We headed out from Hillarys @ 6am with an arsenal of HonSu's gear.  The first few drifts produce sambo's, including one where a charter supplied rod was snapped due to being high-sticked.  Bad ending to a $300 rod.

We got smoked by some beasts, which were lost due to terminal tackle failure and line rubbing.

Later in the day when everyone switched over to bottom bounce, we switched over to lighter jigging gear.  Sounds like a cliche, but just when you switch to lighter gear, the fish of the day just happens to latch on....Honsu was onto a beast of a fish, which turned out to be a 40-45kg sambo.

The service onboard SW Charters is top notch.  If you're planning to head out, give them a call.  Everyone went home with a feed of fish or cray.

Headed out at 3:30 this morning ,plan was to hijack some bass groper ,but as we know plans don't allways go to plan .Conditions were good but once out in the 100m mark I could see she would have been pritty bad out wider,so we fished the 80_90m line ,with some good fish on the sounder we drop and were all on stright away Snapper were everywere,some around the 5-6kg ,we kept the first couple to get some fish in the box ,and then released the rest would have had 15 snapper for the day all released fish swam back well.Jody got a nice dhuie around 650mm and made the call to release it , as it was still early in the day.We had a great mixed bag with some good sized queen snapper ,dhuies,black bums,sambos,and red snapper.Jody had a good hook up half way though the day and after 15minutes was starting to slow a little we were all calling it as a shark or ray as the thing was very heavy .after some mor huff and puff up pop this hugh sambo ,or could have been amberjack ,it was the biggest i have seen or caught,we did not weigh it but must have been near 40kg.,in all a top day on the water ,and some nice pics .look out bass as we will be coming soon .

Got out dropnetting yesterday with three of my boys...picked up 11 in about two hours, and that was throwing back the 127-130mm ones. Biggest one was maybe 145. It wouldn't be too hard to get the boat limit now but another week and I reckon the sizes will be better.

Hi Guys

Thinking of heading down to Albany wednesday for a few days.

Anybody landbased been catching much????

Cheers

Andrew

Hey all, Went out chasing a few herring and whiting with Rudy, Trousersnake and Rhys. We took Rudy's dad's boat out which is a pretty awesome looking 'ship' - a Ranger Tug from the US. Great looking boat with all the brass fittings and flags but top speed is about 10 knots so it's a slow but relaxing ride.

Decided to try off the beaches in fremantle but we couldn't find the fish! Rudy got one herring and that was it! A bloody huge school of blowies turned up where we burlied that were a pain.

Anyway the day was hot and the beers went down well and the company was great. Shame about the fish - rekon it could have been the full moon that was the problem. Cheers

Hey crew

 Finally got a chance to test out the new chrissy present from the missus the other morning with flagpole so thought id chuck a quick writeup up - went fishing on the monday with the forecast average but fishable only to bum right out! poxy weather man... forecast for tuesday was worse so we decided to go for a dive with the guns and see if we couldnt nail a trout or dhu that flaggie had seen on recent swims... first stop was point moore to wet the head. arrived to see boats racing everywhere and conditions magic. again thanks weather man! anyhows into the briny we popped flaggie on tank myself just the lungs and off we went... my main focus was taking some nice pics but had the cyrano 1100 loaded "juuuuuust in case"... was a fairly uneventful dive but enjoyable - conditions nice but water a touch silty from the swell in the days preceding. seen some nice coral, one massive stingray with remora entourage (too quick for a snapshot) and other odds and ends... flaggie spotted some small groper but nothing to shoot with confidence so the guns stayed cold... went out to about 7m so a nice depth to warm up for flagpoles dhuie spot... on the way back in taking some snaps of the kakkers and bullseye schools i noticed 3-4 small fresh cray heads with gidgee holes..... hrrm no tails... there was quite a few ppl diving the shallows here and i wont point to anyone in particular but it was extremely disappointing that ppl would go to this extreme for a cray no bigger than a cherabin.... anyhows we pushed on, jumped back in the rig and headed north! dhuie time we hoped fingers crossed... now we had been forecast a SW wind all morning and into the arvo so the Nth Wst wind that greeted us was a suprise to say the least! flaggies mate met us at the beach tinnie in tow and after gearing up again he dropped us off in about 10m.... by now the water had murcked considerably.... we lost each other in the murk and feeling abit lonely in the gloom it not looking to good for a dhu i took some snaps and headed in.... in all 4hours in the water was much better than 4hrs at work! seen alot of crays at the second spot too so we will be back with the catch bags for u guys! no doubt mr dhuie will come say gday just cause the guns are at home! isnt that how it always works!

cheers poddy

Anyone got reports for flatrock .... a friend and i are thinking to head north for a weekend trip next week ... (well going to try find flatrock >.>)

just wondering is it worth going up there next week  ?

Went out on Monday with my mate Mark on Reel Addiction (commodore 670) to try and get some club points and look around for some marlin or Tuna.  The SEaster that was blowing in combination with the swell made the early start hard work with a few big waves coming in the windows to freshen us up for the day and get rid of the cobwebs from the nights drinking activities.  We ran straight out to the All Marine Services FAD to look for some Mahi but nothing around.  We put the big out for marlin and worked our way up the trench zig zagging around the temp breaks and current lines.  We only managed some small tuna on the light gear that was being run in between the marlin gear.  We checked all of the FADs out and they are all there which is good news.

When we got upto Hillaries gametime was trolling around for some Marlin and he was as despondent as us so we decided to head up to the north Sambo patch to get the arms working.  Ther was about half a dozen boats there and the fish were thick an active on jigs. I did the first drift but underestimated the sped of the drift and by the time the 200g jigs got to the bottom to be worked, we were past the school.  Upped the jig size and got the drift a bit better when we worked out we only had one gimbal belt so the decision was made that first on got the luxury of wearing one.  Well lucky me I hhoked up first.  Whilst mark was putting it around my waist he left his rod in the gunwhale rod holder and bang his went off as well.  Douuble hook up but ha ha lucky for me i didnt have to stick it in my groin like poor Mark did.

The fish made a great account of themselves as we were using 8kg pretest so we could get points.  I did think that we would get the fish up a bit quicker on 8kg but these fish were persistent with some good runs at all depths.  Finlly we got them up and unfortunately we couldnt revive my well enough to send him to the bottom with a release weight so looking at the size of it we decided to weigh it as it looked good enough as achance to take off the current records.

Well we got the weighmaster down the Club and you little beauty she came in at 29.75kg on 8kg becoming the new State, Australian and World record.

My bloody arms felt a touch on Tuesday though.  All worth it!!

PS I hope the photos work 

homemade tuna killers

we went out off rocko bit lumpy in a smallish rig but we bagged on dhue, black ass, my pb ba ,pinkie, and bluefin top day in shallow

in the last 8 years diving off perth i have encountered spaniards,kings,sambos, pinks but never a dhufish underwater.

about a week ago i went out with a mate to my usuall spot, and was greeted by about 30-40 undersize kings as soon as i hit the water. as they where to small i kept on swimming until about 15 minuites later i arrived at what seemed to be a pack of big buff breams at about 3-5m of water. At a closer inspection there lies what i estimaited to be a 6-8kg dhuie. (at this point i was in a bit of shock) I took a deap breath and reached the bottom only to face a very long range and difficuilt shot.. and so i snuck up a bit closer only to see the only dhufish ive ever seen (whilst diving) piss off into the blue. (spearing while freediving is much harder then what some ppl may think) got back home told dad only to get laughed at...

today we went out to the same spot, i was on the hunt to shoot this dhufish. on the way to the spot dad was joking with me saying his going to shoot it and that i have no chance.  dad was right within 10 minuites of being in the water he saw his first dhufish ever (sized measured 54cm) and had it on the end of his spear in no time. (only in 5m of water) I must admit he showed me how it was done lol...

 luckily the dhufish i saw the week befor was bigger and had a ~10cm cut on his back, keeping me at peace with dad knowing there is a 6-8kg dhuie out there with my name on it lol

Tomorrow looks good for a launch but Tuesday is all over the place. Is this a normal occurrence in WA waters I'm still learning these part of the woods it's a lot dif from Melb waters.

went out crabbing at 130am today at spyc gave it away at 730

got one nice crab  was great morning on the river

anyone else gettting crabs in the river yet?

Went out on my boat with kackles yesterday hoping to get onto some decent fish. 

Took him out to an area on the 3 mile where ive had luck before.  Had a great day out especially for kackles as he 'd never caught anything bigger than a wrasse before.

Burleyed up and came onto a school of snapper we ended up catching about 12 between us, most undersize between 40 and 50 cm, we ended up with just 2 that were big enough to keep, kackles caught one at 51cm and i got one at 62cm, and as massive ray about as wide of my boat really tested my rod and reel, then was released..

We left with the fish still biting but too much wind to fish comfortably. Great to see that there are still fish on the 3 mile with so many boats and fishos about. forgot to take the camera out guys, sorry.

Want to give a shout out and thanks to alfred (for my marine radio), the guys who recommeneded the garmin etrex, and all the guys on this site and at oceanside that have given me advice and tips on catching bigger fish.

merry xmas

dave

Christmass eve family lunch this morning at 11.00 so the expectations were high for fresh seafood.

Headed out from cockburn at sparrows

Found pinkies schooling north of the sound then headed to Rott for a cray dive. Found more reds than whites in the teens and saw a dozen large YTK's

 Anyways Merry Christmass fisho's

Quick buzz out to Rotto with Southcity104 turned up the goods.

A quick dive for a bag of crays. I saw a few queenies down there and ginormous blue groper but really had to work hard for my crays - feelers sticking out of plate coral, but no way in, rays 6' across trying to hoover me, ripping current but Tony put us on the spot and there they were.  

Next, a bit of fishing turns up a steaming run for Tony, but no %&&$#$%@ convert. Whatever it was got sick of the ride and reefed him hard. I managed a PB pinky (71cm) on a Fanky jig, a tail-rigged caprice copy.

Time ran out and we settled in for the hard slog home in fairly bonecrunching conditions.

Ta Tony!

After having watched Seabreeze all week we were stoked to see Saturday's weather hold up so we were up at 5.30am Saturday and on the water by about 6.30 for a day of jigging. I had a new Lemax SlimMax and an Ajiking Wahoo jigging setup that I was looking forward to blooding on what was / is hopefully the first of many trips this season.

Went straight out the back of Rottnest to the usual spots and on the first drop I was on, 'this is looking to be a promising day' I thought - which was accurate to an extent. The fish that came up was about 10-12kg, not massive but a good start.

Following that we ended up getting onto fish consistently enough but it was hard work in between and that seemed to be the same for the boats around us. We tried a few different locations and probably got onto one fish every 2-3 drifts including a small amber.

The biggest we got was the last fish of the day and it would have been about 25kg. It was pretty cool actually, this was the first time my mate had been jigging and he hadn't got anything all day. When he finally hooked up and then eventually brought this fella to the surface he was stoked.

All in all it was a good day - enough fish to keep us occupied, I was stoked with the way the SlimMax and Wahoo handled everything and the weather had been tip top. On the way back we were cruising along at about 30kms when we saw a flash of white underwater about 10m to our left. I pulled up straight away and it turned out to be a momma humpback and her calf doing a u-turn out of our way... which was pretty nice of them. We tried to follow them for a bit but they weren't interested in hanging around, so neither were we.

Stopped off at Carnac Island on the way home for a brief snorkel and a cool off swim, but with the southerly picking up we decided to call it a day and headed back to the ramp. 

hey everyone im heading up o yanchep tomorrow and i just wondering if anybody has heard what is going on up there lately.

Dived the 26 metre line behind FFB on saturday and I have to say that the visibility was some of the best I have seen in perhaps 5 years, rolled out of the boat only to clearly see the bottom 26.9 metres below, the reef we dived was stunning, loaded with crays, with a single ledge providing the bag limit in a few minutes and the place was alive with fish.  Lots and lots of juvie dhuies as well as one really good fish, harlies, queenies and even one large boar fish...................hope these conditions hold over Christmas.

On the down side - the three boats that pulled up 500 yards further out and then systematically dived a string of pro pots - yes we have recorded your boat regos and they have been passed to fisheries.  The bottom out there was flat sand and it was patently clear the reason for diving that string.  Guys like you earn legitimate divers a bad name and deserve everything coming their way! 

Hi all,

Made it up to Jurien for the weekend with the wife and proceeded to spend most of it fishing. A quick stop at Cervantes to catch some fresh bait - the herring were out in force and while mostly small in size were good sport nonetheless. Also a great opportunity to test out my latest creation - 'Buschy's Best Burley' (sorry Spess) - it works like a charm.

Got into Jurien and checked in to our accommodation for the weekend. At $110 a night ($130 peak) - the self-contained chalets in the caravan park are reasonable value and well situated. Headed out towards Hill River about 3:30pm.

There is a gravel track that takes you out to the beach - then you can pick up a sand track and head either south towards Cervantes or north towards Hill River. I did a quick reccy a couple of K's in each direction and was really impressed with the variety of structure that the beaches threw up. While I did not make it up to the river (did not want to run the risk of getting bogged on my own) - I settled on a section of beach where there was a decent gutter. Reef about 50m offshore and it looked like it would fish really well at high tide. The stiff SSW that was blowing produced some nice chop on the surface and it looked like perfect tailor weather.

Mucked around for an hour with different setups, baits and lures to see what was out there. No interest. Then about 30mins from sunset I started getting nibbles. Something was stripping a whole mulie - nothing big - but cast after cast it was getting a feed and I was reeling in baitless hooks. After about 10 minutes of trying I finally got into it and had a nice surprise when I landed a small flatty. Was not what I was expecting. Unfortunately he had swallowed two of the gangs and by the time I got them out he was worse for wear so he became destined for the dinner table. My first flatty and the first time I had eaten one too - boy they are a B-E-A-utiful fish to eat - great flavour and texture plus catching him in that clean water would of helped too.

Now someone posted asking for advice on tailor rigs about a week ago. I chipped in with my views and then added my disclaimer than in my 6 short months of surf fishing I had only caught the one! I was hoping that would change and sure enough as soon as the sun kissed the water I was into something better. Even though I had only caught the one previously, I knew straight away what it was. It had that distinctive tap as it took the bait. On light gear, I thought it was a small tailor and then when it realised it was only a few metres from the beach it took off on me providing some great sport. A couple of minutes later and my PB tailor was on the beach - about 44cm and while hard to be accurate with the spring scales about 1.6kg.

After that - nothing. They were off the bite as quickly as they came on. I perservered for about 45 minutes then decided to swap over to the big rigs to target my mulla. In that time the stiff breeze had swung around to the east and dropped off completely - it was now the perfect evening for sitting on the beach and enjoying the night sky.

I put out a whole fresh herring on one and blue mack tail on another. Waiting for the run to come the lightning storms rolled in to the SW making for some spectacular night viewing. I just hoped that they would stay away from me - being on a beach furing an electrical storm with a rod in your hand is perfect recipe for a 'shocking' end to the evening.

The first run came about 9:30pm - not long before high tide on the herring. Having caught a mulloway once before at Wedge (approx 7kg) again you can pick that distinctive hard hit on the bait. By the time I had picked up the rod though, it had dropped the bait and didn't come back for seconds. After a few minutes I dragged half a herring back in and replaced it with a fresh one - when all of a sudden the other rod went off. Yes! That same fish again...grabbed the rod out of the holder - and what do you know. It dropped the bait again. So frustrating but being this tentative with the baits it just had to be a big mulla - no doubt with plenty of experience frustrating would be fisherman like myself.

After that it all went quiet again. No runs for a couple of hours so I flicked out some small baits and caught a few bull herring....there were plenty around and all good size, however I did not have an appetite for fishing small and wanted that Mulla!!! I popped a livey on the big rod but despite my best attempts it always wanted to swim right up to shore. When the livey finally kicked for the last time I lopped the head off and put it out on the smaller rod as an unweighted bait (3x 5/0 gangs) on about 50cm of 27lb trace. A whole mack on the big rod - maybe I could snare a reef shark if I was lucky.

After about 15 mins there was a massive splash in the water on top of the fresh herring. The rod tip doubled over and as I reached for the rod it went dead. Whatever it was had snapped me clean off (I can only deduce that the line got caught on the tail of the fish). As I reeled in 50m of slack line I watched my glow stick slowly drift away, hanging out of the mouth of my dream catch..... :(

I kept waiting for it to come back - but that was it and no more runs. Gave up about 2:30am. FISH 3, BUSCHY 0. An exciting night and 'nearly' a big one! Nonetheless was absolutely wrapped to take home a good solid tailor (finally!).

Went back the next night for a couple of hours back no runs on the line. Next time....

Some photo's attached of Jurien sunset, Jurien Jetty at dusk (packed!), Dynamite Bay (Greenhead) and Sandy Bay (which looks like a GREAT fishing spot).

Cheers,

Rob

Thanks to Brutas I got out for a jig today but unfortunately things were quiet compared to last weekend. We did land 6 fish to about 25kg but there was a lot of km's and heaps of jigging between fish. Anyway I only took a few photos, including this sequence of Brutas on a fish which he did eventually land.



Anyway he did jig on and landed 2 more fish without his handle.
Thanks for a good day out mate.

A few guys on here might be intrested......Talked to a guy at work today. Said while he was diving at Rotto last sat, he saw 4 spanish macks.  Time to get out the lures boys!

hey guys just wondering what esky you guys uses?
im after one in next few days and tryin to decided which one to buy?
any of yous uses that techni ice boxes? what are they like?

evakool esky???

or anyothers?

goin have to be bout 85 or 110 lt?

Had a good couple of hours at the Cut on Saturday arvo. Beautiful conditions, bit of chop and a nice but not too stiff SW.

Plenty of tailor around. All were size, though not overly large. A good size salmon trout was landed too. The blowies were out in force, heaps of the bastards everywhere.

Didn't see any skippy though.

All up we had 10 tailor and a salmon trout. All were released.

Cheers.

After booking a jigging session with all the lads 2 months in advance we were extremely lucky to get some of, if not the best conditions of the year on Sunday. Was the maiden jigging voyage for 10 out of the 12, with a large range of fishing experience between the group we still did fairly well. Managed to boat around 60 fish.

My biggest of the day at estimated 45kgs.

Another solid fish

Learning the hard way

Jigged bronzey

Pete pretty happy with himself

Robbo - Numero 7

Great day was had by all.

Hey guy's

I was out there to yesterday to pop my sambo cherry. It was fantastic and after 5 years in port hedland i can say i haven't come across anything that pulls like that.

Southern cross charters were impressive helping get those fish back down.

I forgot my camera so pics from the phone

Headed out Yesterday with Southern Cross and was joined by fellow fw members Schecky and Sam C.  

We arrived at hillaries aggs aroung 8.30 and there was about 15 boats hovering about. It was definately the best conditions i have ever seen out there.Absolute millpond.

Plenty of fish for all,

Gotta Give props the the boys at Southern Cross for doing the right thing.We spent at least 1/2 hour netting other poeples floating fish and making sure they went back down.

We did see one Boat with a guy who jumped in the water with his underwater camera to get some footage.All i can say is "balls of steel" with some of the sharks that were hanging around.

Sam C having some fun with the Smith/Certate Hyper 4000 Pe3 

After a good 30min the result 

Scheckys nice fish

It Was another great day out on the water 

Cheers, Chris 

Got a good feed of tailor last night, 11 between the two of us.

Most were around the 40cm mark, the biggest were 43cm.

Quite amusing was the fact that when either of us said something along the lines of "jeez its gone quiet" we would get smashed before even being able to finish the sentence.

Lovely warm evening for it too.

Went out jigging for Sambos today. Got to Point Peron at 10am, it was totally packed.

Headed out to the containers out the back of Rotto, it wasn't hard to find the spot, there was about 15 boats already there.

I got 2 and Amanda got 1. It was a PB for both of us.

Went out last night to mandurah for a shore based dive/scoop. Saw heaps of tiddlers and a few big berried females in the bay just to the south of the cut and ended out with three just size, when we left I counted 45 scoopers as we headed south along the estuary for a few mins to look around.  I also lost another flipper?!@!@! Now I need a new set, and so does dad haahaha! I dunno whats going wrong, both were lost while chasing crab in the shallows.  Won the fight, Realised I only have one flipper and havent been able to find it in the silt.

 Went out to woodies this morning at about 8am, farkn every man and his dog was there.  The public car park was nearly full.  I went north of woodmans pt and there were shitloads of boats/pots out so I found a 100m2 patch where noone had anything in about 9 ft and set out a couple of short lines of pots, anchored up in the middle and went for a snorkel(with no flippers!) Took one size one, saw a few tiddlers. Dived for about 1/2 hour went back to the boat, had a rest, then pulled the pots, got nothing went for another 1/2 hour snorkel, saw tiddlers, got none.  By this point most other people had left, so I took advantage and pulled all my pots, and moved out setting them in a line heading out into the deeper water.  Anchored up at the deep end of the line, and went for a snorkel in about 16ft.  By this time it was about 10am visability was just enough to see the weed/sand on the bottom, so swimming barefoot I could cruise the surface and see anything unusual on the bottom.  Within a min or two I saw a massive crab, So got a good breath and went after him. He stood his ground and was easy taking a nice male blue manna, 15 cm.  From there on swimming circles round the boat I got another 6 blueys all 15cm+, the last one on the way back to the boat. I could see a whitish thing swimming away from me, so I chased it for probably 30 mts, it stopped, I got a breath and went face to face with the biggest bluey I have seen this year.  It was a bit of a funny chase with him darting left and right, I thought I was gonna run out of breath, but finally grabbed him, 19cm across the shell, but only short arms so claw span was about 45cm.

Anyway I was back by 12:30, Its bloody hot again and I wish I was still diving, but I have a bloody christmas carol thing on now at home, looking forward to a nice feed of crabs and salad though.  Not to mention about a dozen coldies!