Today I would like to share some of my fishing catch reports I guided with my China clients in Thailand.

 

Was fortunate today to head out and fish south of Broome in pretty good conditions. Fished mile off shore in racing tides with myself playing the wingman keeping the numerous 9kg plus Golden Trevally at bay while the skipper got stuck into the the Blue bone. Highlight of the day were the skipper pulling up a 30/40 kg cod which swam down strong (on an Abu 7000)and myself finally getting a good Bluebone which went 580, plenty of little boats out today and we faired pretty well at the bench, heading North to the Gibb next week so all in all a pretty happy camper.

 2 days of fishing adventure !!!2 days of awesome fishing with me in Thailand.

another nice metro , went 72 cm .. 

 The family Notopteridae contains ten species of osteoglossiform (bony-tongued) fishes, commonly known as featherbacks and knifefishes. These fishes live in freshwater or brackish environments in Africa, and South and Southeast Asia.

Staff member Marc went back out for a quick fish on his new boat Friday arvo with the shop owner Ryan Thipthorp.

The idea was to have a quick fish where the boys got into bream on Cranka Crabs recently but this time they wanted to find a bigger bream.

The boys got into more fish and Marc landed his PB Swan river black bream. The boys put it up against the Swivels Original fish measurer and spot on tip to tip 40cm.

Congrats Marc on your new PB, nice fish on the Cranka Crab and a good photo by boss man Ryan.
 

 Fished a new spot on friday night (nor) that i have been sussing out for a while now. Its usually weedy or murky and picks up a large amount of swell but was finally fishable on friday arvo.

Caught the mully at around 6 on a plain ol ganged mulie, nearly lost it in the wash as my leader had worn through just above the hooks , luckily my brother was onto it and grabbed it before it had the chance to swim off ! quick photo and released .

cheers for havin a gander

 With the weather looking very good Saturday, had a quick call with John F on Thursday and decided to team up for a run out of Mindaire to some coral lumps we had teamed up and fished a few months ago.

I had one of the bluewater morley guys on the boat, one of his mates and Scano. Plan was 2 to use artificials and 2 to use bait. I decided i would stick to KG outfit for the day using some local occy that i paid a small fortune for!

John hit the water just before us and said he would be out at a KG spot waiting for us.

Out we went and met up with John and decided to give the KG ground a couple of drifts.. well i think we did 4 drifts each for 4 kiddney slappers for each boat! good start!

Moved on out deeper to the coral  ground we were planning on fishing, and it was litterally a flying start! first drift on the coral saw 3 of the 4 on my boat hooked up!

Dano was first up with his golden jig being smashed as soon as it hit the bottom. Up pops his new PB dhu. think  it went 88cm, so about 10Kg?

I pulled in a nice 55cm KG on the first drop which was plus and my 4th already for the day!

Scano was next up, with a thumper Pink, which was a first ive seen on this particular ground

First drift on this ground resulted in 3 good fish! great start

Next Drift resulted in another KG for me, which went 52cm, loving these thumping KG's and a bit of fun targeting them, especially when fishing grund where Dhu's and pinks are about

Moved around a bit with lots of little bits of coral close by only 50-100m apart all holding fish. Often schooling dhu's which we just couldnt get away from!

Chris (Dano's mate) was up the front doing it hard, jigging away and to put it bluntley, catching stuff all!!! He quickly found out if your not contributing you receive a barrage of  sh!t talk! He was struggling but finally he caught something to put into the esky, by all accounts the most unluckiest KG ever!!

Poor bastard got a jig assist in the tail, caught by the guy who couldnt catch a cold! Needless to say, Chris was on the board and the pressure was off.

Kept moving about through little coral lumps...again more little dhu's and many dropped fish or bust offs. As i was only fishing KG gear i think i busted 6 rigs to bigger fish

Scano got on to another good fish and up pops his second good pink, and in true Scano style, Team redbull representing!

To round out the day we got another nice Dhu, baldie and a big Black ass. Time to head in as the southerly came up in about 5 minutes and started to howl!

All in all a great, no awesome day out. Plenty of fish, almost perfect weather, a few beers and plenty of trash talk!

Was good fishing within 20m at times of John F, he was having a little bit of a hard day, seemed to hook big fish only to drop them whilst we were watching! :)

End result, the bottom KG in the middle went 55cm

Things to note, there is an amazing amount of small dhu's about at the moment, which is a good thing i guess, but hard to get away from them

And Small ground holds great fish!

Bodie

 G'day all

Like all reports, we do it to let others know what is going on and for a little bragging. This one also is for a blatent plug of MickC's pilchard shred.

Got a late start on Fri out of TR and ended up off Gilderton in the pitch black. Easterlies forcast so we stayed in pretty close to the 20m mark and did a bit of drifting to start our night off. I have to say it was pretty slow  with good shows on the sounder but nothing being tempted until about 11pm. John and i both hooked up with John landing a 6.5Kg Dhu and me landing a 650g dhu. Damn mine was small.

The wind was picking up a bit so we decided to head inside the reef for some protection and anchor up. We caught a few zz between landing a few undesirables and got set for the dawn run.

About 90min before sunrise we dropped in a block of Micks frozen burley and scattered a few chook pellets soaked in fish oil around. I had caught a few tailor during the night so i floated a lightly weighted fillet down the trail and it wasnt long before a nice 6Kg pinkie was making my new Stradic scream.

About an hour before sunrise we started to feed a small but steady stream of pilchard shred into the mix and then things went bloody nuts. As both our freezers were empty we decided to keep the larger models but i have to say. Dont give this to the commercial fishermen.  It's an unfair advantage.

2 80cm pinkies and a 6.5Kg Dhu should keep us going for a while.

 Damn cant upload the last photo.

It’s that time of the year again when the squid are getting thick in numbers.

Yesterday my old man rang and said Reese I'm going out for a squid you keen, unfortunately I was working so he took my Uncle, and they killed a pig on squid in the Cockburn Area, hitting the weed beds up from 3-9metres.

Needless to say in a few hours they had there bag limit of squid with some absolute corkers pushing close to 40cm on the hood. Sending me through pics which I seen I lunch break. (Bastards)

With the weather having been ordinary over the past weekends, we decided that to head out when conditions were good during the week.  I also really wanted to conduct a final test of our 5kg Shredded Mulie Block, as we have received some orders for them.  The conditions yesterday afternoon were about as good as you get, so the plan was to leave from Hillarys at 2-3pm and head to some proven spots in the high 30’s that we hadn’t fished for more than 6 months.

It is fair to say our start was disorganised, thanks to me fussing about the shop really.  Anyway, we finally got out about 2.15pm with Dean, Callum (who has been really helping us out with our fish processing – thanks mate) and my boy Luke (YPM is back – first fish for him in well over a year).  It was a bit of a roller-coaster ride out with the big swells coming through but we still made fairly good time. 

Of course, Jill rang as we were heading out with some till questions (had to stop the boat to be able to hear) and she said the GM of Bluewater had dropped in to ask about wholesale prices for our shredded fish products, and specialist bait packs.  Oh well, still glad we went and I spoke to him today about it, and the value of FW sponsorship (for which he enquired).

We eventually arrived and sounded around until there were good shows on the screen.  Spot lock the Minn and we were ready to go, except me who was fussing around with burley bags, weights, ropes, rigs, etc – it really was one of those days.  To make it interesting banter, we also had a bit of a “young guys at the front of the boat v old guys at the back of the boat friendly”.

I dropped the 5kg block to the bottom, pulled it up a few metres and away.  Let’s just say, the burley did good things to the sounder over the whole period.

It was on, and the bottom baits were lucky to last 30 seconds.  I think Dean had half a dozen fish by the time I got myself together.  YPM had a good baldie and a just sized pinkie (released) on the first couple of drops of his “return”.  Callum was tangling with sambos and pulling fish on board.  I finally got going and the old guys were at 20+ with the young ones still under 10.  It was a fast start for the “experienced” ones, although the “snappers” seemed happy with the whole deal.  The young ones never recovered however.

The pinkies were the species in abundance, amongst plenty of others.  They were all between 400mm and 700mm and there were lots of them.  We were starting to lose count of the fish coming aboard and were releasing everything, other than a few “worse for wear” and particularly tasty fish, and some to use for bait.

We had Fisheries come and visit us.  We set up to just hand over the catch bag but an officer boarded the boat to have a look.  There were no problems but it was a real “mission” to get him on and off the boat in the swells.  I’m not sure this is the safest practice, but it really good to see them a long way out making sure the rules are followed.

One issue with having 35m of rope in the water is that it becomes a “target” for line with a decent fish on it.  You need to retrieve it when someone hooks up big and I brought it to the surface early on to find quite a bit of damage to the bag holding the frozen shred.  Not long after Dean got a 1m+ bronzie to the boat, so I think you need to use line that a big shark will bite off and not tow the boat around.

As it got dark the bite slowed.  We had caught 50+ fish in a couple of hours of “mayhem” and had released at least 10 sized pinkies, and 20 smaller ones (the pinkies release really well).  We didn’t even keep our full bag as there is no point in taking more than you will use fresh.  It is a shame that we couldn’t find the 80cm+ models, but a magic day on the water in good company.

 Few fish from the bay with a horse red around 13kg

Gday Fellas, just got back from a few weeks in Exmouth and I just gotta say..... bloody sharks and weatherman. Hooking into good fish but just didn't have a chance, moved heaps but was no getting away from them. I wasn't really to keen to donating all my sinkers, hooks, jigs for no reward so we did spend a fair bit of time trolling for billies.
We managed to go 18,17,8 on marlin with no sailfish in the mix for the trip although we did have a free jumper nearly jump into the boat(was a very weird moment), 1 of the days being an arvo session going 11,10,4 with most being in the 30-40kg range. We did manage some a little bigger around the 60kg mark.
We spent 1 day trolling out from the islands and we managed to hook into an est 150kg black which is by far the biggest fish I have seen personally and it got the ticker racing when we seen it smashed the long rigger with white water going everywhere but it dropped the pink n white Oscar, about 20 seconds go past and it comes back up smashes the shotgun, the bite was insane, we had him on for a good 10 mins on 15kg but dropped the hooks, spewing.
The Last week of the trip was very quiet on the billies, some of the local charter operators reckon it might have something do with the orcas in the area.

Gone all out on a new Garmin sounder (550c run-out model). Impressive specs....

- 5 inch screen
- 500 W of power
- 120 degree 77k Hz cone for maximum coverage in shallow water.
- 60 degree 200 kHz for pin point accuracy (at least in 3m of water....)
- $220.

Interestingly, Airmar is now coming out with mega wide cone, mega cost transducers.......this baby has 120 degree cone which should mark some great arches, even on plankton......time to bin the 2 x 10 inch screens and new thru hull narrow beam deep drop transducer setup and replace with this little package.....haha.....should go great on the 3m polycraft up at Tamala Station.

 Will add a report in a weeks time. Great trip

 With the kids at school and the wife at work I decided to head out to catch tonight's dinner. Managed 6 squid and a good feed of whiting (plenty around). I always put out a live whiting with some great success with sharks but lately I've been missing heaps of strikes! I use a 6/0 circle hook just before the top fin/spikes of the whiting, any ideas on how else to rig a live bait under a float? Bait seems to get bitten in half or simply ripped off the hook. Not sure how to rig with it still being able to swim naturally.

 Seeing as the wind was dropping yesterday arvo, John F and I decided to go for a quick run out from Mindarie.

Hit the water in Johns boat just after 2.30 and fishing by about 3. Staying in close as it was still a little bumpy from the mornings southery but by the time we headed in it was glass.

Hit up a couple of marks in the 30's in close, first spot showed the goods plenty of fish on the sounder, but only 1 just under dhu and 1 little pink to show for me.

Headed off to the 2nd mark and said to John it was only a small lump but does usually have some life.

Well... In an hour or so it was dhu city, big school sitting right on the little lump. We got our 2 keepers and a few undersize. Also managed this fat girl on jig, went 55cm! got a couple on jigs now

So for a quick arvo run had 2 dhus and a KG in the esky and not far out, back to the ramp in 15 min or so!

Only one thing to say about Johns new sounder setup, simply amazing...by far the clearest and most accurate sounder I've seen by a mile.

We could pin point single fish and litterally catch what we were seeing. John im coming fishing with you more often!!!

 Remaining photos that did not load

 Remaining photos that did not load

 Great day of Two Rocks last week hit the water early and had our bag limit of Dhufish  and a Baldie by 7.30 landed 6 at the first spot with 4 returned successfully to grow bigger and fight another day.

Decision was made to head out to a deeper spot and target Baldies, on the way came across a couple of schools of Southern Bluefin grabbed the light gear and threw around some metals hooking up every couple of casts and putting some nice sushimi on the boat.

Remainder of the day was spent seeking new ground with another couple of Dhufish caught and released, weather really put it on with the run home at 40 Knotts as smooth as can be.

Went for a fish recently with a mate (FW member Goodie) off Bunbury. Day started well seeing plenty of bait on the sounder and quickly picked up a small dhu.

Spent a couple of hours drifting likely looking ground and ended up with our two dhuies with me getting my PB at 16kg. On the way back to the ramp the tuna were going off on bait schools so we threw some lures and picked up three nice ones before calling it a day.

Read some reports of some snapper getting caught out from Hillarys and thought we'd have a go on Thursday just gone. Never done night fishing before from a boat but heck, if everyone else can catch fish at night...

Weather forcast was for gentle easterlies, but its Perth so we got cold brisk southerlies.  This forced us to tuck in behind a reef not far from the marina.

Anchored up by 5:00pm and started a small burley trail. 30 minutes later and I got some small bites, gave a gentle strike wich was followed by a powerful bullocking run into reef. The 8kg braid gave only 10 seconds of fight before it was pinged. Another 10 minutes later and the exact same thing happened! I'm thinking now I bring out the 15kg gear - but we're only anchored up in 8m - surely 10kg isn't needed!

Next comes a solid Tailor - as good as I've seen around here.  Then 10 minutes later my bro gets done on his 10kg gear. I'm thinking (hoping) Sambos. The action keeps coming though with the biggest pike I've seen here, then a smaller one.

The old boy then announces he's onto something - and promptly hauls over a Dhufish that just sneaks over the size limit.

Not to be outdone, after we crank the burley trail up again my bro does the fish fighting dance around the boat. I'm thinking he's out of sorts - its been a while since he's been fishing - but he pulls over a very nice shallow water Dhufish - perhaps 6kg?

Amazing action - no snapper but who cares! Can't wait to see how much of a fluke this was!

Nice run out of Mindarie ,Thursday ,great conditions .

Finally got all the photos from a trip to wilbinga a few weekends ago and figured id throw it up.
was originally going to be a camping trip but with the weather saying a high likely hood of waking up to rain some of the group bailed and the rest of us decided on a day trip for some 4wdriving and a bit of a fish. was keen to test out the New Fortuner offroad and get some more experience with it. late start leaving from the morley area around 11.00am with 2 vehicles but we hit the track before 12 so all good. track out wasnt to challenging but we found some steep climbs and rutts to see what she could do, handled it all without trouble, barely needed 4wd. worst part was getting stuck on a narrow track and listening to the leaves scratch the sides of the car (a few hours sunday spent polishing it before the GF would speak to me again, woops)

nice shot after a steep hillclimb.
made it to the beach and let the tyres down and off we went, had a bit of a cruise south before my mate bogged his 80series, wasnt bad managed to sort himself out before i turned around to head back (after stopping for another photo). beach wasnt too bad after the rains but still a bit boggy.

we head back north past where we came on to what i suspect is the spot referred to as Flat rocks, the name is fairly self explanitory, we pulled up for lunch and i messed around with some fishing gear and threw a few baits over into the deep water off the rocks. not much going on the big rod, got baited a few times but managed a double header whiting and tarwhine on the other. released the tarwine (undersized) and put the whiting on the big gear live. not long and got a hit and reeled in my first tailor! nothing massive at 35cm but was pretting exciting for myself and the boys.


tried to stretch the arms to make it look half decent but just looks like i have massive hands now haha
we hung out for a few hrs and caught another few more tarwhine up to but no more tailor unfortunately, i only had large mulies and gangs so probly a bit big for the chopper tailor that were around. helped out some crazy polish guys in a brand new jeep wrangler who didnt have much an idea of what there were doing, chargin up and down the beach, throwing a bead and ending up climbing a dune, with no way down. ended up bottomed out before the owner jumped on the bonnet to get it to grip... we head back just before sunset and chose a different path, alot more climbs and deep rutts for a bit more fun trip back, only found 1 spot i took the easy route due to ground clearance but it wouldve been pretty close.
all in all pretty happy with the Car and the fishing, also and awesome place to spend an arvo, will definately be doing it again.
 

 so went out for  fish yesterday just myself and the dog. Had a mate that had been getting a few mackeral around the 120cm mark inclose to cable beach so i thought i would give it crack myself. Just finally had my sounder installed and want to find some more ground.

landed 5 stripey sea perch

2 darktail snapper

lost 5 hard body lures 3 jigs

Had 2 mackeral boatside in but forgot to bring my gaff and ended up clipping the leader as i had the tail in my hand.

Just a unlucky day i had 60lb leader and then clip on wire.

A swivel broke on me

Bitten off 4 times.

Its the craziest solo session ive had and also the unluckiest.

13m i hooked most the fish.

 What i learnt. 

Bring more wire for next time

Pelagic action is hot 3 days after neaps

Receding tides is good because all the bait cant hide in the shallows.

Bring a gaff.

It was awesome marking mackeral on the sounder and then having the rod go off.

Found heaps of ground and only used 7 litres of fuel.

Fished the new ground today and landed 3 stripey seaperch, 2 bluebone and a school mackeral.

You cant win them all but i wont be having banana for breakfast before i go fishing again.

 well it been a long and painful process starting again from scratch....... loosing 3.5 years worth of marks form my old boat...

The days of solo sounding are starting to pay off now. Consistent double digit dhues.....with wicked gound found nearly every trip for the last 7-8 trips out.

biggest dhue killed was 14.5 gilled and gutted. got a fair few 10-12s and released an estimated 16+ model......

PB Snap on Jig too....

Had an amazing afternoon session on the dhues... with double hook ups every drift on double figure fish every drift over a few marks......  had to moove on. 

Big Moobs first day slow jigging resulted in a 3 dhues over 10, with that weighing just shy of 13.

Brad with his PB Dhue taken yesterday.

Me and a nice 10 kg Solo model (dhue on the floor)

Me with my Pb Snap. 90cm

many more photos bit their for the album, Last 3 trips have resulted in double figure dhues (in terms of numbers and good size)

Terboz is back....

After not having a boat since February this year I've been itching to get out in the new tub. Launched at 9.30 after doing the school run, then arriving at my trusty whiting spot by 10 (new transom wedges i installed made a huge difference with the rough conditions today, can now actually get the nose down) anyway was slow going with the  western butter fish out in force! After persisting for a couple of hours I managed my 30. On the way back to the ramp I had time for a quick drift for some squid, managed 3 nice sized ones... biggest whiting went 32cm and 231gms, biggest squid tube was 30cm and 681gms (whole squid)... 

Water depth was 12m for whiting and 5m for squid (white yo-zuri) water temp16.6

Dont you hate it when these things get in the way whilst trying to snag a mullaway haha, definitely one of the better bycatches !

Caught yesterday arvo at around 4.00 in the arvo , somewhere between guildo and lanoes .

cheers

John

 Evening All,

Well on Saturday I took up Mick from shorecatch's public service offer (free) to shred some fish bodies that have been taking up real estate in the chest freezer... missus not happy no space and everything smells like fish. At Shorecatch by 830am with 20kgs of assorted fish frames and heads that were going in the bin as werent used for crabs in summer. Had a coffee and chat with Mick and look around the shop. Impressed with the quality of bait there and will definitely be back.

Put the fish in the shredder. Fortunate enough to also get to use the mixer to make the brew. Was out by 1030 and home to deep freeze 4x5L tubs of burly. With plan to test it out on Sunday with the good forecast.

Launched at 430am from Hillarys with a work mate... weather blowier than forecast and swell up. Make things worse the gps was playing up and not showing maps or breadcrumb trail. Navigated to near 3 mile in dark with navonics on the phone and sounder some fish.

Tested the burley at anchor with pillies, used 1ltr tub of burley. Did a factory reset on the lowrance and the maps came up then loaded the marks off the SD Card and very happy to say the least. Burley brought in a heap of bait and couple of squid at anchor but not much happening, changed spots and then drifted around til the sun came up but no luck.

Steamed out to the 30s and put the burley away to save it for sunset so try jigging metals and plastics. Uncomfortable condition and only got rat sambos. Start to feel a bit green but persisted. Came closer in to look for new spots and found a patch closer to Hillarys got 4 scorpion fish some wrasse and trumpeters. Weatger got better and better. Work mate had to go home to pick the kids up and another mate subbed in at Hillarys.

Straight back out to the spot on the 30s and set up with the rest of the burley around 1600hrs... looked like a good consistent trail in the sun of fish matter in the water column. About an hour before sunset that talica8 with occie on running sinker went off... 72cm pinkie. The mate got 3 undersize pinkies on his saltiga and release with the weight. I then got another 70cm model. Mate the got a 60cm one and was stoked. While I was helping with that rod buckled over and pulled my rail blazer rod holder down and  nearly lost the combo missed that one. Got a sambo after that. Then mate got a large skippy and then finished off with another 70cm model pinkie.

Steamed back at sunset... persistence paid off in the end. Good stuff that burley.

 Went to Jurien for the long weekend with my family and an old school mate and his troop.  Plan was:

- Do some family stuff Saturday afternoon and visit the Stockyard Gully Cave

- Get in a surf Sunday morning and then take my youngest and my mates oldest kids (both just turned 6) out for their first crack at a Dhu.  Forescast looked like it was going to be one of those perfect winter days - no wind and a nice sized swell

- Go to Sandy Cape to smash down the sand dunes (my daughters request)

Stockyard Gully Cave was fun and I'd recommend doing this if in the area.  The kids love it and I think most adults are a bit surprised that there's somehting like this that no-one really knows about.  Kids also love the bouncing around on the track getting in there.  Can do it in an AWD if you're considering it.  No worries in 4WD.

Sunday we got in a nice surf at a nearby break (no names).  Been surfing this wave for about 15 years now.  Those who know it will probably recognise it.  Tide was a bit full, but still fun.  Was about head high on the 2m swell.  Visited by a seal in the lineup.  Didn't really want the attention from the marine life given we had heard of Ben Gerring's passing in the news that morning.  Even more so given I've had 2 prior shark encounters at this spot.  Once kicking a shark with my foot (its skin actually grazed the top of my foot) and another time having a chunky fin surface between myself and another guy.

Survived the surf, and then got the 2 boys ready for their first fish out wide.  Left Jurien marina about 11am with the 2 boys and my mate pretty excited.  Conditions were pretty good and travelled out at 20 knots.  Fished a few lumps for an undersize dhuie and some scraps.  Next spot fired up.  We did 3 drifts for 5 dhuies.  Kept 2 which went 8kg and 9kg. Others were returned in good condition using the release weight, helped because the kids were so slow to wind them up. 

Didn't want any more dhue's so moved to some ground in the hope of picking up something different, but couldn't get any bites.  So we decided to tidy up the boat, give the kids a snack (does anyone else always end up with barbecue shapes mushed into their carpet every trip?) and take some photo's of their catch.

Trip home was in perfect conditions at 21 knots.  Saw a couple fo whales which we followed for a while.  Back in the marina at 2:30.  Got home and heard about the second shark attack on Doreen Collyer.  Couldn't believe it! Very sad.  The ocean is part of my lifestyle and the increase in attacks are forcing me more than ever to consider my lifestyle.

Monday morning was time to keep my daughter happy by charging head first down the sand dunes at Sandy Cape.  If it looks like I'm falling off the baord in the photo's its because I wasn't paying attention whilst I was filming her with the GoPro.  Good fun and a sure-fire way to wear the kids out for the trip home.

Cool weekend.  Weather gods smiled down on us.  Love taking other people up there and giving people the experiences that I love. 

Cheers, Clay