This week I've been out twice on my boat targetting pink snapper on fly with good results!

I've caught a fair few on fly locally (over the years) and haven't done it for a while so it certainly was a buzz to get back into them!
 

Here's a few pics from those 2 trips ....... each time getting my 2 fish ..... Happy Days =>
 

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 Took #1 son with me last night for a quick session. Ended up with herring. Yellow fin whiting, a tarwhine and a 500mm flatty.  All on blue sardines.

any one anything cool to report from coral bay of recent,I will be lb mostly,any hints and tips would be great!

iv been through the search function but a lot of the topics are boat related few good reports there but there a bit older.

Heading to Kalbarri this coming weekend and the fishing itch has been hitting hard. tried to make myself wait till i got up there but hey a quick bream bash in the river cant hurt.

been checking google maps for an area that may produce with the rains lately further downriver. settled for the shelley jetty in the end, close to home and parking nearby. grabbed some prawns and a lazy start after a wander near the smaller jetty and little sandbar by 9am a bit before hightide. a few drops under the jetty feeling around, before the first bump then hit, nice, a bit of pressure and then he realised he was hooked, bolted for the pilons. watched him pull 3meters of 4lb braid against the drag, well under the jetty by now before i tightened it a bit and put the pressure on. after probably my best fight with a bream, partially due to the lack of heavy braid to back me up, i had him around the jetty and saw hed swallowed the hook and all i had was 5lb fluro against his teeth.  no net so quickly leader him up. went 340mm not a PB but a great first bream for the season! was stoked. stayed for another few but the bite died off around the slack tide then the smaller ones seemed to come out after the change. all in all a good way to get pumped the Kalbarri.

Got out today,

For a fish with the usual deckie (bro in law). Left the marina at 6:15. Looked like a nice day, but the further we got out the rougher it got (surprise, surprise ;). We pushed on and pulled up on some non discript ground we hadn't tried for about a year. First drop of the day and Doug is onto a beauty, taking line with ease, he had it on for about a minute and from the head shakes and runs we were calling it for a real nice Pinky. Unfortunately the hooks pulled. I got the next good bite and up popped a very plump Pinky that went 54cm. We got a few more undersize Pinkies and a few undesirables.

Decided to check out some ground that seems to always hold a few fish, but the sounder was pretty quiet, on what usually holds a few fish. After a bit of moving around the fish seemed to be holding off the main structure. We managed a nice mixed bag (we.... being Doug, because after my Pinky, I got sfa). Ended up up with 3 u/size Dhu's and 1 that was right on 50cm...released. A Big Black Arse, my one and only size Pinky, A Queen Snapper, a lovely KG Whiting and 2 Harlequins, biggest one kept

Was another awesome day on the water. No trophy fish. But good times with good friends.

Cheers

Chris.

 Went out for a quick session this arvo.

Only ten minutes in caught a 64cm pink, then caught a nice one.

I've been having a great time on the pinkys over the last 3 weeks and thought I'd put up a report!

Mondays forecast (just gone) was looking sweet so I said to my good mate Scott (FW-Soupster51) come out on my boat and lets go chase some kg's. The swell was up which slowed things down a bit but we got a fair few plump kg's and the usual bycatch like plump skippy, blackarse and queen snapper etc.

I said to Scott we'll keep the kg's and release the rest as I'm gonna hit up pinks on sundown!

On the way in I hit up one of my spots and straight away pinks on my sounder. Baits went out and we hooked up straight away to nice pinks!

The sun was setting and another mate of mine Frank (FW- Frank F) was fishing at another location (not too far away) with no pink snapper to be seen so I said anchor up next to me!

That he did and Franky ended up getting 2 fish very quickly (he was solo) and we all headed in getting our bag limits!

The Extreme inshore snapper rig and scaly's doing the damage and you gotta love pinky season!!

If your needing any info on targeting pink snapper my staff are happy to help!
 

Headed out for a late afternoon dash out of Hillarys.  Conditions were good, as forecast but the wind was a little stronger than predicted.

Arrived at a spot I haven’t fished for about a year to see what it would produce.  Spent a bit of time sounding the ground as it is quite “patchy” but did find a small area of hard bottom away from my mark.  One of the real benefits of the Minn Kota is that I could “spot lock” right on top of the target area and it held us there all night.  It would have been almost impossible to anchor on it!

The burley “experiment” went out and the bite was hot from the start.  We boated a just undersized Dhu and a 400mm+ Pinkie within the first 15 minutes (returned of course, but that excellent pan sized Pinkie would have been “treasured” in most parts of the world other than WA – I completely support the 500mm size limit though).  A big Sargent Baker followed (returned as fresh bait) and then a couple of really nice Breaksea Cod (the biggest was 450mm).  I then dropped a bait on top of a 440mm KG and followed that up with a 370mm Tarwine shortly after.  A few other undesirables and it all looked good for the Pinkie schools to move through when the sun went down.

Absolutely nothing.  The bite actually shut down and there was nothing after that except for a 5-6kg Port Jackson and a mongrel eel.  Once the burley ran out we headed in at a rapid pace in the excellent conditions.

I think there was more “celebrating” from the better half when she looked at this bag, than for most I get.  A couple of kilos of fillets of some of the best eating fish in the sea.

 Mackerel mackerel mackerel

 The forcast was looking good so headed out with 3 mates from Mindarie at 6am. The plan was to go a bit deeper than normal for us and try to find some ground in the 70-100m range. We had an area picked from the charts that we though looked promising but it was really going to be hit it and explore.

As we got to the 40's we passed over a nice lump in the middle of nowhere and decided to hit it for a quick drift so 2 of the blokes could get their gear sorted. 2 of us were already prepared.

Bluey, who was on only his second fishing trip ever, hooked up and landed his first Dhuie, a nice little 55cm model. On the back side of the lump i hooked into a 5f bronzey that was released to live another day.

The easterly had started to pick up a bit of pace by then and the skipper decided he didnt want to head out much deeper in case the wind got nasty as it would be an uncomfortable trip back. The decision made we headed for some spots in the 40's to see what was around.

The morning was very slow after that with almost no pickers and only a couple of little pinkies released and the biggest sargent backer any of us had seen. As the arvo rolled around it picked up a little bit and i landed a nice 74cm pinkie that went 4.5kg. (the only photo that we took for the day)

We landed a nice whiskery shark and while that was being sorted the skipper hooked onto another little Dhuie of 56cm. As he was de-hooking it Tony got a big hit that he lost. I told the skipper not to spike the dhuie as we were going to hook a much bigger one and 15sec later i was on. After a nice little fight up popped a 8.3kg model so the smaller one was released.

The southerly was picking up by then so we headed in.

Good day out with mates and a feed for all.

Mackerel mackerel mackerel

Received a text from zOOm yesterday asking if I wanted to take advantage of the forecast good weather and head out this afternoon?  My trips with Michael been very enjoyable in the past, plus we have got some good fish so I was keen.  After the last couple of trips on his boat, I thought we should take mine but the Sea Fox had just been serviced and needed a run.  Took the better half out to lunch at Hillarys (a good plan) and headed off after that about 1.30pm.

The “plan” was to see if we could find some Sambos for sport and give the pinkies a go on dusk.  Headed NNW out the back of the 3 Mile to continue the burley experiment.  We spent a bit of time looking for the schools on the sounder but to no avail.  Anchored up on one spot but it was quiet so moved to a bit of known ground.  Within a few minutes Michael’s rod went off and the fish was going hard.  I was calling it for a Sambo until this thing leapt from the water – haven’t seen a Sambo jump yet so reevaluation was required.  The fish, of course, headed to the anchor rope and Michael’s work to get his rod around it was quite entertaining.  At the same time, my floater went off but didn’t hook up.  After a good fight, the fish was in the net no thanks to my multiple failed attempts to get it there.  A solid Salmon of a few kilos that was photographed and successfully released.

The bite was generally pretty quiet however and the only other fish of note was a 350mm pinkie that took my floater (also returned successfully).  After a while, and when the burley ran out, it was time to go somewhere else.

We decided to head South off Scarborough to a spot that had produced before.  We managed to get a few fish (a just undersized Dhu that immediately smashed a live Wrasse, a large Skippy, undersized pinkies, sized but released Tarwine, and a variety of undesirables) but nothing of note.  Then, my floater was smashed.  I initially called it for a Sambo but it headed straight for cover.  I could feel the leader rubbing on the rocks and then I was bricked.  I put a lot of “heat” on the fish and eventually got it free and it was starting to come up.  Tragedy, as the line went slack and the fish swam away.  I had straightened my bottom 4’0 and to make matters worse, the hooks contained some very large scales.  My call was a big Dhu, and one that got away (sob).

The bite slowed considerably so we decided to move again and set up for the “pinking hour”.  The wind had come up and to tell you the truth, it wasn’t that comfortable.  There was not much action at the new spot but just as the sun went down I got a fairly meagre bite on the bottom rig but that all changed when I set the hook.  This one was a “screamer” that was just stripping line from the 4000 Stradic and putting the little Gomoku to the test.  The nice smooth drag of the Stradic slowly started to pull it up and after a good fight the “happiness” of seeing the large pink colour coming up was achieved.  The circle hook had set in the jaw and we got the fish to the net.  A nice fish “out of the blue”.

We landed a few more undersized pinkies until it got really dark and cold and it was time to come in.  Another really enjoyable trip with zOOm where we had a good day and landed some nice fish, and others that were not so nice.  The pinkie measured 770mm and weighed 4.75kg and was certainly the highlight.  It is always very satisfying to catch the target species during a “quality” day on the water.

Hit a thick patch of salmon offshore of Ocean Reef with a quick late arvo fish with Langa. Surprising they are still about. This is what they looked like on the sounder.

Me and Langa jigged up plenty, lots of fun with aerials and hard fighting.

I downsized to 8lb and had a heap of fun with some 5 inch soft plastics until an amberjack joined the fray, had me working hard.

 Caught a feed of skippy and coupla squid today on the 5 out from pt Kennedy 

 After moving to Broome in March to dive for pearls I bought myself a tinny and the fishing adventures began ! Ill.let the photos do the talking. Im hanging around for the Wet and planning on hitting the barra pretty hard but have bugger all knowledge so if theres any locals around that are keen to  share lnowledge, go for a fish or a beer then let me know. Cheers Nick.

Headed out solo mid-week late afternoon from Hillarys when the wind was light to continue the “burley experiment”.  A bit of a delayed post as I have been writing my application to the City of Wanneroo to allow the proposed Shore Catch activities at the prospective premises in Wangarra.

Wednesday conditions were good, although the ocean was a little “lumpy” so I stayed inshore.  Pulled up on the “spot” to a lot of activity on the sounder.  No doubt it was Sambo schools smashing up everything in the water and once the burley went out the bite was strong.

Landed a few skippy and had the gear busted up big time by a number of “unstoppables” – even broke a couple of hooks.  I did manage to get one to the boat though which was great fun on light gear.  Released nicely to swim away.

Just on dark, a lovely 50cm KG.  The KGs are such a good fish and to get one was a bonus – and appreciated by the better half, and not released.

No pinkies though, and I was tormented by the text photos from Dean and Mark from the trip into deeper water out from Mindarie on the day.  Nice fish that were 800mm+.

 does anyone ever use filleted blowfish meat as bait for catching yellowtail whiting etc when blowies are thick.I went to the ammo jetty this morning with only 2 herring that I thought would be O.K. but they were not real fresh.I caught a blowie and cut strips of the tail without busting the belly and started getting yellowtail whiting and small skippy.The other blowies virtualy ignore it.I was given some fresh mulie when the rain came and everyone left but it did not last 2 seconds in the water.I was using a small white bait gang about size 6.

 The rain coats and bilge pump copped a work out yesterday morning out from the cut. Was all good fun still, with 3 good snapper landed and a coupple more hooked that diddnt want to play nice on the light gear. 

The Italian fishery is wonderful right now and am really looking forward to getting back there in October, but when a shipment of the brand new Yamaga Blanks Blacky series of tuna rods arrived at my house at almost exactly the time my friend Dirk was taking his boat to Spain for a month - the offer on the table was far too good to refuse!

I had limited time available to me so it was to be a short and sharp trip, but right from the first day I knew I was in with a good chance at getting a proper bend in this rod. The model I had decided was to be the primary weapon was the Yamaga Blanks Blue Sniper Blacky 81/8, which is the medium model of the 3 in the range. My reasoning was it should have plenty of guts, but also be soft enough in the tip to flick the light lures as I'd heard the fish in the region were mostly targetting tiny anchovies.

Day 1 came around and there were plenty of serious fish bust ups, but the fish here were very different to Italy. The fish on my earlier trips in Ancona were in small groups, but feeding very aggressively and seemed quite keen to hit the lures. Here though, the schools of fish were huge, but it didn't seem to matter what we threw at them. We just couldn't get them to bite! Football field schools of fish were boiling the water to foam and you'd lob a cast right in the middle, all to no avail. A frustrating day for sure, but at least the conditions were lovely and we got into some small bonito to kill the time.

Day 2 was a bit different. Conditions a little rougher, and very few fish to be seen. We thought the schools had moved on, and I have to admit I got a little worried. All was not lost though - late in the afternoon, we found a school that was going absolutely mental. Surely we had to get something here! But cast after cast, nothing would grab. However, we persisted, and finally - result! A fish nailed my lure and started peeling line off at a rate of knots. Sadly for me, the fish decided to go back through the enormous boil of fish, and another fish touched the tight braid - shearing the line. To say I was devastated is such an understatement, as I had a mainline failure cost me a great fish on my last Italy trip also. But I had one day of fishing left to turn things around......

Day 3, the final day. It was make or break for both of us. So we shook off the dusty heads from the nights festivities, and hit the sea. Happily - we knew that the fish were back in numbers. Conditions were awesome again, and there were loads of birds around. Something had to be under them.

By mid morning we'd found some great schools, when all of a sudden we came across another of the massive bustups that just spanned forever. There had to be a thousand or more fish in that school. We stopped the boat but they were literally boiling all around us. This was going to be it! Surely! But after about 40 casts into a bustup that just kept going and going, I remarked to Dirk that I was very glad the girls were not here to witness this - because they would think we are the worst fishermen in the world! Almost every lure in the box had been tied and thrown, and I seriously was ready to throw the rod into the water. Luckily though, I didn't. I don't know what it was about that cast, or that lure, or that fish, but finally a fish decided that the little 29gr stickbait I was using looked just too good to resist. Fish on!

It pulled some drag, but to be honest it felt like a pretty small fish, so when Dirk asked if I needed a gimbal belt I just said 'no man all good, keep casting!' but then the fish woke up. I realised after the first huge run that I had a real fight on my hands, and quickly changed my mind about the gimbal!

A great battle ensued, running as much drag as I dared on my PE6 line. There were some very tense moments and more than a little yelling when I got the fish boatside as the leader I was using was only 100lb and I could see the fish had rubbed through it quite a bit. We had no chin gaff or anything, so we ended up having to land it by hand, and it took us both to haul it onto the deck. The pictures really dont do the thing justice, it was a very tall and thick fish and was bloody heavy. I was stoked to get this fish to say the least, as it was my PB bluefin and to nail it on a new rod on the last day of a trip in good company made it all the more rewarding. Dirk did manage to get some video also, which I'll post when I am back in London in a week and a bit.

Counting down until the next chance to get into one of these fish! If anyone is interested in any of the tackle used or is keen to book a trip to come chase their own tuna, drop me a message or head to www.adventureangler.net

 managed to get out for a fish with my brother a couple of weeks ago being my first proper fish in nearly 6 weeks so i was hanging to get out!! target for the day was sambos at a common spot but after 6 hours of live herring not a sniff but with the light gear throwing half mulies as bait we managed a pretty fun day!! managed to land 10 little pinkies and 2 small dhuies off the rocks between us, all the undersized fish went back and one pinky was kept for a feed. went bloody hard on 20lb gear, 3012H certate and assassin amia 11ft rod for me landing all but one pinky and a dhiuie myself.

Flew in last night, never seen the ocean so calm,

 So my wife had monday off so we thought we get away for a little weekend trip 2 and half hours north of broome. I checked the forecast and was considering not bringing the tinny but luckily i did as it was pretty flat.

Left saturday pretty early as we were meant to leave friday night but finished work later than expected. When we arrived the place was pretty busy and we missed out on the spot overlooking the water but in turn we got a bigger campsite and a bit of grass. 

On the drive up the wheel arch broke and ended up just ripping it off because it would have caused more damage if left on. 

Luckily that was the only trouble we had on the trip. The dog almost got bitten by what to looked to be a 1.5 metre brown snake but had him on the lead so could pull him away in time.

Got another macky for the tinny which was pleasing on  a old school rapala(wooden body) and the biggest blue lined emp ive seen so far came in at 52cm and was just a heavy fish .

Fishing blind for most of it as the sounder hasnt been working since i bought the tinny but the fishing is that good you only need navionics and find ground that way. whales are everywhere at the moment which are nice from a distance.

The family was nice enough to give us some fire wood so rewarded them with a couply of bluelined emps which they were stoked about.

If anyone anyone comes to broome with a car make sure to check out the cape as i call it the exmouth of Broome.

Old FW member and fishing buddie DazSamFishing, who now lives in BrisVegas, gave me a call, back in Perth for a few days, any chance of getting the arms stretched. With a dodgy forecast and the Eagles playing in the arvo, I said a short trip would be possible but no promises.

Got together DazSamFishing (Daz), TimVB and Hoooked (Marki) and we headed out to see if we could hook a few sambos.

Sounder lit up with heap of bait and a few fish at two of the 4 spots we tried.

The arms got a stretching.

A few good fish landed and a few bricked us in the shallow water.

Fun times with old mates.

 Had a new bubs recently, so sold the motorbikes and the trusty little dory to upgrade to a safer more family friendly boat. Id been lucky to decky for burra a few times so with the weather looking decent today I thought Id return the favour on her maiden voyage. We headed out from Ocean reef before sunup to fish behind 3 mile, was quiet going early on but managed to find some bait, it wasnt long before the fish were on. Mack tuna was first fish landed, followed by a couple of sambos, undersized dhus and a couple of goat fish. Lost a couple of decent sized units due to my albright knots letting go, not happy. Moved spots when it got quiet and came a across a school a pinks. Caught a couple of undersized fish before we landed a 53, 59 and 65. Headed in just after lunch, was a good first outting, still need more practice launching and retrieving the bigger boat but overall very happy with the new fishing platform. 

 Hey everyone. Finished my edit of ranfurly bank trip last year aboard enchanter. My second trip with lance and the boys and thoroughly recommend them to everyone. Best watched in HD enjoy

http://youtu.be/x3Z5rtI_clg

Me n my mate Bads decided to give Cervantes a go on the weekend given the great weather forecast.

Headed up on Saturday morning at gentlemans hours to a light easterly and relatively flat seas.

Went straight out the back and picked up a few Dhuies and Baldies for the esky and then proceeded to muck around with a few sambos as well. Video link below:

www.fishwrecked.com/forum/cervantes-sambo

The water glassed off around 10:00 and we deceided to hit closer reefs for some snapper for a bit of a change.

After a couple of initial drifts to find some lumps we deployed the burley bomb made up of blended herring frames and IT WAS ON!!!!!

Having a drift of 100m every half an hour so meant the fish just followed us and the burley. Floating a bait down and as soon as it got out of sight you were hooked up.

Had a mix Snapper, Sambos and Dhuies all coming up off the bottom to smash our baits. Sounder Porn!!!! 

My Snapper went 75cms.

The sun was getting down and we were running out of time so last baits were called and Bads hooked up to something with a lot of weight! Granted he was only using his Stradic 2500 with 8lb line so anything above a herring looks huge. After a massive fight that lasted 10mins or so with huge powerful runs, up popped a decent size Dhuie that went 75cm.

Cruised in at 20-30 knots the whole way with a few cans to celebrate a ripper day! 

The next day looked just as good as the following but the tacho shorted out and blew a fuse so we decided to be safe rather than sorry and leave it at one day only.

Hey guys, thought i'd put up a little report from Ningaloo last week.

This is our annual work fishing trip with 14 crew and 3 boats this year. A perk that is simply second to none. 

After a tough start with some car and boat trailer issues followed by alot of wind over the first 4 days fishing was tough.

We managed some good pelagics with Wahoo, Mahi Mahi, Spanish, YFT and a lone Sailfish (on Hardbody) and various demersals but nothing of great note.

Sharks were a major issue when searching for Reds with most good fish lost.

Here are some of the pelagics.

Then the last 2 days of our stay turned on sensational weather and simply some rediculous deep drop action.

Rubies came thick and fast with the best fish in the 18-20kg bracket along with a cracker Greyband that would had to have been close to 30kg.

We simply had to leave them biting as our Ice Boxes couldn't handle the load and freezer space was filling.

What a finish to the trip and the deep drop action was something i'll never forget.

Happy days!

 In this video, I show a spot that was hard to share online. I have hundreds of hours on film, but find it dificult to share without people swarming the area and taking every thing they catch.

If you take the time to watch this clip, you will see the same bait fishing tech's that i posted before.  fishwrecked.com/forum/bream-baits-video

And the last video  fishwrecked.com/forum/40cm-bream-video   was the exact same method of bait fishing for Bream.

Here, I don't land the fish, but is still worth watching as it was the biggest i had seen for the season. Hope you like it, Cheers Grant...

youtu.be/f90xjJMWm6g

After the Wednesday night KGs (http://fishwrecked.com/forum/metro-kgs-0), and the best few days forecast I have seen for a while, it was time to fish – and get the burley experiment going in earnest (http://fishwrecked.com/forum/shredder-ultimate-burley-machine-burley-experiment).

I had been too lazy to ask for deckie assistance so headed out solo on Thursday morning from Hillarys.  I have also been too lazy to fish the right times in the mornings this year but did manage to get away before dawn into the mid 20’s before the sun came up.  I started to fish a spot that has produced for me before but it is fair to say the going was fairly slow.  I’m sure a pilot whale wanted to mate with my boat as it must have surfaced about 30 times within 50 metres.  It scared the sh*t out of me a few times by blowing “close” in the still conditions.  After an hour or more I had to move to get away from it.

Got to the new spot and burleyed up and it was a whole different story – I do think it had something to do with the high tide (and my burley slick that was heading to South Africa).

Mayhem really and I probably landed 50 odd fish of all different varieties in the next 2-3 hours.  Don’t you love it when your floater and bottom rig are going off at the same time and you need to decide which fish is bigger, or more desirable, before taking it on.  I kept a size pinkie at 530mm (I very rarely catch size pinkies during the day) and the biggest breaksea (I have “orders” to bring them home) with everything else released.  Back in before noon with sore arms from the workout.

I had a message from zOOm about potentially going out on Friday in his boat after our successful mission a month or so earlier (http://fishwrecked.com/forum/zoom-pink).  That was a really good day with good company in a nice rig to fish off so I was keen to go again.  Since receiving the message, a couple of the dads from my young ones footy team had contacted me about going out on their boat on Friday to show them how to fish nearshore for the pinkies.  These dads cop my stream of fish photos at games, and I even had a mum tell me I had to go out with them so the boat gets used and doesn’t just sit in the marina.  Mind you, the boat is a 36 Flybridge with all the “trimmings”.  Dilemma.  After lots of texts and phone calls the Friday plan was hatched.  Fish with zOOm from mid-morning to mid/late afternoon, meet the “dads” at the marina about 3.30pm, swap the boats in the pen and head out again, with Michael invited along as well.

I had a bit of family and work stuff to do on Friday morning so got to Hillarys about 10.30am.  Prep the boat, load the gear and off we go.  Headed south to the Hale Road reefs but that was “flat” so we decided to go to our previous “found” spot and give it a go again.  Burley up and it didn’t take too long.  Michael and I had another awesome little session on this spot with a constant supply of fish.  Tarwine and big skippy were the common species, as well as undesized pinkies and dhu, and we kept a couple of very large tarwine for Nana and the skippy, for other purposes.  The highlight however was the 6kg Dhu that I landed on the little Gomoku (we won’t talk about the very large fish that bit Michael off – no it wasn’t really a monster dhu!).  We left the fish biting with good times all round.

Back to the marina and we “upgraded” the boat.  The SW wind had come up a bit but was no match for this “beast”.  As we headed out I “handed over” the coordinates to one of my “proven” nearshore pinkie spots, but with no guarantees.  I have found the nearshore pinkies are very hit and miss but trust your technique and the results sometimes happen.

What do you know, they did.  Michael was first to hook up on the floater and landed a nice 630mm model.  An hour later my bottom rig was smashed and the little Gomoku got its second 5kg+ fish of the day (750mm).  Top this off with a few cold ones and a boat cooked pizza on an awesome rig and it was a very nice end to a quality day.  It is so good when you guide the mates out and are lucky.

Saturday was the MAAC comp which was postponed from the week before due to the strong wind warning.  With the young lady’s netball hiatus, for some unknown reason, she was keen to come along to fish her first comp of the year.  With a lot of “lectures” during the week about how there could be no winging and we were going to be out there for 8+ hours with no coming in she was still keen.  Even after the 5.45am wake up the look of anticipation said it all.

MAAC comps are all about species so we headed to “Terry’s pike spot” first up.  With the burley in the water the herring and pike were on fire and we soon had what we needed (Nana loves her herring and I always fillet them for her after the comps – the only time I ever target them).  With a couple of species in the bag, some nearshore sand whiting were next at another spot -a bit slow but everyone got one so we moved on.  The easterly was still blowing 15+ kn so we stayed inshore to try and find some tailor on the reefs.  After a few unsuccessful attempts we finally found a school feeding on baitfish.  We took turns on landing the strikes and I got the first one with a fish over a kilo.  Next was the “favorite little deckie” and this was a quality fish.  What a pleasure to watch her fight, and learn, with a predator that goes hard.  After 10 minutes we got it in the net and at 580mm and 1.54kg it was a quality specimen.  We made sure that everyone got one and moved on.

It was a really good start to the comp but when the wind died so did the bite.  We headed out into the 20’s and gave the towcam on the downrigger a test.  Not quite the best option in a comp but we wanted to make sure the ground we fished had a chance.  It was awesome – how can you fault a live feed from the bottom on a split screen with your sounder.  We proved it works and will further refine this technique – I will post more stories in the future but the below photo gives the general idea.

We searched a number of spots with no success in the light northerly wind, until a floater was taken.  The little deckie was “first up” and she grabbed the rod with a fish on the end that was bigger than anything she had caught before.  I must pay credit to Dean and Wal for talking her through the 25 minute fight and the instructions on how to play the fish.  No assistance was given but Dean did have his hand on the butt of the rod to ensure the very expensive combo wasn’t dragged out of the hands of a 10 year old girl into the ocean.  The delight at landing the 850mm sambo had to be seen to be believed after the work that had been put in to get it on the boat.

What an awesome day for the young deckie.  It was topped off by her winning the mini-juniors, juniors and biggest tailor in the comp.  And yes, I was outfished by my daughter but loved it – if I could have weighed in fish from the previous days I would have cleaned up, but that’s fishing.  Let’s just say I filleted a lot of fish today and our freezer stocks are high after the good weather marathon.  Perth metro nearshore is a fishing paradise.