G,day fishwreckers,

Thought it about time to post a thread on the trip we just done down to hopey, decided to drag the cat down for a couple of days of fishing if the weather held up. First mistake of the trip was towing the boat with the brother inlaws troopy instead of ny 4.8l patrol, struggled big time when we hit hills and chewed a similar amount of juice. In the end though it didn't miss a beat so can't really complain!!

Day one friday 24/7/11 Beach fishing

Rolled into Hopey around lunch time and decided to fish from the beach as the wind was up.

Hopetoun 1 Us 0

Day two saturday 25/7/11 Water in Fuel

Decided to head out on the boat around 11 it was pretty messy out there, got just outside the inner reef and water in the fuel alarm comes on, turn round and head back to the ramp on one motor. Spent the rest of the arvo trying to sort the motor out, ended up following a forum members advice and got her firing again (cheers Scott), rigged up a makeshift fuel tank out of a jerry can and we were good to go. Sunday was looking good.

Day three Sunday 26/7/11 Grouper day

Hit the water round 8 and it was messyer than expected but would be the only day out. Found a nice lump in round 30m got a couple of queenies, a nanie, a nice bb and a few skippy. Had a couple of big bust offs which we put down to sharks.

Fished a few more lumps heading out to the 50's with a few bits and pieces, plenty of fish on the sounder and great ground but they had really gone off the bite. Got a massive cuttley that should have gone in the photo comp but got cut up for bait and dinner!! Conditions got better as the day went on and we slowly caught ourselves a nice feed.

The clock hit round 4.30 so it was about time to head in, I'm always a sucker to do one more drop so back to the first spot we went to do one more. First drop was a couple of skips, dropped them on the deck and back to the bottom when all hell broke loose. The TLD 50 was screaming with a big fish that was fighting dirty, if it wasn't for the head shakes might have called it a ray or shark. Was so hard to pull from the bottom but slowly made progress, about 30 min later I could see a big blue shape under the boat and I knew exactley what it was. Would have loved to see the big fella swim off but with such a big fight he was gone. Went just over a metre and at a guess round the 40 kg mark.

Couple of entries for the comp and a few nice fillets headed home the monday, back at work tomorrow but hopefully I can get a few more on the score board when I get back!!

Set out from Two Rocks Sunday 7am, Had a very 'interesting trip' getting through the three mile, never been in conditions like that before. I would like to thank Paul G for the advice not to set off before daybreak as it would have been a massive mistake.

Once through had a rough ride to direction bank, where we caught 3 dhuies, 3 Baldies (2 over 55cm) 4 snapper and 2 Black Arse (1 over 50cm !!)

The conditions calmed down after lunch, and we had a lovely ride back in, stopped half way back when we spotted 2 Humpback whales, they were no more than 100 metres away from us, fantastic to see.

Looking forward to the next trip !!!

Launched the boat at 2pm this arvo with John F. It was an oil slick all afternoon. Bait fish scattered every few hundred meters.

The conditions meant the fish were hard to come by early on. We started fishing at about 2:30, John scoring some trevally.

Given the still conditions, I decided to use the 6lb gear with light jig heads all day. Didn't score anything until after 5pm.

As soon as the sun was about to set, I strapped the boat to a preferred patch of nice ground where I have picked up snapper before.

As soon as the sun set, the sounder showed plenty of activity. Scored 1 small squire @ 45cm & was absolutely suprised to see 4 big old man snapper follow it all the way to the boat. John dropped a plastic right on their heads & they showed some interest, but typical of snapper, they were still semi-shy.

Next cast I go hit on the drop (watched the line strip), but was too late. Kept twitching the placcy & got a decent hookup that started off pretty tame. Seconds later it took off & after a good 10 minute fight, a beaut snapper hit the surface.

John scored another nice squire on the last drift - put up a solid fight on tight drag (1 reason why the snapper is one of my favourite fish). Unfortunately, we had to head home as the missus' had dinner ready.

Got to the ramp to see sea rescue had towed someone in. 1980's johnson probably needed to be retired some time ago.

It was tough going early on, but as soon as night was upon us, it all happened. Big pink was caught on 6lb which I am pretty pleased about.

Daz

Well after a lumpy ride out and a wet face.we got to the first spot plenty of fish on the sounder .we hooked up stright away small dhuie .this dhuie must like the ride to the top as it has been caught on the same spot three times now.we tagged it a few weeks back. still in good condition  36m. Back down till the next time .Then a big run and a good fish only to have it snap the braid at the eye of the rod after 3minutes of fight. bloody pots were a pain as every bit of ground has a pot on it making fishing hard work .No big dhuies today but plenty of small ones to 6kg.headed home at lunch time just as the wind dropped,Days catch 11 dhuies 1 kept 10 tagged,2 sambos released ,2 snapper released,2 baldies Kept  1 big break sea released.even got a couple of pics for the photo comp  .Home to watch the end of the footall go the eagles.

hey guys im still trying to find myself some salmon i know its late but im still hearing whispers of them being here and there. was a sighting at cott groin last week and the cut the week before, anyone else heard or seen anyting around the place?

This trip there was 7 of us that went up and we rented a nice two storey house in town. We took up a 5.4m Trailcraft & 11ft tinney and hire the 4.2m Dory up there. Weather was great for the week (28 May - 5 June).

We fish mainly outside the reef from Tantabiddi with just a few hours inside the reef. We caught all the usual species...Spanish Mackeral, Tuna, Golden Trevally, spotted trevally, giant trevally,  spangled emporer, coral trout, coranation cod, sharks and long toms.

Only landed 1 GT on the second day, didn't have the right gear but the little daiwa 3000 on an old ugly stick (as i snapped my rod 10mins before on a golden trevally) managed the job of this little one. On the second day alone (first real fishing day as day 1 was no good) 3 of the 7 snapped our rods.

Here is a few photos from our recent annual trip to Exmouth.

The  toman season has just began......and I'm getting all ready to hit at those wild mama toman whenever and wherever. Wild toman fishing in Thailand is a BIG GAME SPORT here. Not for any aveg angler. You need to be fast, accurate and eyes must be sharp....

With the right  tackle and lures  then can ensure your sucessfully landing of the mama  toman.

Any  boatman can bring you to the fry but how you get the mama to whack your lure, that's something the angler has to figure out himself. Btw, not every toman fry is easy target.

I love the challange of chasing the toman fry for 1-2hrs. It's like a mind playing game of man vs the fish. Better than anything in the world.. haha !!!

Of all the toman fry, those frys which are reddish color & the size of the small tadpole, are the most difficult to target of all.

Just when you think you can agitate the mama toman by distrubing the baby fry, you'll be in for a big surprise. After you've casted 4-5 castings, you will eventually see the small tiny red pool of toman fry gather in 1 small group. The mama toman will then appear from beneath & took her baby fry into her mouth and dive under the water.

Instead of getting the mama toman to be angry, the angler will get frustrated first... haha !!!

I have 1 miss on the  mama toman and another hooked up but loss the fish during netting.... Damn.... I'm going to return for my revenge trip soon...

This round, will wait for the fry to grow the size of the cig butt size. That's when the mama toman can't take the frys into its mouth. Any intruders or lures within the 1m radius of the fry, will be attacked by the mama toman for sure.

Wait for my revenge trip in the next episode of 'Chasing the Toman Fry' Part 2. ;)

View all actions in this vid clip & photos highlights below :

Enjoys !!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r54IGg4jXn4

My brother Matt flew up thursday  for a few days fishing . The weather was pretty good, beers cold and the fishing pretty hot. We caught plenty of good fish, released heaps, lost a few to sharks, lost a few more to bad gaff shots, lost even more to the fish being just too big and the bottom too gnarly and lost a few to stupidity and had heaps of laughs in three days of fantastic fun.

One of the highlights was the brother having a tug of war on a 200lb handline with a 7 foot shark who wanted his bluebone in 3 metres of water. This led to a  discusion about whether a 200lb handline (old school) or 50lb braid and saltiga rod and reel (new school) could get fish up quicker. It was declared a draw when a very lumpy pair of red bass turned up to test him on the rod and me on the handline. Heaps of giggles there. Grace got a nice longnose emperor as well, we all had fish on as well and left her to it. Pretty good effort for a 9 year old .

A few pics

Headed down to the beach about 5:30 last night with dad and nick

we set up and put the big ones out in good time,

i had three casts to get a good one for some reason (i hadnt had many beers yet), put the rod down and set the running drag and walked off to get a beer when i heard my reel going nuts so i chucked my beer down (none spilt)

and sprinted for my rod as i got closer i noticed it stoped running, at this stage i thought i lost it, got to the rod tweeked the drag and hit it bang i was on, i screamed out Yeeeeeoooow! im on boys,  it felt quite decent and after a big long run dad called its a stinger, i replied with i dont think it is (in the back of my mind i thought it was too but dont tell him that) i began to retrive some line i found it had ran a long way to my right i called shark, so i started to chase it down the beach by this time the boys were following me up closly, i said one of youse are going to have to take your shoes off (to that no replies?) i new we didnt bring the gaff, as it neered the shore i was trying to pic wat it was i couldnt see verry well and i called its a gummy grab the trace at this time my 30lb main line snapped, i screamed get it as the fish was in the beach wash, out of noware dad lunged at it and grabbed it by its tail (he must be f#%$ing mad) and dragged it to the shore and this nice bronzy was landed.

I couldnt belive this all happnd within the first 10mins of getting there, and i got hit within 2mins of it hittn the water

not much more happened after that dad got a couple of blowies and i got a small skippy

the highlite of the night has to be dad (franke) going in for it cheers dad it was a good night!

Thanks

Adam

took my young bloke fishing this morning from the rock wall close to seal rocks caught 15 undersize snapper in and hour couldnt get away from the little rats my son was very suprised when he nearly got pulled off the rock wall by a snapper that was 40 cm just undersize not bad for a 4 year old

Well it had been a looong time since Lucky had been out for a fish and during his absence his fish stocks had mysteriously vanished through the appetites of Merman and Hotstuff.  (who could blame them with red and trout in the freezer)  So with next to nothing left we decided that we had to take it upon ourselves to go and replenish the stocks, especially considering the weather we have been having lately.

Heading over to the islands we spent the morning spearing in clear water, there was decent tidal surge and swell making things a bit more interesting, but still well and truly good enough for what we wanted to do.  I won't go into the spearing details too much, but one thing I must say is I have never seen so many well and truly legal trout in all my life.  At one stage there would have been a school of 6 of them swimming around underneath me following me from ledge to ledge, one of them almost tickled himself on the end of my spear.  Getting back to the boat and telling Tim what I had seen he pretty much repeated the same story of what he had encountered on a totally different part of the ledge.  We didn't end up finding any easy to get crays over the session, but ended up with 2 trout, 5 bluies and 1 green jobfish and a nice bag of goodies.

As the wind was starting to drop we decided we should look for some ground, not having much luck we went back to an ol faithful that had produced many a time.  First few drops weren't really producing much, I think only one small spangled came over the side and we lost a rig or two to sharks.  We then changed the drift a bit and started getting a few more small (but size) spangos which went back, I then lost my rig to a shark and thought it was time to pack up as it was getting late.  We went back around again and Tim had one more drift and got some thing small, calling it another spangly it hit the surface bright red but undersize.  Hmmmm we thought, I re-rigged and Tim got a nice 50cm Jack and I got a decent moses perch.  We reset again where Tim got bitten off and I got a small spango.  Tim decided not to re-tie and waited for me to provide inspiration and bang, up came a nice jobbie to complement the tidy bag we had.  Upon seeing this Tim decided to rig up and around we went for what we had called for the last drift of the day.  Living up to his nickname, a torrid tuggle ensued and Lucky brought up a beautiful red at 68cm and we couldn't think of a better way to finish the day on.

We got back to the ramp and with less than knee deep water managed to push it across the sandbar to retrieve, another 10 minutes and we probably would have had to head down to the marina to get her out.  In all a top day, thanks Lucky.  Hopefully it will be out into the depths next week to do some more exploring!  On a side note, there's been some excellent catches at the local comp on this weekend - a 9kg red, 7.5kg trout, 22kg spaniard, 23kg wahoo and lots of other bits and pieces.

Cheers,

Adam

thanks for the bits of advice i was given got out today and picked this little guy up looking forward for a few more species.

Went crabbing on the  jetty tonight with my son Sat.18 a bit quiet with a lot of weed in the water and the guys out the end weren't catching any fish either so it's just one of those nights. The reason why I'm making this post is that I use Tuna heads in the crab nets my son swears by herring and others were using spleen. None of us caught much but what is your preferred bait?

has anyone been into new beach south of carnarvon wa since the floods?

looking to see what condition the roads are in..

thanks...

Headed out sat morning with my neigbour who i owe most of my fishing knowledge too.
He only fishes bait with heavy gear so whenever we get together it always a bit of fun having a comp between us.
Round 1 went to him as he landed the only fish worth bringing home. This time would be different though.

We arrived at our spot just on sun up and Scott began getting a constant berly trail going. I droped down a 5inch double drift and before Scott had his line in the water i was enjoying a tussle with a small skippy. I was off to a good start.
Scott sent out a floating blue mackeral while i continued with the plastics. I wasnt long before the skippy had found the bait and Scott was on. The next 15 min had Scott landing skippy after skippy while from some reason i couldnt get a hit on the plastic.

I dropped down again feeding line out allowing the plastic to sink. Once i thought i had reached the bottom i turned over the bail arm, gave one twitch and bang......i was on. A couple of good head shakes and a nnice run had me thinking it was a pinky. A few seconds later i could feel the solid heavy weight of what could only be a stingray. Sure enough after a 5 min tussle the small eagle ray was boat side. We removed the lure and sent it back. While i was anoyed at cacthing a flying carpet it was my first on a plastic.

By now Scott had brought out a light rod to use while the blue mackeral floated out back. He rigged on a 1/4 jig head and threaded on a squid tentacle. If the jig head could make it past the skippy small snapper where waiting on the bottom to snaffle it.

I changed over to a Pink 7inch Madeye Double Drift rigged on a 1/2 TT jig head. I too was into the small snapper that still give a great fight for there size. By now we had been there for a couple of hours and while scott was well into double didgits on the skippy we were condsidering a move.
I decided we should stick it out as high tide was approaching and by now we had a nice berly trail.

I continued casting and retriving the pink double drift hoping it along the  bottom. While Scott realeased yet another skippy my rod suddenly buckled over
and i felt then tell tale head shakes that only a snapper can give. After a short but nervously fought battle i had colour. Scott netted the fish and we finally had a good fish in the boat. We put the fish on the lie detector and it messured 71cm at a guessed weight of around 4kg.

We stayed at the spot for another hour but could only manage skippy on baits. The decission was mad to check one last spot before heading back in.
Within seconds of scotts bait hitting the water a Skippy had smashed it. After re-rigging he sent a mullie out back. Once again i was hit well before it could reach the bottom. This was a far bigger fish taking long fast runs coupled with head shakes. The fish kept bolting to the surface and Scott's Experience called it for a Samson Fish. Even on heavy gear Samson go hard and Scott had use all his skill to steer the Samson away from the anchor rope on a couple of occasions. Eventually we landed the samson at over 1m and after a couple of happy snaps released it. Small Samson are very under rated on the chew but the larger fish are dry and often have worms.

Scott continued landing skippy on his light rod but now had it doubled over on somthing alot bigger. To our supprise the 8lb straight through wouldnt let go and at least 10min went past before any line was returned to the reel. Sudenly the line went slack and we thought we had lost it. But no the fish had just headed striaght for the surface. To our disapointment a small eagle ray skimed out of the water. Now we knew what it was Scott locked the drag and went hard. Another 5min latter and the line went slack but this time it was a bust off.
 Time to head back in.

Last Bait Vs Lures We had more fish seemed to fall to the lures but today was the oposite. For some reason the skippy werent interested in any lure i threw at them and Scott must have caught at least 30+ to me only catching 2.
But i had got the only keeper so round 2 goes to lures.

 A huge school of herring at ocean reef yesterday, they were bitting on peeled prawn, and gulp maggots. Didn't even need berley, although it may have helped. I had two rods going and as soon as i'd get one out, finish baiting up the other, and casting that one out, the first was hooked on. Also got a couple of wrasse and put them back. 

went out around two.....

got our limit today, was hard work was out from 2 - 7 with a majoirty bait sized, only a few worth cleaning and eating none the less.

Those dhues best be hungry next week!

brett

Happy days nice win

Just arrived home from our annual Coral Bay trip and what a trip it was. We decided to go for the sole charter for three days this year and i must say we will be doing that again. While some of our fellow fishers were not overly impressed that the only available boat in town was tied up for three days, we definatley benefitted from having the space and luxury of 4 people fishing a variety of methods on the MAHI MAHI II.

The catch and fishing techniques we enjoyed were very varied and succesful. A day on the red emperor followed by switch baiting for sailfish and a day fishing out wide for the ruby snapper and monster cod was a highlite. All followed by various hookups trolling in sail fish alley where sails and marlin were hooked. In all it was the most succesful and well run trip we have had, and i challenge you all to get up to Coral Bay, hook up with Bernie and and get yourself in some of these photos below.

 Figured I'd finally sit down and attempt a report on our little trip northwards this year. We hit the road at the start of may for four weeks away with our little boat, dive gear, bit of fishin gear and a tent. Hope it doesn't go too long, probably will...

First day started off well with a late departure from perth to jurien for two nights to get some fish in the esky for the next week or so. We got to Jurien, set up camp, met the neighbours and set off to check out the hill river mouth in our magna... and anyway magna's are only usefull for about the first 2 k's of the beach track and after the first 200k's of our 4000k trip i was in the sand digging out my poor bottomed out car with a pissed off girlfriend watching from the sidelines arms folded... great start to the trip.

The next day was the start we we're hoping for and we had a cracker day out with an awesome dive and boating 2 macks from 3 hits in less than half an hour. One baldy kept from the dive and a mac, both kept for the icebox back at the park. Wrote a report on it a month or so ago for pics and such.

The afternoon was then spent vac packing our bounty, some of which got shared with the neighbours. That night we had a cool sunset to finish an awesome day and then the night was spent packing the car again for an early departure for shark bay so jac could see the dolphin feeding.

Arrived in sharkbay for the first time for both of us and with no real intinary we checked the place out and decided to head over to monkey mia to see what they were all about. Unknown to me they had a ramp there which was a big plus and once we saw the only campsite left was right on the water front we decided we'd settle in here... then the flies settled in... and there she was again, even though she was asleep behind flyscreen I'm sure she had her arms folded as the tent was besieged by an onslaught of flies, me I probably just inhaled half the fly population that afternoon walking around. But I was happy as i stood there trying to regurgitate a fly outside some backpackers balcony and taking photo's as the sun went down. Good thing flies dont show up in photo's, place really was awesome though.

The next day we we're up and at the dolphin feeding contending with the other 400 tourists getting their kung fu on and trying to get pole position, we just stood on the jetty and watched a motley bunch of dolphins with varying degrees of shark bite come and go, one had a fresh gaping hole missing out of its head. cool but pretty average expirience and we were itching to do some exploring. An hour later we were pushing the dory into the water without a clue of where to go and what to fish but conditions couldn't have been better and they stayed that way all day.

Jacqui had never seen a turtle in the wild and seeing "green turtle flats" on the chart had us burning over to the northern tip of faure island, surely with a name like that she'd see a turtle. As we dropped anchor near the beach the place was alive with all kinds of activity literally hunders of juvenile shovelnose basking in an inch of water, blacktips rounding up and slicing through schools of mullet and turtles popping up everywhere over a glassed off ocean all within a hundred meter stretch of beach. we spent a few hours there casting the old twisty golds at choppers and snorkelling in poor vis trying to get some reef shark action.

After a while expecting a SW wind that never came we belted back towards the western side of the gulf stopping on the way to troll through the channels and to harrass a large group of dolphins. didn't have much luck trollin just a few snook. We then went to venture up in the direction of point peron to see what we could find.

Conditions were still magic and from 100's of meters away we could see turtles coming up for air all around and little ripples travelling on the surface that on closer inspection they turned out to be schools of golden trevally breaking the surface with their fins, the water was that good! so we spent the rest of the day casting everything at these little ripples that would bolt when a few meters from the boat. hooked up a fair few but unfortunately boated none so it was back to harassing the local dolphins that were everywhere. Clocked up almost 50 NM that day in the little dory chasing all kinds of wildlife pulling the boat out of the water just as the sun set... no folded arms today.

Next stop was coral bay for a week, pretty much a week of wind and we never got outside the reef. Fishing wasn't high on the priority list anyway as we still had a mountain of mackerel to eat. The first day out we had a whipping easterly so it was inclose snorkelling just off five finger reef dodging the big boats burning past for south passage. The water was a lovely 28 degrees and gotta love that moment when you jump into the water up north with a totally different surrounding to the southern waters we're both used to. Huge gardens of plate corals and staghorns all in really good condition. Hump Head mouri wrasse, flute fish everywhere, but never saw any crays outside of a sanctuary for the whole trip.

Usually we drive past coral bay but figured this time we'd pull in and give the car a break as everything is nice and close. Diving was awesome and we dived inside the reef in all the deepest water we could find from south of south passage all the way to the north passage(all around 7-9 meters). It sounds strange to say coz its was awesome reef and excellent condition but all the diving at coral bay is all much the very same no matter where you dive along the reef.  After 5 days straight of diving at CB we were itching to get to Exmouth for a bit of variety.

Second last day in coral bay it started pissing down so it was a mad rush to move the boat and dive gear out into the rain to get a good wash and with everything cleansed we were off to Exmouth, Seriously how good is to after a year of day dreaming to finally see this glorious sign in its unglorious immediate surroundings.

First night in exmouth was awesome........

Great tent weather as the thunderstorms rolled around in the distance and 40 knot easterlies handed our arses to us, in our little tent.

Next day the wind still blew hard so we pretty much just drove around down to yardie and got a few snaps. Next day we figured we'd take a chance and put the boat in at tanta's. A chance never came but we/I pushed out the passage for a bit of a troll but all I caught was a straight face and glaring from my faithful deckie so back in. The day then took a turn for the better as that night we got to eat steak!! after days and days of eating mackerel, mackerel stirfry, mackeral burgers, mackerel curry, mackerel drowned out in anything so it didn't taste like mackerel ect ect.. love mackerel but after so many days straight we were hanging for a f*&kn huge steak.

Next day it all came together and by 10am we were flying out through the passage in beautiful weather and sounding around for a good spot for our first dive out behind the reef.

We found our spot and dived in around 14 meters, we had a sweet dive with reef sharks constantly coming in to check us out and bolt off out of sight, coral was a fair bit damaged but we had heaps of fish life around with trev's and both spanish and school macks buzzing around. Trolled that day right out to the 90m depth with the skirts but with not much luck. Coming up to the 30m line out from Jansz both skirts went screaming only to both be bitten off half way through the fight, it was out with the wire and soon we boated another couple of small macs. My eyes began to light up with fish fever again with the bonanza of more fish for the ice box... after a few choice words and once again with folded arms i was then promptly releasing them back over the side. After that it was another snorkel at tantas sanctuary.

After that it was pretty much glass offs every afternoon. The next day we were diving out in 27meters on the west side. Seeing the massive Rankins on that dive soon after had me fishing with a salami sandwhich for bait and cursing that i never bought any SP's on the trip... soon gave up on that though. We spent the avo casting poppers at bait schools connecting up to those bastard macks that wouldn't leave us alone, good fun though watching them smash the surface lures as in the distance we could see them launchung 20 feet into the air and gliding back in on a perfect arc. Heading back to the ramp we almost collided with two fins breaking the surface and moments later Jac was in swimming with her own private whale shark i got her onto, but the b*^ch was refusing to pay my $395 fee. 

pic from the boat

Last day out for the trip we launched at about 2pm at bundegi for lighthouse bay to dive Blizzard ridge. Another day of pure glass and easily the best dive of the trip even in shocking conditions. We had a surface current of about two knots, the boat even had its own little bow wave while swinging on the mooring. Visability was around 5 meters and were litterally having to pull ourselves along and down the mooring rope, It had jac thinking to call off the dive for fear of being swept away. After talking it through she agreed to atleast decide at the bottom of the mooring and if it was no good we'd pull ourselves back up. Surprisingly when we let go we were able to hover almost motionless, smiles all around! Absolutely awesome dive in poor vis, no coral and everything was a sort of green colour but so much life! saw massive turtles, olive headed sea snakes, lionfish, trout everywhere, 3 types of nudi's we'd never seen before, morey eels and more all in a 45 minute dive in 10 meters. As we de-kitted all around us the bay was full of bait schools being smashed by fish, after a few casts with the popper on the old herring rod we found the culprits to be little trevs. What a great way to close the last boat trip of the trip, awesome dive and catch and releasing little trevs as the sunsets over a glassed off ocean.

Last thing I had to do was tick off something thats been on my exmouth bucket list for the last 7 years,

PLANET BURGER VAN!!!

Yep... thats a fly

After I melted the tent walls a little that night we packed up and it was off to a unit in kalbarri to sleep all day, enjoy a real bed,TV and showers without thongs.

 Just gotta try come to grips that now is the longest possible time before the next trip!

Thanks for reading! 

Didnt manage to land a descent fish till the last day of the trip. Was supposed to leave bright and early Tuesday morning but decided to balloon out one last gardie and ended up getting one more smaller Mackeral. Plenty of sharks around had one take about 700m of braid before my line snapped at the reel. Lucky i had some spare spools of braid with me.

Hope ya like the pics.

Kris 

Spent the long weekend with the family down at Point Peron in some holiday shacks - only 500m to the ramp, which is very nice. Saturday, we spent a few hours in the sound - cleaned up on the squid and had Till's GT stuffed squid for dinner - highly recommended too!

Sunday morning was the traditional BBQ breakfast at about 9am.  This is a late breaky for me, so this still left some time to have a quick fish. Dragged my teenage nieces out of slumberland at 5.50am. On the water in ten minutes and a quick (well diesel blurt) out to the back of FFB. With no points, I sounded a little bit of ground in 20 metres and didn't promise the girls anything too much. At least we had beat the sun, so a Pinkie could be on the cards. I set up two of my spin outfits with drift baits of two squid heads each(from Saturdays catch). First drop - Pinkie time....too easy. Nice fight and biggest fish ever for Niece1 quick pic and release.

Next drop, big heavy weight with slow pumping - 'cuttlefish' was the call from me to Niece2 now don't freakout when you see it! The cuttle surfaced about 5m away from the boat. He was a great size and the accuracy of his water jet produced a few screams from my crew!  Took a while for me to convince Niece2 to pose with a live Cuttlefish, but if she wanted to keep it, well, she had to;

Down side was that as I was about to leader the cuttle in, Niece 2 high sticked behind me - Oh, I know that sound...doh. Reset drift again, dropped down and whack - hang on tight to that outfit, I yelled to Niece2. Pump and wing, big screams again when a beautiful sheen of silver caught the rising sun beams.

I'm shaking my head, thinking, it doesn't get any better then this.....lets head in. >We got back to the shack and breakfast was ready at 9am...what a start to the day! My young one practice casting on the front beach.

That arvo we launch around in Safety Bay and head to Penguin Island  - a first for all of us. What a pleasant surprise this place was.

Hi guys,

Just a quick report on my latest adventure. Tried a spot north of the Leeman area I have been meaning to get to for some time. There is still a lot of weed on the beaches and the water is generally brown and murky in close. Evening session was very quiet. Caught a few small tailor (15-20cm) on prawns and mulie cubes but no signs of anything else around. The morning session was not faring all that much better but a few bread & butter species came on the bite closer to high tide. I had one big hit around 9am. The drag screamed momentarily and as I picked up the rod and felt the weight the line went dead. Whatever it was must have grabbed the scaly between the circle hooks...all that was left was a head. I dare not dream about what it may have been...

I was only in this spot to try for a mulla. So mid morning I packed up and decided to head back towards Hill River for a kayak session and a fish. The water in the area is a little bit murky in close and there is a little weed around in parts - but generally easy to find a clean spot to fish at the moment. The river has not broken it's banks yet so after recovering a bogged SUV I decided to hit up one of my favourite spots closer to town.

Went out in the kayak for the first time. It was just sloppy enough to make life hard for a newbie and after 30 minutes sitting 200m offshore I decided to get my feet back on solid ground. Will definately get out again on a calm day and am really looking forward to chasing some big bream in the river.

Low tide session was again non eventful. Caught a couple of small mullet for bait and the rest were blowies. No tailor off the reef. Moved again looking for a good spot to soak a bait for the night session. Night was uneventful except for two runs within 10 minutes. The first one I'm calling for a big ray. Couldn't stop it and the mainline gave out (60lb) quite quickly. The second run went west and I could feel headshakes so I am assuming a shark. This time one of my knots pulled...I guess that's what happens when you drink and fish.

Morning session was a bit a better. Started landing some really good sized mullet on whole prawns (all around the 25cm mark) and plenty of sand whiting. Caught an absolute thumper PB Sandy which went 36cm! Couldn't believe it and it put up a great fight on 4lb braid. Not many herring around but I got a couple in the bag. I did drop what felt like a decent tailor - but besides that the tailor never seemed to come on the bite.

Finished up with a quick session at Cervantes Jetty to see what was around. The place was packed with juvenile tailor (<20cm) but did not seem to be holding other b&b fish. Also caught a small squid on a mulie cube...which was a nice surprise.

On the way home I did check out Sovereign Park (Two Rocks)....will definately head back there with the poppers in winter!

Brought home a feed which is the main thing and have also found a couple of great areas to fish at low tide when the conditions are right for the tailor. Was great to get away though and have a break.

Sorry no pics as I am too lazy to upload!

Cheers,

Buschy

well well well

what can i say, first time up in the kimberleys and the place blew me away.This will be a regular future destination!

Arrving in kununura we were told the area of the wilderness park we were staying had only just recently opened due to the very heavy rainfall over the wet season and flooding. A lot of damage was done to areas, and some scenic parts of the the wilderness park are still closed off, Some areas for example, the zebidee springs and the moonshine billabong had just recently opened. 

I didnt have much time to fish,due to it being a family holiday with over 20 of us up there. Though i did manage some everyday, waking up at 5am and going till around 9 am then  most nights as well right till dark. Now i have zero experience in barra fishing what so ever,so wasnt confident heading up there even scoring one. The conditions werent in my favour as well being that water temp was only around 22-23 degrees within all the river systems/billabongs. I arrived with news that there was still some barra being caught, but it was hard work finding them and enticing them due to the low water temps. 

One afternoon  my lil cousin of around 10, casts a lure and bang, hooks up to a baby barra of around 250mm just off a lil rocky ledge. Funny enough i look close and realise where we're fishing down at the bottom of the gorge, that we were actually on larger shelfs, and there were barra EVERYWHERE!!!! swimming in and out of cover, mind you the avg size would of only been around 30-40cm and a fish or two pushing 55+cm, at one stage at the half way point of the gorge, with the sunnies on, I counted 15 barra all over these rock flats chasing small bait fish. 

We focused our time here for a while and it resulted in no fish being hooked, but countless and many frustrating follows all the way to our feet but then to shy away and disappear. Me and a friend got up every morning at around 5 just before dawn, and would either take a small dingy out trolling, or go bush bashing and find our own holes to fish, walking down the river banks. Which again we found some fish, but they just wouldnt take the lures, constant 2-3 fish at any one time all the way to the bank just to turn away! 

Come the arvo/night we turned our focus back to the huge river system at the homesteads door step. and boy did we fish. we focused here more and more inland of the penticost.  The last arvo some of the fam went off to zebidee springs for another swim, i took the missus out for a lil troll in the dingy. straight away the missus rod kept getting strikes but poor hook ups that would never hold. Mind you she hooked a fish in the middle of the day while i was setting up the boat on the ledge next to me! not bad for a girl thats just learnt to cast that day. and finally on our last pass we had a nice strike which the hooks helds and it resulted in a fish of around 300mm, real small but put on a nice lil show with real light drag, and all of a sudden mariahs wants to go fishing more and come out on the boat! 

back home (i always try and get her out there) we headed in for a quick break and 2 of us were back walking the bottom ledges of the gorge flicking hard bodies again. and this night everything just came together for some reason. A couple casts into a snag/ledge resulted in some nice strikes and on the third cast bang i was on, and this fish felt somewhat a tad larger. Resulted in a nice 500mm fish. Stoked my first ever barra!!!! from then on i caught a couple more all between 250mm-400mm. A couple minutes later my mate was on and after a short tussle it resulted in a nice 600mm. My lil bro came down after hearing we had a couple nice small fish and i told him to grab the spare rod and cast where im casting, as im getting hits regularly and there was small sooty grunter getting chased everywhere. 

and what happens first cast, bang rod buckles over, mind you this gear would only of been small 4kg spinner, line starts peeling and all of a sudden around 5m out directly in front of me this big big barra of my estimation (this is an exaggeration due to me not catching this fish) of at least 850mm + and thick, erupted trying to spit the hooks, went back down and jump  again and the hooks went foul.  On closer inspection some of the trebles had nearly been straightened! devastating. We fished again the next morning which again resulted in only another small barra of around 400mm. 

We went walking just along the river system to a boat cruise just around 1km inland, and we never fished here.  we fished more out on the penticost, where the boat tour was on the chamberlain, and we some what regetted this as we saw nice nice fize fish in the snags. We wished we took our rods but like i said 20 fam on the tour didnt really want us fishing 24/7. Where we stayed was right where the chamberlain and Penticost rivers meet. 

So the fish resulted in around 8 barra being caught, the biggest being 600mm and all released back successfully. Its always the one that got away, but for that exact reason ill be back up there again, chasing the mighty barra, as just like me and billfish, i really get a thrill targeting such hard and remote fish to find! At first i never thought id get into barra fishing but now im well and truly hooked. 

Funny enough the rangers we talked to when chasing advice, told us to focus in that area where we found that nice fish, they said they knew of some very decent fish in that hole, but they are well fed unfortunately and very very hard and fussy to get. Though mind you just walking down a dirt road track and then just veering left into bush and finding a creek system and just walking down it was just as fun than whether you hook up or not. 

Love the exploring side of things that come with barra fishing, out in the middle of the bush, no one else, no cars nothing! and yes we saw a couple of fresh water crocs and always were on the look out. 

Unfortunately a lot of the fish photos are on other cameras which i will get and post up. 

Brett

Spent the long weekend with the family in Dunsbourough. Dragged the boat down for a squid and yes there were plenty around. No Pics cause I am sure most know what a squid looks like.

My Father in law tagged along on this morning as he is a keen Cottesloe herring fisherman. He uses an 15 year old Diawa spinner on a glass 12 foot rod which would be 20 years old with nice new pretest. Funny that. Any way he got a few herring while my wife cleaned up on the squid. We were given a secret spot to try for some bottom fish no more than 1 km from Dunsborough town site.

I rigged up our bottm gear with fresh squid baits and driffted across the ground we found. My wife was bitten clean off on 100 KG leader. I snapped off on a snag and my father in law thought he was snagged as well until his big arse beach rod started bending under the hull and around in circles. 30 Minutes later with the old Diawa holding on for grim death we boated a sambo that bottomed out my lip grip scales.

Big smile from the old man and pleanty of tales to tell when we got home. We took a quick pic or 2 which are below and spent a few mins getting the fish healthy for a nice release.

Looked like being a great day but after the sun got up the wind came .Which made for some choppy conditions very hard to hold the boat on the ground .The dhuies were still there but were not on the bite like last week still ended up a good day with 4x dhuies 3 released 6x baldies 4x snapper 3 released 1x KG YES KG not that offen we get them, I think we were all more excited to get the KG than the other fish .Seen a whale doing some tricks .breaching and fin slapping .We did have a slight misshap when the boat got around 150lt off water in it from reversing into the chop and the bilge wasn't working  A quick fix it job and away see went .Long day but still a good one .

went to shelly yesterday hoping for some bream or flathead and got absolutly nothing besides my dad got a 30cm flatty. all day i got 2 massive hits and a follow by a massive flaty. i was using a arrangement of bream lures in my tackle box and was suprised how the two massive hits didnt end up being hookups as those little bream lures have got very sharp little hooks

 Finally I left Perth and pedalled north hoping that the weather would be on my side. The previous few days had seen thunder storms rolling over freemantle which was definately not the perfect weather to begin a long distance cycle trip. I won't bore you guys with the cycling side of things here but will get straight to the fishing. 

Gday Fwreckers any reports of the critters coming out with the rains, spose the tides are not at there best for them yet.

Hi everyone,

Last couple of trips over here has been pretty good although the fish haven't come easy and I have found myself driving big distances (up to 460km a trip) trying to locate qaulity fish. Fished areas out from the town of 1770 and Fraser Island.

Most fish have come from isolated rocks in 55 to 80mtrs of water including the qaulity Trout.

We were using mostly paternoster rigs (80lb) and mullet/Hussar fillets for bait.

Enjoy the pics