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fishing at hillarys boat ramps tonight - bait expodition

Took the family down to Golden Bay for Easter and a bit of beach fishing / crabbing.

First day on the boat and we struggled to find any size crabs, having at least one undersize crab per dropnet per pull. I guess its not unexpected at this time of year with most of the size crabs being female.

I tried the open water and also Sticks Channel and managed to get a feed. The father-in-law was happy to get out on the water and do the fishing while I drove the boat.

It was great to see my youngest getting a taste for crabbing and having a great deal of fun in the process.

She evenmanaged to get a few of the biggest crabs for the day.

Day 2 saw us fishing the beach with burley floats for Herring. My youngest was again in the mix using the old green tubing on a longshank hook.

We caught a heap of herring and gardies, the former being smoked that night (yum!) The gardies were retained by yours truly for some quality trolling baits for Exmouth.

The beach action continued the next day and the gardies were in plentiful supply. There were reports of a small school of 5 Salmon several hundred metres up the beach but I didn;t bother chasing them.

The missus even got into the action with some herring and it turned out a great little morning session.

Good to get the sand between the toes every now and then and get back to your roots of bread and butter fishing. Watching the kids have fun is what its all about.

Nothing major to report from down there but at least if you are heading in that direction with the kids, make sure you take some gear for gardies as they are thick about 100m north of the Dampier Ave main beach. Burley is essential.

Cheers

Andy Mac

Hi all

I will be exmouth this weekend, cant wait.

Has anybody heard any reports coming out of there?

Im also still  trying to get on a charter if anybody knows of one.

Regards

Grimo 

Organised with John to go squidding in the sound, but weather took a turn for the better (well, its gotta happen sometime) so headed out to the FADs instead.

We headed to the first FAD and started trolling some small skirts around. Johns son, Connor hooked up first and after a pretty good long fight landed his first dolphinfish.

On another pass I felt something hit my lure, then looked back and saw several dolphinfish bustling for it, and hitting it. One eventually hooked up and ended up doing five or six big jumps, then headed straight for the FAD. It must of gone just in front of it, so still managed to land it.

We tried chucking some lures and plastics, but nothing was interested. Didnt see any other fish swimming or free jumping. Tried two other FADs, but same thing. We headed to Club Marine to see if we could have some fun with some stripeys, but the FAD was missing. We trolled around anyway, and got one good hit but it came off. A bit more trolling and my deep diver got hit, but then promptly lost, but Johns trolling skirt stayed connected this time.

We then headed to west end to try for some Mackeral. Bumped into the water police, must be a good time for them to head out . Took a while of trolling to no success, till we both reels went off. The fish jumped pretty soon, so we knew we had some salmon. Mine came off at the net, and John landed this one.

Did a bit more trolling around to no sucess. John saw some fish that was either a sambo or a salmon, and we didnt have to wait long til a school busted up in front of us. I had just cast out an exploratory cast on a small richter plug, realised it would be perfect to get some fly gear out so ripped the lure in as fast as I could. About 1-2m from the boat, a salmon came out and completely smashed it and headed back. I was using light gear, so had quite a bit of fun while fighting it. Was quite a sight when it launched itself straight up in the air only a few meters from the boat. Ended up being around 6.2kg, so the largest I've got so far.

We could see the salmon school erupting over the surface every now and then, and heaps of dolphins in the area. At one point there were two porpoising in synch for a hundred meters or so which was quite a sight. Luckily they didnt put off the salmon.

Connor hadnt caught a salmon so started casting a lure around. He had just pulled the lure in and was dangling over the edge of the boat as the salmon were jostling half out the water trying to get it. He teased them a bit more before casting out and hooking up to his first salmon. Definately a big bonus getting two new fish on the same day (especially after going completely fishless down salmon chasing in dunsborough last week).

John managed to straighten a jig head on a fish while I tried chucking a fly around. Connor rigged up a dumbell and managed to hook a salmon. After a bit of a fight, the fish jumped clear of the water, did a headshake and threw the lure some 3 plus meters in the air, sailing over Connor, right over the aerial and landed in the boat about 1m from me. We both looked at each other stunned. Something we wont forget in a while.

Did manage to find out what they were at least.

G'day All,

took my tinny and headed up to Cervantes for the last 4 days.

First 2 days were solo...found some good lumps in 45m which produces heaps of 45-50cm baldies, heaps of 50-60cm dhu's and a couple of thumper 50cm blackass.

On the last day found a lump in 40m and pulled 2 bigger dhuies off 7kg & new PB 11.5kg off and got bricked by 2 much bigger dhuie's which broke through 120lb leader easily!!

Had a good trip with plenty of fish!

Heres a couple of snaps!!

Damn,Damn and triple damn.After much excitement of going to Lancelin for the big mulloway expedition at our usual hot spot (big secret of course) and copious amounts of pre trip bragging.I have to say we totally sucked eggs.And not Easter eggs.The weather was perfect but the sea weed was horrendous.We should have realized as we drove into Lancelin with that all to familiar smell wafting from the beach.Typically their was no weed the night before.But Saturday night it was wall to wall as far as you wanted to venture up the Coast.So after giving the arms a good workout catching enough weed to keep the Sushi shops in Perth going for the next 10 years and 1 sea trumpeter we headed South to Yanchep Lagoon where we lucked out again.But the extra large stingrays cruising along in the shallows were worth a look.So what can I say.SOMEONE TELL ME WHERE THE FISH ARE HIDING THIS WEEKEND cause I dont give up easy!!!

Went out for a flick during the week on Wed and Thurs so thought I'd give a quick report. Pretty ordinary weather Wed arvo so hit up the river mouth with some surface lures. Bait could be seen getting smashed and a couple of casts in the right direction resulted in a little Tailor that was followed by by a couple of small sharks. Set the Tailor out live and within a couple of minutes it was transformed in to a little black tip. That was it for the day after a dozen hits and follow-ups from quite a few queenies.

Thursday, weather was even worse but decided to go out anyway. Trolled a couple of minnows around the small jetty which resulted in a surprize Bonito which was used for bait a bit later. Anchored up just off the jetty and casted a few lures around. No more fish only lost lures due to no wire but oh well. Ran out and anchored just off the big jetty and set out a strip bait on 4lb in the hope of a mulla. The line came up tight after 10min or so and the circle hook stuck. After a 10min battle the fish bricked me in the pylons so spewn. Rigged up again and set out a live slimy on the same gear which didn't last long. Failed to hook-up though and up came an empty hook. Racked up a few species on the bait jig then headed over to the mouth again exploring some close-by ground which proved to be successfull. Seen a few big queenies but couldn't get a touch. Hit up a creek near-by and notched up a couple of species on sp's before heaading home. Next time I think I'll turn up the heat with 8lb gear for those Mullaway  Hope to get out again in the coming days.

Cheers

went out all night on friday for 11hours in the tinny chasing pinkies - me backs buggered now - landed a 

50cm king george, 2 sand whiting, a herring and a massive squid also 2 eagle rays and 2 portjacksons. was drifting one mile out from mettams pool and a small seal tried to jump in me tinnie so i grabbed the torch and just made out a massive dorsal fin moving across the water at the back of the boat i remebered  the documentary "air jaws" and just about shat me dacks went full speed all the way back to hillarys. no pics sorry to tired to take any.

Hi Guys

A quickie before I head down to Albany.

My mate texed a pic of a 15lb Yellowtail Kingfish he caught this morning a Cables beach Albany.

Nice looking fish.

Andrew

Surfing

Last weekend (4th and 5th April) was the start of some good weather for the North-West and we hit up a well known surf spot on the Saturday. Gotta love easterlies, even if they are 15 knots.

Saturday arvo we checked out another spot up the coast a bit before heading home.

Diving

Sunday's weather wasn't as good as Saturday's but we travelled up the coast anyway for a dive in the morning. We were rewarded with 6 average crays.

It was a good day apart from getting bogged and a flat tyre.

Hope you've enjoyed the pics.

Damo

A great day on the water out from Mindarie. Managed to hit the new boat limit of category 1 fish and released quite a few more.

Here are a few pics from the day. We got sharks, sambos, Dhuies, Baldies, Harlequin, Pinkies, BB's, swallowtail, whiting, a big flattie, and lots more.

Loads more pics in the camera which will be posted later. 

The shots from yesterdays Koks island trip.
The first shots are one of Cooda Col's big red emperor,with him holding it onboard "Wee Squirter",I had to get one of me with it and another of it on the filletting table.
The next three are of some of the snapper,all around the same size range and the next one is of the estuary and rankin cod with a cigarette packet[not mine] as a size comparision.
Another one of the ice box before we started with the knives and the last one is another shot of whats left of the sea snake we ran over at 22knots half way home.Only found out about it when Cooda's missus spotted it when I dropped him off.He said we ran over one and we didn't notice anything different so we kept right on cruising,and no we didn't put it into the packs either

Took advantage of some magic weather to take a run over to Koks island,29nm from Carnarvon.Decky COL[cooda] was into it first drop and me straight after.Result,2 big bludger trevs of 7-8kg,after a few swear words both released,move to next spot.Down go the lines and up come 2 double headers.Cooda got a pinkie of 4kg and an undersize NW snapper,Igot a pinkie of 5-6kg plus a small rankin cod,rankin and nw snap go back.Another drop Cooda gets another good pinkie and I got a just under rankin,back goes the cod. Move to deeper water outside the islands,Cooda comes up with another pinkie ,same with me,Cooda comes up with a small legal red emperor,I get a double of undersize black snapper[blue lined emperor].After a couple of drops its a total of 6 pinkies in the box,time to go prospecting. After half an hour of idling around we come on a most unlikely bit of bottom but we give it a go.Col comes up with a good red emperor and I'm onto something thats gone into a hole,80lb braid doesn't break easily,so start motor and idle off and hey presto,up comes a good rankin.Worth another drop after that and Cooda comes up with an estuary cod just below max size and I tangle with a bronze whaler about 5-6 foot.Cut shark off box Cooda's cod and down we go again,up comes one more pinkie giving us 7 pinkies,2 reds and 2 good cod. We found another couple of spots on the sounder but didn't try them due to a heap of big sharks to 10ft hanging around under us and we're not into giving gift meals to the buggers so it was time to head for home.Travelled nearly 90nm for the day,found some sweet new bottom and got a top feed to boot.More shots of individual fish later

 .

Went down to port beach groyne this morning with a friend

nothing much apart from 3 massive bream(think they were buffs) swimming right infront of us 

so we chucked some bait at em' they circled it and them swam off.

I chucked a few handfulls of burley in and within 3 minutes another 20 buffs start goin mentall right infront of us!

again we chucked baits at 'em but they swam off

 we kept chucking burley in and about 5 mins later, (im guessing) about 600 good size gardies came within casting distance.

we chucked baits at them for a good hour with no luck at all, a few strikes but that was it.

Just before we left we looked out and there was a wall of garides stretching on forever! 

made my way down to the e shed last night with james and nicson

started fishing at 7ish with only 2 or 3 herring to show for it

moved to a different spot which looked promising for some squid and had a nice drop off to launch our livies and big baits

we managed to get a nice bag of squid and used 8 or so for bait and had a couple to take home aswell

had a good run at midnight which james called to be a mulla but resulted in a bust off, which is my fault for trying to skull drag him....he was running and i didnt have enough line to compensate

 10 mins later my rod goes off again but we knew this wasnt a mulla as the fight was typical of a shark and 45 mins later up comes a 2 metre bronzie 

james had a go at lip gripping it haha! didnt go so well so we tailed him up as he was too buggered to fight back

chucked him back and after that i decided to go have a kip and james continued squidding and managed to bag out

off to have a sleep now to recoop

then i shall wake up and cook my cephlapods

Was fishing dawsville cut all afternoon today, was throwing burley in, and i looked across and what i saw shocked me.. a little yellowtail kingfish, about 4kgs, i didnt have my lure attacted at the time or bait... by time i did it was gone...

are they caught there normally, ive fished there a few times now and never seen one...

apart from that.. caught several big bullherring and a few salmon trout..

Heading for north mole tomorrow morning...

Ok today i thought i'd give squidding a shot for bait for saturday, so i spent 3 hours travelling to rockingham and walked all the way up to mangles bay.

When i got to mangles bay i had 3 casts then saw some pretty big fish smashing up all the whitebait schools that were congregating just over the weed bed, chucked on a 20g slice and by about my 5th cast i was on.

6lb was a raping, felt like my drag wasnt doing anything but sure enough after about 5-6 minutes i landed an estimated (im conservative) 3-3.5kg salmon with the beautiful yellow colour showing through, hooked another two which were long distance released (gotta love that one) and then called quits by about 1:30pm to get home at a reasonable hour, left them biting too.

There were about 3 small schools of 5-6 fish, and they were smashing up garfish, herring and white bait.

Pitty about the squid but a salmon was a welcomed bycatch.

Woulda been spewing if i didnt take my lures.

Another quick gamex report of day 5.  41 marlin tagged and 5 sailfish for the day.   Benno from Bluewater tagged a 500lb black and there were quite a few smaller fish around 170-120kg landed.  At the weighing station last night there were 2 marlin and a sailfish weighed in.  Marlin 1 went 114.5 kg on 24kg line class and was a good call from the angler saying it was 110kg.  The other marlin was 30kg and the sailfish 15kg, both on 10kg line class.  There were plenty of dolphinfish caught yesterday and quite a few wahoo.  Lots of boats stayed out for the nightfish last night, so I'm expecting a big final night tonight with maybe a broadbill to be brought in.  Will wait and see and give you the final run down tomorrow.

Cheers,

Adam

Quick update, day 3 saw 31 billfish tagged and released and a fair few spaniards weighed in, nothing over the 20kg mark though.

So far day 4 has had 26 billfish tagged and released in what has been reported to be a magic day out on the water.  There were a few tags starting to be reported in so the end tally should increase by the time of lines out.

Also for stoinka, saw the crew of orange peel yesterday, they were going to weigh in a decent mack but it was disqualified for excess leader length.

Cheers,

Adam

Alright fellas

Missed out on a weekend boat trip due to shortage of funds, so ended up lake fishing on Shearwater lake on the longleat estate in Wilshire.  Caught loads of fish, mainly bream and roach.  Most fish were caught on maggot or soft pellets, fed breadcrumb and sweetcorn over the top as loosefeed.  Couple of photos of the lake and one of the bream.  Probably ended up with 50lb + of fish by the end of the day.  Boat trip in two weeks....hope the weather is good.!!!

Bream

Lake

Lake2

Another big day for gamex with 20 marlin being tagged for the day, one at 175kg.  Plenty of drama's on the high seas with a few people going to hospital with hooks in them.  Other drama's were one 'favourite' boat taking on water, resolving the problem to some degree and then deciding to return to the marina to check things out.  At Helby bank the call went out that the motor had cooked and they only just had enough power for radio, luckily reel teaser was out doing their night fish and towed them in.  They were just getting to them at about 9.30 last night and had a lot of people concerned, but things seemed to work out, will find out more today.  Not sure how many sails as I was busy chopping up a multitude of spaniards.  On the spaniard front, there was one 16kg fish weighed in on 6kg and also a 33.5kg on 15kg, which is a pending state record.  After filleting 20 spaniards last night, I can effectively say I never want to see one again.  (which isn't going to be the case ;( )

Cheers,
Adam

Spent the last coupld weeks down tthe south coast around hamelin bay area.

Weather didnt play ball for the first week, then the whales screwed things up aswell.

Did a bit of land based fishing while the swell and winds were up...

Heres a pic of a 46cm KG Whiting...pretty good for land based.

Also managed a 50cm flattie from the same location. Got about a half dozen 40+cm KG's from this little sand hole.

Few mroe pics to come when i get them from the other guys.

No salmon tho... which was a dissappointment.

Just a quick Gamex day 1 report before I go and process the fish.  There were 19 marlin and 7 sailfish tagged (I think they are the correct numbers, if not, very close to that)  The morning conditions were absolutely shocking with a lot of crews not bothering to venture out until lunch and those that went early got smacked down with only 6 fish being caught, after lunch when it fined up things fired up.  Apparently there was a 100kg striped marlin caught which was the biggest fish of the day, but I need to confirm that.

On the weigh in front.  A couple of state and national records.  One being Taylor Clatworthy for a 9.7 golden trevally on 3kg line (under 15 years) National record and also a tied National record for a 6.5kg queenfish on 2kg.  One other state record was for a 4kg GT on 1kg line.  Also a 4kg spangled emperor on 1kg line as a state record.

Biggest fish weighed in was a 29.8kg spanish mackerel on 8kg line, with something like 15 lost fish before they managed to land that one.

All in all a pretty successful day 1 and with great conditions today, I would expect the billfish count to double easily.  Will do a day 2 report tomorrow.

Cheers,

Adam

Fishing Down north mole this morning, bloke hooked something that looked like a ray... i went over to see if he needed a hand.. took my gaff over...

as fish came closer to surface.. it looked like a little sambo.. but once gaff was set . i soon realised what it was..

i think he gave it away to some asian guy

Every summer holiday and every other chance we get, I take my wife and daughters (and usually the inlaws) to our holiday house in Bunbury. It right on top of a big hill over looking the back beach and I've gotta say - one of my favourite little fishing spots. It's not what you can catch there but the enjoyment you can have doing it.

This is a little story of my daughter's first ever fish...

My mate Matto was with me this time so we sat up after dinner with a few beers in lounge, listening to the waves crash and rigging up some light whiting lines. A few paternosta rigs, a bit of red tube, 2kg line, gama longshanks and we were about set. Now, this is not serious fishing by any means but we enjoy it and the family can come along for a change. (I have a four month old also). After the lines are rigged and the tackle boxes are in order we polish of the last two beers and hit the sack.

By 5:30am my four and a half year old, Claudia, is gently patting me on the forehead saying "daddy, time for fishing"... How could you refuse?, what a little angel. I clamber out of bed only to find that my Claudia has already woken my mate up - by trying to practice fishing with one of the 12ft rods in his room! LOL. She's an absolute character! We quickly sling the tackle bags on our shoulders, slap some sunscreen on, and head out the door onto the dune path to the water.

At the top of the dunes, we are greated by a softly lapping sea and clear blue skies - couldn't be more perfect. My little daughter looks up at me and says "is this good weather for fishing daddy?". Really, you could catch sand whiting here anytime in summer without a problem, but I tell her "I rekon that you'll have a pretty good chance" so as not to get her hopes up - just in case.

We set up the rods into the holders in the sand and soak up the warm morning sun. Claudia is excitedly watching us cut up the little pieces of prawns and helps me throw some burley on the wash line. We notice heaps of little bites the moment the rigs hit the bottom. Beauty - the whiting are here. Then my phone rings and my wife says she and the baby and her mum are going to walk down to see Claudia catch a fish.

I tell Claudia to keep a close eye on the rod tips and she gets a bit of a buzz as she watches Matto pull in a little whiting. "In the bucket for breakfast!" she exclaims - eager to get her own fish. She can see her Mum and sister at the top of the dune now and wants to have a go so she can show them. Whilst I show Claudia how to hold the rod and wind the reel, the others come and join us on the beach.


Claudia takes to fishing like her dad, loves it from that first little bite! I let her lod the rod by herself and put her tiny finger on the line. "I can feel the fish dad!!" she yells, even though I'm right next to her.

I tell her to reel him in and she hurrys to retrieve the line onto the spool. I ask if she can still feel him and she can't even reply - she's that excited. As the little whiting hit the shore - my little daughter is so excited - I can remember that feeling. Something no Dad can deny is right up there with the best experiences in life. I fished some pretty exciting places - but this beats them all hands down!
[img]http://fishwrecked.com/files/images/Claudia's%20whiting_0.jpg[/img]

Whiting may be a small, easy to catch, bread and butter fish - but a crispy fried in butter - beautiful! We all washed these beautys down with freshly brewed coffee for breakfast. After all this, it was hard to believe it was only 9am and the day had only just begun! Maybe down thre busso jetty then....

With all the interest in this season's salmon run(s), I thought I post this article (and pics) that appeared in one of the local papers. 

I'll let the article and pics, speak for themselves.

All I'll say is, anyone that knows Salmon Holes, knows it IS a very dangerous place and a number of lives have been lost with numerous near misses.

Went down to risely road at the naval base this afternoon with family,

Caught 1 tailor (35cms) 1 Flounder, lots of herring, now awaiting the arrival of salmon

My work mate just called in.

Good school of Salmon at Middelton Beach(Albany)

His old man is trying to get a few,Jimmy is off to Albany to have a go.

Andrew