Reports

Where are they biting at the moment

last ditch for gold

After 40 mins of swimming with 3 prawns in the net , I got lost and found Atlanta . The down side is i wish I found it early on in the dive . I also forgot my catch bag , but managed to see the biggest bluey of my life .

There`s are a few prawns in there that are 19cm`s .

P.S.     note the artistic flare in the top right of the pic !!!!!


Mackerel Islands 2008

Hey guys

Went to mackerel islands last week for 5 days.

Unforuntely the Weather wasnt the best with plenty of wind around. Was a crew of 15 or so boats that went over and a total of 45 people. Great trip with Great company and a good Variety of fish caught.

Things looked promising when we arrived on Thevenard with a 15 KG red sitting on the filliting table that one of the guys who arrived the day before caught, and only in 20 metres of water.

Next coupld of days saw the wind kick in, with most days doing 15-20kn morning then 10-15 arvo.
But one afternoon saw no wind and plenty of action.

Not a huge amount of fish were caught by all, but the bigger boats (Couple of Noosa Cats) did pretty well as they could handle the rougher weather alot better.

We did manage plenty of GT, Goldens, few mackerel, 1 Red, Queenies, Many different types of Cod, 1 Sailfish bust off (Well im calling it a sailfish bust off).

I must admit tho, i had a ball walking round the island on the real windy days with my 6lb kit and poppers in hand. Many GT's caught, goldens, Queenies, Longtoms, and even cod on poppers!!!!! who would have thought.

The trip was an experiement for me, as i went up planning on not using any bait, only lures, poppers, plastics(Snapbacks), and Jigs.

Lost quite a few Jigs to mackerel, and wasnt too happy losing 4 okta Jigs in 1 hour :(

Here are a few Pics from one of our Cameras, more to come.

All the boats on moorings

The Jeep with the tub in tow on the way up. Think we paid $2.20 a ltr for diesel here.

These dam things are everywhere.

We lost atleast 5-6 good fish to sharks. This one really wanted a chunk of me. Looks angry

Massive Estuary cod. Went 1.25m and 30+kg's, good fight 50 LB Braid. Thats a 92 Ltr Ice box its sitting on. When releasing it we had to put 4 Release weights on it to get it down!!!

Nice Golden i landed on a plastic estimated 18kg's

Another golden from the old man, we must have got 30+ of them in an hour or so. Couldnt get past them and we were on great ground!

Couple of 2-3 kg GT's caught on light gear around the Island on popper, great fun watching them smack a popper.

Nasty ass long tom with big teeth on popper

More to come soon!!


3 half day arvo sessions, with Killer whale pics!

Well I made the best of 3 nice arvo's to do some fishing with the morning easterlys being blustery so no sparrows. Lines in the water after lunch and lines out just after dark....the conditions were very nice indeed. Simon C came out on my boat and we headed to the Key Biscayne oil rig wreck that took a while from Tworocks.

This was my first time so it was good to do something different which i enjoy instead of the same old. Rocked up to find the structure still there and fish too. Sambos and skippy all over it so in went the jigs. Both Simon and myself dropped all sorts of jigs and we lost more fish than we landed. That certainly made every drop challenging with Simon landing the biggest sambo (pictured) and my biggest a bit smaller. The sambo's were in XOS size that came up with hooked fish and the same size drilled us often. Simon went crazy and dropped some awesome SP on light'ish gear and landed a few but lost many which was great to watch...........funny as!

Here's the sambo's & skippy awaiting us!

 

Simons fish that made it to the boat!

 

 

That done and arms stretched we headed back to Tworocks with some spots to hit up on the way in. The first spot was active with fish on my sounder (pictured) and I picked them for pink snapper....big ones too!. Both of us dropped and I hooked up to a biggen pink and like wise Simon with my driftbaiting gear getting me nailed but Simon landed his!

 

The pinky patch!

 

Simon with his good pink, 7.5kg on digital scales!

 

 

The pinkys switched off quickly and went higher in the water column like they do in the Sound and they light bulbed us. On another drive over I still saw fish but close to the bottom so worth another drop. Whilst I was taking more pics of the sounder Simon ripped up these fish, he was on fire!

 

 

With pics of the sounder sorted, I dropped a line over and got this nice double, my fav Baldchin and a good one at that with a BB!

 

 

With the sun closing in on a great arvo session I said one more drop and got this double header!

 

 

Well that was it for the arvo and the ride in very nice endeed. Was good to catch up with Simon and we have plans to get back out soon, great company mate!

 

Sooo the next 2 arvo sessions were replica conditions and after getting a good feed the day before I backed off on keeping fish and went for a bit of recon work and dropped lines periodically. The northerly current slowed things down also but great to be on the water!

 

Here's a smathering of pics, the Killer whales (Orca's) was awesome to see and was lucky to get some good pics!

 

 

 

Big BB, just a bit smaller than my PB!

 

Dan with a BB

 

Last dropped before we pulled the pin!

 

 

* Was a great 3 arvo's, caught other fish and more legal size Dhufish but all released for another day *

 

 

Cheers

 

 

Ryan


Night out fishing

When out on Friday night with Jesse for an overnighter. The seas were flat calm so we headed out at around four o’clock in search of a fish, as it was so flat with no swell, we sounded out some new ground until after dark, then decided to have a fish, but first it was out with the cooker and a quick sausage sizzle I tell you those sausages were great. We caught up with Ryan out there drifting around in the dark, funny the people you bump into in the middle of the night. Any way the night was very slow with only three Dhuies caught and released. We ended up in the 80 metres, the wind had picked up to around 18 knots and we decided to sleep until sunrise. Early Saturday morning and the fish turned on, catching two nice dhuies two pinkies one queen snapper one baldchin and two china man leatherjackets the wind didn't stop for most of the morning ,so a deep fish was out . All in all a good result and a bit if fun, besides not getting much sleep.





Golden ponds bash saturday 16th

Well with all this talk about golden ponds , i thought i would go take a look see.

Got down there and bought some tinned corn, some pellets and walked to the pond behind the shop where you pay. I couldnt belive my eyes! Some real big rainbow trout in there.

I tryed puttint the pellets on the hook but they were tiny round hard things and wouldnt go on the hook and kept braking.

I tryed the corn but the trout were very cautious! They would come up for a look but swim awaywithout taking it.
I came up with a idea of flicking it out an jigging it like a insect through the water alost like a lure and sure enough thats what they liked. Caught 5 and kept 3 .
All in all a good day out!


A good sound Yakking..

Went out for a Yak this morning, early, picked up a good sized Pink on a hardbody lure, after just dropping one at the boat identical the first run. I spat, grumbled and cursed my way back up and retrolled the same run, an hit this one, same spot, same lure, next run. Good fight on 10lb line, Banax i1600, Nitro Distance Spin.

Had 8 yaks out on the water, Jutto picked up his on a mulie, sister fish to mine. Great Morning, if not a little choppy, nice headwind on the way home. Thankgod for pedals!

 

 

 

 


BRIGHTON 14TH AUG

If anyone feels like catching some salmon Trout and or juvenile salmon theres heaps round brighton....Just like catching Giant bull herring most fish around 30cm...bit of fun on the light tackle..went down tonight and was getting hammered every cast...be prepared to cast long though as theres not much of a gutter in close..


MASS KILL PHOTO

But a good one!!!!! Love doing damage on the redfin in Warroona!!!!


Key Biscayne

Anyone fished/ dived  the Key Biscayne Oil Rig lately. Be interested to know if there was anything interesting fishy about.


Two Rocks - Matt's 15kg Dhuie

Went out with Matt today and it was abit lumpier then expected, but the weather was the last thing on our minds after 2 drifts. Matts line was hit hard and he called for a ray, but when we got colour it was clearly a big dhuie.  Took the lie detector down to the 15kg mark! He was pumped up and said that it was he PB.

 

 

We released another 3 which measures 47, 49 and 50cm.

 


 

All in it was a slow day with a couple of thumper blowies and a banjo. Wind and cureent slowed and by about 11-12pm, we were down to 1/2 a knot drift or so. Bite slowed with the drift, but the conditions made for a fast ride back to the ramp.

Once again, Matt, thanks for letting me deckie.


Doughnuts for two..

Well Shorty was kind enough to join me for Doughnuts last night..  Lucky the weather was beautiful, cos it was real quiet on the fish front. Tried some new ground, and it wasnt happening for us. Maybe next time.







Cheers for the company Shorty!!  :D


food

finally got into some good tucker after a week or so of piss poor performance , 3.4 kg

 


Cheap pushers!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Hi guys ive kept this under raps due to the hope the cops would find them around, but i had over 120 fully rigged pushers, daiwa 300bb bluebacker reel (brand new) and my new trialejo overhead beach stick stolen out the back of my car at a fishing action about a month ago. Estimated loss well over $6000 and with full fishing gear insurance im hoping (still waiting) to see if they will replace the stuff.

If you do see or hear of any floating around please let me know asap. Very reconisable. cheers SPESS. 


Tworocks 26/7/08 * Re-post *

** Re-post again for people that cant view **

 

Well after the arvo chasin deepwater species on (25/7/08) i was happy to clean my catch the next day but a few mates said bugger that lets go fishing so with minimal arm twisting i was there. The only criterea i stipulated was it had to be an arvo session once again!

That said & agreed, we launched with no que which you would expect from a near lunch time launch. I ended up fishing a few spots that i havn't fished for a while with not much happening. Ended up going back to a few fav spots as the arvo got on! We ended up with a feed with no massive stonka's but a good feed & some fun!

 

Rick with a nice late-arvo dhu!

 

 

Big Mick as the name says tells you the story, lets say this good pinky is very small against the big!

 

 

We ended up with plenty of black bum and a fair few blue spot flathead which i also rate as a nice plate fish~

 

 

I had one of those arvo's that produced a mixture of everything including alot of these KG's, this was the first one and the smallest........the rest just got bigger & bigger.........no complaints!

 

 

Had a great arvo session and we released plenty of fish also!

 


Ruby Reward 25/7/08 * Re-post *

** I dont know why the pics didn't load up for some members so i'll try again! **

 

Well i havn't been out in the real deep water since my article in WAFM (Ruby Rewards) was published. With a half a day to spare I though a quick dash out (well not so quick actually) to fish the deepwater contours was on the job card. With only half a day i was up against it let alone the fish not showing up on my sounder when i was searching. Persistence paid off and i ended up with a stonka grey-banded cod that i rate highly on the tooth!

 

After a bit more driving around i found what looked like potential Rubys and whalla.........awesome eating fish..........I rate them the best!

 

 

Well the half a day went quick, i ended up with some big yellow eyed red snapper and a good offshore pink snapper to top off the arvo session and then the long drive in..........well worth it!

 

** Hope that worked ** 

 

 


On the water with the wife and kids!

I had planned a day on the Swan with the family, only thing was that I had one previous commitment that I had to meet first and that took longer then expected. By the time we finished it was 2pm and it was too late to haul the rig to the Swan, so I did the next best thing, we launched at Mindarie. Ian my little one still doesn't like it when it is bumpy, he got scared after an attempt to bring him out to the FADs last year when Seabreeze got it wrong, so I am attempting to get him accustom to being on the water again, so I figured that the protected waters of the marina would be the ideal place to do it.

The plan was to drop a few crab nets that I only bought the day before and to do abit of fishing inside of the reef between checking the nets. By the time we wetted the hull, it was 3pm - first thing was to bait up the crab nets and get them over the side. We dropped the nets close to the rocks and then went out of the marina for a little fish.

I let the boat drift and threw some berley over and soon we the wife Tracey and the kids started to get in to the usual reef fish. After that we motored back in to check the pots and started getting some crabs. There were several keepers, that were just over size and heaps that were just under. We took enough size crabs for a feed that evening and released the rest.

The kids enjoyed motoring around the marina between pulls and all in all they had a great day. I am glad that Ian has already asked "When can we do that again?"

 

 




Tworocks 26/7/08

Well after the arvo chasin deepwater species on (25/7/08) i was happy to clean my catch the next day but a few mates said bugger that lets go fishing so with minimal arm twisting i was there. The only criterea i stipulated was it had to be an arvo session once again!

That said & agreed, we launched with no que which you would expect from a near lunch time launch. I ended up fishing a few spots that i havn't fished for a while with not much happening. Ended up going back to a few fav spots as the arvo got on! We ended up with a feed with no massive stonka's but a good feed & some fun!

 

Rick with a nice late-arvo dhu!

Big Mick as the name says tells you the story, lets say this good pinky is very small against the big!

 

 

We ended up with plenty of black bum and a fair few blue spot flathead which i also rate as a nice plate fish~

 

 

I had one of those arvo's that produced a mixture of everything including alot of these KG's, this was the first one and the smallest........the rest just got bigger & bigger.........no complaints!

 

 

Had a great arvo session and we released plenty of fish also!

 

 


Ruby Reward 25/7/08

Well i havn't been out in the real deep water since my article in WAFM (Ruby Rewards) was published. With a half a day to spare I though a quick dash out (well not so quick actually) to fish the deepwater contours was on the job card. With only half a day i was up against it let alone the fish not showing up on my sounder when i was searching. Persistence paid off and i ended up with a stonka grey-banded cod that i rate highly on the tooth!

 

 

After a bit more driving around i found what looked like potential Rubys and whalla.........awesome eating fish..........I rate them the best!

 

 

Well the half a day went quick, i ended up with some big yellow eyed red snapper and a good offshore pink snapper to top off the arvo session and then the long drive in..........well worth it!

 


Rowley Shoals 2008 - Brief Report

Well Glenn and myself got back from our Rowley Shoals trip last Sunday. The trip over there and back was a little rough which made for a uneasy nights sleep but fortunately the weather was pretty awesome while we were at the shoals.

We caught alot of different species while we were there, I think the last count was over 25. Some highlights were a few thumper GT's on poppers, dogtooth on stickbaits/poppers and a couple of nice sails despite them being unseasonaly quiet for our trip.

Glenn also landed a stoinker Hump Headed Maori Wrasse inside the lagoon on the light gear, how it didn't bury him is amazing.

Plenty of YFT, Wahoo, Red Bass and Coral trout also came on board.

Over all it was a great trip, and I'd highly recommend it. Check out the Reel Teaser website for their report and a pic of Glenns Sailfish and Brians GT caught on the last cast of the trip.

http://www.reelteasercharters.com/news.asp


The Tackle Shack 2 lb challenge - July 2008 (Bream) Comp - Dreamy's Report II

Well, with July soon to end, I was desperate to obtain a better entry for the Tackle Shack July (Bream) Comp - one that involved fish this time!

I'd quized some of the local young bream masters and topped up my supply of softies and jig heads.

I'd been invited out by Deacon Plant, one of THE local young guns (4th in the last ABT!), in his tinny. The plan was to launch from the Kalgan Ski Club and fish anywhere that had good structure and/or drop offs.

My wife and I arrived at 08:30 am, as organised with Deac, to beautiful crisp July 26 Saturday morning, with a crisp feathery wind blowing and a river surface that perfectly reflected everything:

 

I'd travelled light, mindfull of space in a small boat:

 

Three minutes later, we could hear Deac's thunderous vehicle and modified box trailer (to hold and launch/retreive the boat), crashing and thimping down the rough gravel/dirst track - infested with puddled pot holes from the recent heavy rains.

Sandra drove off, planning to conduct some shopping in Albany and Deac and I were left to start the day! A day I was SO looking forward to!

We dropped the tinny in the water, and I braved wading into an ICE cold Kalgan (remember, it's fed by water from the Stirlings that had snow on them recently! Foot in mouth)

Soon underway, we stopped at our first spot selected by Deac, and, no sooner had I heard the swish of his rod and plop of the jig head, when the tip of his rod arched forward under the load of the first bream for the day - caught by Deac as I expected. After all, he is the master, and I was the student:

Almost in shot Deac - hang on to the slippery little guy:

...no, stick your tongue in - it's not a good look:

...that's better!

Immediately after, my 2-4 Pfeuger Rod angrily responded and I was onto my first fish. We were into them!

My first:

...a close up:

...measured up - just size - but he went back - a good start though!

Deac's 'Lecky' wasn't working, so we were thankfull of almost windless conditions and a slow river flow that set up a very graceful, easy drift.

We moved onto a deep channel adjacent to some flats, and I sent out my Gulp my Gulp 2" cammy sandworm on a 1/32 jig head, 2lb braid and 8lb Flouro Carbon leader. No sooner had the the jig hit bottom and I deployed my first twitch to impart action, when, BANG!! - this one was my second for the day and I could tell, a better fish!

We moved around quite a bit, trying different depths, drop offs, structures (natural and man made) and the action was plentiful astern and up front, with boath of our rods seein g action virtually on every cast!

Here's Deac with a good one! :

...a close up:

 

I was rellying on Deac to take the photos - so didn't want to pester him on every fish (I landed 10)

Here's number 3:

 

and 4:

 

and 5:

 

and the last one photographed:

 

A suprise catch - a little salmon trout. We caught a few of these:

There were plenty of bust offs, snacks and trees....but overall a great day for what Deac described 'as the hardest time of the year down here'! 

 

REPORT ENDS...

 


 


Two rocks Sat 26th

Headed out nice and early, getting to Two rocks ramp just before 7am. Ramp was quite busy with about 15 other boats heading out at the same time.

Luckily we were in a 25Ft Blackwatch centre console with twin 200's on the back, so cruising out at 40 knots makes for a short trip!

Headed To Direction bank, and fished in the 35m range

After 5 minutes, First Baldie and First 5KG dhu onboard!!

Most pics with a guy i work with landing his Dhuies.

Total day managed 7 Dhuies, 1 under size, and 3 Baldies, 1 being a monster!!!

Dhu's, 1 @ 10.5 Kgs, 2 @ 7.5 kgs and 3 at 5.5 kgs

Biggest Baldie went 5.5 kgs!!!!! Massive!

Massive Baldie!!

By Far the Best Metro (Well i call it metro) fishing ive done so far. Only 2 Rass landed and thats it, nothing else, all in 5 hours of fishing!

Had whales jumping around pods of dolphins coming through and also got a wee too close to a tanker and he showed his displeasure by honking pretty dam loud!

I can say i will be going back to Two rocks again :):)

PS: can you see the jig that caught quite a few Dhuies :) its a plastic squid about 3 inches long!

I tried the Okta Jig, but no even a touch!

Cheers


Mixed bag today

3 in the boat and a great day on the water.


3 dhuies kept, smallest 53cm, KG's to 58cm, flounder, skippy and others.



Top day out!!!









And the turf shot.






Al.



 


Kayak Group Run, Cockburn Sound!

Got a group of Perth Kayak fishers together for a run Saturday morning out to Cockburn Sound. Amazing how they come out of the woodwork after a good fish is caught!! Unfortunatley, the fish didnt come out to play, tho it was great having a group of 7 kayaks fishing together, and a great time was had by all.

 

The Sound was like a millpond all morning, beautiful weather, kind off a stark contrast with the Industrial Wasteland of Kwinana strip our backdrop!! Heres a few snaps!

 

 

Thanks to those who came, especially the Northies!

 


BRIGHTON SAT 12th

OK, So woke up sat morning  with no swell and light winds I decided to head down to the dog beach and see if anything was around.Since i hadnt planned anything i didnt get down till about 10am but non the less there was a nice winter gutter on offer so i set up a burley trail and started having a flick round with the Bream outfit. after about 15min the herring came on the bite which i was happy with at that stage then i got hit by something a bit bigger and it took a bit of drag..shortly after i landed i nice salmon trout.Now considering how lazy i had been i was stoked with that but the best was still to come..I had had the shimano shorespin loaded with 6kg fireline out baited with a whole mulie just in case of something a bit bigger.Meanwhile i was distracted trying to get the hook out of my salmon trout which had nearly swollowed my whole rig.And the shorespin took two big hits...I raced over and struck only to feel no weight.My heart sank and a volley of swearing proceeded.But as i reeled in the line became taught and took off down the beach. after a good battle i landed a nice salmon of about 4kg.released

 Baited up again 2 more casts hit again.another salmon a bit smaller.Unfoutunately had hooked it in the gills so kept it.

About 10 min later hooked and landed another salmon prob round 4kg also.These were the roundest little salmon i had ever seen!Needless to say i was stoked with the late season salmon considering ive tryed for them down at Brighton at least 10 times to no avail.

Cooked the salmon that night in lemon pepper, flour and butter and was really suprised how nice it tasted.Have eated them a fair bit before but i think they taste alright and seem less bloody in the smaller sizes.No photos unfourtunely..Did'nt expect to catch anything!


Hillarys this saturday

Going down to have a crack early saturday morning with the powerbaits. Hopefully there will be a few skippy and herring about.

Not sure what wall to fish yet, may have at the north wall. high tide at 5.15am (ill be there about 6am.) so far the wind is looking low too.

Come say hi if you are about, i shouldnt be too far from a silver statesman with a tackle shack sticker on the back.

 

wicksey


NOOB Report 21-7

Got a late start today...didn't get out on the water til about 11:30.

Launched from Hillaries and hit our first lump near Rotto.  First pass I caught my first ever Sgt. Baker.  Back he went and we went around for another run.  Next run my mate brought up a just size pinkie.  Next pass I caught my first pinkie....not very big, about 4cm short, so back he went.

 The weather was so nice, and we know very few good fishing spots, so we decided to take advantage of calm conditions to search for new ground.  Dropped on a couple of likely looking spots over the next couple of hours.  Mate caught a cracking KG that went in the esky!  I brought in a couple of big sand whiting that should taste good for breakfast tomorrow!  

Decided to go out wide with the ocean looking like a lake.  Saw a few whales and a big pod of dolphins.  Found a table top where 48m climbed to about 40m and made a few passes.  I brought up my first ever baldie on the first pass!  Was stoked about that.  Unfortunately, he checked in at 38cm, so he was safely released.  On the same pass, mate was busted of by something big and strong.  Two more passes yielded nothing, and we decided to call it a day.

I know for most of you this would have been a disappointing day, but we were pretty happy with it.  Three firsts for me on this trip!  Can't wait to get that first dhuie!  We've still got alot to learn, but ya know...learning is a lot of fun!;)  I'm planning to get a little digital camera soon, so hopefully I'll have some pics with my next report!

I'll be even happier when I start raking in some of the hauls I see you fellas getting!


Home early with a feed.

Went out off Rockingham this morning at 7am and this was our first spot.

Had a couple of massive hookups that I reckon were real good dhuies but kept pulling hooks on the bastards, I gotta remember to settle down and take it easy when using the 80lb gear.

On about our third drift after working out the current and wind we got our first dhuie of about 5kg, then I got one very similar in size. After about our 5th drift we had a double hookup for two more dhuies, and there's our bag limit with a score of 2 all.

So off we go into the sound for a few squid and maybe a whiting or two, but I had so much fun with the squid we never bothered chucking any baits out, a few small cuttlefish and about 15 squid later we called it a day.

The days catch.

Hope you enjoyed the report.

Al. 

 


sunday 20th

Took young Dean out for a trip today, things were a bit slow . The weather wasn't the best ,with the wind gusting at 20 knots at times. Hit the deeper water today 70-80 meters ,there was fish on the sounder but they wern't biting ,moved in a bit closer and picked up a few fish .
Dean got a nice dhuie at 10.5kg but that was the fish of the day finished up with
5x dhuies 3 released
5 breaksea
and a few small fish .


Hillarys

Just a quick report here, herring went off at hillarys north wall this morning and were still going crazy when i left at 1030, i think todays the day if you want a feed!! Unclestu and i easily catching about 40-50 between us including a few mullet and a 25cm tailor which is good to see ...

Never mind about 'SPESS'S SPECIAL BREW' it should be 'UNCLESTU'S HOME BRAND!' haha his burley (chicken fats, leftovers from last nights dinner, pollard, bread and oil etc) made the fish go absolutely crazy!!

Oh by the way, inside the harbour there were a few reports of hits and misses and alot of tackle lost due to some big skippy ...


Toasty dive with some nice prawns & crabs!

Well I love my Swan diving but the cold weather stopped me in winter very quickly. My summer wetty didn't cut it so I had to change that quickly. I went to Perth Scuba in Canningvale and both Lee & Nat were helpful with good advise on stayimg warm. I ended up buying a thermal suit and hoody that i wear under my normal wetsuit!

Went for a dive with Pete D & brad last night, we ended up with a feed but for me the best thing was being very warm in the friggen cold water. Best money i've spent and i'll be doing more winter dives for sure. I ended up with just under a kilo of prawns and i could of got more if i didn't chase some blueys but i had the seafood list required for tonights cookup. I was tempted to do a second dive to catch more, perhaps next time!

Large fish plate with tonights prawn meal!

 

Large fish plate with tonights blue-manner meal to go with the prawns!