I decided to head down to the grain terminal this arvo for a bit of a fish. Got there at about 4pm and expected the beach to be quite packed, but luckily there were only about 3 other fishos there. So I had a bit of room.

I quickly set up, chucked some mulie on some hooks, cast out about 15 metres, then bang I was on. Salmon trout were on the bite. Right up until sundown. I let them all go, but got these pics of 2 that were caught.

They were great little fighters for their size.

As the sun was going down, it switched from salmon to herring, kept 3 for a feed.

A 25cm tarwhine and herring double header followed, took a quick snap of the tarwhine, then released him.

Just after dark, the choppers came on the scene, all around the 28cm mark, just shy of size.

After the tailor, everything seemed to slow down, with the occasional herring getting caught. By about 7:30 bites stopped altogether.

I had a herring out on the 12 footer all the while, got a few bounces on the rod tip but nothing solid. Still waiting to get that mulloway!!!

It was a pretty decent little sesh, got a few herring for the fish curry tomorrow night

On the down side, some idiots down there decided to break into one of the other fishos cars...poor guy got told by some people that had just arrived that his car had been broken into. That's gotta wreck your Sunday arvo.

I hate tools that do stuff like this.

A couple of pics from Tues day trip to Dunny, 2 of over 20 fish between 3 of us. Didnt matter where you fish, Eagle Bay, Pt Picquet, Bunkers and everywhere in between had schools and schools of fish passing through. No huge fish that some ppl reported seeing. Biggest school would be no more than 2tonnes. NOT 20-40 tonnes. There may be one out there somewhere. Geez they go hard on bream gear.

Loco....where's your pics??? 

can anyone tell me how the fishing is down in esperance at the moment cheers

We'll, i've been getting stuck into the salmon landbased down at Injinup (Yallingup)lately and having a ball with plenty of salmon falling to the Rapala X-Rap 14. A lot of the early runners called front runners are eating/hunting baitfish so they're moving fast and the diving minnows are getting the results with surface lures including poppers and my favourite metals getting ignored often. There's been some chaos lately and not good ediquette re L/B but the salmon fever does that to some.

I did another trip just recently this time taking down my boat and a mate Simo. The plans were to go boat base and get amongst the schools with some relaxing captures and no shyte fight. I was down for 3 days with the first day being zip as the fish didn't show up but i did get a small Southern bluefin tuna on my 8wt fly but thats it. Simo unfortunately got seasick and therefore said he'd pass on the next day with plans for himself to do L/B.

The second day was upon us, Simo launched me and i went solo on my vessel this time and hoped things would be better with such a good run lately L/B etc. With flat calm warmish water i had a feeling that just maybe today will turn around as the previous day was a fizzer. After launching i found a school and got my first fish withing 5 min and it fell to the Rala X-Rap on my 14lb spin outfit. With getting to my destination i looked up and down the beach for zip so i had a look at the baitfish a bit further out to see if the salmon were harassing the bait. On arrival there was plenty of bait but after jigging my SP there was no salmon takes so i dropped the jig all the way to the bottom where there was a bit of a lump and got an undersize DHU on bream gear........released!

Okay by about lunch i was thinking not another fizzer again but things did turn for the better and i sighted my first big school which came through, welcomed sight bigtime. I manage to get plenty of salmon on my 8wt fly outfit and 4lb bream gear which made every capture very rewarding. I didn't use anything heavier and had a ball on that school with no boats or other pressure. Ironically the last fish i got was shadowed by a seal that look like he was playin with my salmon throughout the fight but the smart bugger waited for me to wear out the salmon and just as i pulled it out of the water (literaly) the seal came out and ripper it out of my hand and took my favourate fly also.....ggrrrrrrrrrrrrrl

The second school came through later on with a lot more fish again and my stickbaits, SP, poppers and flys getting nailed and again i was enjoying every single minute. Then what happened over the next 30 minutes was truely awesome and never experienced before. The salmon had bailed up the baitfish into the beach and went crazy with the cristal clean water throffed with salmon hammering small anchoviers by the looks and every boat who came over to the comotion and landbased angler hooking up nearby. The was plenty of yelling and a BIG buzz for that 30min with so much visual excitment i felt i was back up North gain but not the case.. Well that was it for the day and i was stuffed, i did drop my pair of Boga grips ($499 worth) in the water after releasing my last salmon that would of made 25 fish for myself that day. I decided to get the lost grips the next day with maybe another opportunatly to get into more fish, we'll see.

The next day Simo said bugger that i gotta get out there after what you experienced and Simo's L/B action didn't occur when i was running a muck as he had a bit of a fall on the rocks and decided to lay up for the day. The 3rd day arrived, Simo came out armed with sea sickness tablets and got onto salmon and also a bonito on the X-Rap not long after departure which made his day despite the changing conditions. The days weather was deteriating and i dived in and found my Boga grips which was good concidering it was buried in white beach sand with a GPS co-ord enabling me to get it back only.....lucky eh. We found one more school but the conditions weren't the nicest so we bailed with a few more fish under our belts and drove back to Perth............WOW awesome few days..

All i can say, it's the best salmon fishing i've experienced.........ever!

No pics unfortunately, sick decky!!

when fishing the north mole where is the best place out the front of the kiosk there or all the way till the end

Just returned from a pretty good trip to Hamelin bay.

Went down on the 25th of April from 12 days with the Family, the Girlfriend and Scano and his wife.

We packed over the easter weekend hoping to get away early on Tuesday morning to beat the traffic, and setup before dark. Since there was upto 15 people there at any one time, we needed to pack quite heavily for the trip, including a fridge, freezer, 4 engels, 3 ring burners, and much more.

But first things first....the Beer!!

Last thing you would want to do is run out!!!!!

Off we left leaving around 9am in the morning, with boats in tow and arrived at 1.30pm to our site...
Setting up would be the hardest part of the trip, and usually takes a good half day before we get anywhere.

We were hoping to get out and put the cray pots in before the end of the day but t his was not to be.

Camp site setup on day 1.

The next moring saw us hit the beach early looking for Salmon... and a great moring it turned out to be, with the sun shining and the water crystal clear....but no fish in sight!

Quiet morning with no Salmon around but still a good walk early on always gets you pumped up for the afternoon fish!

So in went the boat for its first trip, drove it off the trailer and out we went.

First things first, get rid of the 4 cray pots onboard.
Stopped for some skippy and herring on the way out to get some cray bait and out we went (Didnt go more than 1 km out :) )

In went the pots and us hoping to get some good crays in the next couple of weeks.

First couple of days saw no crays but there was still a big moon around just after easter.

The Thursday Saw Scano and his wife turn up (Altho very late in the day) they still made it. We set them up, had a few beers then hit the sack for an early morning.

Friday morning up for Salmon... but once again, none in sight... We were starting to wonder if the Salmon had reached hamelin bay yet or not....
As the weather was a little blowie we decided not to hit the water, and hang round for the day.

In the afternoon we went down the beach again chasing the Elusive Salmon again, but this time....we found some!!

After some patient waiting and what i would say good eye sight on our behalf...we spotted our first school!! and only 25-30 Metres off shore.

Off we tore down the beach, and before you knew it, there was 15-or 20 people chasing you, but none of them new where the fish were...

After a few Casts Both Scano, myself and an uncle of mine were on!!!! the first salmon hookups for the trip!!... After 5 or so minutes of fighting... we landed all 3!

Finally the smiles started to appear!

The next morning Saw us his the beach agaiun for more slamon!! this what the outcome!

Another nice couple of Salmon in the bag from a small school of Salmon in close.

In the afternoon we headed out in the boat in chase of some fish behind the Island and to check the cray pots.. And low and behold look what popped up!

And there were a few fish landed aswell, with some nice sized skippy coming onboard, and 1 Bonito, and 2 Good sized king George. We also stopped along side the Island for some fun on 6lb line with small lures on flicking into the massive schools of herring, getting 4-5-6 hookups each cast. After landing quite a few we decided to head in.

Scano's Bonito hookup

Bonito onboard...great cray bait.

Over the next 4-5 days we caught plenty of Crays, with getting upto 9 in one day. Of which we caught 7 Jumbo crays during thenext couple of days.

We also hit the beach most mornings chasing the Salmon, and they didnt disappoint... Even the ladies got invloved!

Great Fun on fairly light gear. The days were so clear and so calm you could see the fish in the water!

Great haull.... the walk back up the beach SUCKED! Altho we were very popular with the Tourists!! many photos were taken!

The next lot of Pictures are of my Dad bringing in a nice Salmon

This is where we walked to, the rocks on the corner.

Cleaning the Salmon on the beach we were pretty popular with both the rays and the tourists wanting to feed them.

On the monday morning we headed out early in the boat, stopped out on a bit of reef forsome skippy. We were fishing with light gear, Scano and myself were on 6lb and Maz the other guy was using 12lb. A couple of times Scano and i got blown away on our 6 LB, and then Maz was on!!! and this was the end result.

We ended with 3 for the day, 2 were landed on the 12lb with a Small Chemically sharpened hook with a small running siker...used to catch skippy!! and a workout it got!

After we pulled the cray pots for some more good crays, we headed back in

The next day we headed out chasing these fish again, this time landing one YTK

Some More skippy were caught and as also managed 6 very nice KG's from a spot we find quite rewarding most times we visit it.

A few other interestying things caught

Small Ray

Bandid Sweep

A Few more awsome pictures taken of the sunsets, kids, and boats having fun launching and retreiving.

The wash at the ramp and catches so many people

This was the 2nd car to jack knive their trailer on the ramp with the swell, and weed causing drama for all who were retreiving and launching. We found ourselves after we came back in had to help the next 6 or 8 groups get their boat back in. This one i had to put the camera down and help them out before someone got hurt!

Sunsets

Little cousin of Mine struggled getting up!

Thanks for Coming down Scano, great time it was!! more drinking required next time!!

went out after work last nihgt to hillaries to get some bait for next weekend at mindarie. i only got a herring, a yellowtail and a small bream. i hooked up to what i thought was a tailor (it fought hard) but then it kept diving and then i got a look----- it was BIG------ defenitely over 30cm----- well over
just as i thought i had won, it took one last run into the weed and busted me off :(
tried next to spinnakers-- som guy was using soft plastics, so i tried softies and got one good hookup but it busted me off.
he hooked up about 10 times in 10 minutes and only landed two BIG Skippy-well over 30cm--
we got pelted with rain twice------ im amazed i didnt catch a cold.

im rying canning bridge or the flats at canning this arvo after my soccer game if the weather holds off.

Well the hevens opened up and rained the fishing out ,we were drenched.Went out 18 mile from Two Rocks once out there the wind picked up and there was a strong tide running which made it hard to hold bottom.we droped a couple of fish early on I guess sambos as the line was peeling of the reel at speed..Jesse saved the day with a 13kg dhuie other fish 4 boldies two released ,2 breaksea 1 released ,and a couple of nice tuna on the way in both released.will head out in the morning try for the snapper on the three mile

hey every 1

looking at going down to the e-shed tommorow arvo

just wandering if any1 knows whats there at the moment

Cheers 

As I mentioned in another post recently, my wife (deckie) and I had two occassions to get out between the foul sothern weather within the last few weeks.

THE QE II

The first occasion was actually driven by my wife's desire to grab a few picks of the Queen Elizabeth II paying a unique and last visit to Albany. We launched the boat around 06:30 am with a planned rendevouz with the QE II at 07:00am in King George Sound - just after she was scheduled to pull anchor and head, via the sound, to Pricess Royall Harbour for the 08:00 am dock tie up and expected (and obligatory) fan fare and retail invasion of Albany by the crew and passengers.

Under her own steam, she made quick headway through the main channel and only quick bursts of speed at a polite distance (due to the expected satelite 'protection' boats) allowed us to acheive an position and opportunity for a few quick pics. Daylight saving, combined with very overcast skies made light conditions less than ideal for photos. But here is one:

FISHING DAY I

Whilst we were out on the water, with the photo mission completed and (always) with gear on board, we decided to hit a certain spot 'nearby' which I'd previously waypointed and recorded as good structure. The intention was to have some fun pulling in a few skippy after berlying up. This was certainly the case for the first 30 minutes, but my wife's rod bending more aggressively signalled either a much bigger skippy to the small school stuff we were having fun with, or even something better. After ten minutes of struggle, in only 15 meters of water, Sandra soon had a nice pinky alongside. Carefully netted in, it weighed in at a very respectable 7 Kg:

FISHING DAY II

This was a Sunday morning, exactly one week after our previous trip. After studying the plethora of weather sights all week, finally this Sunday showed some promise. Three sights had wind and direction all different, but a 04:30 am rise and check of Albany airport wind showed the magic word - CALM! Mind you, this (as we had previously found out) was never a guaranteee, with the airport slightly inland and winds having a tendancy to attenuate under certain conditions.

But still; it was worth ago.

We poked the bow out from King George Sound, as an exploratory means of assessing the 'out wide' conditions, we were rewarded with almost glassy and small sea lump conditions. This time I had in mind a spot not far of the headland just east of albany - approx 35 nautical miles from the ramp (thanks to Google Earth) - so with 140 liters on board, there was plenty of fuel.

Forty five minutes later, we were dropping our rigs into very good structure, ranging in depth from 7-45 meters, depending on our position across an unassisted drift. A drift we repeated a number of times as 45 meters appeared to be the point where action on the bitey end of the line dropped off completely.

Sandra chose a standard patanosta rig with a 4/O and 7/0 loaded dropper combination. I elected to free bait two snelled 7/0s loaded with a fresh slab of seargent baker.

All of a sudden, the bait took off and, depsite the drag of the reel, peeled off 50 meters within seconds and circled the boat in only 15 meters of water. With the circle action, I called it for a shark, but 30 minutes later, and the strain of several more runs, I had a decent sized sambo alongside. I didn't want to gaff it, so a very full net and team effort had the sambo on board. Onto the sales, and the marker hit 22 (kilos):

After a very required rest, I dropped another slab of free baited SB (thank goodness for the absence of muttin birds!) and again the line took of, but this time with constant nose serge, as it sounded to the bottom. Queenie or Pinky, was my call. Some 10 minutes later a good sized pinky was alongside and the marker on the scales register 10 Kg:

A few more drops and drifts added another pinky, a red, one harley and a couple of BA's before the wind finally kicked in and it was time to head back in. All in all, a great day! 

Had a dive north of Two Rocks today water a little merky but still got six crays .Plenty of small fish skippy , wrase, drummer, morong . Also fished the beach this morning one guy got some nice tailor x 5we got some hering gardies and whiting..beats sleeping in

With yesterdays arvo conditions looking nice i though it was too good to pass up.

Departed at just after 12 noon, went to Rotto and did my first dive with calm blue coloured water making a nice difference. Got a few crays there and then did my second dive at Garden island. Ended up with my eight crays but with the full moon the little prics were tucked into many holes so i saw more but they live for another day!

A quick pic, the ice box is 130L.

hi all i have got the mojo back a long time and no fish and here they are back in bizzo ,we were out the back of the north west reef and we found afue fish, looking looking looking we came to the spot and after 3 hours we only had 2 fish a long start ,looked and looked and once the tide had changed we went back out and found it was enought to turn the fish on it was a great day........that was last sunday .................tuesday the weather was excellent so i asked the boss for a day off and away we went,i have never tryied trolling for bill fish before and i throught i would give it a go {thanks to all the help from the fishwrecked crew } i made a teaser and away we went ,the first 5mins we had a tuna and 2mins later we had raised our first bill ,i had a guess at about 14feet long it was massave to me,not seeing to much before ,after 4 hours trolling we had raised 5 bill fish and caught 1 sailfish it was awesone ;} the first trip was out off bundegi and the 2nd was tanda jeff PS; got to meet the man him self Mr Adam Gallash a really top bloke thanks mate

you wouldnt believe the luck i had today .. launched the tinnie with busso fisho today to look for a few more salmon (pity you had to work Honsu) . the weather was really poor with 25kt easterlies screaming over the hill making the water a mess and very annoying in a 13 foot tinnie. anyway we found a school of fish before getting to the beach and i landed a nice fish to 6kg then lost em .. so we continued to the beach and found anouther school with shore based guys casting at them. i fired off a cast and hooked up allmost instantly , well the silly salmon runs straight into the shallows and i got tangled by a shore based angler ... now having only 8lb braid on a 2500 reel left me with no line .... SNAP - SPOOLED .. after a bit of swearing i ripped in closer to the beach looking to find my backing on the water surface .... and i did .. retied the backing to the reel and wound up the slack .. what do you know - still salmon on the end .. i lost him a few minutes later but was still bloody funny  .. ended up with about 15 salmon for the day up to 6 odd kg

lucas has a pic or 2 but wont post till monday

iv been down at hillarys for all 3 days of the easter holidays so far and theres not much grerat news. on friday i got a 33cm flounder, on saturday i got 2 nice skippy and yesterday i didnt catch anything, but i hooked up to sumthing that took a big run and i was quickly reminded that i better tighten my drag otherwise id be spooled fast!. it was probably a big ray, but it busted me off within 30 seconds of hooking up. there were a few skippy around and a few small tailor up at the lighthouse. there wweere also a few herring and yellowtail. ill be the today working in the fuel kiosk for a few hours so come through and say hi.

1 hour session down rockingham thismorning for me and Kristian.

Looks like BBQ whiting for dinner :wink:

So is anyone heading out Monday for a fish. What do you guys make of the weather.

There were no salmon in front of Scabs saturday morning

Seeing as Bouttime has got his boat in for service I thought I had better take him out and show him that the tinny brigade know how to catch fish. We got over to Tantabiddi at 7.45 with absolutely glass conditions. We managed to get lines in the water at 8.00 and trolled up the reef looking for a mackie for a mate thats heading back east and wanted a few fillets. Without a touch we got to the spot and set out the baits, first drift Steve pulls up a nice Coral Trout that gave him some stick in the shallow water. I managed to pick up a small spangled and then the plagues of small emperor moved in.

We decided to troll again up to my next location and encountered a good double hookup of sizeable spaniards. Mine was a good fish and took some serious line on 10kg, only to be sharked not far from the boat. Steve managed to get his in and we bled him boatside, unfortunately we cut a bit too close to the gaff and slip, off he sunk into the depths to be sharked. :( A quick bog lap around the spot saw us land another good spaniard of 6-7kg, we were a little more careful with this one and slipped him into the icebox to bleed out. As we weren't far from our next spot we pulled up and took a drift and that is when we encountered another magical Exmouth experience. We were in 25m of water and were looking at our baits on the bottom.  I was first to hookup and got a small shark of 3 foot and then Steve managed to snavel a nice rankin and dark tailed sea-perch.  On the next drop we witnessed 7 decent sized sharks circling underneath us keeping an eye on anything released or sent down. The visibility was sensational, I took some video footage that will hopefully turn out, pure magic!  You could see baitfish, fish on the bottom, sharks in the middle and tuna on the surface.

I then talked Steve into putting out a couple of skirts, the only 2 on the boat as I wasn't planning on going for a marlin or sailfish. About 5 minutes into trolling a solid sailfish came up and smashed the jethead Steve was running and took a pretty decent run. Caught up in the excitement I backed off the throttle too early and he shook the hooks, not happy Jan! We got back to our first spot pretty quickly and took one last drop where Steve pulled a 7kg mack tuna off the bottom which we released. After that the bite seemed to shut down and we had to be in by 12 so Steve could get some sleep before night shift.

All in all a top morning in sensational glassy Exmouth conditions and a nice tucker box of high quality fish. Sweet!

Cheers,

Adam

We we chasing a change from Pt Walter, its a long drive and we were a little sick of it.

Went down after dark with two others. Started at sea scounts, worked our way through the yacht clubs around to the Kiosk. We only found crabs about the front of the Matilda Bay Restaurant, and then only 4 good-sized ones.

The big surprise there were the bream and flathead around the yacht club and directly in front of the kiosk, where the steps are.

till

Headed out of Two Rocks at 7 oclock, went out to around 6 mile where the tuna were smashing up some baitfish. Jesse let out the skirts and they hooked up stright away. I think they were striped tuna around the 3 kg mark .
We moved around a lot during the morning, fishing lots of small patches a lumps.picking up some undersize and just size fish.We decided to head out a bit wider towards the bank but the breeze came in so we headed in a little closer still with no joy

3 x Sargent baker released
1 x Snapper
2 x dhuies both under size
4 x tuna 2 released
4 x samson fish all released
2 x bluebone
5 x black ass 2 released

Most fish were just size which were keeped ,seems to be no shortage of sambos as nearly every spot had them schooling ,we droped the jigs on one spot and got hit sright away fish around 8kg great fighters got to love em.We got a good feed and had a great day on the water. Heard a few of the guys from the forum on the blower, from what i heard thing were slow for most.. anyhows happy fishing

Went for a fish with Steve (Bouttime) and his roomie Paul yesterday afternoon and had a ball out there once the wind died off a bit. Once hitting the water tower we ran into what can only be described as a tuna frenzy. Everywhere you looked out of the front of the boat in a 180 degree direction had tuna flying and baitfish getting smashed. It was truly an awesome sight!! We managed to land a couple of 6-7kg longtails on the light stuff before moving onto the spangly spot. After picking up 5 good spangles and the current starting to rush we decided to head back in. About 500m closer to the marina we encountered the tuna frenzy again, this time even more full on! At one stage they were almost hitting the side of the boat as they pursued the baitfish. There must have been literally thousands in the school.  After a couple of quick flicks we landed a couple more longtails and one barrel size mack tuna and called it a day with them still flying all over the place.

I've seen some pretty awesome tuna schools up here, but this was just insane. Unfortunately I left my video camera at home, which is a damn shame because it would have been some sick viewing.  Maybe next-time... Just thought I should post this up for a few of the crew that are headed up soon, just a bit of amp for you. :)

Cheers,

Adam

Fill a deckie spot with Simo to head out wide...really wide, the Derwent. Bumped into TC and Makomagic. Pretty slow out there but there is fish sighted on the sounder so persisted abit longer than them and was rewarded with 2 pinkies, a red snapper and a Oceanic White Tip shark. After that we went everyone for not much else. I jigged up a nannygai, undersize and upon retrieving my jig so we could move to another spot. Hooked up to something that felt like a skippy before it took off like a rocket. A couple of mins later, a fat stripey was added to the catch. Geez its was beautiful out there today, we stayed out to almost sun down looking for more fish. Beats working anyday, unless you have a job like mine =)

Had a mixed day out today.

Matt had something come up and couldn't make it so I headed out on my own, was on the water late at 10am and started out for the Hillaries FAD instead of the Derwent. Already with HYC FAD I was cutting it close with my afternoon commitments, but I figured it would be worth the trip even if it was just to see if the mahi were in.

The wind was starting to blow abit and the swells were huge but far apart, so it made for a easy ride out, infact, considering the conditions, the hull only slapped a few of times on the way out when I ran out of water, when a wave rolled away from under me. I managed to head out at 23-24knots and stayed dry.

About 24 nm out, I saw something that got me all excited! I can across a large weed clump ( about the size of two cars and it also contained the vital ingredient for mahi - a buoy with some rope still attached! I slowed and circled the clump looking for tell tale signs that there were larger fish underneath, then I saw it. A quick flash of a fish coming out to inspect me! I didn't get a good look but I did see something and that was good enough for me! The sounder showed a few fish under the boat, so I baited a hook and at the same time threw a few cubes of mulies over. When I looked up from cutting the mules, I saw a few small mahis taking the cubes.

I tossed the baited hook over and bang, I was on! Only problem was ........ there were all still tiny. I didn't even bother to measure, I knew they were all undersized. I was hoping that there would be some larger ones mixed into the school, but no luck.

I can't figure out why the mahi are so late this year and still so small. Anyone have any clues?

I only did a few drifts and when it was clear that none of the bigger ones (if they were there) wanted to play, I started in. Stopped at what I called my YFT mark and drifted a bait. I got a couple of taps then a solid hook up. I was on, good fight and all, then I got colour. Sigh! Sambo.............

Headed back after that. On the way in, the wind went south. The swells got larger and longer apart and this is where I had the most fun.....

I managed to average 35 knots SOG all the way in! Not bad for a boat that tops out at 32 knots on mill pond days! I just surfed the swells. I realised the swells were moving very fast and I don't recall exactly, but I rode only about 10 waves in total and before I knew it, I was back in at OR! Not one slap, the smoothest ride I have had since I got the boat here. It was like surfing the waves back in Hawaii.

Was a great boating day for me.

Two questions.

1) I don't see weed clumps out here, in fact today's was the first one I have seen. Why is this?

2) How did everyone else do?

Thursday saw me packing the car to head down to Hamlin for our annual salmon trip.

I was packed and ready to leave at 6 just in time time to still be stuck in the Traffic from the narrows all the way through to Roe H/way.
Rest of the traffic waas nice and quiet.

As it was my b/day, I thought it to be great to head down to the boat ramp, sit around, listen to a few tunes and have a vouple of nice quiet ales. Well someone had other idea. Light showers the whole way down and constant drizzle when I got the hamlin bay boat ramp.

So it was a comfy night trying to sleep in the car, yeph right, upright in the drivers seat. Sad.

Friday morning after a very poor sleep I woke up at 6, still dark but no rain.
I was out of the car and getting my rods and boat ready.
Sure enough, as I was ready it started to rain.
Isolated showers was the forecast so I knew it wouldnt be long.

Hmm how wrong was I.

6 hours later of me just sitting in the car reading the paper, doing the cross word, reading the weather, doing the puzzles, checking the weather yup isolated showers, isolated showers my arse.

1 oclock the rain stopped for long enough to get out and stretch.
I was ment to be meeting friends around this time but they were no where to be seen.

Stuff it, Ill go out for a look.
Quick launch the boat head out a way only to remember I had put the bait back in the freezer when it had started to rain.
"$%#)* ^$*@@#@ $*#&# "

Trolled around for a while with no luck.
Saw loads of dolphins but little else.

Headed back in hoping to find my mates but nope they still hadnt rolled up.
3pm I headed out to the Karridale tavern just to see if they had gotten stuck. Smile Nope not there so headed to the beach track to see if they were on the beach.

Who was I to meet coming out of the track. yup, mates had just got there and had done a lap of hte beach to look for me.

The track had a bit of work sinceI had been there. Erossion control mounds that made the drive in very insteresting towing the trailer.

Did a lap of the beach to find a likely looking spot.
Set up the tarp and through in some line to wait, and wait we did.

A few Herring and crabs were the only thing biting.
Our other mates rocked up a little after 10pm as the had to work Friday.

Oh well nice night anyway, stars are out, after having plenty of beers crashed for the night.
Well untill it started to rain and my dodgy swag was getting me wet so it was back in the drivers seat to sleep.

Saturday had the surf up with no chance of a beach launch, the track was so crappy I wasnt going to head out until it was time to go home so beach fishing it was.

Saw a big school of Salmon heading south through the bay but were well out of casting range.
We did manage to get 3 stragglers just after the school went past.

The south wester was blowing a heap of weed in, you couldnt leave your line out for more than 5 mins without tangling up heap of weed. Any longer than ten mins and the surf was making some really nasty tangles.

After a day of catcing half a ton of weed only one of us was tempted to fish after the sun went down. That was short lived as reeling in the weight of the weed snapped his line.

So it was beer time until crashing, with the clouds total covering the sky, no chances this time. passenger side with space made to recline made for a semi decent sleep.

Sunday dawned and it was time to pack up.
Mate had a home open in the afternoon so we had to leg it early.

3 salmon, a dozen herring and 6 sand crabs.
Not a bad effort for 6 people fishing for 2 day.

I was really surprised by the lack of anything else. we usually get a number of rays, sharks, shovel noses and skippy but they didnt even put in an appearance.

Oh well, here to a better trip next year.

KALBARRI SPORTS FISHING CLASSIC

22nd YEAR 2008

The Kalbarri Sports Fishing Classic this year was a little down on numbers, but still a good turn out of 30 boats. The 23 river anglers of which 13 were juniors were also down and that can be directly attributed to the Murchison River in flood. The flooding river does make fishing difficult but did not seem to upset the black bream as lots were caught.

The river anglers had quality fish with lots of anglers bringing them live to the weigh-in to be weighed and then released. Fisheries awarded Di Stewart a comprehensive fish identification book for the most caught and released bream. Only black bream were caught this year and that was due to the flooding river.

The river competition was a close fought battle between a number of the Kalbarri locals with Cheryl Eley placed third this year, Brett Bain a close second but Di Stewart had the fish this year and took out the Champion River Adult. The local juniors also did well but a commendable effort from Marlin Heaney had them worried. Jeb Duigan brought in the biggest bream on the second day, which worried Lee Ivey, last year’s winner, but Lee managed to make up on the last day landing the biggest bream, a 788 gram fish, for the comp as well as taking out Champion River Junior.

Jeb Duigan’s fish and Lee Ivey with his biggest bream winner.

Di Stewart also won the Skywest Top Gun Award for her 4 bream in the river on the third day

The boat section was hampered by the less than perfect weather, which turned pretty ugly on the Saturday afternoon forcing a lot of boats in early. Some quick thinking anglers anchored in the river mouth the first afternoon and fished for the numerous mulloway that were foraging in the dirty water. Junior Jared Malton fishing aboard Bulawayo Buoy, was quick onto a mulloway and was able to weigh-in for the bottom along side junior Mitchell Westland who had a bag of reef fish. The other two juniors, Luke Maindok fishing aboard Santa Barbara and Steven Eley aboard Air Bourne also had reef fish. Daniel Tarasek and Josef Duff had the best bag with mulloway, dhufish, snapper and mackerel to take an early lead.

The three boat category sizes made it a lot fairer for the anglers and a healthy competition spirit was alive between The Master Baiter and Jak Shitt in the 6-7m bottom category. The game fishing section saw some very good catches come in. Laurie Malton, Sue Malton, John Hoye and Jared Malton aboard Bulawayo Buoy want the wrong way the first day along with Steve Wiseman, Steve Gilders, Ian Jarvis, Wayne Mitchell and Harry Capeling aboard Top Deck, and only landing a couple of fish between them. Steve Wiseman’s only fish a tuna of 7.35kg on 3kg line was an outstanding catch wining him Highest Point Scoring Tuna. The rest of the boats went north picking up mackerel and tuna.

Westside Autos team of Paul Youngman, & brothers Steve & Bob Fisher aboard the new 7.8m Murchison Boat Hire boat had a burster of a day landing 5 mackerel on 4kg and 6kg line. Paul Youngman’s biggest mackerel of 13.1kg caught on 4kg line won him the Highest Point Scoring Mackerel as well as Highest Point Scoring Game Fish. John McCarthy with Bridie McCarthy led the 6-7m boat game section on the first day with a good mackerel from Bridie, which won her the Ladies Meritorious. The under 6m boat game section was close with Top Gun bringing in good mackerel the first day with James Scovell, Andrew Wooley and Joe Abberton all adding good points. Daniel Tarasek and Josef Duff put in a late run aboard Quintrex with some very nice line class mulloway giving Top Gun a scare but just not good enough to Beat Top Gun from winning the Champion Boat Game under 6m.

Westside Autos with their catch that won them Champion
Game Boat over 7m, Highest Point Scoring Mackerel, Highest Point Scoring Game
Fish to Paul Youngman, & Champion Angler Game went to Steve Fowler.

Champion Junior Game Jared Malton

Josef Duff with one of the several mulloway that he landed and Daniel Tarasek’s line class mackerel.

The first day was the best and many of the winning fish were weighed in. Biggest dhufish went to Josef Duff who had a burster of a comp, it went 9.1kg. He also had the biggest snapper of 8kgs and picked up the Skywest Top Gun Award of a return flight to Perth.

Biggest dhuie and biggest snapper for Josef Duff.

Mitchell Westlund

Biggest groper went to Kane Higham and Mitchell Westlund, Junior Bottom Champion.

Meritorious bottom went to Graeme Black for his red emperor.

Think Big with Bruce Eldridge, John Matson and Steve Creusot aboard, were in with an early chance fishing out of Port Gregory but failed to put many points on board the last two days, letting Quintrex slip away.

With the weather changing on the Saturday few fish were caught, but a couple of catch up tuna by Jared Malton & John Hoye were enough to win the Champion Boat Game 6-7m boat.

Jared & John with their catch up tuna caught on 3kg line.

Heaviest cod went to Ken Nylander, a small 1kg specimen this year, and Nic Bramwell took out the biggest whiting, it being the only one caught!

Heaviest Samson fish was caught by Daniel Tarasek, just a small 4.5kg fish.

Lauren Rose, crewed by Norm & Vern Godfrey and Ian Walsh did the hard yards and ended up only 1.12 points behind Santa Barbara who won Champion Boat Bottom over 7m. Well done Paul Maindok, Peter Maindok and junior Luke Maindok aboard Santa Barbara. Luke Maindok also won the Men’s Meritorious for his efforts

The Master Baiter with Paul Loffler and Mark Flannigan just scraped in over Jak Shitt and The Grumpies to take out the Champion Boat Bottom 6-7m, and Daniel & Josef aboard Quintrex the Champion Boat Bottom under 6m.

The presentation dinner at the Golf and Bowling club with a sit down dinner served by volunteer golf club personnel rounded off the evening Overall it was a very successful competition, only possible with the support of all our great sponsors. We would like to thank them most sincerely. Please show them your appreciation by using them whenever you can.

Final results and runners up

Champion Angler Game: Steve Fowler with 597.5 points

Runner up: Paul Youngman 483 points

3rd Bridie Mc Carthy 373

4th Jared Malton Junior 325

5th Rick Clarke 322

6th Andrew Woolley 301

Champion Angler Bottom: Josef Duff with 333 points

Runner up: David Douperousel 152

3rd Paul Loffler 148

4th Daniel Tarasek 138

5th Kale Higham 100.8

6th Trevor Skeels 100

Champion Boat Game over 7m: Westside Autos, Steve Fowler, Paul Youngman, Bob Fowler. 1363 points.

No runner up.

Champion Boat Game 6.7m: Bulawayo Buoy: Laurie Malton Sue Malton Jared Malton, John Hoye. 448 points

Runner up: Sirocco 373 points

3rd Reel Colour: 283 points

Alliance: 145

Champion Boat Game under 6m: Top Gun: James Scovell, Andrew Woolley, Joe Abberton, Brett Maloney. 876 points

Runner up: Quintrex 590

3rd Silver Medal 322

4th Fish Wrecked.com 300

5th Hurricane 295

6th Rip Tide 133

Champion Boat Bottom over 7m: Santa Barbara, Peter, Paul, Marty and Junior Luke Maindok 33 points

Runner up Lauren Rose 31 points

Champion Boat Bottom 6-7m: The Master Baiter, Paul Loffler and Mark Flannegan 118.5 points

Runner up: Jak Shitt: 112.6 points

3rd: The Grumpies 106

4th : Buckshot 86.5

5th: South Bound 44.6

6th: No Orange Hat Allowed 37

Champion Boat Bottom under 6m: Quintrex, Josef Duff and Daniel Tarasek 235 points

Runner up Think Big 83

3rd: Patch 72

4th Fish Werecked.com 43

5th Silver Medal 35

6th Hurricane 29

Highest Point Scoring Game Fish: Paul Youngman 13.1kg mackerel on 4kg line 328.7

Champion Junior Game: Jared Malton 325 points

Champion Junior Bottom: Mitchell Westlund 86.6

Champion River Adult: Di Stewart

Champion River Junior: Lee Ivey

Ladies meritorious: Bridie McCarthy

Men’s meritorious: Luke Maindok

Highest Point Scoring Mackerel: Paul Youngman

Highest Point Scoring Tuna: Steve Wiseman 245

Highest Point Scoring Snapper: no winner

Meritorious Game: Daniel Tarasek

Heaviest not game snapper: Josef Duff 8.00kgs

Heaviest Dhufish: Josef Duff 9.1kgs

Heaviest Groper: Kale Higham

Heaviest Cod: Ken Nylander

Heaviest Samson Fish: Daniel Tarasek

Meritorious Bottom: Graeme Black (Red Emperor)

Heaviest Whiting: Nic Bramwell

Heaviest Bream: Lee Ivey

Meritorious River: Brett Bain

Tag & Release River: Di Stewart

Hope we see you all next year,

anybody seen any metro salmon as yet? Uncle

Hey guys,
Matthew(Makomagic)came for the ride today.We also went out with Alfred and Vin on Alfred's boat and Paul and Leigh went out on Paul's boat.We all went out to deep water(90 metre mark).We all fished there for awhile but didn't get much.Matthew got a nice Queen Snapper and a small Pink Snapper and I caught a Gurnard(which dad got stung by and complained the the next 5 hours he stongly recomends dont worry about your hook just cut it off lol he said the pain was like having a hot cigarette on your finger, his hand and finder swelled up and finger turned black),I don't know how the others did though.When we stoped catching fish we all split up.Alfred stayed out deeper Paul shot off south and we moved into the back of the bank were we picked up 4 Dhuies (3 relesed) 6 Sambo's (all relesed) 4 Baldchin Groper and one more Snapper.The breeze came in so we headed in.On the way in Ispotted a big school of bait fish on the surface Matthew recomended throwing out some skirts, it took about 1 minute(or less) and we were both hook onto some nice tuna around 4 kilos both were relesed.In all a pretty good day.When we got in we called Paul and he said he only got 1 sambo and 2 snapper, then we called Alfred who bagged out on snapper and was harassed by black tip reef sharks.

Thank you Matthew for coming and hope that you had a good day and will come again soon

Cheers Jesse and Paul

(more pics are coming, still tring to figure out.)

Me and Scano, went for our weekend fish last night.
Mainly went to get extra bait for boat fishin saturday with Bodie.

We ended up going down to a spot where i hadnt been for a while which some of you may know but i dont want to say it on the forum as this spot only has limited room.

On our way there we were that keen to get fishin that we didnt want to go out of our way to get dinner so we stopped at IGA directly next to the location we were going to fish at.

Scano went cold baked beans, i went cold alphagetti and loaf of bread:lol:

After a feed we were ready to fish :lol:

Herring were on the bite which was great because they would make great bait saturday :wink:

Scano got this mint tailor! I was so sure i would bite through his 8lb line :wink:


I hooked one similer size but bit through my leader :cry:

Nice pike ;)

we got some great bait now ready for a big dhu :)

Well, the trip was great! I can't say I have been to any place like the Monte's before, it is so full of promise that you could spend months out there and only scratch the surface.

As I have said in earlier posts the water temp virtually switched off the trolling action completely. The absence of all bird life was kind of strange, given that you would expect the place to be alive with baitballs, tuna and mackies.

Despite our bad luck with the pelagics we still managed a couple of nice fish, which will feature in subsequent FWA articles. Aside from the lack of billfish, we made up for it with some of the best quality bottom fishing you could ever wish for. I forget the species count, but it was right up there. No small fish and no inedible fish, except for one Norwest Blowie someone pulled in to riotous laughter from the rest of the crew.

Day one was spent trolling over there and accounted for a nice Mackie and a couple of Dollies. Day two and we hit Archiong Island , where Nathan scored a massive GT even before I had managed to set foot in the zodiac to get over to the island. Unfortunately I didn't get any footage of him fighting the fish, but the pics are awesome.

Archong was definataly a highlight for me, as Andrew (the senior deckie), Mark and myself had an absolute ball chucking poppers at hundreds of Goldspots and bludgers that were harassing bait in the shallows.

We did some more bottom fishing in the arvo and moved camp to pick up the dingy that evening.

Tuesday saw us head wide as the weather was perfect for a night broadbill fish. Bernie had scored one the trip previously and we carefully planned the trip to try and replicate that. We headed out wide trolling all the way and spend most of the day trolling "BIG Baits" for Big Marlin, ( I have some good video of how Bernie rigs his trolling baits) but as mentioned before the water was shut down at 31 degrees. To break up the day we stoppped at a spot where Bernie promised us a couple of Ruby Snapper. An absolutely georgeous fish, that has been fished commercially before but rarely caught by rec anglers. They grow to 18 kilo's and look awesome. (You will need to check out the FWA article when it comes out to see what I mean.) We picked up one each and then headed out wide for the night.

Most went to bed early but I stayed up with Andrew and Tom to catch squid for broardbill bait. Believe it or not we had a 60 - 80kg marlin freejump over the marlin board at the back of the boat chasing a baitfish at about 1.00 am. It lit up electric blue as it porpoised over the corner of the boat. I was gobsmacked and so was Andrew. Unfortunately we were the only ones awake when it happened.

The next day we moved to the calm cyclone mooring to check it out (just in case) and ended up splitting up with some going mud crabbing, and me, Andrew, Mark  and Nathan popper chucking around the area instead. I nailed a big cobia, which spat the hooks after a few minutes, but all other fish were few and far between.

We played around in the dingies the next day while a few of the boys went diving, that's when I nailed a big Spanglie on one of those Gulp Crabs and that little GT, plus a heap of other trevs on various poppers.

 There is plenty of more things to report and heaps of video footage that I will get to cut together sometime soon.

I hope you will all forgive me for the briefness of the report at this stage as I am very busy at work and also need to write several articles for the magazine.

To give you an idea I took over 600 photos and truckloads of footage. So once I know what pics will be in the mag, a lot more will be put up on fishwrecked.

Cheers

Andy Mac