Had a good couple of days out fishing.

Sunday headed out after watching some of the humour at the boat ramp,motors scraping along the ramp,someone trying to put there plug in with the motor running,

Anyway Caught 2 big baldies on first drop,mate caught a Dhuie,then we caught 3 more Dhuies,released one okay but had trouble with the other,used the release weight but came back up again,tried a couple of time's,ended up picking him up again and gave him to another boat,they looked happy.Between 2 of us had two dhuies and 2 baldies.

Monday took the Daughter out,ramp not so busy,picked up 2 thumping Baldies and another good Dhuie and back at ramp at 10.30.

 Bumped into a fellow fishwrecked member at the east fremantle boat ramp was about to buy a ticket when somebody rushes over and hands me one. Good start headed out to see of my old spots still held some fish and I'll let the photos do the talking. 

Everything that I said was going to happen came true. 

It was just one of those days. Used 4l of fuel in total. And who says you can't fish metro.  

Thanks for reading 

Jm

 G'day all braved the morning conditions on boxing dday east north east wind about 20 odd knots anyway we fished various spots in the bay for a few small dhu released and one pinky in the box.

got some good footage of some of my marks and fish including a very nice sized baldie dodging my hook!!

The wind started to drop about 11am so we bolted out to naturaliste reef where we picked up two nice dhu and two more pinks and two fine George's then off home to wash and fillet.

pics may be a bit grainy as I am computer dum dum and have to take a pic with my phone of the computer screen ha ha 

cheers

Gday fellas, been quite a while since I have hit the water and heading up towards Moore river tomorrow, does any one know roughly what depth the Dhueys are in at the moment?

Thanks 

 Anyone got any news of what's being caught down that way 

 We had a great day of Two Rocks yesterday with some great conditions. Picked up a nice feed for our xmas lunch. Caught a couple of cuttlies on soft plastics. Which we then traded there tenticals for some nice fish with a 82cm dhuie and a few nice baldies with the biggest at 57cm. We were stoked with our first fish after the ban.

All the best for xmas. 

Cheers.

Headed out of Two Rocks Tuesday to a new spot we found last trip out before the ban which produced well.
Decided to use bait as I usually Jig and was rewarded first drop with a 78cm 7.5kg Dhu.
Second drift and the old boy hooks up to a solid fish after a reasonable fight up comes a 90cm 11.5kg Dhu.
Another two drifts producing another size Dhu and one undersize both successfully released before we decided to move and chase Baldies.
Short trip to our Baldie spot and a couple of drifts no Baldies but two Breaksea cod to round out the bag.
decided to deploy the trolling gear on the way in and 5 min later double hook up of SBT landed one and dropped the other - very happy to have sashimi on the menu, a further 30 min trolling resulting in 1 more SBT before putting the rods away and making the 20nm journey back to the ramp.
Boat out of the water by 1pm, what a great day out.

Yesterdays baldies from north of Rotto in the forties, saw more 1/2 million dollar boats WOT on the way to Rotto yesterday than ever before. The 10am glass off was something to see. Clearest I've seen in ages, unfortunately did not have the dive gear. Merry and safe Christmas to all. Will be at Walpole with blue wooden boat if any one down that way.

 First fish for the new season for us out of Busso.

Took a day off today, as it is my Birthday, to go fishing with the “bigger kids”.  Pull the newly set “red hunter” pots , wait for the wind to die and head to the 40’s to test some new ground.

A couple of berried females (throw backs of good size) and a jumbo male.  Big and angry.

We had a number of spots around a location and they all fished well.  Quite a few pup sambos from 1kg to 15kg+ that were all released.  One spot we have now named the flathead lump.  We got 6 over 500mm in 40+m of water.  A nice baldie, some big skippy and a range of less desirables.  Full on action over the whole time for a few hours – what better Birthday could you want (besides the obvious)?

It is safe to say, that my trip to Eastern Fields in Papua New Guinea was one of the trips I’d most anticipated of all. The main drawcard of this trip along with any trip of an exploratory nature, was the opportunity to cast lures into waters that had never before seen a cast - to fish that had never seen a lure. Added to this was the fact that I knew I’d be fishing with a group of good lads, aboard the luxury mothership K2O, so it was only ever going to be good times! We were fishing 2 guys to a tender so this report won’t reflect the action the other guys had, but I’m sure there will be other reports floating around from their stories and you can get the flavour of it from the catch leaderboard photo included below.

We arrived into Port Moresby (a first for me) and were picked up by Jia An, our ever-helpful rep from Sportfishing PNG. Myself, Dave and Alex had arrived first, and so were treated to a tour of the marina, breakfast at the yacht club and a visit to the nature park. After spending the day with Jia An listening to tales of fishing endeavours, it’s safe to say that by the time we boarded K20 we were all champing at the bit to get into some fish.

Eastern Fields is an overnight steam out from Port Moresby. It’s a huge reef system, which has seen next to no pressure from jig/pop anglers and is a place that I’ve been dying to get to for quite some time.

When we boarded K20 it was clear that this boat lived up to and exceeded all expectations. The cabins were spacious and well appointed. There was a living room with surround sound and LCD TV, and the kitchen was equipped with (amongst other things) an espresso machine. We certainly wouldn’t be roughing it!

In the leadup to the trip, the forecast looked to be glorious. That was a huge relief for me – because as many people who know me can attest, I’ve been cursed with rubbish weather on nearly every trip I booked as of late. Unfortunately….. that forecast proved to be rubbish. On the first night out the wind had whipped up, and we were in for a pretty rocky ride. Thankfully the very adept K20 (or perhaps the dozen beers at the yacht club over dinner) made the ride seem smoother than it was, and we all got a good sleep ready for the action ahead.

Day 1

We woke to the first of many cooked breakfasts, and caught site of the reef we’d been dreaming about for months. Finally it was here. As we approached the reef system we saw some bommies / outcrops that were just screaming for a cast, and given that K20 Had slowed its pace, a few of us ran to the front of the vessel with our light casting kit and had some flicks towards the reef whilst the boat still steamed. I’d grabbed my Yamaga Blanks Blue Sniper 77/3 and was flicking a light Lamble lure on PE3. I wasn’t really expecting much but it was a good excuse to warm up the casting arm for what lay ahead. First cast was a bit rusty and fell short, but second cast was a plum – and was immediately rewarded! Line was peeling off my Stella 5000 but thankfully the fish was not too big (given the boat was still moving) and I managed to winch in the fish. You can imagine my surprise when only 2 casts into the trip, I’d achieved one of my ‘trip goals’ in landing a topwater dogtooth tuna, something that has eluded me all these years. Ok, it was a rat, but it went onto the leader board in the galley and I was certainly counting it!

I followed up with a nice queenie caught in the same fashion a few casts later, and then the bommies had passed and we continued on to our first anchorage. As the weather had slowed our progress, we didn’t get out until quite late in the first day. I was sharing a tender with my mate Tim who I’ve done a few trips with now. He had tied on a popper and I had a stickbait on. Given that this was an exploratory trip it wasn’t as though we had proven marks to fish. We just approached the reef, looked for likely current points, and started casting. Tim can’t have had more than 2 or 3 casts when I started to hear the drag from his Stella 10k sing. Fish on! It was a really nice coral trout which unfortunately was lost at the leader, but Tim remarked that he’d never had a casting trip where a few casts into the trip it was already action.

We looked a little further along the reef to where a couple of the other lads had decided to drop jigs. They’d only just stopped so it must have been like first drop and they had a double hookup! That ended up resulting in a GT and a nice doggie but we steamed over to get into the action. Tim and I both dropped and instantly, double hookup. We landed two doggies there around the 15-18kg mark and then decided to move on. In retrospect we should have stayed for a few more, but the lure of the unknown was overpowering.

We cast along the reef edge with the heavy tackle for a while but nothing much was happening, but the place just looked so fishy. There had to be something there! So we broke out the light casting gear and the action kicked off immediately. For the next while it was a fish every other cast of jobfish, bluespot trevally, coral trout and other assorted reefies. Seriously good fun on the light kit and you risked a bricking on every fish. We were fishing what I’d termed ‘no mercy’ drag on the PE3 gear which meant quite a bit of pointing the rod at the fish, but the power on these PE3 sticks is really surprising. I was again on my Yamaga 77/3, but Tim was on the even more ballsy 79/3 which proved to be great.

Both being from Perth, Tim and I are pretty adept at the light jigging. Before stumps on the first day we decided to drop a few light jigs and I was very glad that we did! We started out with a few smaller fish but before too long, I set the hooks into something much more significant. We were in around 90m of water and I was jigging light kit (Temple Reef Mytho rod, PE3 line, Jigging Master Fallings 135gr jig). Probably undergunned for the terrain in fairness…. This fish put up one hell of a fight. From the initial hookset I felt like I had about half a second to get this reefy under control before it buried me in its cave, so it was time for straight stick, thumb on spool and haul him out! I was stoked when after a long fight, up popped my PB coral trout. A real dinosaur. For someone who loves his light jigging the trip was already made for me, so was seriously pumped to land that fish.

We decided to try one more spot on the light jigs on the way to the boat and man was I glad that we did. My jig had barely moved off the bottom when it got annihilated again. I was running the same combo but the runs this fish was taking were more serious so I decided to get even more aggressive on the spool thumbing. About mid way through the fight I got a reminder that I was fishing PE3 not PE5 when the rod blew up mid stick, but I still managed to land an awesome rosy jobfish so it was worthwhile. Lucky I brought a spare light jigger!

Day 2 - hard graft

We awoke the second morning to significantly worsened weather conditions. Whitecaps all around and a howling breeze, which unfortunately was to stay almost to the end of our trip. Early on we were off to a promising start. I’d brought quite a few casting combos on this trip, but time and time again found myself going back to the lighter of my ‘heavy’ outfits which was a Temple Reef Ronin 83-8 and PE8 line. The thing really brought sticks to life and gave me a far greater casting reach than with the heavier casting outfits I was working - so it got by far the most use.

A couple of casts in while working a Yambal GT Harrier I had a strike, which ended up in a very nice red bass. There was then a window of nice action – plenty of follows and I could see a number of the other tenders hooking up, but then things shut down.

We put in a great deal of casts, but the weather system seemed to have shut the fish down. So we decided to try and jig. It was hard going but in time we found a doggie, and then a while later another. We’d all but given up on the day so started to follow the mothership and have a quick session on the light tackle. Turned out to be an awesome session! We had myself, Dave and Tim on the boat and it was one fish after another. Most of the fish were small to medium coral trout, bass and jobbies but there was the odd dinosaur bass in there that would invariably snatch your lure and bury you in the reef. For the second time in 2 days I had to free dive down to retrieve my favourite stickbait from the reefy lair of a bass!

After a while we decided to carry on to find some new ground. We found an extremely fishy looking channel, and I jumped up the front to lob a bigfoot into it. The first cast was a strike and a miss, but second trout was fish on. We knew from the off that it wasn’t a big fish, but it was a GT and the terrain was gnarly so we towed it away from the reef before bringing it up for a quick pic and release.

Day 3

Day 3 I was fishing with Alex from Garage Industries. We started off with some jigging and the bite was hot from the off. The ground was carpeted with jobfish you could barely get a jig past them to catch anything else (they were hitting on the drop) but we managed to winkle out a decent doggie each.

Then it was time to do some casting, and straight away the action was different to the preceding 2 days. We were popping the back edge of the reef and had follows on a number of casts. Pink Orion was a winner for me, and a couple of casts in I had a nice hookup but dropped it.

We kept casting and I landed a small GT and then some blue spot trevally before taking a quick break to return some ‘non-release candidates’ (aka lunch) to the boat. After a few more casts I had something that felt heavy but wasn’t giving much of a fight – and sure enough, I saw that filthy grey suit coming up through the water. Whaler shark had nailed my stickbait. We tried to get it back but the thing bent the gaff and was getting very agitated, so we were all pretty relieved when the leader popped after about 10 mins of stuffing around boatside (albeit that he took my last pink Orion).

We then went inshore and popped inside for a while around a blue hole and series of bommies. Looked very fishy but nothing happening except a jobfish that nailed my lure literally at the boat as I was lifting the lure out of the water. So we went back outside and it was firing. Loads of GTs and pack attacks. Including a double hookup of nice fish for Alex and I. This fish fought like a bloody demon and I was pushing drag to what I think is the limit of PE8 kit when fishing in that reefy conditions. It fought harder than 45kg specimens that I’d had in Oman and I thought I’d hooked a true trophy – but turned out that it was just foul hooked. As with Oman though where my best GT of the last trip was on a BFP Swimbait Mafia 180 – that very same lure had caught me my biggest GT for this trip also. Definitely a standout lure for me this trip.

Day 4

If yesterday was rough and windy, today was even worse! We tried to get outside the reef through a passage but it was just too wild out there and it wasn’t worth the risk. We were a long way from home afterall… We ended up fishing inside the lagoon that day and it was very very hard going. Almost nothing doing aside from one fish on light jig that almost spooled me before popping the mainline. This all changed though around an hour before the change of tide. The fish just turned on like a light switch. Tim and I were getting almost a fish a throw on the light tackle surface lures. Trout, bass, trevally and jobfish (the usual suspects) at almost a fish a throw in water that ranged from 2-5m. Great fun fishing and many lures sacrificed and I thought we were going to be in for one of the ‘all time’ light tackle sessions, but sadly after about 45 minutes it turned off as quickly as it had turned on and the fish shut down.

It was a very tough day of fishing with no Geets or dogs landed on any of the boats but we were consoled by plenty of drinks and one of the best seafood cookups I can remember with mud crabs, huge banana prawns, deep fried coral trout and loads more. Really a feast of kings!

Day 5

We steamed out this morning in hope of a better day on the big stuff and sure enough, we got what we’d hoped for. On literally the first cast for the day on my BFP I hooked and landed a GT and things were looking very promising – but we soon discovered that this was because we were at just the right point on the rising tide (which for the first 5 days was really the only time fish fired) and things slowed after that.

After a while we switched to the heavy jigs and after we tried a few spots with just some bycatch I had a doggie on PE6, but things were pretty slow until we found a likely looking edge… Tim and I  dropped down 2 jigs which resulted in an instant double hookup of BIG dogs. I had sunset drag and heaps of thumb on the spool and couldn’t even get 1 crank of line back on this fish. The thing just burnt off 100m of line and bricked me, and it really was one of those ‘what the hell demon fish have I just hooked’ kind of moments. Tim had hooked another monster and whilst I was getting taught a lesson in humility, his doggie got sharked.

We motored off to re-rig and came back expecting another immediate double hookup, but the fish had moved. We worked hard and got some more bycatch species and then I had another moderate doggie that fought well above its size.

We moved off to another area and had a good session on assorted reefies, but the size wasn’t there so I dropped down to PE3 and had awesome fun on light jigs catching all kinds of species including emperors, trout, jobbies etc. Lots of jigs lost. Then I hooked up on the light gear and instantly knew I was in trouble - big doggie on PE3! I was pointing the rod at the fish with max drag and lots of thumb but the fish just kept doing run after run of 50m+ at a time. I’ve never felt so powerless against a fish. In the end the mainline snapped. I still had around 150m of line on the reel so there's a chance I may have had him and this would have been by far fish of the trip for me, but maybe it was just aswell so I didn’t get spooled. Feeling a little demoralised we persisted and Tim managed a nice dog on a sevenseas hooker before he joined me on the light stuff. We had a really awesome session. Unfortunately the sharks soon discovered our game and we started losing fish and jigs including a rosy jobfish which judging by the head I brought back was even bigger than the one I got a couple days prior.

The other guys had a red hot session on smaller to medium size dogs in the arvo with two of the lads on 1 tender landing 5 each which brought our total to 17 for the day.

Day 6

Today was make it or break it. Our last day. You know there’s something to be said about that old fisherman’s adage of a ‘lucky last cast’, but I’ve had a number of trips that came together on the last day and this one proved to be no different! We were hitting a totally new outcrop of the reef which none of the crew had hit before – but the key difference was the weather. The squall had passed and thing cleared right off. For whatever reason, the fish had come to life. Finally, we got the action that we’d all hoped for in what turned out to be a bloody manic day of fishing for everyone on board.

Before I even set foot on the tender we started throwing some lures off the mothership. Four guys casting. Fish on, fish on, fish on! Literally right off the bat we had a four way hookup. Mostly GTs, but some bycatch species also. This continued into a very hot session for around an hour where we landed a great number of fish including doggies on topwater, GTs, dirty sharks as well as the usual bycatch.

After this Tim and I headed out on our tender to get closer to the action. The GT bite had slowed down a bit where we were (not where the other tender was, we learnt later) but we saw some birds busting up in the distance. We steamed over to find a HUGE school of Yellowfin going absolutely mental. We lobbed in our lures, and BAM double hookup. Ok the fish were not huge, the best went maybe 20kg, but Tim and I had around 15 fish in that YFT session and it was really awesome fun.

This is the only trip I’ve ever done where I fished a single hook manufacturer for the entire trip as I’d been sent a load of BKK Hooks to try out including some prototype inline singles. I wanted to see if these singles were a viable alternative to the Shout Kudakos that I normally run for my European tuna trips. I’d been given singles all the way up to 13/0 in size, but decided to see what these hooks were made of so I rigged my lures with a GT Rex 5/0 treble on the belly and a 5/0 inline single on the tail. Every fish I caught that day was on this configuration including all the tuna and the topwater dog (more on that soon) without a single hook failure. I was very impressed and will be using these more in the future.

After the tuna died down we kept casting along the reefs. Plenty of nice fish landed, primarily ‘bycatch’ style fish though. Then Tim tied on a Temple Reef Lambo stick and was casting along the reef edge. A huge fish started chasing it which he thought was a shark so he ripped away the lure – but the thing was a monster bloody doggie! Devo. We cast a little longer and then another doggie got airborne to grab my stick. The fight was great, until the bloody thing got sharked L

We went and tried some more jigging. I had dropped down to the lighter gear but Tim had persisted on the heavy stuff. He was soon rewarded with a monster hookup on a doggie that schooled him, but things then went quiet. Sadly, the trip was at its end. It was time to head back to the mothership to begin the gear washdown and long voyage home.

Reflections

These trips to PNG are a bit of an unknown quantity. It’s in a very remote part of the world, and it’s hard to know what you are getting yourself in for. Looking back on it though – I would (and I have) immediately booked to come back. The fishing can be world class. We got skunked with the weather a bit, but when the bite switched on it was wide open and you just know there are some world record size fish lurking there.

What made it all the more enjoyable for us though was the crew and the boat K20. We fished bloody hard in the days, but then when we all went back to the mothership at night there was hot showers, awesome food, comfortable beds, airconditioning and even small extras like a launrdy service every few days including on the last night so you didn’t have to voyage home with a bag full of reeking fish clothes. A big plus!

With so many reefs (many unfished) being explored by K20, the only question for me is – “which one next”.

If you are interested in getting involved in your own PNG adventure, please drop me a message or email at info@adventureangler.net and I can provide you with the upcoming tour calendar.

53 doggies and 83 GTs caught for the trip but as you can see, the last 2 days accounted for 53 of those fish.

Kit used

Rods
Temple Reef Ronin 83-8
Carpenter Monster Hunter 80H and Coral Viper 79/40
Yamaga Blanks Blue Sniper 77/3
Synit Razar 350 and Mantis X35
Temple Reef Mytho LJ510B and Mytho Plus 60B

Standout lures
BFP Swimbait Mafia One
Orion Bigfoot
Jigging Master Fallings jigs
Temple Reef Lambo 150 and Ballista Bull 140

Almost all available at www.adventureangler.net

Hi All,

Thought I would throw up my first report, hopefully plenty more to come

Was sitting at home a few months ago looking over the Navionics that I had loaded on the computer looking for some new ground and came acroos what apparently was a bit of ground that came up from 40 to 36 metres and thought to myself I must try and mark that on the GPS on the boat and check it out one day. Anyway night before heading out I rememberd that lump and jumped on the GPS on the boat and found the area and marked it and called it Mark's Hope and thought I would give it a go tomorrow. So Saturday morning get everything sorted and said to the crew that we would go and check this spot out and see how we go had about an hour and a bit to travel and was a few hours before the high tide so decided to do a bit of trawellin and see if we can pick something up . Hooked a couple of doggy mackrel on the trawel but not much else so it was lines out and time to get out and check out Mark's Hope. First drift was a size bluebone but nothing else, second drift not a thing, third drift same as the second and the crew are starting to give me a bit of curry about travelling 55kms out with nothing to show for it so we thought OK one last drift and then head back home to stop at a spot on the way back. Couple of minutes into the drift and BANG I'm on and think to myself this is a half decent fish but didn't want to say too much to the crew just in case. After a good fight and a fair bit of huffingg and puffing I'm half way up and Kev (crew mmber fishing beside me) hooks up and reckons he has a bigger fish on. I get mine to the surface yelling for the gaff and over the side comes a 8kg Rankin,

the rest of us a high fivin and yahooing whilst Kev is still trying to get his up and still after seeing the Rankin reckons he has a bigger fish on. After a fair bit of work he gets his along side the boat and he has an 8kg Red Emporer

(more high fives and yahooing once it is in the boat). All of a sudden Mark's hope was the best and the boys on the other side of the boat are wanting another drift so that they can get into the action so we had one more crack at it but didn't have any luck. It was a great trip back with a few beers to celebrate finding some new ground.

Cheers

Mark

Finally the holidays and have already landed some nice fish. Much more planned fishing wise and will post on how I go. 

Cheers, Max. 

Hit up a shallow sambo spot today. Not had sharks there before.......left after this to hit up a few KG's.

 At Wagoe again. Winds looked manageable on departure from perth. Arrived and found magic conditions. Winds picked up through the night but being SSE it certainly wasnt uncomfortable. 

Tailor came on the bite at sunset with about 10 caught with the biggest being a good 62cm fish. Things went quite for afew hours then right on high tide Treve hooks a good pinky that had a nice battle scare from the past.

Then things went dead. Reloaded the burley and right on midnight had a screaming run. Wasnt sure on calling for a mulla as she had  some power. Had it just on the reefs edge and a nice wave washed her up. the first mulla hit the beach. Being a PB for me l was happy. Spent 10minutes swimming it in a rock pool and she swam of strong. 1.30am and l had another good hit. Another nice mulla that went happily on its way. 

After that we both dropped and missed some good fish. The bite was timid and getting a solid hook up was being difficult. Fished to 5am. 

Woke this morning getting sand blasted. 20knt winds from the south are going to make tonigh abit more uncomfortable.

Afew pics.

 Quick pics from a trip on lobster shack charters, we bagged out.

I managed to catch a pink snapper, 2 dhuies on a double header, a baldy, 2 sambos and a 50cm skippy

Hi guys, could you give me some info on where to fish for flatties in the Swan? Have not got a boat but looking for one, in the meantime would like to have a go in the river.

Thanks Mal.

With whats happened over the past weeks with fish deaths I thought this would be a good read.
http://www.csmc.wa.gov.au/docs/state-of-cockburn-sound-report-2014.pdf

Hey FW Crew,

Haven't posted in ages so thought i'd put up a report of recent events (which does actually include a fish among other things).

Was really lucky to get the chance to travel overseas with my wife from August-October and had a ripper time. Hadn't been to North America & Europe so was great to tick off a heap of places we'd always wanted to go. My wife has had a really rough run with her health in the past few years so we were really grateful for all the different experiences we had away together.

As part of our travels did a big road trip around the west of USA/Canada for 5-6 weeks and went to some absolutely incredible places. For anyone out there who loves camping and national parks you'd do well to get over there and check it out for yourself. Repeatedly left speachless by the beauty of nature, no man made city can ever compare! I've chucked a few pics below to show you what I mean (if you haven't seen before!). Being an Arsenal fan, another big highlight was seeing my first live game. The fact that it was a win against Bayern Munich at the Emirates was just the cherry on top.. but I digress, this is a fishing forum after all!

The thing was, as good as the trip was, I didn't go fishing for a good few months and never really had the chance. So as home drew near, I decided as soon as I got back I was gonna have a fish ASAP. Last year about this time I decided to go for a mulloway and was fortunate to nab one early on, so decided to give it another go. Obviously one is never enough and considering you're on this forum I'm sure you can relate. So within a few days of touching down back in Perth I caught up with a mate of mine and the baits were thrown out into the night. Normally my fave form of fishing is walking our world class beaches casting lures all day but sitting down for a chill out & chat under the (few visible) stars isn't a terrible way to spend a few hours.

Anyway, about 3 hours passed and nothing at all had happened.. But sure enough, just as the  "shall we hit the road?" convo started up, something picks up the old mulie and puts the foot down in a big way. I was only fishing 15lb braid again so after about 5mins of sprints he settled down and I began the old trusty lift & wind. I knew it was a good fish so the heart was really moving, and I was seriously stoked to see Mr Mulloway eventually emerge from the calm waters after a good fight. Great times! I honestly was hoping my mate would get onto the next one and not me again but I'll take it.. I guess we'll have to get out there and try catch another!

Now for some photos of the North American camping portion of our trip if you are at all interested!
 

Moraine Lake, Canada. Yep, the water is that blue, it's crazy!

Jasper National Park, Canada where we were seriously stoked to see snow for the first time even though it was still summer! 

The Highline trail at Glacier National Park, Montana. Hadn't heard much about this place before looking into this trip but it's incredible! Not far from the border of Canada & US and highly recommend visiting if you get the chance.

The rewards of the Highline trail:

This grizzly bear grylls wandered into our campground at Glacier. Very lucky to see such a massive beast so close up in the wild, but didn't sleep amazingly well in our tent that night! He clearly had the "if I can't see you, you can't see me" thing going on here.

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming was a great next stop:

Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

Another @ Grand Teton,




There's a reason they have this guy on the Utah number plate! Arches National Park

Views for days at Canyonlands National Park, Utah.

Hiked up this bad boy at Zion National Park, Utah. This was definitely one of our favourite places that we visited, such an awe-inspiring landscape!

Hiking up the river canyon called "The Narrows" at Zion. A nice change being in the water when it's 37C in the sun!

There's a reason that millions of people from all over the world go to Yosemite!

Cheers guys! 


 

 Got into a few flathead today fishing some drop offs in freo area this one went 52 next cast resulted in a massive run with big head shakes resulting in a bust off on a nearby pylon 50m away I was no match on 4lb 

 Hi Guys

I have been reading up all your cray fishing reports and it sounds like some are having an awsome time and some not so much. I personaly only use my pots when Im on holidays as I am just that bit to far from the water to drop and pull them regulary. So Iam a bit jealous.

One of the reports I have found is that there have been some Blue Ringed Octopus pulled up in there pots in the Northern suburbs of Perth. Just thought I would warn everyone to be careful out there

and maybe use a bit of PPE. As I have heard these can be nasty.

Cheers

 Headed out of Mindarie about 6am to pull the pots and was greeted with 7-8 boats lining up to come out of the water.  Launch lanes were still clear so good job to those coming in, and i assume then heading to work, in not being to impatient.

Pots were fairly loaded with a bag of 24 coming from 3 pots, 6 returned in the last pot. All a nice size with only 1 needing the guage run over it to check and i think these large crays are putting out my normally good eye for size. The small one was at least 3mm over..lol

As the wind was forcast, thanks seabreeze, to drop off we pulled up for a bit of a fish. Dropped the anchor and got some burley going but the bloody wind just seemed to pick up. Whiting were not around and after a little while i had to volinteer to pull the pick. Had the full signs of brekky heading the wrong way, sweats, burps, watery mouth. Bloody wind.

Headed into the shallows and tried again in much calmer conditions. Started the burley again and got into one of the hottest herring sessions that i have seen in a long time. Boated 20 in under 15min with 3 blokes going hard. 2 using bait and having a hard time trying to keep bait on the hooks and myself having the most amount of sucess i have ever had on soft plastics. Loved not having to rebait every cast and the plackies were good for about 4 fish before they were to chewed up.

The snook then came in and scared the herring off so we boated a stack of them to use as cray bait for our next trip out. Those mini barracuda sore the crap out of a pack of plastics pretty quick so i ended up using a little hardbodie until they chewed through the leader. 

As whiting was actually the target we moved again to clearer patch and tried again. Only 1 small whiting caught then released but managed 2 nice flathead just under 40cm on the softies before we called it a day.

All in all a great day with the big esky full of crays and the small one stacked with hezzas and cray bait... Oh and then the wind died off a bit just as we were washing the boat down..Lol

Jumped in with the go pro this morning to get some action shots of the pots coming up. Not bad for our first effort trying it underwater.

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Gents,

Just a quick and dirty report....

Just got back yesterday from a quick dash up to Steep

Left work at 4pm on Thursday,
Drove into Steep Friday morning and had a quick cast before sundown after setting up camp and a few drinks...
Saturday was our only full day of fishing.....
Sunday was a morning fish and in the arvo after plenty of sitting around talking about packing up, we packed up and drove out late arvo.
Back to perth late morning on Monday.

So all in all 2 half days and 1 full day fishing.

The reason for such a short trip, and not our usual 7-14 day trip, was may Mate's 11 year old son joined us and we weren't sure he'd cope with the location.

We ballooned and threw lures as normal, with a few hours bottom bashing to give our casting arms a rest.

To say we killed it I think is an understatement - we bagged out (all but a couple of kilos, that I'm very confident we would have got too if we'd fished the arvo of the last day, but we'd had our fill).

Our biggest session landed 7 mackies in very short succession, but the bites were consistent all day sat and continued sun morning - lost count of total mackies landed!

One of the guys from a diff group commented "you know your shit doesn't stink when you nail them in the tail" after I fouled hooked a decent sized Mackie after it smashed the bait, but didn't hook up, only to jagged itself in the tail.

+Biggest mack was over 30lb most were between 18-22lb

+++also landed a sailfish, and my mates 11 year old son caught his first Mackie (with not too much help) plus several bottom fish.

................insane few days to say the least.

+only lost 3 hooked fish (all at the gaff).
+NO SHARKS!!!
+NO FLYS!!!
+NO SUNBURN!!!
+and the wind blew the right way all but a few hours on Saturday mid-day.

Stars all lined up

+All mackies caught on balloon
+none caught on spin - if fact only got 3 hits on spin the whole time.

+Storm Gars and Snook used under the balloon.

Needed to get out of the house today so i took light gear out for a flick.  

Explored Belmont in search for bream, nothing.

Drove to Freshwater Bay and flicked around, nothing.

Drove to Cottesloe Groyne, onshore wind and 1/32oz jigheads dont mix.

Drove back towards Mosman, cruised around enjoying some of the twisty roads and marvelled at the big houses before stopping at a dead end.  I got out for a look then back in the car about to head home.  I motivated myself to turn around and at least get out and have one last go.  So i walked down and waded out just far enough to cast into the drop off.

Hmm, i've seen enough fishing on TV to know that i'm in flathead territory.....  Got past the blowies and found 2 nice flathead in a short session before i got the call to head home.  They went roughly 36 & 44cm

The second one went pretty hard and pulled some string!  Both fish released.  The first one for good karma, and second one was just too big and beautiful to kill.  Or you could say it earnt another life by putting up a good fight haha!  I'll probably regret it though, flathead are lovely on the chew.

I hardly finesse fish so i am very pleased with these two as my first metro fish on plastics!  Cant wait to get out and do it again now. Great fun on the light gear. 

A question for you fishing theorists out there, these were caught during a predicted time for activity, the 4-5pm moonrise period.  Coincidence, or is there a connection we can make??

5am,, probably a good 100 trailers already in the carpark

Dive no. 3 this season on the James Service prior to lunch, have been giving this spot a hiding but given it was blowing 15+knots from the North stuck to producing ground. Crays were a bit touchy. But on a positive side had a solid Baldchin that seems to be local, following us and was eating legs off crays at will, run my spear gun tip up and down his side a few times to let him know the 15th is coming but not sure if I can shoot him but things might change come the end of the demersal ban . Then again he might be gone with the whites. Ended up with ten, but seemed to be less in 15m than last week. Didn't get the bag but still a good day when your underwater. Very cool to see quality fish in heavily fished ground.

 Got one quota from one pot today off james Services. All good size whites in about 12 mtrs

Waited for the wind to back off this morning and shot down to Mandurah for a dive in the tinny.

Out to the 3 mile to a spot we have been getting our bag at for the last few weeks just as the breeze stopped.

Got our bag in one dive of nice size whites. Still plenty in shallow, but unfortunally think Iv'e done an ear drum so could be all over for a while for me.

Anyways crew get into them, they're on.