is a smidge over 500mm.

What more can I say

Hey everyone. I headed down to whitehills about 2 weekends ago (14/1/2011) Camped out down there with some mates and did an all nighter. Over the night we got hooked up a few times to a few large fish/sharks/rays. Managing to land only 1 50cm tailor and a shovel nose. In the morning we got the lines back out and started chasing the fish again landing a good size herring with alot more bites coming from them. The beech was quite weedy and not hugely ideal for a good session due to hooking alot more weed then fish. Along the beach at night time it seemed a few people were landing the odd tailor and all looking comfortably 40cm+. All in all it seems there are fish and sharks in the area but the beech was just too crowded and alot of people with no respect around just pulling up too close to other groups making it harder to cast out and fish comfortably.

Strawny

so with all this discussion of metro macs, does that mean then that they are around??? im debaiting going for a look tommorow. does anyone know whats bighting out of hillerys at the moment???? squid? whiting? Maccys????

Got up at 4:00am this morning to go for a fish. Hit the Point Perron boat ramp launched by 5:20am. No surprise to seeing cars already in the car park but only a few. There was a fair bit of weed on the surface and on our way out to some spots, bait schools were showing up here and there in mid water so I chucked out a lure. 10 minutes of trolling, the rod goes off and we ended up pulling in a little tuna. I gaffed it boat side and it bled like a stuffed pig. We continued on out to one of my spots but no fish on the sounder. There was a boat a fair way off and it came right over my spot and continued on, bloody wanker. If you're going out 25-30km and don't want to do your own hard yards, then don't go out that far. I was pretty filthy as it had taken a few trips out to find that spot. No fish there so we went out further. Plenty of fish on the sounder on the next spot but little pickers. After a bit of driving and sounding around, my mate pulls up a nice queen snapper. Haven't seen one of them for a while. A little while later, my mate pulls up another fish, a big black ass and I'm starting to think that my lucky side of the boat has gone sour. Not to worry as not long after my bait is hit. I thought at first it was something small but then as I started getting it off the bottom, it goes nuts. I thought it was a rat sambo to start off but I finally get it boat side for a ripper of a queen fish. Pretty sure it was a frisky male if you look closely at the photo, stupid fish. Not too bad and into the esky but not much more happening. Back in at the ramp by 12:30 and holy crap, the car park was full to the brink with cars parking on the verges as no spots were left.

ken

 Hi guys,

Finally after a bit  of effort I landed my first good Mulloway. Had a bit of a bad luck streak and lost 6 good fish in a row..maybe not all Mulloway but at least four were! Not a bad first fish and hopefully now i'm off the mark a bigger one will come my way soon,

All the best, Scott

www.worldbiker.blogspot.com

G'day all,

Can anyone tell me what beach fishing is like at South Beach Fremantle? Just after the usual bread and butter fish.. whiting herring etc..

Cheers

Headed yesterday arvo, beers in the eski with 10 nets.

with all these reports of the swan crabs firing, we did ok, with 12 in around 3 hours and 8 keepers. All nice size blues. There were alot of people potting around nice day on the water. Going to get back into the crabbing of thing, such a nice relaxing afternoon with a couple beers. Also headed out to rotto on saturday pulled the pots for the first time in 3 weeks and had crays!! yeeow! so surprized.

Brett!

We went down to a local south beach and ending up landing this nice whiting along with a few undersize flattys a couple of snook, couple of yellowfin bream(one keeper) and a bucket full of herring. Not bad when the bread and butter fish are biting good fun on very light stuff.

Decieded to head up to leeman for the weekend with a few mates. we took up 2 boats and planned to hit the 40's for dhuies and other demersals

Left the ramp sat morning for the best conditions i have seen to date we were greeted with glassed off seas all the way to the spots.Was a little slow to start but then the baldys moved in :) they were in plague proportions up here and took a fancy to my smith mejune jigs.I caught about 10 on sat all size kept my 2 and mate JC hooked a baldy and nice black ass on smelly bait. we headed over to the other boat and was jealous to see they had a dhuie and some good baldys with us all bagged out by 12 we headed in to start filleting and drinkin some beers.

left the ramp same time today to average conditions, headed for some different spots today and also was a little slow to start until i boated the first keeper a nice pinkie and my first on a jig being a blue smith. then Jc hooked a nice baldy on bait. changed spots and on the 2nd drift Jc's rod took a big whack and bang he was on after a nice fight a 9kg dhuie floated up and to say he was stoked was an understatment. with us being bagged out again we headed in to see how the other boys fared. they hooked a nice dhuie similar size to ours and 3 nice baldys all in all caught a lot of fish in 2 days. i was wrapped to christen my new ocea jigger/jm ti combo.

Thanks for reading

Sammy

Just got back from a few days at the Barri last week, and what a bloody great spot!  Started out fishing Oyster Reef for the first few days catching and releasing the sort of Tailor Kalbarri's famous for.  All but 2 went back over those 3 days as they didn't recover too well, but were much enjoyed for lunch and dinner.  Fish went off the bite when the stormy weather and the northerly winds picked up, but managed to get boat trip in up around Sand Patch on our last day where we all caught one fish each. One of which, the pinkie was saved for dinner.  Overall what an awesome spot.

Fishing Oysters we were using Stickbaits and Poppers, with the odd bibbed lure making an appearance.

Always awesome watching Tailor fight over your lure. 

Not one under 62cms, with most around the 70-75cm mark, and the biggest at 80cms.

We tagged the Dhuie too.  51cm.  Can't wait to see how he goes!

Cheers!

Wazza.

*

Been over twice this week, once with a couple of my kids and again with a mate to do a little work on a mates water tank, stayed an extra day as the weather was so good!

Didnt do a hell of a lot of fishing, but pinkies were like blowflies (except more tasty). Baldies quite prolific also-released.

Heaps of boats around on friday, saw about 8 or 9 runabouts south of Pelsaert and trolling Wreck Point/Boiler.

Big thunderstorms thursday and a phonecall at 11pm from coppers-"fk has my car been broken into"? no a flare sighting and a check we were ok and had we seen anything.

 hit up the river with duffman and the first thing i asked him "any flathead here" to the reply nope well first cast got a flatty on sx40 duffman landed a flatty 3rd cast then a few more tiddler bream . THAT WAS until lewy hooked and landed and estimated 70kg lewis got hooked trying to realease a bream landed  some grunter and i finished the day with another flatty good little 1 and a half hours session. all fish realeased and my first on hardbodies

( lewis very manly camera)

 After many trips I finally found a decent size Dhui for my wife, 8KG caught on wrasse.

Just got back from a week and a half down south on a family holiday, was pretty keen to get out for a fish while I was there so I kept an eye on the Fishing Buddies section which eventually saw Buz putting up a post for some deckies.  We hooked up early Friday morning with a Bunbury FW member, Ric, at the Quindalup ramp and were on the water before 6am.

It was a choppy start to the morning but the breeze was meant to die out so we were happy to put up with a bit of discomfort knowing things would chill out after a while.  We did a few drifts off Cape Nat with nothing to show, we were all using jigs or placcies and eventually Ric was the first to give in and start dropping some baits. That seemed to get the ball rolling and a couple of sea sweep came to the surface... Buz was using the XOS McArthys and I had a Shout Lighten on but neither were seeing any action.

After a while I switched to a Sea Falcon and had immediate success pulling up a reasonable sized BA

A few drifts later Ric and I both hooked up at the same time - Ric scored a nice dhu which weighed in at just over 7kg and I got the bub which must have been tagging alongside mum

At this point Buz was still fishless and getting a bit agitated so he switched to baits.  It didn't take long for him to get in on the action with an ever faithful sambo followed by a small pinkie and a few other bits and pieces

I eventually switched to softies and popped on a 7-inch McArthy on a 3oz jig head which turned out to be my best move of the day.  After a few drifts I nailed this nice red snapper followed by a 7kd dhu a few drifts later

We didn't hang around too long after that as we had our limit of Cat 1 fish and were pretty much out of time.  By this point the waters had glassed off nicely and we had a sweet ride back to the ramp.

Props to Buz for a great day on the water and for being a top skipper putting us all onto some great fish and to Ric for keeping us all entertained with some classic stories, none crazier than his tale about Danny the tranny... a suitable finish to a Friday the 13th fish.

Braved the wild and wooly weather this morning and headed to a far north beach and got this fella:

followed by ALOT of weed on trolled lures.  He eventually went out as bait and got this fella  :D

A bit too big to fit in the camera shot !  My first Metro(ish) mackie

I'm stoked, it was one of my goals for the year!

Measured him on the beach, he went 15kg and was about 120 to the fork

Water temp was 24 degs, I don't think it will be long until they are in central metro if they are not already!

Hey All,

Headed out to the 3 mile with johnf yesterday for a troll.Although conditions were just about perfect the assortment of weed had me working up a sweat clearing the spread every 2 minutes.We persisted for about 1 hour by heading out a bit deeper to try and find some clear water but it was not to be.With the sun heading towards the horizon we had luckily packed the back up placcy outfits and it didn't take long with a small bonito taking a liking to my placcy. It went a bit quiet for half an hour and then john hooked up to something fairly solid on his 10lb outfit which was keeping us guessing,it came up fairly slowly but didnt pull much string.Well until it came into a view and saw the boat :) I nice little long nose Grey had a appointment with the deep fryer.

I then hooked up to another Little shark which last dash for freedom was granted by some hook pulling.
shortly after that john's placcy got hoovered on the drop and the 2500 certate was fizzing.Hoping he had not hooked a bigger version of the toothy brigade he was more stoked than a kid in a candy store when a fat 76cm pink slid into view.

So a very enjoyable trip even though i was thoroughly out fished by the senior skipper.

cheers

Chris

So all the stars aligned last week, time off work, great weather and a mate staying up at Lancelin with a spare bed. So what better thing to do but drag the 4.85 trailcraft up there for a couple of days fishing.

Left home early in the morning and drove the 1 ½ hours there and it was strait out on the water. The easterly was blowing quite a bit but we knew it would drop off later in the morning. As we had only ever fished off Lancelin once in the past we don’t have any real spots so the plan was to head out to the 30m mark and look around while trolling a couple of lures. Good plan until we find weed everywhere so we decided to just drive around. After about 30 minutes cruising with nothing of interest showing on the sounder (no expert though so could have missed heaps) something made me stop and have another look at a bit of ground. Couldn’t really see anything but since we had yet to wet a line decided to drop over anyway. Fishing standard paternoster rig with fresh ocy for bait got hit by picker’s strait away. The bottom didn’t feel overly exciting but it wasn’t long before we scored a just under duie which went back on the release weight. After a long drift went back over the same area again. This time after about 10 minutes I’m on to a sizable fish. After about a 5 or so minute fight my Pb duie (12kg) is at the side of the boat with the hook just hanging onto the outer edge of its lip. After some quick gaff work by Brian it was in the boat and it was high 5’s. As I was dispatching the fish I see Brian’s rod in the holder bending over and line peeling off, he’s now on to a 8 ½ kg Duie. Another couple of drifts and 2 baldies later and it’s time to head back in with big smiles all round.

So we wake up the next day to more calm weather and head out again. We decide on a similar plan and start looking for ground again. Once again we fish ground that isn’t that impressive on the sounder and after a couple of just size Duies that were released I land a couple of nice Baldies. Having mainly fished the south coast this trip enabled me pick up my first baldies with the biggest one going 4 ½ kg. Then with the drift shutting down through lack of wind the bites died off and it was heading towards lunch time when we got another small duie and fox fish which were put on ice and we again headed in to clean the fish and have a swim as it was stinking hot.

I had told the good wife that I was only staying one night but after two great days I was able to get another day’s leave pass and stayed another night. Again we were greeted by a superb day and we headed back out for a quick fish. Again we could hardly get a drift going and we weren’t covering any ground at all. After a couple of hours we had a couple of baldies on ice and decided to have one last drift before heading back in and heading home. Towards the end of the drift got hit hard and another duie was in the esky this one going 6kg.

Vac packed the fish (new Vac pack from Dave at Extreme coolers worked great) and filled an empty freezer with fillets which was good as the next chance to do this will be Easter when we head to Walpole for a week and if the weather gods play ball we will get a chance to chase a feed off shore down there.

 Hey guys,

I'm new to the forum and was wondering if you could help me out!

I live near Joondalup and i want to get into fishing, i dont know any local spots though, besides off of the rocks at hillarys and the mindarie boat harbour.

is anyone willing to share some of there near by locations for me please? :D

Cheers, John!

'rumour' has it a fw solo fisho got beaten up by a 200kg blue today, literally beaten up. Congrats mate, hope the video comes out good. :)