Stu and I headed up to Sbends for a few days an an extended foundation day long weekend.

SBends was a busy weekend with 3 different fishing clubs up there fishing, not to mention the archery club and the bmx club meeting so the campsite was full.

When we set up we had a chat to some locals that gave us the old 'you should ben here a 2 weekes ago, the fish everywhere ' :?

We were given a few spot that we should have a look at and try our luck.

First morning we went up to Lucy's. Unfortunately the blowies thought it was a good weekend too and your bait lasted only seconds before it was snavelled.
I tried a few poppers but with no luck. When we got back the van park we were told of dhuies and sambos that had come out of this littl ebay so deffinately a place to keep tabs on.

We deacided to try one of the places were were given directions to so headed of to a place named headbutts.

It was a matter of going to flatrock

turning left and heading through the tracks for a few k's.

We got the lines in the water with not a lot happening, Then as soon as the sun hit the water picked up a tailor to 55cms, mullaway that would of been almost a keeper but was released and then a very nice size tarwhine.

It got quiet so we headed back to the caravan park to cook up the fish and have a few Jacks.

Next day we spent an lazy morning not doing not a great deal, headed into Gero to replace my braid scissors I lost the night before.
Tried to fish a sandy point on the way back but it was very weedy. I did manage to land a baby soapy at about 15cms.

I had fished Grenough river when I was young so I pulled in there for a look.
A lot has changed in the last 35 yrs so we but had a look and then left back to SBends. A bit of drive exploring diferent beaches for the rest of the day.

We decided to go back to headbutts as it looked such a nice fishy spot.

Great sunset and watching the storm roll on by though.

Unfortunately the weed thought it was a great spot too and decided
to join us.

We packed up and headed up to Lucy's to a beach we were going to fish the night before. the beach had about 6 cars from the Sbends caravan park parked up. Most of them had landed a mullaway or a wobby but it had quitened down so we head back for some more jacks and a feed.

Monday I decided to try and walk out on the reef around secret mens business but the tide was a bit high with still a few hours to hit the low.
The waves werent big but with the water almost up to my waist, the bigger wave that came through wanted to knock me over so I came back in.

Rather than hang around and wait for the low here we went back to camp, grabbed our gear and headed a bit to the south for the night.

We headed to a place about 10 ks south of the caravan park. Basically down the highway for 8ks then right and onto the bush tracks.

Found a nice break with some nice gulleys heading into a rip that looked very fishy.

As the sun was setting we landed two nice size dart each at around 40cm that were very good fun on flick rods.

Tuesday I was up to see a great sunrise

and then of to lucys for my last fish.
Yup, the blowies were there to great me and say goodbye so I didnt stay long. Just long enough fo ra few more pics and it was back to the campsite and pack up and head home.

Not a lot of fish were caught be it was a very relaxing way to spend an extra long weekend. No doubt we will be back up their next yr as sBends has some awesome fishing beach.

My wife and I headed out from Albany on Saturday, after a 3 month period of non boating, so it was good to be out on the water again. With northerly winds and small swell/seas, it promised to be a good day.

The conditions allowed us to head west towards and around Eclipse Island - about 5 or so K's off the coast and 20 or so Ks west of King George Sound.

Here's us leaving Oyster Harbour, just after we logged in to Albany Sea Rescue:

Conditions where still pretty choppy and we finally approached the island:

We fished various spots around the Island and another group close by - The South West Island.

Fish caught were mainly Breaksea Cod (Black Arse), One wrasse, a scorpion fish, three buff bream and a swallow tail.

BTW, my beenie looks bigger Andy, cause I have a smaller head (JK mate! )

My wife had a few reall big blighters on, one buried her in a reef and aother bust off.

Not a HUGE day by any means, but good to be out on the water!

Well there seem to be a few around now.

Went out for 2 hours last night with scano.

Saw a lady catch one that would have gone 50cm if not 60!!! is was massive!

Had one myself but it spat the hooks after about 2 minutes of running.

Did see an older guy walking off the rocks with 4-6 good sized tailor as well.

I also think i lost my First big pinky on the rocks :( he was thumping hard and got me into the rocks

Bodie

Got a last minute call from STAAL LOVER saturday arvo to launch off Pt Peron. Was on the water by about 3pm. The wind hadnt died down by as much as I was expecting, so the surface was rough, but there wasnt much seas or swell under it.

Headed out to a spot and picked up a scorpion cod on a drift baited squid tentacle. Didnt even know it was a fish as it just felt like dead weight. Something else hooked up that was probably a cuttlefish but it came off halfway up.

Switched to a taikabura jig and laced it with a bit of occy and managed to pull up a dhufish. First for my new calcutta combo so was a nice fish to christen it on. PB dhuie too, but at 59cm/3kg it wasnt massive compared to what you other guys catch but I was pretty happy with it

Lots of fish on the sounder but they didnt seem all that hungry. Rodney managed to hook up to a fish but it came off pretty quick as well. Apart from that the only rod bends were from terra firma (and I hear thats not good eating). 

Tried around sunset light change but nothing interested. Headed in near the boat ramp to try for some squid but I only managed one. 

Worked out pretty well by my standards getting a good feed and a nice fish on a good combo, but it was a pity Rodney or his mate didnt catch any 

left the jetty about 9am on the saturday in the tinny and headed north hugging the coast as there was a bit of a northerly chop out deeper.arrived at our destination approx 10.30am and started trolling with a redhead halco crazy deep.2 minutes in and we had our 1st hookup,a nice spaniard guesstimated around 10-12kg.trolled another 5 mins and another strike but hooks didnt set so decided to find the lump we had come to bounce over.after 10 or 15 minutes looking,then another 5 or 10 gettin the anchor to grip and drift us onto our lump we were finally in postion.1st drop and i hooked into something solid only to lose it after about 10 secs(bugger).next drop and my mate comes up tight only to bust off on his 100 year old 25lb mono.1st fish to come onboard was a small spangled so got me thinkin theres bigger ones down there.back down again and this time i hook another heavy fish that gives me lots of curry on the stradic 8000 loaded with 30lb.after a fight of 7 or 8 minutes i get some colour and its a nice mulloway(or kingy) as the local guys were calling them of around 15kg.great fight for 70ft of water(released) and back down again then my mate hooks something that has his kmart setup smokin and headin south at a rate of knots.after 15 mins of huffing and puffing and nearly being spooled 3 or 4 times up pops a nice spaniard of 15-18kgs.very fat fish thru the belly.by this stage the anchor had come free so we drifted along thru nothing ground until i get another solid hit and up comes another mulloway of around 10-12kg(released).several small spangled and bluel lined emperors later and up comes a nice little moses perch(i think)for the esky.after this we headed over to the other boat and tied of them for a beer and a yarn how they are going.not 5 mins after being there i get another big hit and up comes my 3rd mulla for the day(not bad considering i never caught 1 before).after about 1/2 hour catching and releasing heaps of little emperor we decide to have another quick troll before heading home.20 mins and 3 relaesed macs later we call it a day and head back to the ramp 17 miles away.glass conditions saw us back in no time and had the boat loaded and roadie in hand by 3.30.was a good day all in all and only kept the 2 mackies and the moses.didnt have camera on board so only got a kill pic back home.will post later if i can

Well, at last! Looked at BOM for tmorrow for Albany:

Synoptic Situation
A strong high pressure system lies south of the Bight.
Cape Leeuwin to Bremer Bay:
Friday until midnight: N/NE winds 10/15 knots reaching 15/20 knots west of
Albany for a period this morning. Seas 1.0m to 1.5m. Swell to 2.0m.
Saturday: N'ly winds 13/18 knots. Seas 1.0m to 1.5m. Swell to 1.0m.
Sunday: N/NW winds 20/25 knots easing to N/NW 15/20 knots east of Walpole late
morning. Winds increasing to N'ly 20/30 knots west of Walpole towards midnight.
The next routine forecast will be issued at 4:00 pm WST Friday.

That'll be offshore for us.

Will give our snapper spot a go and a few other spots. Will catch a few livies first then head out woohooo.

Tomorrow's the go.

Hope to add to this thread with a few pics. I might wear my FWA shirt and cap (won ages ago) to 'even the adverstisimg score' LOL.  

Ok guys and ladys i happened to throw a line in with my father last week end at bunbury i bought my tackle from whiteys in austro and bcf,gotone and the reports from them on the salmon topic was neither here nor there not much activity but i managed to fish amoungst the weed and miserable weather and managed to nail a nice mulloway 75cm and a few herrin and a rare tailor of 30cm,. the old bloke was amoungst all the salmon action nailing 3 on mullies.
having said all this the hours we put in the salmon were hit or miss he describes the bites as feeling just above a herring bite befor a solid thump so i can honestly say the salmon where not on the bite and 2 out of the 3 had battle scars from other preditors out there. all in all try back beach hopfully it picks up soon :) if any one else has had great sucess please feel free to post reports in this thread cheers salm0N hunTeR

Just confirmed that the Hillaries FAD has been pulled in. Sigh!

Well we just got back from our long weekend fishing trip down to Dunno.
Didnt get alot of fishbecause we spent alot of timedriving around looking for locations that wernt getting smashed from the big swell.

We did find some great spots for future reference :wink:

Well we arrived at our villa and unpacked.
This pic below was from the next morning, notice all the rods out the window of the WRX :lol:

Went strait to Canal rocks the next morning....

Pretty much first cast Lee hooked a decent salmon. We got it right in and onto the rocks where the line broke and the salmon flipped around and back in only to swim off :twisted:

Next cast (baitcasting) Lee hooked a "unstoppable" Peeled line out and the fight was on for 10min + before snapping off :twisted: . Not sure what the fish was :shock:

I only ended up getting herring and a small salmon at canal rocks :cry:

More to follow...

was down there on monday 3/6 and found the bream were really biting. got hits from the start even with soft plastics but then changed to prawn anbd
first cast = bream
second cast = bream
third cast = bream
got smashed heaps and ended up getting 8 black bream and 1 big tarwhine. released 7 becasue they were too small.
trying there on sunday and im gonna take a bigger bucket this time!!!!!!!

Went Out off Shoulwater with my Dad chasing some squid and maybe a pike or 2 plus a few herring.

We were on the water by about 8.30am and headed round to where i usually pick up a few squid.
Started off pretty quiet with no squid about, but on my first cast with the squid lure i saw a pike follow it up.

after 20 minutes of flicking the squid lure about, decided to put a Mulie on a gang under a float to see if i could lure some squid up.

After about 2 minutes of the mulie in the water, this little fella jumped on!
He went about 50cm in size.

After this it was really quiet for a while, and with the clouds over, it made it hard to see in the water even with the polaroids.

Decided to move a bit after about an hour, and headed about 50 metres or so away from where we were still trying to get some squid!

Finally we found some, and landed a few nice sized ones.

I was still floating a mulie under a float and attracting the squid to it, and bringing them closer to the boat (As i still couldnt see much in the water)

Then something bigger grabbed the mulie, and on 8LB line i had a bit of a fight on... managed to get this big fella onboard!! Went 95cm!!!
Sorry about the blood, but he swallowed the hooks.

Biggest pike i had caught in this location. Then the water started to heat up once the sun came out, and everything came on the bite.

So after about 6 hours on the water, we ended up with 5 pike, 11 Squid, 1 cuttlefish, 8 herring and 3 skippy.

All squid except 1 or 2 had tubes of over 30cm in length!!!! The unfortunate part was 2 of the squid were full of egg's which was a first for me, and if i had of known that i would have released them :(

Great day on the water!! and the Tinny is still producing!!!!!

Well, I dont rightly know what I can say about this trip, apart from the fact that it was complete shite.

Arrived Friday afternoon and decided to go for a fish at the marina as was suggested. Things looked promising, nice reef system with a few holes visible, so we set up and with much anticipation and the sighting of a few silver streaks in the water we started casting unweighted mulies to start with. After a half an hour of not even a bite, apart from pickers, my partner changed to a snapper rig, and I down sized my rod and gear and landed these fish. I know the first two are wrasse, but I have no idea what the 3rd one is.

After catching several of these we decided to call it quits for the night and get a early start and fish Flat Rocks in the morning with the hope of bigger and better things.

We got to Flat Rocks at 6.30 and found ourselves a nice little spot that looked like it had a lot to offer.

We new it had to hold something of significance as it was a very Australian spot.   

We started fishing and had a lot of bites but no runs. Foir 5 hours we fished, and just as we were about to pack up and try somewhere else, the line on my partners reel started to peel off. Woohoo we thought, finally the big one we had been hoping for, that is until the line just kept going and going, thats when we realised it was a blasted stingray.   

He reeled the sodding thing in and up on the rocks, gees those things are a dead weight. We got the hooks out, one of which was caught in the underbelly, so it left a little rip there and returned him to the water.

After catching him and no other bites we headed back into Dongara and discussed our options for a night fish.

We decided to try the tracks at the north side of town and found us a nice deep hole surrounded by reef on the south side. Once again we were optomistic and riged up for tailor, snapper and anything else that might mosey on along, and settled back and watched the storm approaching from the south. Luckily it was quite a distance out to sea otherwise there is no way i would of been standing there with a graphite rod in my hand.  

A few hours went past and we had a few bites, but put that down to smaller fish. Then just as it was getting dark the reel on my partners rod started peeling off again. Didnt take us long to realise it was another stingray, and after catching a glimpse of its wings we sighed and he bought it in as he had our last snapper sinker sitting in his gob. Rolled the thing over and blow me down it was the same ray with the same nik I had made in him that morning at Flat Rocks, you would think he would of learnt after the first go. 

By this stage we were starting to feel a little dejected about the whole Dongara fishing trip and wondering where the bloody hell all the fish we were told about were hiding out. Had they gone on holiday as well? 

We headed back in for the night and decided we would get up at dawn and try the Sbends. now everyone talks about the big fish you can catch there. This was our last hoora as we were leaving the next morning, and if anything was going to make this trip worth while it was going to happen at the Sbend.

So up we get and arrive there at 7am. The coastline was amazing with huge waves breaking up against the rocks.

We set up the rods with weighted mulies and with the thought of 60sm tailor in our minds started our cast and retrieves, whilst a third rod was set out with a whole herring, just incase anything was passing by. 

We had a few bites, but no runs, so i decided to get out my ugly stick and see if i could shake up some whiting. First cast I managed a 28cm herring which we used as bait to no avail, then 2nd cast Igot a 30cm whiting. After this encouragement from the fish gods we thought we would have a good run of herring and whiting. But no, after those 2 fish there was nada, not even a nibble on the bait that got the other two.

We stayed around till lunch time, had a laugh at the sand crabs as they were running everywhere like chooks with there heads cut off, packed up and went home.

Consiquently, there were two other groups there and neither of them caught anything whilst we were there either. I would love to know how Caroline and her group and all the other people heading up there for the weekend faired as we were very disappointed with the fishing.

Forgot that i had some salmon pics from this season that i have yet to post up. This beautiful fish gave me some curry on my bream outfit. Only 8lb braid with 20lb fluorocarbon. Pretty lucky that nothing snapped, phew! Thanks to Karlos for helping me land the fish. Maria Blues Code stickbait were killing the pig on that day. Also, Honsu insisted that i posed for at least a photo with his signature shot (Tho i can't seem to upload the shot on top of the first photo...any tips?). Lol...

hey guys, when down to yanchep lagoon this morning at high tide.

getting tones of bites but nothing was realy happening, had a few casts with the popper

and right then when i pulled my line in top recast just befor

i pulled it out of the water i see a huge fish around 60-70 cm mark,recast and nothing happens

about 30 minits later a guy catches a huge 5kg salmon

had a more casts, nothing, tryed with the halco slice and nothing

in total the guy next to me landed 3 salmon all in the 4-5 kg mark.

s3bz

waa down at canning bridge yesterday. i started using soft lastics and had a few hits and one hookup butno fish. some guy then gave me a packet of prawns and i hooked up and landed a 26cm black bream. it was a tad too small for my likings so it went back. a nice 33cm tailor was landeD. THAT WAS ALL THE ACTION we had. if you walk over the bridge half way you can se flashes in the water and its always heaps of black bream big and small but theywont bite

Hmm I didn't see any of these rumoured pinkies but my pal did ok on the herring. I was just spinning and having my live bait ignored. Didn't notice anything else landed between probably 6:30-8:30am apart from herring. I did notice Bluewater Morley + Oceanside cabal up on the rocks near the lighthouse but, safety first, I kept my eyes on the sea, ahead of me.

i was at hillaries north wall today and only got 1 yellowtail and a few missed chances. i got a run on my bigger rod (its still small tho)-- i was using a soft plastic 'herring'. a few tailor around and one of about 35cm was landed--- YUM!!!!!!!

hi guys i have just got off the phone with one of my customers
salmon are running off the beach in guilderton just south of the river inlet about 200mtrs pulled in 4x 7-8kg bag limit in 20mins

During this week I've been working at the Canarfin competition at the weigh-ins. Thought I would give you a heads up about some of the fish being caught.

Last night had two really standout fish, a 31.2kg spanish mackerel (Gutted and Gilled) and a 4.5kg mangrove jack caught in the creeks. There has been plenty of 20kg+ macks weighed in, quite a few 8-9kg red emperor, couple of 5kg coral trout and some big tuna. There are 15 species available on the competition board and very large specimens of each category have been getting caught each day.

Going back to the Exmouth v Canarvon thread theres still plenty of good fish in this neck of the woods! A lot of big boats are camping around the islands and heading out deep, if you do come up, just don't camp ON the islands or you'll find yourself with a court date, just like a few unlucky punters found out yesterday!!

Cheers,

Adam

Well, my mate and I headed out from hillary's yesterday morning.  We both had the day off and the forecast was for no wind, so we thought we look for some ground and do some drifting.  Problem is that both of us are new to offshore fishing, and don't really know much about what we are about.  We were hoping to land our first pinkie or dhuie!

We got out to about 35m of water north of Rotto, and found a lump that looked promising.  The wind was a little stiffer than we expected, and we were afraid the drift might be a bit fast, but we gave it a go.  On the first pass, I hooked and landed a large wrasse.  I couldn't believe that sucker could get the hook in his mouth!  He was safely released and we swung around for another go.

A few more passes and my mate had caught an undersized breaksea cod that we released.  I had one nice fish on for about 20 seconds....don't know what it was, but i felt some long slow headshakes before he busted me off. 

That was the extent of the excitement for us out wide.  We kept looking for good ground, but didn't find anything that was holding fish.  We were frustrated, and my mate was so upset he was actually talking about going back in time to go into the office for a few hours!!

I suggested we try the back side of an inshore reef to try and land a few skippy for dinner.

We anchored in about 12m of water and got the burley trail going.  I brought in a few foxfish, when the reel started screaming on my mates light rod.  A few minutes later I put the net around a 3kg pinkie!  Sorry, didn't have a camera with me....i'll remember that for next time.  My mate was so stoked to catch his first pinkie!

Over the next hour, we caught a heap of skippy and several more wrasse.  One of the skippy my mate caught was 4kg!!  Not that I have much experience, but it's the biggest skippy I've ever seen.  We headed back to the ramp with the pinkie and two pan-sized skippy for tea!

So we got our first pinkie....but now how we expected.

Oh, and we almost lost our anchor bc, we didn't think about where we were dropping and it got hung in some rocks.  so much to learn!!

I'll keep you posted as we continue to learn. 

first up its the trip from Tom Vagas to onslow .myself spurrie and pete set of at 4 in the morning and arrive in onslow at about 8.30am .we meet up with frizza who has just moved to Karatha.jack and his dad Ab have been on the island for 2 days and text us that there on there way back to onslow to help cart all the gear out to cantellya bay .all up it takes us about 3 hours to all arrive at the island .then another couple of hours to set up camp .we park up that arvo and get on the grogg .Ab has aspecial gift for us all and passes out his pressies .we are all stocked with our new stubbie holders and with out further notice frizza pulls out his little surprise which is Pilbara Pirate shirts with our name on the front just below a skull and cross bones .How cool is this our own skull and cross bone stubbie holders and personalized shirts. next morning everyones up before 8 sore heads but ready to fish hard.which we do till about 2 in the arvo .when 2 friends from perth to jion us for a week of fishing and talking crap.we escort our 2 initated pirates Matt and Tricky back to the island camp and help get them settled and now we have 8..... .they to are given a shirt and stubbie holder and its another night seeing who can right themselves off the most . next day we all hit hurtsville .i jump on Matts 5.4 quinnie to give the new boys a bit of a heads up on how to go about it ..with a couple of lures tossed out the back it doesnt take long for Matt and Tricky to find out all the trevs are hungry and over 10 kg ,,and all the queenies are big and airbourne ..with double hookups on both as well as another on barracuda with Matts cuda getting air and putting the first scar onthe new quinnies hull . over the next week we chop and change on the boats so everyone basicaly has a fish with each other at some point .with an array of fish caught everyones loving it friday comes along and its a big night as we all help Matt celbrate his 40th birthday.the next day Matt Tricky and Pete pack up and we all don our shirts for a group pic before they leave for the big smoke.i hope the new boys had good time with a few p.b,s on the fish stakes and few good yarns to tell the crew in perth and now there is 5..... the rest of us fish hard till monday when its Jack and Abs turn to pack up and head back to vagas which leaves only 3....... frizza spurrie and myself spend the next 3 days fishing and drinking and generaly pulling the piss out of each other before we to pack up and head home .all up i spent 12 days on the island with another 2 coming and going .it was another great trip for all involved.with highlights for all .one being frizz and pete diving in about 1.5 metres of water only to look behind them and see what frizza estamated to be a 300kg queensland groper only inches from his shoulder .rounder than a 44 gallon drum and twice as long the boys spent very little time getting out of the water.this thing was that big in a 1.5m of water its tail was breaking the surface as it idled along the reef ledge.they nick named the big fella Boo..another was Tricky falling of the back of Matts boat in about a hundred kms of run .one second hes at the back of the boat next second he:s doing the best Ian Thorpe impression head down arms pumping leggs belting the water, swimming like a man possessed to get back to the boat while me and Matt just stood there laughing our guts out . he made it but the look in his eyes when he hit the water will stay with me for a long time .another was finding some structure and drifting passed it time and time again .with every pass ,double and triple hook ups on big spanglies ,cobia ,reds , a good trout .trevally and of course shark after shark.another highlight for me was sight casting on 20lb braid to a single trev of about 20lb in about 2 foot of water only to see the trev monster the popper and tear line from the little reel like it was in free spool Wicked stuff.thanks to some handy wotk from Frizz on the tiller i managed to land the thing and take a few pics another was a quick trip out to hurtville with jack a double hook up on trevs AGAIN lines tangled some fancy rod sparring and while jack was dehooking his fish i was idly watching so i could bring mine into the boat rod high in the air my fish took of under the boat and BANG one broken rod .. hopfully next years trip will be just as good if not better than this years.thanks to all the pirates who contributed to the trip

Went for a cruise down to Mandurah last night.
Went down to the cut and fished with small hooks and shelled prawn.

I ended up getting 6 kg whiting's all over 32cm. Mate Kristian got 6 aswell and mate Brian got 2.

Great little session for a hour or 2. We had enough for a feed and left them biting!

My fish...

Mine and Kristians fish together..

My old man was sooo happy when he seen what was on the plate ready for his breakfast :wink:

hitting the rocks for pinky tonight just wondering if anyone is going?? im by myself but is a lot easier to land fish with somone else..... anyone keen??? gonna catch fresh bait this arvo aswell.

Stu, Nigel and I Packed up the Pajeroand headed to Dide bay Lancelin, Saturday morning.

We had planned on meeting a few others on the beach at the end of the fenceline or just around the point depending on tides, wind, gutters etc.

Weekend weather was spot on sun was shining and wind was ideal. We were all pretty pumped up as we driving through Lancelin and out into the dunes.

Found the right tracks thanks to the direction I had pm'ed to me. Thanks

Unfortunately we hadn't factored in mother nature. Dide bay way chokka full of weed.

We drove up around the next point and found a great part of the beach with no weed at all. Unfortunately we just couldn't keep driving to find the best spot as we knew the other may not find us.

So we picked our nice clean piece of beach and unpacked the car for the nights camp. great please clean water, beer and now time for some fishing.

Started of fishing for some bait, Stu was quickly onto some nice bait sized herring and whiting. Looks like a great night to be had with only 1 hours lefts till sundown and corresponding turn of the tide.

But as usual, things never turn out how you want it.

Rolling towards us like something out of the thing was a 20 ft wide, 3 ft deep and 100 ft wide mass of weed.

Yup, the black mass had found us. We were thinking that it would go away with the tide change but unfortunately it was here to stay.

Stu's mates had rocked up as the sun was setting so not much chance of finding a clear spot in the dark so tried our luck. Unfortunately trying to pull a bait through the weed was seeing some 15ft of weed clinging to the line.

Fishing was useless so the fire was lit and sorrows were drunk away.

Daylight bought a clean beach, well not as clean as when we got there but you managed to pull a clean line in 3 out of 5 casts.

Managed to land some monster bull herring on bait and silver slices.

We all had a good weekend but again failed to get some decent runs happening.

Hiyas,

popped out to the FAD yesterday. We were berleying with a few KG heads and frames, as well as mulies, but didn't really see any fish. Later John got a hookup, but the fish got off. I think after that John mentioned they were a bit scarce this year, so I stiffed my brother with the job of landing the next one.



He did good job, here is the fish!



We just couldn't get any bites after that, and eventually a couple other boats turned up, so we pushed off to try and troll around west end. On the way there, we got a couple striped tuna and a couple bigger bust-offs. Here is a snap of my brother with one.

The birds were really annoying us by now, snaffling our lures so we retrieved them and headed over to west end at a better pace. We trolled around, no bites though, we did see something weird floating and went over to check it out. It was a dead baby sambo with a halco crazy deep in it's mouth, yay for free lures!

Next we anchored up and berleyed up some ok looking skippy and other bottom fish, but then my brother mentioned he thought the bites were changing, then he got hit by something on the way down which gave him a bit of a ride before leaving with his gear. We looked over the edge and could just make out a school of quite large fish, so I popped a snapback over, and he put another rig on - his rig was stripped of all it's hooks, but I got something on the snapback which was a good ride. My first SP hookup turned out to be a small blacktip shark I foul hooked. Thats two out of two for me for foul hooking blacktips on John's boat. It was pacified, then brought aboard. After that we trolled along the south side of the island, but no action there, so we headed back.

Back at the washdown station we cleaned up the boat and next the fish. The surprise was this;



John's dolphinfish had 4 of the 5 KG heads we lobbed in and a few of the frames. Sure was a slow day for one fish to clean up like that. Last nite I had fish overload for dinner and it was great; Dolphinfish (thanks John) with a lemon tarragon sauce and Ventrisca de Tuna (oven roasted potatoes & tuna belly), both very tasty.

Left Perth Friday morning for Jurien under a drab grey sky only to arrive in perfect sunshine.

We set up our tent and decided to go for a look around and a visit to the local tackle shop were we got some great information on what was biting in the area.

We decided to spend the first day fishing off the jetty near the caravan park. We were then introduced to one of the locals who spends a lot of his time just floating around the jetty.

Things started out a little slow but then the skippy started biting which resulted in nearly every cast being a hook up. The only problem was actually landing the fish as "Face Ache" (as above mentioned sealine was christenend by a few of the visiting fishos) took it upon himself to fill his belly with the fish we were catching, the little smarty that he is, would wrap your line around the pilons to break you off before he would even attempt tp eat the fish, or he would have a game of tug - a - war with whomever was on the opposite end of teh rod lol.

One we managed to land. 

To add insult to injury the little bugger wouldnt eat it straight away but play with it. Letting it go and then catching it again.  

Over all we cought about 30 skippy with 90% of them being size or over size. We also had a try for Tailor but they were not biting that night.

Went up to Sandy Cape on Saturday to do some beach fishing, but there was weed everywhere and it was thick.

So we explored some of the tracks up there and saw some beautiful coastline and some odd buildings.

Anyone know what this is/was used for, we were thinking it was one of shacks that used to be up there.

So Sat night we decided to head back to the jetty and have another go at for tailor. We cast about a bit with a weighted rig with no luck at all. We then decided to just cast an unweighted mulie out and bingo we were on. We ended up catching about 5 that night, would of been more only the mulies were crap and were falling apart.

Sunday we went and fished the mouth of the marina, standing on the top of the rocks we could see the fish swimming below, it was unbelievable. Spent 3 hours there and caught another 20 skippy, all released. Stayed here till about 8.30pm only picking up an eagle ray and an undersize tailor, so we headed back to the jetty again.

Sent out the first couple of casts with no return not even a bite. Then bang we were hooked up and my boyfriend bought in this beautiful 32cm tailor on a unweighted mulie. He cast out again and  another one was hooked.

He caught several others after these two but none were size, so all went back to grow a few centemetres more for next time we go up there. 

Last night managed to get a call from a friend of my Dad who was going out fishing and wanted to know if we wanted to go. I think the response time was in the milliseconds.

Left Two Rocks marina probably around 7am out to the 40m spots. The day started off quite quiet with a couple of bites but no fish. Eventually pulled up a fish that looked a bit like a sargeant baker without the high dorsal spine (grinner perhaps). The only important identification was 'bait'.

Soon after I landed the first edible fish and my first dhuie

48 cm, so back he went with a release weight but still pretty happy to catch my first one.

We tried a few spots but it was still a little quiet. The skipper managed to pull up a nice baldchin and his parter a small but legal dhuie. Bit more time passed and a larger dhuie a bit over 4kg came up.

The spots were getting bites but not much hookups. About 11 onwards though the fish started to come in slowly but steadily. I managed a small, and first baldchin

(43cm, 1.5kg)

Picked up a nice blackarse (again a first) not too long after

At 49cm and 1.75kg its a pretty good first legal blackarse :D

Another baldie and something else was picked up by other crew members, then I picked up another baldie, a bit bigger this time at 51cm/2.25kg.

Skipper with a 4kg dhufish:

My Dad hadnt caught a fish all day despite getting bites but eventually got hooked up to something decent which turned out to be a dhuie a bit over 5kg. Not large by dhuie standards but the biggest of the day and still a good fish.

I really wanted a pink snapper as they're my favourite eating fish, and as luck would have it I managed to pick one up :D. Was headshaking quite a bit as I was pulling it up so I knew it wasnt another baldie.

50cm and 1.6kg so not a thumper, but still a nice fish for my first pink snapper over 15cm :D. Just happy I caught it regardless of size.

In the last hour pulled my biggest skippy (440g) and my first harlequin (1.3kg)

All in all it was a pretty damn good day. We did end up loosing about 8 rigs to the snags of some sort two (several with fish attached) and a few dropped fish. No massive fish, but a great variety of top eating fish that I havent caught before. Ended up with 6 fish home and one released, twice as much as anyone else (from now on i'm sticking to those owner cutting point hooks, just excellent). Every one got at least one fish as well so everyone had a good time (and the conditions were perfect too, so even if your not catching fish its nice out there).

(sorry for the samey shots, my dad hadnt read the thread about the photography tips :p) 

Well after cancelling the Coipasa Classic for this weekend, I had a free day, so when Sherbert asked me to take out Nigel from the UK and Tony (his brother, who looks younger and is a far better fisherman) I figured why not. Saves me arranging a new deckie, and with the boys setting the challenge of a Dhuie on fly, how could I resist.

The night before I got a call from Tony telling me that Nigel had come down with the flu and wouldn't be making it. All that did was it meant Tony and I could take extra rods each. So Saturday morning we headed out from Mindarie with a bit of a game plan.  Tony would get his fly rod out and I would troll the back of staggies with a sandard laser pro out the back until we found a patch of bonito (which are usually around in good numbers at this time of year). We would then burley up and I would switch to my bream rod and a soft plastic and Tony would hopefully nail one on fly.

Well, you wouldn't read about it, after last trip with Hlokk, where we couldn' get away from them, this trip they were nowhere to be seen. So despite several bog laps of Staggies we were fishless.

I then decided to fish a KG patch I have, but again no joy, so we moved deeper into the hiigh 30's and fished a coral patch that usually holds good numbers of snapper. Finaly we had a few bites and I picked up this nice Breaksea cod, whilst Therbert nailed a little dhuie, which we released using a release weight rigged up on a spare rod. Another drift and another Breaksea for me, slightly bigger than the one in the pic and another Dhuie for THerbert, again marginally under size. Another successful release and off to the "Dropzone" for a bit of a laugh.

As usual I brief my crew on what to expect there and to tighten their drag and put your best bait down etc etc. Typically in all the excitement and anticipation that precedes a drift on that lump I forgot to change over my gear from the by-catch rig I was using earlier for KG's and still had a little Gamakatsu Shiner hook on the bottom dropper.

As we hit the northern edge of the lump I got absolutely monstered. The rod was bent double, I had full thumb lock on the fish with solid weight. I think if Therbert hadn't believed me when I was talking the spot up just before the drift, he did now! The massive surges countered everything I could muster against the fish, but I felt like I had such a good hook up and wasn't actually allowing the fish to power away as had happened so many times before. This time we were locked in a stalemate, much the same as when you have an arm wrestle with someone, the more pressure you exert the more the fish does. 20 seconds seemed like an eternity, as I actually thought I was going to win the battle. Pfffft as if! Then I felt the heartbreaking pull of the line as the hooks gave way and slid out of the fish'es mouth. I think it was simply holding it in its mouth and wasn't even hooked. On returning to the surface I noticed the supersnell was completely untouched and still had a whole squid and mulie on it, but the small shiner hook had the hook point buried in the flesh of the half squid I was using. Normally I am quite anal about bait presentation and can only think that in the excitement of getting a new deckie to experience the dropzone I put too much bait on a hook that points inwards and is prone to burying itself. Naturally I changed hooks after that and next drift nailed this nice Baldie.

OK so 4 drifts on the dropzone, some excitement and some fish, we decided to move on. I hit a few more spots and Therbert caught and released his 5th dhuie for the day. One was accidentally released boatside whilst reaching for the pliers and amazingly kicked and headed down all by itself. We both thought that it was size too, so Therbert was well and truly keeping the fish gods happy but didn't have a keeper to take home.

As was the case with our earlier plan, we had decided to head in to fish the shallows by around lunch time as I had to be out for dinner that night so we couldn't stay out long. So with time marching on I decided to hit the same spot that Shamu caught his first Dhuie, Kasey caught his 24kg Dhuie on jig and I had caught countless dhuies over the years. "Two drifts only Tony" then we have to go. I switched to a jig as the drift was slow and thought we needed to stir them up a bit. The sounder was chokkers with big fish so I thought we were a reasonable chance.

On my third pump and wind Therbert was on big time! I quickly retrieved my line to ensure we didn't tangle and grabbed the camera. I managed to get a bit of the fight on film and will post it up when I get around to it. My guess is the fish came in at about 9kgs. We didn't weigh it but it would be all of that given its girth and conditioning. Therbert posed for a few pics and managed to hold onto his lunch for about 2 seconds after this picture was taken.

As one of my little short stories in the Perth Offshore Fishing section goes....."No Spew, No Dhu"

A great day on the water and great company. Unfortunately the trip home was marred by a very close shave. Some idiot crayfisherman set a string of pots in about 38m with ropes of about 100m. Luckily I spotted the rope just as we hit it doing 25knots and killed the engine. It somehow avoided the prop and by lifting the leg we were set free.

It was very very dangerous and a warning to all heading out from Mindarie at the moment as I am sure these pots will still be out there. Make sure you give them a very wide berth or slow down to about 10 knots when you get near them.

With a southerly blowing they were stretched right across the path of any boat returning from out deep. I should have taken down the numbers on the floats and reported the culprits. Nasty stuff and evidence of a very lazy crayfisherman out there.

Hi lads,

Went for a drive yesterday all the way down to Rockingham area just to see whats the deal. As I went down to have a peek on whats going on out in the water, there's baitballs being harrassed every 2-5mins intervals. But I wasn't armed with anything so I headed upto Woodman Point to do the same and all I see is baitball getting bashed every 5-10mins intervals aswell. I don't know whats the go but there's something big out there that making these fish hurl and jump out of the water.

I went out Saturday around Rotto for no result. Massive let down after fishing in Exmouth. Ended up trying one of the wrecks out deep. got a few skippy and a 60cm tailor.

I didnt think you got tailor that deep.