Any Skippy out on the FFB...

Launched from Hillarys this morning, normally launch Leeuwin but to save miles went north, standing in the launch lane 0545 preparing the Reefy through races a small SUV been driven like a stolen car by an Ice addict. What the f@#k is exchanged between myself and the boaty in the next lane. The car with body roll speeds into the front parking bay, out jumps a large bloke like Sheila running late to jump in the Trigg island surf boat with some good looking sorts waiting patiently holding up a lane. I pipe up with what the f@#k it replies sorry mate! Any way if any body has connections with this crew give them a bake as it was the craziest boat ramp shit I've seen and I have seen plenty. Glad I didn't have to fight the bloke shiela as she was pretty scary. Fishing wise caught 5 baldies really slow using fresh cuttlefish. Couldn't get the last so steamed home from 15 miles east at lunch.

 So decided to stay in Broome for the holidays. For the first week my wife's brothers were here and we went camping at Barn Hill. Brought the tinny along. Was spring tides and the swell was up. After setting up camp we went to the beach and straight away i regretted not bringing the thrownet. Had a school of fish the size of a standard backyard cruise past to the left of the beach then once they passed the point they flew back past to the right. Got charged by queenfish, school sharks and more pelagics that I couldn't ID. So we all chased them along the beach and every so often jump in. The fish were so thick they swam right into you. Great start to the camping trip. Fishing was poor even though I did all the small things right. We managed to get a big coral trout that was 60cm+ and made for a tasty lunch. Gave half of it away and after that everyone in the camp was asking where to go fishing. 

The next weekend my wife got her first cobia 700 m from the shore in Broome. That day I got my first frigate tuna. 

Bagged out on mudcrabs today. 

Fair to say its been fun. 

Coming to Perth on Tuesdayday the 13th October if someone takes me out for pinkies I'll return the favour up in Broome with crabs and barra 

Hey Fellas finally got round to posting some pics of our Exxy trip back in August. We normally camp around at ningaloo station but this trip we had a big house on the canals with a 15m jetty was pretty sweet. Copped a fair few days of howling easterlies which was quite frustrating but still managed to fish 7 out of 10 days. Main aim of the trip was to spend a few nights out at the islands on the other side of the gulf but the wind really only allowed us to do the one overenight trip on the last couple of days we had. Typically the day we left and the following 3 days were the best for the whole trip! 

Did some awesome jigging out at the islands in 35-50m getting smoked by big rankins and trout where the sharks play a bit fairer as well as catching trevs and mackeral in stickbaits in 3-4m. Spent one day exploring out around the Muirons where we we found some good lookoing patches of ground in 100m where we were hooking up straight wawy buit couldnt get away from the sharks, not landing one fish. Found plenty of Spanish Macks around the back of the reef off Tantas and even managed a few Dollies including two which a couple of the boys caught at the same time winding there baits back up while bottom bashing. A couple of the lads spent a day out deep dropping with the boys on Diversity Charters and smashed the Rubys. 

Big thanks to Bodie and Reece for pointing us in the right direction in regards to the islands. Legends!

Next trip minimum 3 weeks and definately taking deep drop gear!

Cheers

 Hi Guys 

Snuck out Wednesday arvo with my oldest son.

Anchored up on our favourite pinky spot and not long after my son had his biggest ever snapper at 84cm, previous was 81cm.

He was that excited he could hardly talk and was shaking all over.

With the pink snapper action still red hot in the outer areas of the Cockburn banned zone us staff at Oceanside Tackle have been all over it.

Last night shop owner Ryan Thipthorp took out good mate & FW member Frank on his boat and staff member Reese Powell took out his old man on their boat.

We all ended up with our 2 fish each and the McArthy softplastics in 7 inch bullhead minnow and 6 inch paddle tail doing the damage.
There's still time to get amongst these hard hitting reef dwellers before the demersal ban comes it.

If your needing any advise or gear we're happy to help - Open 7 Days

Spoke to a bunch of blokes today down there they said only been about 30 fish all week come out of the channel. it's dead for last 8 days apparently.

But Margret River pebble beach about 10ks out of the town. some big fish coming off the beach. and the river leading off it.

We had another awesome week up in Greenhead last week for the first week of the school holidays with some great family and friends. What amazing weather it was for swimming, fishing and lazing on the beach. Great part of the world.
Took my boat up again as I cant leave on holidays without it.

I was able to take a couple of new comers to boating out for some fishing. They all picked up a dhuie each over a couple of days. All caught in the shallows in 6-8m of water. Which was great fun as they were fighting all the way to the boat.

Unfortunately I didn't. But I did get a lot of satisfaction out of seeing them with big smiles on there faces reeling them in. Team effort I say :)

Apologies in advance if I veer into overblown literay eloquence with my trip report for Sandy Cape. It's been a long time between drinks in regards to fishing (my last report here was back in late 2013 i think), after losing enthusiasm for it for some time after a long stretch of insignificant catches or none at all. Sandy Cape was our destination with family friends for my first ever camping trip. It was also the first time my 2014 Navarra would get a solid shake down off road and my first time doing such activities. The weather was great initially as we set up, checking in on the mighty Hawks progress at the camp caretakers big screen setup for the occasion, before going for a good walk to check things out and of course to gather intel for future fishing adventures. The high dunes provided excellent view points and a damn torturous workout for unprepared leg muscles. 

*at the bottom of the pic is supposed to be a large school of fish been harrassed by an ominous figure but it didn't come up properly. 

Pretty much all the beach fishing was a waste of time due to persistent weed and the poor weather on Monday, which gave our tent a hard time, made it generally unworth the effort, aside from a little cod dragged from the wash on the first night.

Went offroading Sunday for the first time and the Navarra handled it well before hitting the beach and been forced to drag our more experienced companions from a rather sticky situation. This is what happens when you hit the anchors on beach sand waiting for us to catch up!  Took a bit of jiggering and the help of the bloke in the middle and his excellent advice, who had been following behind us,  to save the day for the Pajero and earned much bragging points on our behalf. 

Took all the kids snorkling and sand boarding later, after all that excitement and noticed with a fair degree of amusement after coming back from behind the dunes rounding up stray kids, that a Hyundai mini van tried to imitate a fourby and bogged itself at the entrance of the beach access. The camp attendant was on hand and was able to extract the unfortunates from their predicament. 

The crap weather that rolled in Monday morning was not enough to put me and my mate off from hitting the point after missing out the day before on his little tailor sesh. In between intermittent showers and a cold westerly, casting into nice fishy looking wash, we landed one nice size tailor coming close to 50 cm and was busted off by three other hooters. These fish would have been at least 70 cm. One shook free at the bottom of the cliff as I attempted to help bring it up, the second cartwheeled its way to freedom along with my ganghooks, going over the reef with manouvers that would make a gymnast proud and the third showed itself with an enormous green and silver flash of its flanks before screaming back into the wash, ripping the first two gang hooks from its eye and leaving me with a pathetic looking single 5/0 hook and hollering with frustration. Strong wind threatened to derail the following morning but it had eased off to a rather moderate but chilly ESE. It was nothing like the other day, with bites few and far between and was surprised when I managed to hook up and land another tailor, smaller than my previous effort but still very welcome.

With nothing really happening, time was called and it was back to pack up the campsite in an easterly that had just contrived to pick up in strength at that very moment...not a lot of fun I am sure you can imagine. 

While i myself havent been fishing because of work commitments and moving house my little bro has been holding up the fort with some outstanding catches while fishing solo. myself and him have been exploring a very remote stretch of coast and slowly but surely we have been finding more and more ledges to fish with Aron making the trek on his own a few times with great sucess, catching and releasing heaps of blue groper and when he isnt on the rocks getting a few mulloway in the river on hardbodys again. ive saved some of the better photos for articles but these self timered ones are not to bad.

few more photos of the groper on 50lb spin gear and the mulloway on 12lb.

Just got back from the midwest with an unbelievable week of light winds, many highlights including first Dhu on jig and plastic, young blokes first Dhu at 11kg, took the old man out for his first big Dhu, also got first baldy on plastic and just had a magic time with family and friends. Freezer is looking healthy for the demersal ban. Not sure if the Mrs will let me out this upcoming weekend as the weather is looking the goods again.

Over the many years I've enjoyed targeting pink snapper with great results. Catching pinkys on fly is a big buzz for me and with the demersal ban looming I'm taking any opportunity!

Over the last few nights I've been out fishing the outer area's of Cockburn Sound and doing well on snapper on fly. I went back out again last night and got into another 2 fish on fly whilst my good mate Scott (FW soupster 51) got 2 on McArthy softplastics!

Cheers Ryan

 Spent a few days up with Tangles and to say the fishing was hot was an understatement monday night on a solo fish i landed about 20 mullaz with the biggest 15kg clean the other in the photos about 10kg bar those 2 all me other fish were released every bait resulted in fish or spat hooks left them on the chew

The following day Axey Tangles brother joined us and we pulled the all nighter releasing another 5 or 6 solid mullas between us and getting smoked by nohas after a quick nap axey and i tried a differnt spot to find some pink fellas chewing there heads off  this was a hell session with a big double hook up on pinks to bag out

Every session landing quality fish and having a good laugh with the boys some of the best fishing i've ever seen and thats only 2 sessions there was lots more didnt manage to get a real big one this trip but not a bad fish real long one and went hard 

Ten very long weeks after my double knee replacement and I could eventually get back on the water again. Gail and I launched just after six in the morning from Woodman Point and made our way towards Rottnest Island. We got up a half an hour later than we should have and were probably going to miss the moon set before we got to our destination. As we passed Seaward Reef we noticed a commotion in the water which turned out to be a pod of three whales slapping their tales on the water. We stopped to enjoy this wonderful spectacle and were now guaranteed to miss the moon set, but what the heck – one does not experience this type of show every day!

We eventually arrived at our “Snapper Spot” and one drift over the drop-off indicated some decent returns on the sounder. The anchor was quickly dropped and the burley trail introduced to the swim. I took the Shimano Nexave loaded with the Shimano Stradic 4000 and dropped a soft plastic over the side of the boat. Soon after this we hooked a bird that picked up one of our scalies before it had a chance to drop down into “the zone”. As we were trying to free it the Stradic started peeling off line and I caught a Snapper of 58cm.

A little later Gail hooked her first of three Snapper, this one going 65cm. Her subsequent two Snapper went 86cm and 85cm consecutively and we had reached our quota within 90 minutes of dropping the anchor. We tried for further fish, but got smoked no less than four times before we pulled anchor in an ever increasing South Westerly. Before we left for Woodman Point we experienced a further two whales, one of which breached fully out of the water – what a sight!

On the way back we decided to stop off at Rowboat Rock near Mewstone to see if we could entice one of the Aussie Salmon which had forgotten to go back down south. My first cast with a soft plastic and bang – I was into a 85cm specimen. After a good tug on the light tackle the fish was snapped and released.
This was a welcome return to our wonderful fishery – can’t wait for the next trip.

YouTube clip - https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rBcLMDpit0c

has there been  an official announcement if the cockburn sound will be open this year for crabbing??????

Hi Guys

We just got back from a 5 day charter to the Montes on board Top Gun 2.

Had a absolute blast with a insane 5 days fishing with some good diving thrown in aswell.

This Video is my brother in laws 1st go pro edit and he did alright. The music works for some people but not others.

didnt take anywhere near enough still shots but this gives a pretty good summary.

Cheers Jayce

Thanks for the encouragment guys.

Here are the results both of us bagged out 7.5 KG 76 AND 8.5 KG and 86 one my best sessions in metro ever. Lost a few to gear failure as well. My mate got two 900 models

The call was made late last week that Monday was looking promising for a fish out wide off of Ocean Reef. Target species Greyband Cod.

It’s a fair way to travel so we don’t venture out there that often, but when the effort is made, rewards are generally received.

Call for additional crew was met with silence so it was just the two of us heading out.

Launched at ocean reef and headed West. Easterly was still puffing about 15kts so it made for an average trip out at about 22kts. Have definitely been out in worse tho!

Lined up the first bit of ground and some blips on the sounder gave us some glimmer of hope. Put the electric reel back on the rod, (this time the right way up!), rigged up, and bombs away.

First drop we were both on to some little fish with a red snapper first fish in the boat, slowly followed by another. Slowly because I realised that when I put the reel back on the rod, I hadn’t put the line through the level wind and could only get 2 of the 3 hundred metres of line back on with the last 100 metres pulled by hand!! 2nd error for the day out the way!.

The wind was dropping but we were still drifting a little quick which we thought may have been the problem – snapper are willing to chase the bait whereas the cod seem to be pretty lazy hunters.
Anyway, the next couple of hours were pretty much the same with hook-ups of red snapper and pink snapper on every drop and we probably boated 20+ fish. The snapper all seem to handle the rise from 200+ metres really well and go back fighting!

Going that way for four snapper isn’t really worth it and we were holding out for some Greyband. The backup plan was to pulls stumps out wide and hit Direction bank on the way back in for some Dhu’s etc.

About 11, the wind dropped right off so we decided to have a last drop on the ground we started on before trying in close – good decision.

Lined up the mark again and the sounder lit up. A couple of minutes in the drift and we loaded up with a better fish- Definitely a cod and the long wind to the top commenced.

As soon as it surfaced, there was a sigh of relief that we had one in the bucket and our reputation would be retained.

2nd drift and bang, one cod on and then followed by another Big hookup. The Second hookup was dropped pretty quickly, only to hookup again with a smaller model (for a cod) within about 10 seconds! and we were both on again. Both fish reached the surface about the same time and the models were just getting bigger!

Another drift just to complete the bag and I took a hook off (as they don’t release well at all and didn’t want to get a double header!) and stacked the bottom 10/0 hook with a mix of Occy and whiting – probably lasted about 10 seconds on the bottom before the rod loaded up big time again – this was a big boy for sure and it was pulling the boat back towards the fish!

Don’t think the other rod and rig even made it to the bottom before having to wind up again (as we couldn’t catch any more fish anyway) and about 15 minutes later, up pops the big boy about 40 metres out from the boat- they hit the surface like a submarine when they are that big.

This completed the bag of four greyband so we cruised on back to the marina at a leisurely 30+kts.

Not a bad Monday at all.

Hi All,

Just returned from our annual 2 weeks at Coral Bay with the family before the start of the school holidays. First few days were pretty quiet with strong southerlies. After that the weather really turned it on. Had some absolutely glassy conditions, some of the best I've seen.

Scored plenty of variety with some top quailty table fish coming on board along with some hard fighting sport fish (returned to fight another day) on the light jigging gear to make for great fun. A couple of firsts for us tomato cod, got a couple in one session one which I recon I dropped about 20m from the surface. It popped up a couple of minutes later next to the boat, out with the net! Plus an amberjack on the light demersal jigging out fit retrieving the jig off the bottom flat out as you would expect. Unfortunatley I couldn't find the demersals on the jig, bait did the damage this trip. The brother in law scored his PB mackie in a fairly unconventional way. We were inside the reef having a bit of a spangle bash in about 15m of water after trolling for about 3 hours on the out side skipping gars, laser pros, rapalas the kitchen sink all for one barracuda. He was using his light jigging combo he had bought off me, a sustain 5000fg loaded with PE2.5 on a eupro giant king PE1-3. A single 6/0 attached straight onto a rod lenght of 50lb fluro with a chunk of squid just lobbed off the back of the boat floating in the current. Initially called it for a big trev but after about 10min of screaming runs and not being bricked figured maybe a big cobe. Then a big flash from off the bottom with those awsome stripes appeared, a few tense moments boat side and had it on board. A good effort on the little gear.

Had a couple of memorable snorkling sessions with the kids 4 and 7 years old out on the reef it was the first time my boy 4 has seen what is actually under water. His face was priceless when he saw everything that actually goes on down there!

Anyway been back 2 days and already fanging to get back there, I'll let the pics do the talking now.

Cheers Chris.

 Had a good day out on the water off Geraldton today with some mates.

Hooked up big time on a good fish on the soft placcie I was drifting along the bottom and was quite surprised when after a torrid stuggle down deep the fish came up to the surface and turned out to be a nice Cobia around 15 or so kilos by my estimate. Went 1.2 metres approx on the brag mat later.

We fell one short of our demersal bag limit with 2 Dhuis, 4 Coral Trout and one Pink Snapper 

Whales everywhere too!

Cheers

Gadsy.

Took the old man and young bloke out for a fish. Top day out, back just after lunch after we caught more than enough.

Sounder looked good when we stopped.

Young bloke with a nice queenie (released) and then 73 cm dhu (not released....yummo).

The old man then got in the action with a size dhu released and pinkie that got snaffled by a toothie right on the surface.

Smokey Joe Submarine cruised by, we could hear and see it from miles away with smoke (steam) pissing out of it......classic Collins class I presume.....even the Yanks could find and sink this heap of crap! haha.

Ended with a KG fish where the action was hot, and landed several up to 52 cm, and got a nice 76cm dhu on the KG gear that went quite well!

 As it was such a nice day today we decided to go out of Two Rocks and head to new ground in the 50-70m range.

The plan was to load the boat at 5:30 and launch by 6am. As a few of the fishwrecked members i spoke to today will confirm the line to launch at Two Rocks went from the ramp out to the main road leading into the town. 1 1/2 hour wait to launch and we were on our way by 7:30.. Doh Bloody public holiday.

We never made it to the 70m mark as we found some pretty good ground in the mid 50's dropping to the mid 60's. Great mixed bag caught and a few tanks not stopped. The weather played ball and it was an all round great day.  Apart from the launch..Lol

Thinking about having a go this weekend arroung Cockburne Sound, Five  Fathom or Rotto. Just wondering if any you guys have had any sucsess on the full moon day or night? Any advice positive or negative much appreciated. 

Nothing short of spectacular conditions on the water yesterday arvo, too good to miss so me and Langa bailed from work and headed out.

Cracker 79 cm buck due to Langa PE2 jig, it buried him in the reef after several determined runs. After free spooling and getting him out of the reef, only to have it go straight back in, Langa finally won the battle.

Then I hooked up on my old venerable Tierra 3000 reel with 20 lb leader and KG hooks.....felt like a strong fish, but crapping my dacks with piddly 1/0 hooks and light leader, and once it bricked me in its hidey hole I thought it was all over.....after a lot of swear words, free spooling and some patience I got it out of its hole, a nice 81 cm female. Both fish were identical weight 8.2 kg.

Brilliant arvo on the water yesterday, ended the day anchoring on 3 mile, setting a few rods and having a relaxing few beers giggling over what was a sensational afternoons fishing.

Got immediately blitzed by a few big sambos then this salmon took a live whiting. In September, north of the river......Bloody Norah!

 Hey crew, headed out for a couple hours solo this afternoon following a morning exam. 

Trolled around for a bit until I saw some birds and a bust-up on the 3 mile. As soon as the lures went past the action both rods started screaming, double hookup on salmon!

Bullied the first one in on 50lb standup for a quick release before tending to the other which was on 20lb spin and had peeled a bit of line. They go bloody hard on the heavier gear. Kept the second one for bait.

Also managed a couple 49cm Dhus on plastics  good fight on 6lb but still chasing that sized one on our boat.

All in all a couple nice hours, came back in just after sunset at 30kts in glass conditions

Took a week off recently to travel to the Montebello Islands via Exmouth with a crew of 8 others for what turned out to be some of the most amazing jigging action I have ever encountered.

Departed from Exmouth Saturday and steamed and trolled for quite a few hours north (nothing raised). Ended up staying behind Thevenard Island. Had the lights attracting baitfish to the back of the boat and watched dolphins just metres away teaching a calf (about 60cm long ) to hunt.

Set off the next morning to the 85m -100m mark and dropped some jigs down near Barrow. Huge assortment of fish started hitting the deck. Amongst them goldband, rankin, longnose and Red emperor. Happy to say I landed my first Red on a jig....certainly not as huge as some I’ve caught on bait but still a nice tick on the jigging outfit and went 62cm.
Had a few drifts with outstanding catches at every drop.

Picked up the trolling gear again and within an hour or so the Tiagra 30w screamed with a sail being called. As this fish was being fought, it had two others following but these wouldn’t take anything else offered. The Sail was landed and few pics taken then released and swam off. (pretty happy crew).

Anchored in the Monties group for the night in a calm beautiful protected area.
Next day the crew were chomping to get out and fish. Hit the 60ish m mark and the games began. Never in my life could I imagine jigging to be so easy but expensive with the standard call of “grab us another $30 bucks (....ie jig !) Time after time the jigs “hit bottom” bail arm flicked over only to come up tight. With times of feathering the line thinking “should have hit bottom by now” only to realise the jig’s already been smashed.

About half the guys on board were using bait with some fantastic fish coming up on their lines as well.
Didn’t matter what was being offered jig wise (or bait it seemed) ....something smashed it. Coral Trout galore. fat Rankins coming up thick. Reds, Robbos, longnose, spangled.

Next day we hit a shallow area in 10m -15m. Put the plastics to work and in the first session don’t remember retrieving a single one without it being hit. Absolute chaos with some more good trout and a few others here. Unfortunately the sharks moved in and so we moved.

We hit up some reefy area for GT’s. The poppers came out and away we went. Two smaller model GT’s were boated (not by me ....but I was able to boat a nice size Mackie later which smashed the popper and was aerial just out the back or the boat ...great to see !)
While we were popping off the front of the boat the guys produced a nice coronation off the back....what more could you ask for ???

We also spent a relaxing day cruising through the Islands, trying for mudcrabs with not much luck unfortunately, but it was fun walking the beaches and exploring.
Steam back was easygoing with fantastic weather and a memorable jig and pop on a huge baitball. Trolled for while with a Wahoo and decent bull Mahi mahi. boated. (both released)

Apologies if the crew read this and it’s jumbled or out of order....was a hell of a week and some of this amazing fishing experience just blends ....maybe the amount of beer helped that aswell !

Cheers to all the guys, a top lot with so many laughs and great times and cheers to the crew on Top gun. Ash, Ohhh Devan and Terra for making this a week to remember.

 1100 start . Good fish