Headed out early with southcity104 (Tony) bound for the 90's. Ended up getting out there barely after sunset, found some fishy lumps and sent the gear down.

I started on the jigs. Drift was pretty slow, so no problems getting 150 or 120g jigs down there, but unfortunately the fish didnt really want to play.

Tony managed to pull up some blackarse and small swallowtail.

Had a few bites, but not too many hookups. I sent down a mulie on the driftbait setup and after a few small fish, I managed to hook up to something nice and big. A bit of line pulling and a lot of rod pulling and I managed to pull up this beauty

A PB pinkie at 6.3kg, so I was damn happy with this nice humphead

Not too quick on the bites, but after a while Tony managed to pull up a nice sized pinky

I was switching between jigging and bait and managed to get a new species on the jig, the ol slimey mackerel

Tony filleted the mackerel and it didnt take too long for another fish to pull on. It started fighting like another good pinkie, but as it came to the surface, we saw black and knew it wasnt another pinkie, but a nice dhuie just a little under 8kg. I didnt take any photos on my camera, so Tony might have to upload that pic.

After than and before midday, we had some nice fish in the esky, so headed in a little shallower to try a bit of jigging. Just managed to pull in a small swallowtail or two.

We did see several whale pods blowing air a couple of hundred meters, and got to see some pods breach out which was an awesome sight.

The weather was pretty good all day (some big swells rolled past though), but it was absolutely magic as we headed back early arvo. Couldnt ask for much better conditions. 

We didnt get a great number of bites, but we managed to land a few good fish. Great day out, PB pinkie, whale watching, magic conditions, back at the ramp early arvo and a nice feed of snapper and dhuie. Thats gotta be a good day out in anybodys books

Trip Report for Bugatti Reef 20-26 July 2009.

As Duncan has already mentioned we had a pretty chaotic week at Bugatti recently. At some points the weather was a little bit ugly but this had a negligible impact on the fishing as it was never bad enough that we couldn't pop and hardly a time that we weren't catching GT's. Other times the sun was shining and the water like a millpond. I'd say the fishing really fired for us and I was lucky enough to see numerous double hookups and a couple of triple hookups throughout the week. There were several fish caught throughout the week that were around the 36-38kg mark but unfortunately none over the 40kg mark. What we lacked in size though we certainly made up for in numbers.

Day 1
On the fly in day we eagerly ate our lunch and rigged up for the afternoons fishing. I was fishing with Duncan and Dave on tight stick with guide Glanville. I decided to start off with a bright orange bigfoot 140... the fishing started off a little slow until the tide picked up and then I came up trumps with the first couple of GTs the first being around 28-30kg and the second just a 'petite' GT around 16kg and also missing a strike from a 30kg+ spaniard. Dave hit back shortly after with a nice 36kg model. Towards the end of the day Glanville found a nice spot in a sheltered area where the GTs were going ballistic on the fusiliers. Duncan and I had a double hookup on GTs but managed to drop both fish, next cast we had a mack tuna/spanish mackerel double and then the cast after that another GT double this time landing both fish, a pidgeon pair around 25kg each. It was late, so it was time to head back to the mothership with our total at 6 GTs for the afternoon.

Day 2
This was to be our slowest day for the trip. I fished with Brock and Mat on the dory with guide Rod. Brock landed a nice fish around 22kg early on in the day and then Mat nailed one about 20kg later on just before lunch. I had a 35kg+ fish come and inhale my blue bigfoot in a bommie infested bluehole that proceded to bust me off without taking an inch of drag. After lunch things got even quieter and our total for the day remained at only 2 GTs by the time we made it back to Odyssey. I think the most any other boat got that day was 4 GTs.

Day 3
On the third day we headed south to our second anchorage for the trip. I fished with Duncan and Brock on the Contender with guide Tim. We fished some blue holes on the way but it was pretty quiet with only a couple of half hearted strikes. I managed the first fish of the day around 20kg when Duncan pointed out a small school of fusiliers. We left the blue holes and caught up with Rod, Aaron and Ross who had been getting some good fish off a nice ledge. The afternoon was pretty hectic with us getting a number of fish off this ledge, myself 2 fish to 35kg, Brock 2 fish to 30kg while meanwhile Duncan was having a prick of a day not being able to stay connected to any GTs before nailing his only fish of 25kg or thereabouts towards the end of the day. One highlight was when I hooked up to a 20kg GT and dropped the fish and then proceeded to upgrade to a 35kg model only seconds later ;D
While we fished our way to the mothership at our new anchorage we stopped off at one of the resident trout boats to see who was in town. As we approached we saw around 8 GTs to 50kg+ swimming below the boat. First popper in the water had some interest but it was just a curious strike and they weren't actually feeding. It was such an awesome sight! As it got late the tide slowed and so did the fishing so we headed back to the mothership. We ended up with 6 GTs for the day and Rod's dory managed 17 GTs with only 2 guests, Ross at 63 years young with 9 GTs under his belt for the days fishing. He then proceeded to catch GTs off the back of the mothership when we got back, what a champion! Guide Rod also hooked a 40kg doggie which proceeded to pop the belly swivel on the dogtooth 80 stickbait.

Day 4
On Day 4 we woke to clear skies and flat water. I fished with Brock and Dave on tight stick with Glanville. The morning started slow as we fished some prime looking ledges loaded with bait but the GTs just weren't feeding. I switched from a stickbait to a popper and nailed the first fish of the day around 10-15kg. I then proceeded to have an absolute prick of a morning dropping about 8 GTs til lunch time. Just before lunch we fished a spot the guides call the Stables and first pass Brock and I had a double hookup, on the same cast Dave also had a 50kg+ fish hit his dogtooth stickbait on the 50lb gear! Thank god it wasn't a triple. Brock landed his fish and I dropped yet another GT. Good thing Brock and Dave kept the scoreboard ticking and I think the total was about 7 GTs at lunchtime.
After lunch we moved out to some different ground and the fishing picked up considerably, I maintained the hoodoo while Glanville teased me landing a GT in a mere two casts. Eventually I broke the morning hoodoo nailing a nice fish around 28-30kg... finally I got the ball rolling. We moved out to some shoals away from the main reef structure that rise from about 50-60m to about 10m. When we approched I asked Glanville where he wanted me to cast while he laughed and said, "Where the fish are!". First cast and fusiliers showered everywhere, I flipped the bail over and before I even managed one turn of the handle my popper dissapeared in a white foamy explosion. What proceeded was the most hectic session I've ever encountered on GTs with nearly every single cast managing a least a strike. Dave snapped his 50lb Catalina rod and then proceeded to still land the fish. We had several double hookups and finished the afternoon with a triple hookup and all 3 GTs being landed. Total for the day was 24 GTs from no less than atleast 40 hookups, myself with 12, Brock 8, Dave 3 and Glanville with 1. Rod and the other boys on his dory also fared well with 14 GTs for the day.

Day 5
Day 5 started as good as the last day ended. I fished with Brock on the dory with Rod. It was glassy calm and the fishing was hot. I nailed a nice fish early and then proceeded to drop the next couple of fish while Brock also landed a nice GT. Shortly after I had an extremely aggressive strike from a GT that was clearly of the black variety, fortunately I stayed connected and landed the fish, around 25-28kg. We moved onto the ledge where we did well on the third day and it wasn't long before Brock got his second. Shortly after I got my third and proceeded to snap my Komodo Dragon. An awesome effort from guide Rod and Brock ensured this fish didn't get away. Afterwards I encouraged Rod to fish as there was only two guests on board and he proceeded to nail a nice GT in short time. After lunch the weather started to turn sour and with 6 GTs in the boat before lunch we decided to head back to the mothership and was back there by 2.30pm.

Day 6
The sixth day was overcast and quite rough. I fished with Duncan and Mat on the dory with Rod again. The weather made fishing a little difficult but we managed OK. Duncan and I persisted with the weather while Mat drank beer all day :D. Duncan got the first run on the board with a beauty around 36kg and then I backed it up shortly after with another fish around the same size. Tyler on Eds dory fishing close by also got a nice fish around 36-38kg. 3 GTs over 35kg from 3 bites.
We moved into the blue holes and I dropped an average GT while the boys on Eds dory had a GT/Chinaman double. Duncan got a nice GT and then missed horse of a fish that climbed all over his popper. Would have been interesting to see the outcome, we put it for 40kg+. Late in the day I plucked a nice GT from a fishy looking ledge right under Eds nose :D It was getting late so we headed back to the mothership. As this was our last evening on the Odyssey we drank til the wee hours of the morning to celebrate the trip.

Day 7
Bleary eyed and hung over neither of us could be bothered to fish for a couple of hours before we flew out so we spent a lazy morning packing up our gear before the floatplane arrived to take us back to Hamilton.

Lures
One interesting observation Duncan and myself discussed was that on the cloudy days when the water was a bit choppy anything that swam sub-surface ruled supreme. Orion bigfoots in the smaller sizes and the new XTX swimbait from Patriot Designs worked particularly well. On the clearer days with flat water just about anything worked but I had my success with small-medium bloopers. Poppers like the Patriot Design Master Bomb 155 and Craftbait GT2 worked exceptionally well and can be cast all day with little effort.

Gday all,

Recently arrived back from 4 weeks in Exmouth. Had a belter of a time with a heap of fish caught. Heap of Spangoes, Heap of Trout, Bluebone, Chinaman, queenies, lil GTs, big eyes, brassies, goldens, shark macs, spaniards, longtail, rankins etc etc..

Will be back there soon...

Heres a few pics from the trip

Cheers,

Sam

Good Spang

6kg Tusky on 5'' Snapback

Mini G's and Queenies in plague proportions on the flats

Nice trout 700 long

Skulldragged Rankin...plenty of Noahs on the westside!

These boys go bloody hard...ended up with 5 or 6 chinaman for the trip

More blue on plastic...

more trout

again and again...

non stop Spang action

Had a ball on these 1m+ queenies with trevs and sharky's aswell on stickbaits...18lb this one was

Solid Coronation

Lil Big Eye on a bullchop

18kg Longtail on 7'' Jerk Shad

4.5kg bluey on the straight hook

<whinge>
Why is there no damn bait shop anywhere near woodys thats open in the morning? In fact you don't even pass one when you leave the freeway on the way down from Perth.

Why did my rod snap in the boat on the way to the ramp?

Why did this damn owner hook ping on our only good lineburner of the day?
</whinge>

Ok, that out of the way, what a nice day on the water? Almost no chop, plenty of tasty squid to take home and a fun go at some kind of serious line burner. It had over 90yds of line out on a 3kg drag at one stage. Poor Matt's PE2 Xyoga. I wonder what it was, probably a sambo.

Its why you go isn't it?

Well... after 8 flights I've made it there and back - and what a trip! Bugatti seriously is an amazing place.

We had a couple of days of mediocre weather but on the whole it was very good and we caught loads of GTs. Our best day was on the 4th day when we had glassy calm seas and sunny skies. Glanville, myself, Brock and Dave ventured out on 'Tight Stick' to some shoals some distance from the main reef structure that rise from about 60m to 10m. They were absolutely loaded with bait and we were hoping we might be able to score a nice Dogtooth on popper but HORDES of GTs ravaged our poppers all day. We managed to pull something like 17 GTs off those shoals finishing the day on a triple hookup and a final tally of 24 GTs for the day (from ATLEAST 40 hookups).

Other memorable moments include my black GT which I was stoked about, snapping my Komodo Dragon... grrr.. and watching a 50kg+ fish whack a dogtooth 80 stickbait on 50lb gear at a place affectionately known as the 'Stables'. My biggest fish for the trip was around 36kg with several around the 36-38kg mark landed by other clients. I managed to land a total of 23 GTs for the week :) Some of the by-catch included big Spaniards, shark mackerel, chinaman, longtail and mack tuna.

Stay tuned for the full report!

nothing much was happen at work today so we decided to go for a fish out the north wall at hillarys. We went down and set up down under the light house to hopefully get onto sum skippy and hopefully a pinky. This is where it was all wrong there wasnt a skippy in sight. But istead pulled up a lot of bream. The tally was 10 bream 4 size and 6 under which were are realeased. This all in a couple of hour session. My question is where the hell did all the skippy. We have fished there regularly and always caught skippy wheather they were undersize or whoppers

Well its been a long time but got back into a 20kg fish. Gave a great fight, had me on edge all the way to the top. Had called a sambo ,and a ray .not bad on light gear.

Also had a dolphin come to the boat for a look .was happy to get a feed of fresh snook and mackrel

Geez...Seabreeze can make the forecast look so good. UNTIL you get out!! What a PAIN IN THE ASS ride out to find fish. Still enjoyed the company of Brody and his mate out wide of Hillarys today. Ended up with only a sized Pinkie and undersize Dhuie. We came right in after we had enough of the tumbling water out there to find some squid. Wasnt a whole lot around but still managed to score about 10 with some corkers! Atleast 2 of them easily over the 1kg mark.

These 5 came all at once. Size 3.0 jig for size comparo.

Kick arse Dhu......Biggest I've seen  

come on Paul.......

My friend Harry and I went out from Johnston St ramp again this morning. We were hoping for a few squid around the more and then perhaps out further.

Sadly that shitty weather this morning made us change out minds and we just headed out to the Sound for a few drifts on the squid. There were plenty there, and much better size than my previous trips. Probably the best jig colours were orange and brown.

It eventually fined up and we decided to go in, rather than out, and settled for a quick day instead. Hopefully we make it back out again this week while the weather is good!

Anchored up on 3 mile today just off Hillaries near a likely looking lump in hopes of a good, short morning sesh. Absolutely beautiful morning and I was feeling good as we berleyed up.

Rig my bream combo with an unweighted circle hook and cast out into the trail. In no time I was tangling with a 40+cm skippy that gave my little outfit all she wanted. For the next 45 minutes we had fun with a big school of skippy in that size range.

Suddenly the ultra-light rod in my literally bent over double and my little Daiwa was screaming. Another minute and I was buried in the reef. I was so pissed I almost chucked my rod in the water!! Five minutes later, I'm rerigged, and it happens again. So I put the light rod aside and break out the horse. I'm so excited to drag up whatever monster that busted me off. Problem is nobody under the water wanted to play with the heavy line.

So I've got one rig that they'll hit but can't bring them in....and one rig that could bring them in....but nobody will hit it. hmmmm....this fishing thing ain't so easy... So all in all, a great morning on the water and delicious dinner tonight....but still the lingering frustration of the ones that got away...

maybe they'll be waiting for me next week!

Yours truly and a mate went metro fishing this morning, the first break in the weather for weeks. Launching before dawn we headed out to a mark we fished previously.  The 585 sounder was ablaze with colour as we we passed over some massive balls of fish showing brilliant red on the sounder.

First drift, a little south of where we hoped the drift would take us, drew a blank so we pulled in the sea anchor for a second shot. 

We were both fishing with two rods each, all relatively light and all rigged predominantly to target deep water kg whiting. Oh and thanks Ryan for your time and freely given kn owledge passeedd on yesterday which set us up for this trip with rigs per your instructions and carefully peeled occy tenticles for bait, the KGW's we were targeting would surely cooperate today.

The second drift had only been going a minute or two when one of jeff's rods bends double to something slightly larger than a kgw, I'm on he shouts, hang on he says me other rod is going off as well.

Well I hardly needed the invitation did I so I quickly move to try and subdue another obviously good fish.  That might have been OK but for the fact no sooner had I picked up that rod than both of mine go ballistic as well!

Jeff's winning the battle and a double header of easily size dhuies hit the surface to woops of delight, which got even louder when the fish I was fighting on his other rod also popped up away from the boat in classic dhuie behaviour.  Dropping the fish on the deck I grab my $9 dollar special rod (yeh I know cheapskate) as it was loosing line fast and was by far the lightest rigged with only a small okuma and 20lb braid much of which had vanished from the spool> This fish was solid and wasn't coming in easily but the final rod was now also bent double and I called for jeff to grab it and return the favour.  Giving that fish hell he quickly subdued it, you guessed it another size dhuie while all along I continue to very slowly gain line on the fish on the 9 buck special.  After perhaps 10 minutes it pops up away from the boat and it is a really beautifully marked and by far the biggest of the five dhuies.  Jeff quickly returned the smallest fish to see it swim away strongly to the bottom.........bag limit of BSB's in a drift and a half by 8.15 in the morning, the sun had only just hit the sky with it's not so warming rays.

We toyed with pulling stumps but we went out there chasing KGW and Jeff had also dropped what was clearly a good snapper from the vibrating fight it gave him.

Next drift and another BSB to jeff, again easily size and again returned sucessfully - the key being perhaps the fact we were fishing light and were taking our time getting hooked fish to the surface minimising barotrauma.  

It went quiet for a while before I hooked a steam train on steroids again on the really light gear, half way through the fight I clearly felt some weight come off and called it for a lost fish but still had plenty of weight left and fight to boot, several minutes later we gaffed my personal best WA pinkie @ 85 Cms.   Oh yeh and we got three kgw just to round out our bag limit of four fish each.   Two more sized dhuies were also returned without problem and we were broken off by several unstoppables a couple of which felt like really big dhuies..............all in all a SPECIAL DAY on the water in the metro area.  Photos will follow, I refused to take a camera as it seemed to moz us but Jeff sneeked one in this time !!!!!! 

So...Once again on night shift on an oil rig up off thailand....I go upstairs to have a slash over the side and see a big mother of what I am 99% sure is a marlin or at least definately a billfish of some sort....

Last trip to work I saw a massive school of dolphin fish and armed with a handline and home made popper i managed to snag a couple, this time i have a rod and reel and a popper aimed at getting dolphin fish (which i havent seen one yet this trip) so anyway i race down and grab it and start frantically casting toward this beauty....but unfortunately i couldnt get it to show any interest in it, other than when i almost foul hooked it across its back and it took off like a shower of shit...

My thoughts are the poper was just way too small for it to show half an interest but im now curious to see if people have had much luck with billfish on poppers...especially smaller 120mm length poppers...

Much to my annoyance i saw 2 more in the next half hour rounding up fish, none of which showed any interest at all in my popper...

Having said that the lightish gear i was armed with i would have been slaughtered in the fight within about 10 seconds but that is half the fun just getting a hook up on a beauty like that...

Arrived home after five days in Exmouth on Saturday. The weather was pretty average with only two of the days calm enough to fish the outside in a 21 footer and the cooler weather shut the fish down but we still managed a feed each day and it was nice to avoid the rain which hasn’t stopped since we got home.

Heres a few pics out of the hundreds we took. A video is on the way and should be up later tonight.

Hope you enjoyed.

A big thank you to the girls from Gorges cafe for their sponsorship this month.
The river section fished very well again this month with some nice bream weighed in. Di Stewart had 3 live bream, all caught within a couple of hours as she had to work most of the day. Cheryl Eley had 2 and Brett Bain one. New member Maryanne Muir debuted with two bream out fishing husband Peter. Well dome Maryanne. Weigh master Gary Ivey did it again showing 4 live bream with the biggest at .758grams making it the biggest for the year so far, and winning the river section.

Maryanne shows off her bream.
Only 2 juniors fished the river this month and Beau Ivey won the section with a bream and a whiting. Beau’s bream equalled the biggest for the year at exactly .758grams that Gary had. 
Drawing for the biggest for the year, junior angler Beau Ivey
The land based or beach section was very quiet with no anglers fishing, might have been a bit to do with the big swell pounding the beaches over night.
An extraordinary good day presented itself for the boat anglers amongst the windy, cold, rainy weeks we have been and are having, so the three boats who took the advantage and went out were rewarded with some fair fish.
Nik Bramwell was out early in his dinghy “Hurricane” thought about going west, saw the grey sky and turned south along the cliffs. He need not have worried as the day just got better and better. Nik told us that he could not get past the dhuies to the better fish, releasing multitudes of undersize ones and missing out on the snapper?
His haul of 4 fish included 2 dhuies, a small sambo and a cod that was the biggest for the year at 1.044kg. That won’t last long.
Laurie Malton and Jason Agrela were out aboard Bulawayo Buoy, mixing it up between game fishing and bottom. The mackerel and tuna were absent but they found a snapper spot with Jason landing a 2.1kg pinky on 2kg line to win the game section. Jason’s first line class fish, well done Jason.

Jason shows off his line class snapper and tackle he caught it on.
It wasn’t long until the blowies moved in and began destroying their tackle so they up graded to the heavy stuff and found it hard to get through the blowies to the snapper, but Jason did it again landing a nice 3.5kg specimen. Laurie’s two snapper added points for the boat.

Jason with his 3.5kg snapper
The third boat out was Jo Jo with skipper Craig Gibson and new member Russell Page. They also went south and had trouble getting past the skippy! Both had 8 fish mainly skippy with Russell’s skippy the biggest this year at 1.88kgs while Craig romped it in to win with skippy, black arse cod, a small samson and the biggest snapper so far at 4.117kgs.
Jason Agrela won the RSL Meritorious voucher of $50.00 for his line class snapper as well as the restaurant prize from Gorges Café. Clint from Perth won the $50.00 worth of scratchies raffle, and there was no mug of the month stories, so the free beer went begging
Next event is a monthly comp on the 22nd August.
Laurie Malton

After last weeks success had to go back for another session jigging the Cape.

Barneyboy (Mark) volunteered to be deckie for the day as he has not experienced the Cape.

Great weather and once again plenty of fish.

Here's just a snap.

Thanks to Matt (hlokk) for the jigs and thats a Smith MJ105.

Mark certainly caught his fair share of sambo's and strectched the arms

And Thanks Ryan and Honsu at Oceanside, Mark used the Zest 120 jiggs and smashed the fish. Can highly recommend the Jig Master PE 2-3 rod. Dynamite rods guys. Cheers for the advice.

Back to the cold cold wintery days of Perth after the warm sun of Exmouth.

Took #1 daughter out for a fish and found a nice patch of whiting to later use as bait for the big stuff. While we were drifting we were both watching the sounder and Rachel said "what's that" pointing to some striations on the sounder screen. "That's a patch of weed sweetie, its places like this we get King Gorge Whiting on the edges of this stuff" I replied.

No sooner had the weed patch gone from the screen I was on.

"This doesn't feel like a sand whiting" I blurted. Low and behold this lovely specimen came into view.

Not as big as some we catch in deeper waters but a great start to the day none the less.

We then moved out to some ground I fish a little wider and on the way out I noticed a nice rise on the sounder. It was near some other marks I had but definaitly new ground.

That's what I love about my Lowrance 37x it can plot a mark to the GPS by putting the cursor over the lump on the sounder.

We headed back over and set up a drift. I landed a sargeant baker whilst my daughter hooked up big time.

I was very proud as she fought the fish well, keeping an arc in the rod at all times and letting the fish run when it needed to.

After a great fight up surfaced a PB Baldchin Groper. One of (if not the) best tasting fsh in the ocean.

After a few high 5's and a big hug for dad I dutifully renamed the mark in my GPS as "Rachel's PB Baldie" and continued on towards the spots I had originally wanted to fish.

Whilst we didn't get too many big fish, we were entertained most of the day with a few small Dhufish that we carefully returned using a release weight.

On a past trip my daughter had caught a huge cuttlefish, but it took me too long to get the net (too busy filming it all for the magazione) that we lost it boatside...she never forgave me for that and so when she hooked up to something that was surging and quite heavy we called it early for a cuttlefish and readied the net.

As it neared the boat all I got was abuse from the daughter and threats of what would happen if I stuffed up the net job this time.
Thankfully I managed to get it onboard without any ink and it filled our bait esky nicely (didnt want to put it in with the other fish for fear of an ink bath). Another PB for Rachel.

We started heading back in and hit a few more marks and wouldn't you know it I hook a cuttlefish too. This one was a bit bigger though and after some banter about netting it, the daughter managed to scoop it up and into the esky.

We headed home after a great day on the water. I had tried to use the scaling bag on the smaller one to remove the skin but all it did was scuff it so it wasn't photogenic being in several pieces. So we took it in turns to hold up the big one for the camera.


Its great seeing the young ones catch something decent, and good to have some quality time with a teenager who's otherwise only interested in shopping and girly things.

Get your kids into fishing and it breaks down all the barriers.

PS: Anyone have any good recipe's for cuttlefish. I have cleaned the mantles and they are roughly 1.5cm thick so need some advice on cooking as they are obviously a little bit different from squid.

Rolled over this morning at 6am to the sound of the alarm telling me to get up for a fish..Kicked Claire in the guts...bloody cold weather makes it hard to get going. Pulled off frozen boat cover,  redbull... check, pizza shapes..check, we are good to go.

Was very quiet at the ramp this morning, but then i remembered it was monday, and most people are at work.

First up we headed out to a great little lump we found in 35m of water a while back, hoping the skippy and squire snaps had pissed off, so we could hook into some of the bigger fish..but no, they were still there. So we thought we would try find some more king george near Rotto..so off to the west side we went. Was some great ground around there and after 3 hours of trying about 2 gazillion sand patches, Claire the arsey biatch hooked a nice kg that went 47cm. Skipper was happy as the pressure was off now, so it was off to test the new sounder out.

We headed out to a spot in the 60s we had marked on our nav charts last night, that we thought would be a good spot to do some bottom bouncing.  First drift for a 50cm flatty, mmmm bloody sandy shite i was thinking.  I then had a good bite, and a 48cm dhuie come to the surface. We drifted a little more and all of a suddden Claire the biatch was on again..she called for the net, and soon after we boated a nice baldie at 51cm.   We did a few more drifts for nothing..and when a whale surfaced next to us, we then decided to head back in to Scarbs. Had a few drifts for squid, but luck was not on our side.

Got back to the ramp at 1600, and Claire got to test out her new 3 speed boat winch. Another great day on the water with my beloved wifey the "Baldchin Magnet"

was out jigging today and the wonder of my day snaped in half peice of shit ugly stick blue water, the small trout on the end of the line was not a prob ,it had snuck under a hole and was not coming out so i give it the 14000 saragosa powers and bang!!!!!!..Will be wrighting to the ugly stick rod mob and asking for answers..  

Has any one elese had trouble with the bluewater jig rods from ugly?

aquagenes

Hey all,

Moved down to Bunbury a few months back now and haven't wet a line as yet. Hoping to change that asap so wondering if any of you guys could help me out with some shore based spots??..Thinking I might try this week if we get some nice weather like today. Anywhere nice and quiet and you can catch some herring/whiting etc?

Is the leschenault estuary any good?? .. I can honestly say Im still yet to see a single person fishing the shore - from bunbury up to australind. I have seen a guy riding a pushbike carrying a crab net though.

Cheers,

Ben

Hi there! Im heading out for a fish on monday...wondering if anyone headed out today, and if the fish were on the bite?? cheers

After what seemed like months, Sandra and I finally got out on the water last Sunday in Dreamweaver. Forecast, swell and seas where all excellent and we were in the water for 06:30 with the dawn morning air being a nice balmy 7 degrees .

Given the excellent conditions forecast and the fact that it was a Sunday, we were surprised to find that, on arrival at Emu Point, we were the very first. With no other trailers in site. Not even tagging behind us or rolling in as we undertook pre-launch preparations.

I guess the rest where snuggled up in bed - bloody fair weather warm fishos LOL!

The spot we were targeting was a 25m circular reef plateau, rising out of 65m - south of one of the outer reef systems. I'd passed over it on the way back from another trip and the structure definitely read FISH HERE!

As we headed out of King George Sound, at a steady 25 knots, a view of the ahead horizon was amazing. Dotted across, at regular intervals were large tail flukes and the frequent large splash from a rising whale falling backwards to the surface.

LOOK! Over there, suddenly yelled Sandra. Following her indicated direction, I spotted a large (whale) Cow and Calf, lazily surface swimming, not 200 meters off our starboard bow.

A quick course correction away from them and 20 minutes later we were over the reef plateau, but not before sighting many other (whale) cows and calfs. The bulls all seemed to be content to frolic in deeper waters across our horizon. We executed our plan. First, we stopped the boat and (GPS) charted the drift. We then ran up the line and dropped a reef pick on the shallowest part of the plateau (20m), ran the boat astern as we paid out anchor line to the edge of the reef plateau's rise. 

With a large anchor well carrying 450m of anchor line, I guestimated we had about 200m of line out before we settled at just the right spot.

The first drop for me produced a double header of scorpion fish. These were on the small side and went back in the water - very carefully!

Next drop and I was onto something more serious, but still controllable. Another double header, this time banded sweep of about 4kg each. Also returned.

Sandra broke her trace on the surface loaded up with a nice Breaksea. She's definitely the breaksea specialist as she prefers to fish with prawns and these definitely seem to be BA's preferred diet. (At least that's what we have found down here.)

Next I copped a rig bust off, so, given the terrain, I decided on stepping up the rig and tied on a paternoster of double snelled 7/0 Gammy Big Baits and loaded them up with good sized mulies.

Bring it on!

And it did! BANG! The rod tip buckled furiously as soon as the snapper sinker hit bottom and a torturous 15 minutes later I had what I estimated to be a 25K ish Salmbo alongside. No photo - as a released it boat side to minimise harm and ensure it's healthy return below the surface.

Sandra meanwhile landed another BA.

Back down again and BANG. More back pain! Another 15 minutes and another smaller Sambo broke the surface - this one near the 20Kilo mark:

Sandra's BA was a good size and well worth keeping:

Yet another drop with the rig and the rod tip exploded with rapid succession of very substantial bites. A well timed upward strike and the rod tip buckled furiously! (Insert expletive here). I don't know what was protesting more - the rod or my back! As I slowly regained line and brought the catch to the surface, I tried (as we all do) to call it. Nope, not the head thump of a snapper, not the run of a sambo etc etc. The end of the line felt like it was being ripped apart in two directions.  Shit! Noth ANOTHER  double header! Finally we saw two sets of colour and brought them on board.

Two very decent sized skippy - 53cm and 49cm! No wonder I was having problems :

A brief rest and the rig was down again.

BANG! BANG! BANG! boooooooom!!

What the! All hell broke loose! Drag locked up, the reel and rod screamed in protest as I battled to reduce the amount of braid screaming out of the reel. (Insert a string of expletives here). This fish was heading down,to where? A Cave?Then, one of the worst sounds. No, not the crack of a rod tip or reel seat, but the neat clinical ping of braid snapping. It had buried me and snapped the braid on some structure.

BUGA!!

That's it, I said to Sandra, I'm back to single hooks for something normal, I painfully announced.

On to another rig and down it went. COLIN!! Yelled Sandra! Whales!! Yup. 50 meters astern and closing directly on us was a VERY sizeable cow and her calf. I'll get the anchor! Yelled Sandra. No time I said. Two blurred hands and rods and rigs were on deck. I dashed for the helm and kicked the motor into life. Cut the anchor line yelled Sandra. Nope! Not necessary. Hang on! 

Having 200m of line out in 20m of water gave us a 10:1 scope - enough to take a 'radious (on the rope) heading away from the whales. A minute or so later, the two passed calmly astern of us, probably wondering what all the comotion was about.

I manouvered back to our spot and dropped the rig down again, as I drew in a string of deep breaths. Phew, that was close.

But the whale visit hadn't finised! While loaded with another decent skippy, the surface immediately astern of the boat was broken by a 3 meter wide bubble!

Yup, a whale had just passed directly under the boat!

By now it was 11:30 and we both decided we'd enough of ALL SORTS of action. So we pulled the pick and headed for home, keeping a careful helm watch for whales which I'm thankful to say had finished their interaction, at least with us.

A great day, good fish, sore back and lot's of excitement. Some of the elements that make fishing what it is! 

.

Well my brother and I finally chipped in to get a slightly larger boat than the tub to take up to Exmouth tomorrow. We ended up with a 12 footer which was in pretty average cosmetic form, however made it up with reliability. We took it out on Monday arvo to test it out after we had added a new bung, 9 hod holers, a bait board, a glove box, a cleat and heaps of smaller things. It handled the mix of massive tidal swell and 80ft Sunseaker wake and got us out the heads and into the calm open ocean,

We left the heads around 4 so we didn’t have much time for travelling so we just stayed off north mole. To catch some bait for exxy and let my g/f catch a few squid. The weather was perfect and the fish were seriously on the bite and after half an hour we headed back to the ramp with a decent bag of bait and a few nice size squid.

When we get back home I think we'll treat her to a fresh coat of paint, and then a gps/sonar, sound system and a flat floor.

Cheers Miles

Alright one and all

At last a fish!!! 

After a few weeks of being busy and struggling to catch when I do go, I finally found some fish willing to play.  An early start to day at 4.30 and me and me mate Pete were on the road and heading for the lake.  The customary sausage roll and pork pie was devoured en route and the discussion came round to swim choice, we decided to do the right thing and walk arounf=d the lake looking for signs of fish.

 The long and short of it is we ended up in the swim we'd decided on in the car...loads of snags and trees and loads of fish.

We tucked ourselves up in a couple of quiet shady pegs and cast our baits out to the edge of the tree line on the opposite bank.  Within an hour I landed a 15lb 5oz mirror carp on 2 bollies as bait, surrounded by trout pellet.  The fish fought like a train and made a great start to the day.

15.5lb

An hour later my rod shot off again...and with Pete still yet to catch I enjoyed milking this fish..a common this time but slightly bigger at 16lb 5oz.  Again fought really well and again on the same bait...the day was hotting up.!

16.5lb

Quite soon afetr Pete had a screaming run, an unmissable one...that he somehow missed...gutted!  Almost immediately after  he had another run and landed a small common of about 2lb.  The day went quiet for a bit, the sun was out and all the fish were on the surface...uninterested.  As the day progressed Pete had another smaller fish and I banked a 5lber and an 8lber.  But overall it was fairly quiet.  I tried fishing in close with maggots and a light line for smaller carp, but one of the bigger fish picked up the bait and shot off around the lake with me in tow....for abit!!

8lb

As the day cooled off  we had a 45 minute period where it went mad, we landed 2 fish each, of which Pete's were 10.8lb and an 11.8lb common

. 

11.8lb

Mine were slighlty smaller with an 8lb common and a 10.8lb common.

10.8lb

We then got really excieted as we thought we were goning to catch one of the bigger fish in the lake as they were crashing everywhere and it felt like they were gonna have a real feed, especially as it was a lush evening!

But alas afetr about 7 o clock, no more fish were caught.  However a great day was had with a total of 11 fish caught, 5 of which were over 10lb.  Not long to go now and hopefully I will have some Aussie fish!!

Rog

I took my tinny out for the very last time today. For a fish and to say goodbye as I have sold the old girl. I was on my second last bait when this nice fish turned up. I didnt weigh it but would have weighed between 8 and 9 kilos. The last fish I will catch out of the tinny. Stoked with the fish/ sad about the boat!!

A gentlemans start, 9:30 launch at cockburn ramp. headed south to some weedy ground. it was the purple yamashita v the orange $15 jobby whos name i cant remember but it has a rattle in it.

 Scoreboard after 3 hours

Purple Yama    : 12

Orange jobby  : 17 squid and 1 cuttlefish

Most pretty small, the biggest was really nothing to write home about.

Kept a handfull that will soon be treated with a light dusting of flour a healthy serve of salt and pepper; and returned the rest.

A nice day out and a painful wash down after. Bloody ink. 

The weather looked good and after the last few weekends of storms  we decided to hit the cape on a jigging sorte. Two boats went out, mine with Ian7739 and myself and Bluetonic's (BJ) with Garbo and couldntcatchacold (Chris). This was a serious jigging (and Soft Plastic) trip and no bait. Had to christen the new jigging gear and it was time to introduce Ian to the excitment and action of jigging. We had a PE 2-3 and 6 outfit and were ready to hit the fish. BJ and I have been talking for a while now on jigging techniques and we decided to try a new technique looking for dimersal species and then continue our search for Kingfish.

Arrived early at the ramp and the wind picked up. BJ and crew were already anchored just of the ramp catching some livies.

Decided to launch the boat when Ian turned up. Slowly headed out and was a slow trip as the ocean was really lumpy. About half way was going to turn around but a solitory dolphin turned up and decided to swin with us for a while. We took this as an omen of good luck and continued to head out. About an hour of steaming saw us round the cape and find markedly calmer water. Sounded around using the new colour sounder and found a good patch of ground with fish on the sounder. Dropped the jigs and instantly jigged some shallowtail. Ian hooked something solid that was either a snapper or dhiue judging by the power surges but alas half way up it spat the hook. My next drop scored me my first dhuie but at 20cms long I'm not bragging...ha ha. Got to start somewhere. Not sure if the bugger was greedy or just ambitious as the 90g jig was just as big as him.......fantastic colours though. More dropps resulted in monster St Bakers and plenty more shallowtail and some sea sweep and pike. Ian unfortunatley dropped another fish before the area shut down. Decided to sound around looking for more ground. 

Finally found some ground with skippy on the sounder and the sambo's usually aren't far away.......... down go the jiggs and Ian is hooked. After a tough battle on the PE 2-3 he finally got his first Sambo on a jig.

Plenty around and at one point when Ian bought another one up all we could see under the boat was sambo's. Lost count of how many we caught but had a ball.

Moved closer to the cape itself as the wind dropped and jigged some good boundies.......hooked something solid but a couple of headstakes and was smoked and qiuckly reefed on the PE6 so thinking a kingie as they tend to hang closer to the cape rocks/wash.

Great day on the water but as I dont have a dig camera only got these couple of photo's off my phone. Ian reckons he's hooked on jigging......can understand why...ha ha 

quiet day, my mate caught this squid in the first couple of casts. What is the cod esque thing in the middle image?