Knocked together the video of a 99cm snapper that my Dad caught behind Garden Island a couple of weeks ago.  (new landing net purchased)

https://youtu.be/x8OFPer3WM0

 Mate of mine caught this beautiful Rankin on soft plastic which we just managed to beat a submarine sized Bronzie to the net, at this time the water erupted with tuna and Macs I threw out a laser 190 and had it sitting idle while tacking the pic, if you look in the background you can see a shark eating the stationary lure, just another one donated to the taxman. Pretty cool on the I phone as you can see it as a short vid. All this South of Dorre.

 Spent the week leading up to the Long Weekend fishing the Islands off Carnarvon. Weather gods were smiling so we managed to fish the North, Mid and down at St Cricq and Dampier Reef. Caught some great fish including Reds Estuary Cods, Rankins, Spanglies, Baldies, you name it. Got smoked by some huge fish on plastics and also trolling. Highlights where Estuary and Rankin Cods on plastics, double hookup on Mahi Mahi and also getting some good Reds up to 9kg. Sharks were good except down in the 50s south of Dorre where landing a good fish was hard work. Did approx, 270 nm in three trips for 380l fuel

Stayed in close in the tinny with Pirate today.

Managed a few squid, ended up with 9 all up after nabbing 5 on the first drift. Slow going after that.

Trolled up a snook and skippy, dropping a fair few more fish.

All in all a great few hours out, thanks for the trip bud 

 Just finished 6 weeks in coral bay with the best weather you could imagine which we deserved after the crap weather last year.

There was hardly a day you could not get out and lots of awesome days we just went to the beach as you would end up with too much fish if you went too often.

There did not seem to be as many boats this year and there was heaps of good weather days when none of the 3 charter boats went out [Mahi Mahi has 2 boats now]

Everybody was catching heaps of squid and the fishing was great with heaps of reds around and lots of big ones at the cleaning tables, the best we got was a 9 kilo.

I saw some huge fish caught by the deep droppers with a couple of cod I reckon would be 40 to 50 kilos but I am still happy to play in the shallower water close to home.

Sharks were worse than last year with heaps of fish lost to them although it did get a bit better the last couple of weeks. I did have one victory over them when th missus was pulling up a red on the top hook and a shark about 1.7m long grabbed the bottom hook on the way up and we got them to the top and cut the line so got rid of the shark and kept the red.

One day the missus had me 4 nil on the reds when I pulled up a double header and she got one at the same time. We had to throw one back so I threw hers back so I could claim a 4 to 2 result instead of a 5 to 1 result.

Back to the real world now and wait for 2018.

Sorry about the upside down pics but they are up the right way on the puter.

Well, I broke that rule yesterday and paid the price. 110 km and dropped on over 30 spots for  naff all except a case of sea sickness and a big fuel bill  

 Headed out of Two Rocks for our first try at Deep Drop Wednesday with the favourable weather forecast .

Stopped for a quick jig around the 50m mark with the boys boating a nice mixed bag, with a heap of baitfish showing on the sounder decided to troll some lures with a quick double hook up and both fish dropped we decided to try again boating some nice SBT over the next hour.

By now the wind was almost completely gone so hit the 250m mark for our first attempt at Deep Drop 5 drifts and nothing but Green Eye.

Made the decision to head out deeper Sounded up some fish, set up the drift and straight onto the Hapukas "you beauty" a first for all on board, subsequent drifts resulted In another smaller Hapuka then a solid hookup with the drag fish taking line before bricking us ... on reflection drag may have been a bit light. Headed home at 40 knots which made for a quick trip and great end to the day.

With yesterday’s forecast looking good’ish I thought I’d take staff member Ben out to search for some new super deep spots. The water was flat as on the way out which makes a huge difference when you venturing out so far!

Once out in the Super Deep depths I started looking around doing recon work and after a little while my Furuno sounder lite up and I said to Ben they look like Bass and you drop first!

Ben rigged up some Qualy squid that we’re now stocking and it’s a descent size and a durable bait. It didn’t take long for Ben to hook up to something solid which had me calling it for a good bass groper. After a long fight (all manual wind up) his fish surfaced and it was a solid bass groper which gave Ben a good work out haha!

 Quick arvo fish yesterday, took my old man out for a run. Just tooled around in close, brilliant conditions and a few nice fish.

Thumper 52 and 55 cm KG's and 45 and 50 cm Baldies. I got the big baldie on my 8yr old sons sand whiting rod with 6lb leader and size 2 hook, was quite challenging.

Quick run over to Rotto for lunch at the pub with the family on a magic autumn day. Had a quick 45 minute fish on the way home and the kids nailed 6 fat KG's, best a tad over 50 cm.

Decided to chuck the boat in at Point Peron yesterday afternoon for the first time in about 12 months to hit the sound and see if I could tempt a few snapper.

Could not manage anything of significant size with only a few small fish around the 30cm mark.

Fortunately, did not go home empty handed managing to land a couple of gummy sharks in the hour after sun down.

Will definitely start to hit the sound more now coming in to winter to chase snapper. It is an extremely relaxing place to fish on a nice night!

Anybody been doing well on the pinks in the sound yet?

The WA Fisheries have just published the above report if anyone is interested in downloading it.

www.fish.wa.gov.au/Documents/research_reports/frr281.pdf

Quite a lengthy report but well worth it if you are a crabber but you will need to navigate thru all the scientific jargon.

Cheers

We launched at Ocean reef around 8.30 with plans to get out to fads and beyond, but the wind was not playing the game. An hour of trolling saw two tuna landed and one dropped behind the three mile. We decided to head back in to fish the tide change in close and anchored on a nice lump that has produced the goods before. Rob put out his berley bag. The usual pickers come in thick (wrasse and blackass). After about 15 minutes Rob gets a solid hookup, after a hard fight on PE2 a nice Dhu pops up boat side, cracker fish especially on a plastic in 10m of water, just over 9.5kg.

After having the boat racked in freo for the past 10 years, a few weeks ago I decided to move the boat closer to home and into a floating pen in Hillary's marina. Having accumulated my life's fishing spots all out of Freo, I was a little hesitant starting from scratch further North, but also excited by the fresh start in exploring new ground out from Hillary's. Two weeks in, both Hillary's trips have produced very fruitful results. The most notable difference has been the abundance of red throat's I have stumbled upon out from Hillary's in both isolated trips ... as I have never managed to catch one out from freo before.

Anyhow, attached pic (hope it uploads) of last Saturdays quick morning Hillary's run ... using my new Madfish Soft Esky that I was keen to baptise. Must say, it's a hell of a lot lighter to carry than my equivalent plastic esky!

Cheers - J

 G'day guys, 

Once again we shot off at 415 am sat morn for a 15 min trek nth west of the marina. We parked up in 5 mt of water and stated feeding out the burley to see if we could russell up any action. 

This run I planned on plakkies over the bait and Bully went the bait again.Half an hr from dropping the pick and I was on to a nice little dhuie to go inthe esky so it was a happy start . Bully was having no luck at all with the bait and just before light on the horizon I noticed some of the burley drifting back towards the front of the boat so thought I best to flick down the current and no sooner had the plakkie sunk there was an almighty thud and I was on again. As there was not to much excitement on the end of the line other than a lot of weight and the old pull for the bottom I called it a dhu and for the net. Keeping in mind it was only 5 mt, soon, with the light we had the was a big silver colour in our view! Then it happened, pulled the hook and the excitement died to the makings of the one that got away story. Arrrggg. It would have been a cracker ! Bully managed a couple of pj 's and we decided to pull the pick and drift west for a while.

Managed to pick up another nice dhu on the plakkie then another mighty lump on the line which turned out to be a monster cuttlefish. I got him right up to the boat while Bully had the net ready, well , ready after he was convinced there was no ink left in it. Then it was gone ! One thrust and the hook pulled from his tentacle ,no ink and nothing in the net. I can and will wash ink off the boat though I won't dive in after a fish when it could have been netted. 

Anchored out the back of the three mile and set another trail . Managed to attract a couple of nice blackarse, skippy and leather jacket to finish the morning. 

Autum weather rocks I say! And snapper is something I can only get from a fish shop

 few nice Spaniards around at the moment, very pleasant addition to yesterday's bag on Baldies. As usual the missus out fished me.

With yesterday’s forecast looking good’ish I thought I’d take staff member Callum out to search for some new super deep spots. The easterly was stiffer than forecasted (surprise!) and I was told the FADS were coming in next week so a quick fish there to get a fresh feed would be nice!

We turned up to the FAD and straight away dolphinfish and not bad sizes also. I grabbed my fly rod and within seconds I had them climbing all over my fly and hooked up. I landed my dolly and then Callum spun a Big Johns chartreuse nylon banana jig and again straight away he hooked up and what a great fight also on 10lb spin gear!

Okay we had a fresh feed of dollys (I don’t like freezing them) and left them on the bite. I headed off and started my recon work and after a little while my Furuno sounder lite up and I said to Callum you drop first!

He rigged up some Qualy squid that we’re now stocking and it’s a descent size and durable. Within seconds Callum hooked up to something solid which had me calling it for a good bass groper. After a long wind up (all manual) his fished surfaced and it was a solid bass weighing 26.3kg on digital scales!

I dropped next and hooked up also and landed a nice bass groper. I said your turn next again and Callum dropped and hook up quickly but he said the fight was different and after another long wind up he landed a double headed of Hapuku …. nice!

We had bagged out and the wind had just started to back off so perfect timing to head in and what a great day on the water. All the gear I use including my custom made Super Deep rig we stock and if your needing help with any super deep info my staff are always happy to help, cheers Ryan

 Hey FWreckers

This was our 4th deep drop trip. Have been learning a bit more each trip, especially the sounder. It was pretty joggly out there yesterday but persevered out to a spot in about 200/220 metres. The sounder showed fish straight away which was a positive. First drop and I was on, nothing huge but a nice deep water Pinky. The next fish felt a lot better with good weight and fight, I was hoping this was the one I've been trying for a Greyband. It wasn't to be, a bloody 4 foot Dusky Whaler. A bit of moving around found some more promising shows and I was on. Again really good weight and fight but I was thinking maybe another shark. But finally the line started to angle up towards the surface and I knew I had my target species. A 12 kg Greyband Cod popped up!! Woohoo!! Stoked! Bro in law Doug was onto a good fish next which we were obviously hoping was going to be another Cod. After a good fight we knew it wasn't a Cod because it didn't float. A good size Amberjack came up spent, so some nice Thai fish cakes coming up. We finished off our bag with another Pinky and a Nannygai. 

It was great to tick the Greyband off the list. Hopefully next time we can get a couple more.

fish  

 Dhuies biting like no tomorrow this morning before dawn and another brilliant baldie to quickly fill the bag 

 Some photos from last week at shelter bay

I was fishing one of my usual spots in shallow water of scarbs a few weeks back doing well on good size
skippy and getting a few small snapper, when I could get past the skippy. Had one snapper to just under
40 so was hopeful there were bigger legal models around, even though it was late morning.
Was only in about 8m and drifting my baits down when I saw a good size fish come rocketing
in past my bait, turn and circle back and nail it. No hesitation, it clearly wasn’t a skippy
due to its bulk and I saw a bit of pink/purple flash in the sun light and thought “you beauty” might be a size pinky.
You can imagine my surprise when after a brief tug of war a just size dhu popped up. Stoked is an understatement.
I was amazed at how fast it was and also how aggressive it was. Was totally cool to watch it take right in front of me.

Couldn’t believe that the youngest son, Luke (17), actually wanted to go fishing tonight.  It has probably been 2 years since this happened so I had to say yes.

We did ok inshore.  No sized pinkies, but some nice flatties.  At least we got a few fish to keep his interest up, in a quick dash.

Took my in-laws and family to a quick weekend trip to Leeman.

Did not fish too hard. All fish caught in less than 18 meters.

No problem catching our 2 Dhuie with in the first hour. Snapper and Baldie was hard work.

Anyway made sure we where back in the boat ramp before 11 am so we can spend rest of the day site seeing.

BTW, fished only 2 days and Sunday turned average (15-20 Knots SE with 2 meter swells).

Enjoy.....

Headed out from Woodmans Point with most of the southern boating community at 0630 on Saturday morning. Plan of the day was quick bait run for squid then chasing the first intentional Pinky.

Rigged up a squid jig, lowered it down and started to wind up and noticed my line wasn't going around the spool. Closer inspection showed the steel (or 304g SS) screw holding the line feeder end of the bail arm had sheared....bail arm wasn't connected to the reel...shit.

African engineering didn't work, and this, being the first time I didn't bring a shed full of rods, left me with a 5 foot pink kids rod, loaded with 15lg 'shits and giggles' braid.

Headed out to FFB with one squid and start looking for a cray boat to stalk but only found the Jazz boat, hung around them for a tic before seeing a cray boat further out. Went out to chase them but realised they were not going to stop, we were on the back of the bank with all the gear but no idea.

Motoring onto the inshore side of a mound, we threw the drogue in, burley pots and started having a crack, me with useless plastics on a kids rod and my mate with some filleted herring frames.

10 minutes in, I had my first throw up off the side ever...when I look up, my mate is pulling something in. No head shakes but it looked substantial. We both wait patiently until a bloody Dhu pops up on the surface. Rapidly netted, measured (couple of cm over), put on ice and then the high 5's began.

We tried offshore for a few hours for nothing more  before heading in via Mewstone but after counting 50 boats, we kept going. Towards the shipping channel for a go at whiting. Two from two drops then nothing, keep going south and the herring start.

Day ended with 1 Dhu, 12 herring, 1 Squid and one whiting, which ended up as bait for a salmon which took the fish and not the hook....oh and one spew.

My Dad and I took off from Woodman Point at first light and made our way towards Rotto.  We did a couple of drifts over one of my favourite grounds and managed to catch a snapper and dhufish on soft plastics before the wind and swell settled enough to anchor.  After anchoring we introduced burley to the swim and started catching a few undersized fish.  

After a while the bites stopped and I mentioned to the oldman that there were possibly sharks in the area.  This was confirmed after at least five decent runs with short fights were rewarded with frayed mono minus the hardware.  I decided to bring out the heavy artillary to see if I could land one of these toothy critters and in the process hooked a decent snapper on a chunk of salmon that I was using for bait. As the snapper popped up to surface a tiger shark tried to make an easy meal out of it.  With my Dad manning the landing net I rapidly brought the snapper to "safety" before having to share my dinner with the "taxman".  The tiger was not happy as it circled the boat for a while before giving up on the snapper.  

I did manage to get my Dad into a decent bronzie for his trophy cabinet before we made our way home. A quick stop on Five Fathom Bank and my Dad managed a salmon which was not part of the plan.  All said, another enjoyable on the waters of Perth Metro.

See short YouTube clip here

https://youtu.be/y_ip3AEsKDk

Late last year we put together a plan to re-ignite the tradition of our annual boys trip northward to Exmouth. Over the last couple of years I've been fishing with John (JohnF) regularly so threw the invite his way to see if he and the whaler wanted to make the trip up north. It didn't take much convincing.

As with every trip that far north, there were months and months and stupid amounts of money spent preparing trailers (johns was rebuilt) boats (outriggers, electrics etc) and cars in preparation of the 1200+km trip north.

We decided leaving just after the Easter long weekend should make a pretty quiet trip northward on the roads and give everyone a bit of time with the families before 10 days of literally fishing, drinking and eating, in no particular order.

25 cartons of beer loaded, a freezer full of top shelf meat (anyone wants a brilliant butcher who will prep your meat, vac seal and snap freeze if required let me know) and 7 eager blokes at 4am on Tuesday morning on route to Exmouth.

A fairly uneventful trip north with a couple of welds on the guards on my trailer being the only small hiccup, but nothing a couple of truck straps cannot solve!

The 200 series land cruisers towing the Fury and the whaler made light work of it really, only needing fueling in Geraldton and Carnarvon on the way up. We arrived at 7pm, 15 hours after leaving.

A quick unpack and a few beers on ice saw us having a BBQ and downing some coldies about an hour later. The plan was to get up early, get some fuel for the boats and drop the boat into the marina.

The dig

The next day we had the boats in the drink and decided to have a light day on the water and head over to the islands, see if we can find a Mackie for dinner, maybe a tuna or 2 and see what's about around the Murians.

Lets just say it didn't take long, there were birds everywhere and a few lures in the water saw the first decent hookup. a nice 7-8k Mackie! perfect for dinner!

Both boats continued to troll, picking up some shark mackies, school macks, a few small tuna literally every couple of minutes.

With a bit of fresh bait onboard, we decided to see if we could find a bottom fish or two to compliment the Mackie for dinner. Well, that didn't take long either!. I'm a bit short on pictures for this short session, but basically rankins, Robsin sea bream, spangos were the talk of the session, and not to go unmentioned Scano nailing a nice 7kg Yellow fin tuna on the retrieve!

It was then back to the marina, a quick fillet up and in for dinner. Fresh YFT sashimi, Fresh Mackie and chips, a couple beers a few wines.. no better way to finish the first day!

The next day the weather was looking real good, so we planned to venture further north, heading up past peak towards flat. Leaving a bit earlier to get a full days fishing in

Getting going in the mornings seemed to take a while, which was something old mate John was struggling with!!! this would lead to later in the trip John being honoured with a new nick name... ol cap-i-tan bentneck!

The accommodation from the water and the mornings exercise carrying everything up and down the stairs

Fury on the way out of the marina

We started off fishing shallower around flat chasing anything that would eat surface lures or plastics...Fishing was slow for all of about 5 minutes when old mate Capitan bentneck gets on the radio and belts out Trout City!!!! from memory, it was 2 drops for 2 trout, one on jig one on plastic, and both hooters!!! the larger of the two went to matt on a plastic which went about 70cm!

Johnny boy with a solid trout!

Matt with a honker!

Plenty of fish were caught over the next couple of hours, Spango's, about 10 different trevally species, tuna, red throats and even an occy on a twisty... yep that's right!

Johns nice Trev

Carl another nice trev

We actually had at one stage a school of all different types of trevs right under the boat in about 30m but they were using the boat for cover... drop a jig in and hold on!

Fury on the water

after this, John decided it was time to push out a bit wider and look for some gold band if they could. so off they went and we stayed in shallower looking for some bottom fish.

John went quiet for a while, then all of a sudden a message comes over the radio..... we found the goldies, and did they ever!! Double headers was the name of the game!!

We ended up finding a couple of reds in shallower too which made the day

Franks nice red

Frank again with a nice Chinaman that gave him a run

John made his way over to us later in the day and had a couple drifts around us. I had found a new bit of ground int he 70's and dropped down, only to be smashed pretty much straight away. I had this rubbing feeling on the line which has me calling it for a shark thinking it was the tail of the shark hitting the line, only to be busted off half way up....

At this stage I wasn't too dis-heartened as I thought it was a shark, but instantly after I busted carl who was next to me said...im on.. thinking that was a bit strange we soon realized he and I had tangled. He would up and we found my braid wrapped around his rig, so I grabbed the bait (bare hands) and started to handline in what I thought was a shark... being careful as I didn't want to end up with braid peeling out of my hands it came up pretty easy.

As soon as we saw colour....we knew it was no shark, and next thing the biggest trout popped up any of us had seen, it went 78cm and fat!!! not sure how this trout managed to be stuck mid water for a good 5-10 min whilst we were untangling and didn't get eaten by a shark!!

Unlucky trout, Lucky me!

The end result for the day for John...great day!

Time to head in and with pretty good weather it was a nice ride in from about 34 odd mile out!

Whaler motoring in

The next day we decided with such good weather it was worth another run north before heading west from tanta's in chase of some bills, so north we went again.

This time even further chasing reds, goldies and other deep water delights. the goldies were hard to find that day, but we did manage a few more reds.

Johnny boy with his first red, first of many to come!

Scanos nice goldband

Hooked up

A good day!!

The 4th day was billish day, so we fuelled up, and there was a lot of this!!!! $1k every trip to the fuel station!!

We started off out from tantas in the 200's looking for billfish but the water was quiet, no birds no bait so not a lot of action. We got 1 solid run on my boat, which was a good bill, staying connected and getting to the leader only to have the lure pop out when leadering to the boat. Solid 30 minute fish and looked 120-140kg

After that things went quiet, we trolled down passed south passage and back, John came in closer which proved to be a good move, picking up this nice saily in 20m or so of water!! first for the trip!!

After this we headed in, bill fishing not a failure bot not a raging success.

Back to the accommodation for a good feed and more beer and wine. Needless to say, we didn't do it tough food wise. Home made Cold meats cut up and on this particular night, roasts on the spit!

The following day was more trolling and deep dropping. We all wanted to catch a ruby and motored out of tantas in chase of some. John had sounded some ground the day before and I had a mark on my GPS from previous years, which was not too far away from what john had seen so we headed in that direct into the 200-400m of water.

It didn't take long, I think it may have been our first or second drift for the first rubies to come up. to say we were pumped was understatement! to go with it we had a bill free swimming under the back of the boat which was pretty cool

John putted his way over for a drift. We both setup the drift only 20-30m apart and down went the baits... it didn't take longer and there was a 4 way bookup!!! both boats, all electrics loaded!!!

John loaded

the result! solid GB's!!!

John was keen to get a ruby so he moved out deeper again to where he started and got sharked on a couple good fish. Then it happened, the whaler finally got its first ruby!!

Scano with a nice ruby.

We started to put out way back to tantas in a bit shallower looking for some ground and stopping for a drop or 2 here and there. We managed a few more goldband and Matt with a solid long nose emperor on jig I think it was

John trolled a bit on the way back and managed to hook a nice black for scano to land his first marlin!

Matt directing john during the fight

Scanos Marlin

Days end

The last couple of days saw us head north once more for a good day chasing a few more reds, John getting a couple of nice yellow fin on the troll and another day off tanta's chasing a bill for Matt... This day I jumped on Johns boat and we headed straight out of tantas and dropped the skirts in the water in a bout 70m... it took all of about 15-20 minutes for the first hookup and turned out to be Matt's first bill to the boat!!

We started to set the spread again, only to have the 1st outrigger hit before any other lures were in the water only to have it drop it a few seconds later. This day had the makings of being a brilliant day with 6 or 7 strikes, but only managing to hook and land 1 bill for the day

Heading north had John and Matt on a duo getting into some fish!!

Some solid cobia!!

John looks happy doesn't he!!

Matts cobia

A few more pics from the trip

Matt's Wahoo

the 4000 rods

More YFT Sashimi

Sounder porn!

Nice sunset

One thing we had mentioned we wanted to give a crack whilst up there was the prawns in the gulf. So on the last day Scano and den took the tinny for a run into the gulf. With a little bit of local knowledge the lads had a ball and got a wicked feed of prawns to boot!!

Needless to say the trip was nothing short of epic, 7-8 out of 10 weather wise, Fishing off the chart, plenty of beer, great food and piss taking and the best crew we've had to date on our boys trips.

John aka ol cap-i-tan bentneck, and Matt aka the deckie of the year, couple of absolute cracking blokes along with all the lads and bring on the next trip!!!

Thanks for reading.

 After a 2 week trip to Kalbarri for our 16th year heading up there through the school holidays.

Not alot to report

It was the first time we did not come accross any mackeral. We found the water quite green and weedy in sections. I know of other boats that were up there to that were in the same boat.

Lucky enough we took our pots and were able to bring something in to please the family with plenty of crays on offer so I cant complain to much.

Good thing about Kalbarri it offers so much more with trips up river in the 4wd and out to the Gorges etc.

Family all home safe and had a great time.

If anyone else caught any Mackeral up there through this period let me know.

Water Cooled off over the last few weeks which has resulted with the inshore black marlin off Exmouth really start to fire. managed to go 12,12,9 for the 5 days with most being bigger than average and is always fun getting others onto the first billy. Heaps of Mahi Mahi around which was annoying at times, seen a few whale sharks to which is always cool, but I manage to hit 1 at 17-20 knots when it popped up with only enough time to chuck it in neutral and luckily no damage to the hull or motor and Shark (still cruising around with not a care in the world). All that happened was kick the outboard up, what a relief that was.