Headed out at 10 to the back of rotto, caught an array of species, including hammerheads, fox fish, pinkies, and sambos.

This 54pound sambo stood out tho! 

Up at 0630 and took the 2 minute drive down to the boat ramp. Filled up the eskies from the free ice machine. After Claire finding out the hard way the ramp was slippery, we headed off.  Gentle eastly blowing as we headed out under the the wharf.  We first headed over to the west side of Connexion Island, and had a hunt around for some ground.  Sounder was starting to light up.

The current is pretty strong around the islands, but we opted to try a few drifts over this flare up on the sounder. First drop we both hooked up to what i think are some kind of sea perch (anyone knows tell me cheers)

We drifted over this mark three times, and each time Claire and i both hooked up..very fishy!

We then headed off as we didnt want to rape that spot, and headed over to the east side of Connexion Island. We have been told by the locals, if you cant catch a Tricky snapper (blue lined emperor) in the channel, you might as well give up fishing. Well they were not wrong, they are in plague proportions in there. There was alot of small ones arond 30cm, and we kept a few around the 40cm mark for tea.

There was plenty of birds working, so we decided to throw the lures out for a bit of a troll around. We didnt have much luck there so i decided do some popping over the shallow reefs around the island. Had a few chases but no hookups. I saw a Barracuda around 150cm chase my popper to the boat, i near on shit myself when i saw it. I was also wondering how long it would take to spool me.

It was near on lunch time and the Heat was kicking in, and we decided we had a great day and headed home. We learnt on our first trip out, that coral is bloody sharp, and shite did we lose some rigs.

Well, this year saw the crowds swell for the Fishwrecked Invitational, 65 competitors from Kununurra to Bunbury joined us in Exmouth for a weekend of fishing and frevolity.  With 21 teams registered for the comp and many stories floating around the place of the trip up, some include, wheel bearings, running out of fuel, nearly being side swiped and feral backpackers things were going to get interesting!  Other notables include a rather large vessel in the fleet (the bling king) being towed in after getting mono prop wrapped in nasty conditions, one competitor having his boat key stolen and tackle bag, one team getting gastro on the best day weather wise we were going to have for quite some time and to top it off another team somehow managing to avoid D/D after drinking makers mark for the last few km's into town.

Unfortunately the comp got some pretty bad weather over the weekend, with the saturday effectively being blown out with 25 knot easterlies (a couple of crazies did get out there and into a few fish though)  The Sunday was forecast as much better and most of the fleet got amongst it (even though it wasn't special out there) and most of the prize categories were claimed, below are the winners:

FW Opening night - Till ($100)

Red Emperor - Ewan (61.5cm) $750 custom baitboard from Commodore Marine

Longest Spanish/Wahoo - Steve/Freofish4 (147cm) $150

Longest Spangled - Adam (70cm) Car Cooler/Warmer unit thanks to Just Dhu It

Longest Coral Trout - Unclaimed (Random prize draw winner - Rob/Deckie)

Longest Trevally - Dave/Gully (97cm) 10 Weezel Poppers thanks to Andos (3 handed out to crowd)

Longest Rankin - Dave/Gully (76cm) - As Dave donated the prize he gave it to second place - Potato cod print (Simo - 65cm)

Longest L/B - Kal ($100) 2.5m Shark

Longest Marlin - Brad (Team Mako) Custom Game Rod thanks to Mako Magic/Tackle Shack

Longest Queenfish - Unclaimed ($100) (Random prize draw winner - SamC (Cough cough - theres a story there!!)

U/16 Longest - Kye (Paul G) - 125cm Spaniard ($50)

Most Marlin/Sails - Brad ($250) - Bad luck C-Wirthy, always next year.

Catch Card lucky dip - Mako Magic ($100 bluewater voucher) Thanks to fisheries research

Best Overall Photo - Kal and his condom....($100)

Best Bling Award - Mako Magic (thanks to Decella)

Well, even with the weather not being special it was awesome to catch up with everyone again and boy did I have a SERIOUS hangover yesterday.  I'd like to thank everyone that managed to make the effort to come up and get out there amongst it.  I have a few ideas on how to continue the comps growth and will be making it a 2 day comp with an extra 1 day optional depending on the weather.  I will also be deciding when it will be held next year as even though we did have it as a vote last year, I don't believe the new moon with big spring tides to be the best for either bottom fishing or game fishing - but never the less I had a bloody good time (even if being flogged out there) and hopefully next year will be bigger, better and with some good conditions to go with!

Here's a couple of pics as a teaser, I will post more up soon.

Cheers,

Adam

Did anyone get any in the last night or two? We went last night and got a whopping 5 prawns!  There were more seen, but out of reach, also we didnt get out till about 6:30 and it looked like you could walk from one side of the river to the other with all the boats with their prawn lights.  Anyway at the end of the night with the prawn action not super hot most boats had left we had seen couple of crabs on the surface.  I went for a quick freedive a nd it was hard work with the current.  We were in 5 mts and I would pull myself down the anchor rope swim a bit further, get a good breath and head for the bottom.  Once down it was a hell of a rush moving with the current but there were quite a few crabs.  I would cover the 20 mts back to the front of the boat in a breath but it was cool on the bottom picking off the biggest crab that challenged me.  3 pretty good crabs in 5 dives and I was back into the boat and we were on our way home in magic glass conditions.

Had the crabs, prawns and remaining squid from sunday for dinner late last night. Delicious.

Wondering how everybody's metro fishing went over the weekend as we've had two great days for boating.

Hi all,

Hot off the back of last weeks 'epic fail' in Port Denison, the boss granted me one last leave pass for the season before the baby arrives. I took off to Hill River yesterday afternoon, hoping to finish up my fishing north of Perth the way it started back in October, with a mulloway.

The drive towards Cervantes was magnificent, with the sun setting behind the hills as clawed the last 50k or so towards the coast. I love that stretch of the drive. The winding narrow country road, scrubland and the odd roo, rabbit or yesterday a first - an echidna wandering alongside the road.

I arrived at Hill River to find a few cars parked up but my favourite spot clear. I had my gutter all to myself. I just needed it to be full of fish! Got the berley trail going and chucked out the old paternoster with a scaly on 5/0s. Parked up in my favourite chair and watched the stars come out.

With a receding tide I didn't expect much and that's exactly what I got. A couple of random nibbles from the pickers - but no runs or signs of anything bigger lurking. I called it around 9pm and decided to get up early to fish the rising tide.

Dragging myself out of my makeshift bed at 3:30am was no mean feat. The fog was in and I reckon it must have been around 5 degrees. No amount of layers was going to keep me warm so the doona followed by down to the beach.

Out went the bait and the wait began.

5am came around and there was no sign of life in the water. The shooting stars were incredible though (no 'anomalies' in the sky this week :-p).

6am came around and I got the distinct feeling that I would be going home without a fish to my name. I decided it was time to throw a mulie on as if the tailor were around they would be on the bite shortly.

6:30am and the sky starts to brighten gradually. I felt that little change in temperature the signals the start of a new day. A few minutes later and theres the distinct 'nip nip nip' at my mulie. The herring are on the bite.

I grabbed the little rod and flicked out a tiny bait to confirm. A few seconds later I bring in a decent sized mullet. Fresh bait! I throw a fillet out to soak and continue to work the little rod.

Plenty of herring and some reasonable sized ones too. In among them the odd big gardie, another couple of mullet and a heap of sand whiting. Kept my quota but returned many more.

After 30 minutes or so I decided to throw out a livey on a balloon. So a quick rig change on the big rod, in comes the herring, out goes the herring and the waiting game begins.

I'm still waiting.....

But I had great fun catching a feed. :-)

For anyone heading up that way for a fish, the water is in good condition at the moment. There is a bit of weed in the gutters but it does not really impact on the fishing. One of the locals reported a school of salmon patrolling the beach yesterday too.

I planned to head out again next weekend with user Simmo Ryan....but Simmo, if you're reading this...according to the mrs I have buckleys.

Ever the optimist, I reckon I still have six sleeps to get into the good books and win a leave pass.... :-)

Thought I had better write up and circulate a report of the fishing in Fiji as this was a trip of a lifetime!! Better a late report than no report.

Off we trolled and a mix of big dollies, wahoo and more of the jellybean fin. I am sure I am forgetting some more will have to go back through the pictures..

Now my mate Mike is a bit of a whizz with the surface lures. In sydney he constantly outfishes me with small poppers on the flats for whiting/bream and sure enough upsizing the popper only upsized the fish for this keen young angler. Mike had watched the first GT come in and then went to work with his popper landing it right in the strikezone. Blooping the sucker back almost to the back of the boat and no $hit just as I looked up at his lure about 10 foot off the stern a massive take with a tail the length of my forearm explodes from the water as this monster screams back to the reef. A smoking run- have never seen anything like it - and Mike and Trinkler were trying desperately to stop the fish from making it to the reef (I got it all on video!). A top of the line reel had its drag fused solid and Trinkler literally burned his hand as he was trying to slow down the locked up spool. Mike was holding on for dear life as this fish was finally turned from what must have been inches from the reef. With a fused drag Mike had to fight the fish for the next 10 minutes pretty brutally and despite being taken elbows to the gunnells a few times eventually the
biggest GT ever brought to this boat was dragged through the marlin door. This was Mike's first ever GT and was honestly a fish of a lifetime. Will let the pictures do the talking but we conservatively estimated him at 45kg. Needless to say the beers were cracked and we trolled back into the anchorage for the
evening. A great end to Day 1.

Trinkler and Captain Tom wanted us out there fishing and a quick Plan B was hatched and implemented. Mikey and I grabbed a few popping rods and jumped into Baa's longboat intending to head out to the open side of the reef and get into some GTs before breakfast. Mate first cast and we realised what a mistake it was
to not bring gimbal belts and try to tackle these brutes from such a primitive boat! The old Tohatsu motor kept carking it which was exciting as we were in the bloody surf zone in a reasonable swell.. Anyway I managed a nice 20kg odd fish  which I will never forget given the way it was caught! Then Iron Mike
(he was renamed from Mikey to Iron Mike after his brute GT on day 1) gets his popper into the 1-2 foot of water in the suds and he gave out that oh no that I think all GT fishermen must be able to relate to as you just know your going to get smashed and smoked. Explosion on the surface and a much better fish then
tries to bust Mike up multiple times. Those poppering rods are brutal on the fisherman and from a longboat in a swell with no rodbucket again made Mike feel the pain!

Day 4 we cracked the beers at 9am, cranked the tunes and were trolling around the Eastern side of Kadavu on our run back to Suva. We caught a stack of big dollies, wahoo, a couple barracuda (stinky buggers!), and I caught a nice YFT a bit bigger than the smaller models. The mighty Trinkler quickly turned him into a couple backstraps for sashimi lunch and we ate like kings an hour later once the fillets had cooled in the fridge. On food - the villagers were bringing us out mudcrabs each morning which were bloody awesome in exchange for some fish at the end of the day. Good deal if you ask me. Not every day you can chow down on muddie claws while trolling for marlin in paradise!

Only one slight issue was niggling us - we hadnt landed any doggies with size. I was keen as to get some metal in the water and jig hard. All day if need be - I wanted a doggie!

In the last hour of fishing on the last day we mark up a big pyramid school of tuna and I drop the jig with only half hopes. We had jigged quite a bit for not much which was disturbing to me. I was wishing I had
my sounder within arms reach and the center console over the reef - something about not being able to see the sounder was bugging me and it was the thing I was thinking to myself as being the reason we werent picking up the fish. Who knows if I was right or not but hey you get these things when you go fishing especially dropping jigs 150m and cranking them back without interest..!

Anyway the Captain was confident - so confident he came down from the flybridge to help handle the fish. First time he had done this during the trip so my interest sparked.

Headed down to Warroora station damo6230 and bluetonic and met up with a few other guys (Stoinka and a few mates).

Headed out Tuesday morning and the fish were working. Got a plastic snipped off by a shark mackie, got my line snipped by a bird and lost my only pencil popper, dammit. Did get to see a school of sharkies swiping at it before pinging off on a cast beforehand though (and all missed). Thats fishing for you sometimes.

Went back in to drop a surfer off from the break to the beach when we saw bait swarming right up against the beach. Then bait started busting up and birds diving everywhere and we got to have a nice little session casting into erupting bait getting a fair few species (spaniards, shark macks, YFT's, stripeys, mack tuna) and some great fun all on light gear or the fly. Good fun.

Not a bad little fish to blood in a new rod. Good fun on the light gear with the reel screaming off.

Good fun on light gear. 
 

Hooked up on fly (cant remember if this was the stripey or the shark mack)

Another species ticked off

First tuna for Garry (not a bad species to start off with, a nice YFT)

Hi all,

Those that saw my earlier post know it was with great excitement that I left for a LB adventure early Friday morning.

Departed at 2am for Hill River and after dodging a couple of roos arrived there soon after 5am for a tailor session. I had big blue macks which I threw out on two 9/0 snelled hooks. I tossed the first bait out and proceeded to rig up the other rod. Thought I felt a bit of weight there so slow retrieved....blue mack was gone. This happened to all four macks in the space of about 20 mins and it was not until the last mack that I felt a solid bite. Struck into it but missed out, the last time retrieving a third of a mack and seeing the nice chomp marks.

Caught a herring on the other rod (5/0 gangs and mulie) and proceeded to put that out. About five mins later pulled in a PB tailor at 47cm. Was quite stoked. All went quiet after that with the sun coming up, but the herring stayed on the bite. My baitcasted mulie was getting follows from half a dozen herring everytime but I knew there would be plenty more chances to catch herring later on.

I packed it up about 8am and decided to head to Cervantes for some ballooning. Unfortunately when I arrived there were a few crayboats on the service jetty, so I headed on to my next destination north of Leeman to see what was around.

With high tide around 1pm the service jetty in Coolimba produced plenty of bites but was a bit slower than previous experiences. Caught a few herring - but these were unusually quiet of not of notable size. Popped a small weight on to see what junk fish were on the bottom and caught a small flounder - a first and very next cast some type of wrasse / cod which was as big as I've ever caught (unfortunately dead weight and very little fight). Some sand whiting around too. Tried the squid jigs but to no avail.

Packed up around 2pm for a break and watching a cray boat unload.

Headed back for the evening sessions about 4pm. A major down turn on the trip when I hit a roo with joey in pouch. It was badly hurt and the joey too young and sadly I had to put an end to things which is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. How some idiots can torture these creatures I will never understand.

Things at the jetty had gone downhill. I was already on a downer after the roo and nothing was biting except for a couple of baby pinks. No amount of burley seemed to get even the herring on the bite. The sundown session produced nothing and it was down on confidence I put out a lump of occy on the balloon. It was cold, and the insects were biting (I left my repellant in Perth!).

This is where some people are going to think I'm crazy. I noticed an orange/reddish light - looked a lot like a star - perhaps 10k or so distant. I thought it was maybe a satellite or star at first but then noticed it was making some really unusual movements. Up, down, left, right, speeding up, slowing down, speeding up. This thing started in the middle of view then made it's way toward the left hand side heading south. I thought, maybe an insect so killed all my lights but it was still there. I rubbed my eyes, thinking perhaps I was seeing things....nope, still there.

So this 'light' then proceeded north again tracking erratically back towards where it started. At this point I was a bit scared, on my own in the middle of nowhere. I kept asking myself "what the f*ck?" - but watched on in amazement. Next the light started to drop towards the horizon, as if it was now moving away at high speed. It gradually faded from sight.

I started sending a text to a mate who was on his way to meet me. Halfway through the text the drag started going on my reel.

Battled something that felt good for a couple of minutes...then started to really give it some and whatever it was let go - I didn't have the hookup. The balloon was right in front of the jetty now and there was no wind to get it back out. Waited a few minutes....and sure enough the fish came back. A few big tugs and the balloon popped. I let it run with the bait knowing that it was a big lump of occy with only the one hook so I needed to give it time to have a chew. Waited a minute or so and struck in - it felt like a hookup.

Whatever it was felt really heavy but did not have that much fight. After a bit of work I managed to get a small shark to the surface with one hell of a lot of weed attached to the bait (the extra weight). Unfortunately the shark was still not hooked and as soon as it surfaced it let go of the bait.

Cut the bait back to improve the chances of a hookup and put it back in the water, now on the bottom.

15 mins later, the light comes back. I watched it with interest for a few minutes before the drag starts creeping again. Another little battle...and whatever it was lets go.

Try again. 10 minutes pass and an aircraft is en route to the spot where I saw the light. The aircraft circles once then heads west. Clearly someone else saw it too.

The drag creeps again....a let it run for a minute or so then set the hook - this time I feel confident I'm hooked up. Within 30 seconds or so I called it for a ray, and it's about now that my mate arrives from Perth. Tell him about the 'UFO' and get laughed at, while patiently working the ray. I've still got the 120lb braid on the reel and even that was straining. The rod was at full flex trying to budge this thing and everytime I took 6 inches it took 6 feet.

Took me about 30 minutes or so to get this thing in and I was surprised to see it surface. It was one of the really big stingrays you see around the jettys up that way - a bonnet size jobby. Cut the line and let it swim. At least I got to fight something and truly test out the tackle.

We fished on for a couple of hours but nothing happening. I caught two herring on the little rod - both were really damaged fish with dodgy tails. Again, half the size of the herring I have come to associate with that area.

We decide to call it a night.

Next morning we head out early to 'Taylor Bay' just north of Leeman. Fished it for about an hour and absolutely nothing happened.

Made a call to drive to 'S Bend' for the day as we have both wanted to check it out for a long time. We stopped at Port Denison bakery for a feed - best sausage rolls in the world. Went for a look on the marina and the outside wall appeared to be teeming with fish of all sizes.

"Stuff S Bend" we proclaim. "Lets have a bash here". Long story short, we spent 10 hours on the marina south wall for a silver bream, a small trumpeter and a few juvenile pink snapper. About halfway through the day someone kindly told us that nobody ever catches anything on the 'reef' side of the marine so we switched to the inside. Went down to the point for sundown and it was interesting to note that the locals who had been down for the afternoon session were all taking off. Apparantly they knew something we didn't because nothing was on the bite all night.

Back to the house at 9pm with nothing to show for our efforts.

I'm a big believer in the lunar cycles and on the Friday the tailor and herring were mostly full of roe. Coupled with the 'dodgy' herring I caught I reckon the tailor and herring are in the middle of spawning which would explain why we caught bugger all. I will be interested to see if LB reports from other people are similar for this weekend.

The fishing was average, but the weekend was extremely eventful so I can't complain. Plus I caught my biggest fish yet...albeit a giant stingray.

hey guys,

thinking of going up to two rocks tues afternoon for a fish.or even yancep lagoon if the weather is okay...has anyone been up to two rocks lately?..whats the best spots up there?.also had a look at the weather for tues..its ene winds 5km all afternoon with wave 2.1m waves with a low tide of .75m i think...so what do you experts think of them conditions for fishing?any good

thanks guys

Well, got back from the Abrolhos on Saltwater Charters early on this week and had a great trip.

Ah, the Abrolhos, where practically every sunrise and sunset is a work of art

On the first day we started a bit of trolling and soon picked up a triple hookup of mackies. A few more passes around similar areas and we got a few more. Good to tick off (and got one on my lighter trolling gear which was fun).

and my biggest, on a chrome head richter waaaay out the back. Took heaps of line and burnt my thumb. Excellent!

We were getting too many mackies, so decided to head off bottom bouncing. Basically we spend the trip moving between bottom fish lumps, chucking poppers and stickbaits at busting up birds or trolling lures around. 

Heaps of great trout were caught, with pretty much everyone getting at least one over 3kg. Damn they pull hard. A coronation and a few tomato cods too.

A fair few pinkies were pulled up and some reasonable sized ones (but no pics on my camera). Last drift of the last night we managed to pull several pinkies off from a spot barely 100m away from the mooring.

Managed to get into quite a few spanglies with them popping up over the place like this one that smashed my plastic

and another patch on the third day where we just got spanglie after spanglie after spanglie.

Got lots of opportunities to cast at the bait being herded up against the shoals, or just birds diving at bait. We'd all have stickbaits ready and as soon as we saw bait schools, four of us were up the front chucking away. Several sharkies pulled out of them, as well as mackies and tuna, including a few YFT pushing about 6-7kg

Fish of the trip was this biiiiig kingfish out of one of the bustups. Must have been pushing almost 20kg and on 30lb line too.

Lots more fish out of bustups but didnt get pics of everything. Had one bustup with bronzies and birds smashing it. We cast a few lures but nothing hit until the bronzies swam off. After that there was a tightly bailed ball of whitebait clinging to the boat and hundreds of tuna smashing it. Lots of little mack tuna, and a few bigger stripeys to about 6kg (damn they go hard on light gear). Everyone had fun catching tuna for over half an hour as the bait school balled up against the boat. Some catching over 20 mack tuna, while others hooking into the bigger stripeys. I have some awesome footage of the baitball getting smashed but for some reason my camera sped it up parts of it when i went to view it on my computer. Weird (and annoying).

I didnt end up doing much jigging myself as for most of the days the drift speed was up a bit due to the wind (but still quite fishable) and I mostly had 80-150g jigs (really needed 200g+). Did manage to get a coral trout, a good tuna hookup that dropped me, a few mackie snips and a this dhuie though.

Oliver however, decided to try jigging for the first time and didnt take long to be rewarded with a great sized dhuie.

His jig was on fire, landing a total of 9 dhuies over the trip (and a small coral trout and pinkie). Biggest was this niced sized one of 12kg (biggest of the trip).

Oh, and i also managed to finally pick up a dollie for this season from a pack that came a marauding while we were bottom bouncing. I know its a small fish, but I love dollies so was very happy to catch one.

Oh, and the Russel Coight moment for me. Was walking up to the front of the boat to do a bit of jigging on the last day. Not the best conditions with a few whitecaps around (but still fishable at least). Stepped up on the gunnel and grabbed the rail at the front, rod and rail in one hand when a perfectly timed wave hit the boat just as i was shifting my feet, slipping over. I managed to grab onto the rail with both hands though, toes dangling in the water, rod fallen but resting safe on the walkway. Pulled myself up no problems and got on with jigging, haha. Wave coulda been a fraction later or a fraction earlier and wouldnt have been a problem, just unusual timing. Yay for reflexes though, hehe.

Not a huge number of really big fish caught, but heaps of great sized mackies, spanglies, coral trout, pinkies, dhuies, etc with pretty much everyone getting multiples of each. Geeez its tough when they're the most common species
Quite a few tuna, sharkies and good sized skippy caught too. As for crap fish, I think we got a single sargeant baker, a single scorpion fish and a few charlie courts and redthroats (which arent bad fish but went back as they werent big) and a few sambos here and there, so quality fish outweighed the others by a nice big margin.

Overall, although I didnt get many fish on jigs, I still got a heap of fish, including a fair few on plastics, and spinning surface lures. Went pretty well with the pelagics though getting a fair few species (mackie, shark mack, stripeys, YFT, sambos, dollie, skippy).

Everyone got into some decent fish (and a fair few fillets brought back) and everyone had a great time when fishing and when not. Awesome trip!

Cant wait for July!
(one spot still left )

Well, its been a pretty full on week.  Ended up going out three times for work and ended up with 1 x whale shark, 2 x sails, 2 x dollies, 30 x striped tuna in not bad conditions and also dropped one black on thursday.  Jeffo hadn't been for a fish in a while and wanted to get out there and with an arvo glass off forecast, that is what we did.  Got out there about 1.30 and trolled around for 3 hours with no joy and things were starting to get a little disheartening.  All of a sudden we found a baitball that was getting worked, upon closer inspection it had a massive shark on it (we think it may have been a white) but didn't get close enough to examine before it went down.  Seeing as it was on a current line we decided to troll along it and see what was there.  Within 10 minutes we had what we think was a billie come up and give the shotgun a smack, less than 2 minutes later we both watched an eruption on the purple shotty and bang, we watch a solid black erupt in the distance and peel off some serious line.  Waiting to get a few shots the billie decided to sit below the surface, after about 20 minutes we got a couple of small jumps, but just enough to get some evidence before it spat the hooks. We estimate it at about 110kg, but it could have been easily more than that.

Continuing on trolling we had a couple more hits, a nice hookup on a dolly and had his mate sit under the boat for 10 minutes watching the commotion (released) and then hooked up a couple of 3kg stripeys.  We had planned to do some bottom bouncing but seeing as the surface had some action we gave it a miss and focused on trying for another bill.  Unfortunately we couldn't find one, but headed in just on dark to a beautiful sunset with a school of spaniards chasing flying fish in an airborne frenzy, was a top way to finish the arvo session!  Hopefully this sort of billie action will keep up for the FW comp next weekend.

Cheers,

Adam

Well we have arrived at groote safe and sound. 4wd has arrived, and boat should be here thursday on the barge. Last 3 days have been calm, and the rain has stopped..im itching to get out for a fish. Been and checked out the boat ramp, and come across this bag limit sign. I must say they are generous up here..no more 3 month bans, yipeee!

Coupla pics from wednesdays outing. Good sized sharkies on sub-surface, goldens on plastics, and a fiesty lil black to start the morning off!

we hit the back of the islands yesterday and came up with the goods. first drift Amanda got a 45cm Red and a big Rankin double, I got a Crimson. Second drop I pulled up a 63cm Red. After that I decided to throw a jig down and scored a Coronation Trout, A first for me on jig.

It was a lucky catch as something big grabbed the trout a few metres off the bottom, after a few mins it let it go and I pulled it up just in time to get it away from a shark that was chasing it

We headed out for work today looking for dollies but all we could find were these pesky buggers.  We ended up hooking 6, landing 3 and seeing 2 freejumping sails and had one free swimming marlin cruise under the boat.  I handed over my first billy to Richo to try and get a few photos and then the lucky pink took care of the rest.  The water was cobalt blue and near glass for most of the day, awesome viewing conditions.  As I was the deckie for the day I sat and watched every billfish come in and attack the lures, was awesome to watch with the last billy absolutely smashing the lure.  We also landed 3 striped tuna and dropped a yellowfin tuna.  We were only out for 4.5 hours, it was unfortunate not to get our target, but theres always next time. :)

I managed to get a few good shots before my camera battery died.  Hope you enjoy.

They were pretty close in today.

was over rotto over the long weekend and decided to leave the boat at home as a mate was coming over for a few days anyway.

fished westend on the sunday and landed 21 salmon up to about 7 kilos and 2 ytk about 6 kilos. wearnt really schooling up just random small schools, had to troll real slow about 4 knots and were using river2sea trhio's and bombers, then casting lasers back when we hook up.  We wernt really prepared as it was a kind of a spur of the moment thing but was a bit of fun for the boys that havent really fished before.

doubt they will be hangin arround for much longer as they have broken out of there schools

cheers

Gday

Just got back from a 4 day annual trip to Wagoe. Thought it'd be a good chance to post up my first comprehensive report on the site. :)

A decent weekend weather wise was forecast, as many of you know this place can be unfishable if the weather and swell are intolerable. So we were happy to have timed it right this year.

Arrived 10:00am on the friday, settled in at the chalet had a big barbeque for lunch then headed down the track to the beach to find the wind blowing its box off with a South Easterly and a large swell. Decided it would be safer fishing from one of the sandy openings in the reef south of the reef at wagoe. Not much happened all afternoon with only a few dart finding their way to the sand.

My brother Dave (fellow fishwrecked member) decided to drop down to a smaller outfit... threw out a mulie on his 9' starlo shore spin and 20lb seido combo in order to have a bit more feel in the wash and immediately come up trumps with a 58cm 2.5kg personal best tailor. Happened to be the only one landed that evening.

Dave with a 58cm 2.5kg Tailor.

Me and my 60cm 1.75kg Swallowtail Dart.

Got to an early start 4:30am Saturday morning thought we'd fish a structured spot for a few hours off the reef at the entry to the beach. Seemed to be going slow with not alot happening off the reefs. Mulie were coming back untouched, the squid baits we casted out were only accounting for a few to many different species of cod and a small spangled emporer. Feeling hungry the guys made the choice to go back for a feed of our own.

With a large bacon, sausage and egg breakie in the stomach a few of the older blokes decided to head into Kalbarri. The younger guys took up an oppurtunity to head back down to the beach and wait for the wind to swing from a south easterly to a more capable ballooning breeze. Come 10:30am the breeze had finally changed to an eastern direction and out and about like fleeing ants we get our setups ready for the unknown. Both myself and my brother being complete novices at ballooning for macks we didnt know quite what to expect.

With immense anticipation i start to let out my helium balloon from my shimano tyrnos 30 / tiralejo combo and finds its way out about 400m offshore. Having not ballooned for mackies before on prevoius trips to wagoe we were there to primarily learn just how to go about it. Dave started letting out his skipping gardie from his daiwa sealine/ live fibre lbg combo no further than 100m-150m. A half our in his balloon hits the water and his line goes limp. Not knowing whats going on he begins reeling in profusely. Immediately after he starts retrieving some limp line we see the balloon snap and sail off into the distance and thus realises he has missed a chance to strike as the fish has already taken the rigged gardie and the hooks from his trace. A steep learning curve, undiscouraged we now have some vital knowledge for the next day.

My gardie remains untouched for 2 hours so we decide to pack up and head out to see if any one else had any luck with the easterly. A few blokes camping the north side of the reef faired well with 2 spanish mackerel landed that morning half an hour apart.

Sunday morning we are greeted with a lightning show as we hit up another spot on the reef. Flood lights glaring out onto the reef and what felt like a terential downpour we realised the flat yet stormy conditions allowed us and many other weekenders to produce fish from the reef this early morning. With a soft easterly all morning conditions looked favourable for a great days fishing. Immediately from the get go our squid baits were getting hit after hit every cast. A few small tailor were landed, huge skipjack trevally put on a great fight on the rocks as did the painted sweetlip, large spangled emporer, and another thumper dart of 61cm. 

Bruno with a 61cm Swallowtail Dart 

With all this unexpected great fishing commotion going on i forget to keep an eye on the water. As a large swell comes over the ledge and sends me floating a 1m or so back over the oysters on the reef i suddenly realize i have simultaneously hooked onto something worth my attention as the 50lb braid starts screaming from the spool of my spheros. This unexpected suprise was putting my 12' tiralejo under some major stress. Everytime it would stop running and i thought i had the upperhand in the battle it would see the reef and decide to run further. After a good 5 minute tug'o'war and a 100m dash along the side of the reef on rockhoppers in the limited morning light, i catch a glimpse of a tail slapping the surface of the water. A quick dash over and a hand around the fork of the tail and i had captured my first ever amberjack. What a thrill.

 Captured 86cm 5kg Amberjack

A mate of mine finally hooked another species we had been unsuccesfully targeting all weekend. With big bust off after bust off during the weekend he finally turned his luck and persisted with his light 10' spin setup. Managing to outsmart an over aggresive head shaking fish of considerable weight, he dangled at the risk of his own life in the whitewash of a dangerous rock dropoff. Out goes a large shout "PINKY" he finally landed that pink snapper everyone was after.

Daniel with his 46cm 2kg Pink Snapper

Come 8:00am my old man sends out the 1st of 3 balloons we have in the tackle box. Before the gardie has a chance to venture out no more than 100m the balloon takes to the water. This time he gets a head start and started retrieving line fast as he makes sure we wont be made a fool of twice. The rod loads up, with a bit of weight he sets the reel to strike and off flys the balloon with the drag screaming for the deep blue. After a short 10 minute tussle of drag screaming and short bursts he finally gets the fish to the reef only to discover the fish has one last dash left in him and makes for covered ground amongst the reef. Another failed attempt at gaffing and landing our first land based mack. While this had been happening i had setup my outfit ready for another assault only to find my earlier fortune elude me as my baloon some how gets dragged into the edge of the reef and bursts leaving the group with the one and only last balloon.

My old man once again decides to take control of the situation and sets up the rod and balloon. We all watch as the gardie starts to skip out further and further from the shore line. Once again no more than 100m the balloon takes to the water. STRIKE!! We're on.... Having never experienced anything of this sort before he decides that we all take turns to fight the mackie and gain knowledge for next year as the fight lasts an exciting 15 minutes. Before the mack gets to the ledge of the reef, i decide to hand the rod back to my father as any responsibility for losing this fish would then be placed on him. With a laugh he takes the rod... 5 or so minutes go by as he attempts to wear it out. Around the reefs ledge taking extra precaution not to miss out on this our last attempt, my brother manages to gaff it first shot.

My old man with our 8kg Spanish Mackeral

Success! Our first capture of a Spanish Mackeral from the land. What an eventful weekend. Surely an unforgettable expierience and another fishing story to be shared between a few coldies in the future. Excuse me if i have ranted on a bit, but as you can probably tell experiences like this fills the average fisho full of exstatic emotion. These experiences are no doubt what keeps myself and you so involved in the recreation of fishing.

Thanks for reading.

Rob

Hi all i have lived here for a few years and the family has come up for 2 weeks. 
they got here saturday arvo and out we went.  in 3 hours we managed to raise 4 billies, lost 1 marlin and landed 1 sail. 
day 2 we got a few goldies out in 150m and raised 1 billy and in all got 10 stripe tuna all reliest. 
day 3 up to the islands we got 4 snapper and a 7m whale shark that swam around the boat for about 40mins. 
so far they are loving exxy and booking for next year already.  today is a lay day out in the gulf squidding. 
sorry no pics just yet, getting them soon. 
jeff

We fished Yallingup Beach for Salmon this weekend. There were a number of nice salmon caught in the 5 to 7 Kg range, with the vast majority of captures around sunrise and sunset. A few schools came in close, and twice we saw dolphins herding the schools.

On sunday evening the beach was packed with fisho's, and a few nice fish were caught. We managed to land two nice salmon after dark. Photo's attached.

We also fished from the boat out of Canal Rocks in around 10m of water and the variety of fish caught was impressive.
Flathead, Herring, Jewfish (juvenile), Scaly Mackerel, Samson Fish, Skippy, Pink Snapper (juvenile), Ray, Whiting, Wrasse.

The highlight was a 7Kg Sambo on light tackle (7' Daiwa rod, Shimano FX2000 reel and 12lb PreTest mono (no leader)) landed by a first timer !

went out wide yesterday to try our luck in 300-350mtrs but didnt have much with only a few unwanted species being boated and one horse of a fish being dropped half way up! went in to fish the derwent and boated a few pinkies and a leather jacket then moved on to jig some ambers. Unfortunately we werent the only ones interested in the ambers with several being lost to the men in grey!! after several attempts to skull drag a fish up we gave in and headed home. was a slow day on the water and being hung over with an hours sleep didnt help.

Went out on Friday night for a river dive with my mate, Matto. After a false start on thursday night, when we got down to the spot, right on time to realise that he'd forgotten his weight belt! Guess it wasn't to be that night and we decided on a dive for Friday after work.

We packed up the car and got down to the spot about 6:45pm, the traffic was pretty shocking on the freeway. Anyway after a quick scope of the area we suited up and waded into the water about 7:15, just after dark. In true form Matto had forgotten his big UK torch this time - lucky he's so quick on the prawn net and at grabbing those crabs - so I lent him my spare UK MiniQ. Surprisingly those little torches put out quite a bit of light. Once in chest deep we put our masks on and decided on a path to follow, that would hopefully have us surface close to the exit point. It's a lot harder to navigate in the dark at the bottom of the swan than you would think...

Anyway, we hit the bottom after a short swim in about 7 metres and the visability was remarkably good. I guess this would be due to the break in dredging out of Freo, cause that seemed to really make it murky. We worked off Matto's compass for directions and started to scout the river bed for dinner.

There were heaps of star fish on the bottom and a fair few nice sized whiting. Within 5 mins I spotted a nice sized blue manna, already waving his claws at me asking for a fight. That's all the invite I need and snatched at him, bracing for those claws. The little ones can barely nip you, but the big blues, well they are a different story. Even through my kevlar diving glove he gave me one hell of a nip on the wrist but he was too good a size to drop. Man was I relieved once that catch bag closed with him in it.

I had stirred up the silt on the bottom a bit and could just make out Matto's tank about 5 metres to my right. I swan over to find that he had been busy picking up some prawns, all great size too! He's definately still refining the technique, but hell he was doing well for a first try. He tapped me on the arm and pointed into the distance where I could see the raised claws of another big blue. They are funny and ballsy creatures these crabs, a giant bloody human can swim right up to them and they just hold their ground and raise their fists. Or claws as it may be. Unfortunately he didn't stand a chance - I swam around behind him and before he could turn I had picked him up and shut him in the bag. I almost felt guilty. lol.

Matto came over and started indicating that we were off course and to follow him. We went off on a bit of a prawn reccy and picked up a few scallops along the way. Such beautiful shells the swan river scallops have I thought, my eldest daughter is going to love these. After grabbing another couple of crabs we decided that we had pleanty for tea, especially considering the size of the crabs, and we headed for the exit point. We checked the depth it - was about 12 metres so we slowley made our way to shallower water to surface. We got to about 9 meters and Matto signalled to surface. I thought that we were way off course, but he was pretty certain. We surfaced nice and slowly and to my surprise and delight, we were right on target.

A short walk out of the water and time to pack up the gear and dry off. Once we got home the seafood platter was placed out on the back patio for a couple of quick pics and then the crabs hit the boiling water straight away. The prawns fried up nicley with the scallops in some garlic and olive oil and some ice cold beers were opened. With that there was a breif cheers and we dived into the fresh local WA seafood platter before us. I don't care what people say about the dredging ect - I rekon that seafood out of the swan is still bloody lovley. I might even grow an extra finger or two....but that would probably come in handy cause I rekon one day the bluey will have to win...

The ingredients for Friday night dinner

The size of the prawns was great as you can see

Decided to go out for a quick flick down at palm jetty on Friday night. Ended up staying for 4 hours haha. I caught about 25-30 salmon trout and around 10 herring and a couple of choppers flicking some shallow diving minnows around. Bloody good fun on light gear. All fish were realeased

Popped out this morning and got a few Reds before the wind picked up. Amanda won the day with a 7kg & 6kg Red

hey guys,

been keeping an eye out on salmon reports, but all the reports seem to be coming from West End.

I'll be heading down to dunsborough this weekend with my boat in tow, what are the salmon reports like at the moment?

how hard is to find the schools.

quick question for all the boaties out there, will be launching at quindalup and heading towards bunker bay in search for these salmon.

are there any obstructions of reef that i should be careful of, reefs etc? i have a gps but my map only extends to busselton...so i just want to be sure

im sorry if this sounds like just another salmon question

Went out this morning and got into the Reds Was done by 11am. Amanda only put the line down 4 times for 3 Reds and an undersize spanglie, 1 of the Reds was dropped 1m from the boat .

I got a 7kg and a 5.5kg Red and a nice Rankin. Amandas bigger red was 5kg. 

Not bad for a windy choppy day.