Another Christmas holiday at Coalmine caravan park done and dusted. The persistent easterly blow made the water activities feel like a winter get away. We did manage to sneak out of the river mouth on the first morning (was pretty rugged out there) and get into a few fish including a solid Dhu which fed the hordes back at camp. I didn’t even get a yellowfin whiting flats session this year as the weather gods didnt play the game. Even with the wind the inlet mouth is one of the best spots for the kids to run free. The pic with the skippy was one of the windier days blowing 25- 30 knots making for a wet inlet crossing and a very sparsely populated quiet inlet mouth. Only a couple of glassy mornings this year for the early birds, but always worth getting up early to see. New years eve was the pic of the days on the water.

 Took the Mrs and the kids for a scenic trip on the morning of New Year's Eve.

Launched at Point Peron (Had to park out on the main road at 6:30am was so busy!) and drove around the point and into Seal Island to look at some Seals.

They put on a good show, me and the Mrs got in the water with them and they were darting around like clowns, coming up really close in the water and then doing big barrel rolls and racing around.

We anchored up there for probably an hour and the kids started to get a bit bored and wanted to go for a fish, straight out the back of the island found same sand and dropped some long shank red hooks with lamb heart (couldnt get oxe heart) and with one drift we had managed 14 nice sand whiting, that was enough, motor back to Point Peron and back home.

Got little miss to clean her first fish which she actually loved doing! Yes!

I finished up the filleting and the kids went down for a nap, then fish wraps for dinner.

I would highly recommend for anyone trying to get their young ones into enjoying the boat and fishing, we were on the water for no more than 3 hours and they loved it!

It can be a little bit dicey getting to the East side of Seal Island from the West but from my Sea Rescue days I remembered to get close to the North Side of the island and there is a rock that sticks out of the water on most days, to the North of this you're good for abour 50m wide I reckon.

Over the break also managed a couple of fish, got my old man out for a fish and got him onto the biggest black bum I've ever seen! Managed a couple of sized dhus too but I think the breaksea was the highlight for me (and possible for the old boy too).

for anyone local to the area looking to stretch the arms, Fished the beach just north of Portofinos (north of the netted off swimming area) early am on the 28/12/20 and was busted off by two sharks. had about 7 feet of leader and the tail rubbed through the mainline so im guessing it was about 7 foot. Hooked another one about 30 mins later, same thing happened.

Both took about 250-300m of line (40lb 4s Jbraid) before i was able to turn them around then pop!. I guess the funny thing is i was only using a single 8/0 circle hook and medium size mullet fillet and only casting about 30/50 metres at most. Seems like the sharks are really hungry and close in. Scary stuff.

Had plenty of sharks up at Eden Beach at sunset/sunrise but to think they're coming into a flat, near featureless beach like the one at Quinns is pretty wild.

Be careful out there....

Finally got out and caught a few nice Kg's. 5 crays also. Happy Days...

It has been quite a while since I lasted posted any catch report here.

This covid pandamic has caused many difficult times and problems for everyone around the world.

As the global flights ceased due to covid , all businesses which includes my own fishing tour business in Thailand are greatly affected.

Hope everyone of you guys here in fishwrecked are safe and good.

Let's hope everything will be back to normal soon after the vaccine is out in 2021.

I managed to sneak out and fish with my fishing buddy in Thailand for a 2 days days fishing trip for our annual goonch trip.

The water conditon was not in our favor as the yearly monsoon just ended. The water clarity was rather mulky. not good for casting and luring.

We cut short our fishing trip early but we still managed to catch the different species fishes what we came for.

We would have caught more if the water condition were much better than this.

You can watch the full video in my youtube channel below:

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiAx6JowwIY&t=21s

 Managed to sneak out yesterday morning with the the father inlaw behind FFB in around 30m and bag a nice few feeds of whiting and gather some quaility bait for when the ban lifts.

Thanks god for the scaler bags!!!

Headed out on Saturday with my eldest for a fish in the club comp.  Conditions were pretty ordinary early with the easterly blowing 20-25kn so headed close to shore and had a good look around Trigg Island (definitely going to go back and fish the area on dawn or dusk).  Just “rubbish fish” so when the wind dropped a bit we headed out a mile or so to find some whiting.

Anchored up in 10m, burley out and within 2 minutes John hooked a nice gummy on a small 40g Vexed Bottom Meat with mullet fillet.  He wasn’t that friendly when we got him on the boat but we eventually subdued it into the esky.

The bite was slow all day and we had to work pretty hard for fairly low numbers.  The classic was later in the arvo when we burlied up a bommie north of Hillarys and could see schools of skippy and herring around the boat but it was very hard to get them to take anything (multiple baits and multiple rigs tried).  We did get a few, but it took a lot of effort.  As is usually the case when the bite is slow, there were plenty of low quality fish and we got sick of taking them off and throwing them back.  John did manage 6 species on the list for the day (gummy, flathead, sand whiting, skippy, herring and snook), that tied for the most, in what was generally a pretty slow day all round.

The gummy weighed in at just over 6kg and around 1.1m in length. Thanks to Kev for showing us the right way to fillet it, and the flesh was as good as any fish when we cooked it up.  Might have to target them from now on!

Been  a few Sandy posts lately. One of my favourite fish and always keen to see how big people are getting them. I measure my biggest whiting on the bench and reckon anything over 310mm is a konker sandy. Generally lose a couple of mm after being in the scaling bag and the ice slurry. They where on the chew this morning with plenty around the magic 300 mm mark, never get sick of filleting a bag.

 Some nice Sand Whiting around at the moment. 

Got this feed with the wife out off Rockingham. 

 Few salmon hanging around the cut this morning. Was a bit of fun.

 Went out to the honey hole this morning and got a few Crays, have a look at the eye on this fella, anyone seen that before?

Pies no show!!! So many highlights where do we start. 

 Last night when I was starting to think about going to bed I flicked through my phone looking at this site and then Facebook I noticed a last minute cancellation on jazz and they were looking to fill it I thought I'd I'm lucky enough for it to be still available I will go 5 mins later I'm setting an alarm for 3:30 in the morning. The first hour or 2 were very slow fishing I think we saw 1 undersized snapper, well that changed very quickly I think there were about 8 people hooked up at once and then again when we dropped back down easily the craziest session I have seen. 

 Managed a couple of hours on Sat afternoon. Caught a few, this was the biggest. My new secret spot carefully chosen to be out of the breeze and in the sun. Fished about 6 spots and caught 15 or so fish. 

 Went out this morning in pretty crappy conditions for us to check our pots we were only able to get 2 pots up other 2 were stuck one pot had afew other was loaded. 

 Gday guys,

Just got back from a trip up in the kimberely with the wife, was up their for a few weeks and only managed to sneak in 2 days of fishing, hadn't caught a barra before, its been on my bucket list for a while. Managed to talk her into a last minute trip to go heli fishing out of derby, fishing was pretty slow but what an experience, pushing the bait of the banks with the chopper and watching them get smashed by barra was insane, equally frustrating as we only landed one for the trip and the wife caught it good job on her behalf though.

Had a day booked with makaira a month prior to the trip this was my last chance to get one before we had to head back to Perth.

Fishing was again quiet we ended up landing a few more fish this day, tried sight casting for triple tail but they weren't interested in the lures, so we moved further into the creeks, no threadies but managed 3 barra for the day, finally got my first barra at 84cm was pretty happy with that quick photo and sent her on its way. After that fish, was happy to sit back and enjoy a beer and the rest of the day flicking lures.

 Went out this morning to check our pots and have a quick squid bash. Crays have slowed a little for us with the full moon but got afew on the weekend as well. I used one of those duo jigs today and I had 4 squid on board before my sons second cast. But I lost it on a snag, I'll be getting another one of them. 

 The Rockingham city have advised that the Bent Street Channel will be dredged commencing October, See Attached https://rockingham.wa.gov.au/planning-and-building/current-projects-and-works/bent-street-navigational-channel-dredging

 Got 2 brand new pots into the water yesterday and with the wind a bit lower than predicted my son and I got out around 7 and checked them thinking any crays would be good for brand new unsoaked pots we had 4 crays and an occy in the first pot 1 was undersized 2nd pot had 3 crays all size. Pretty happy with that looks like being a productive month or so coming up. Sorry have to click on the pic and it changes seems to be my phone. 

Shot over to the Montebellos last week for 5 days what an awesome place.

A mate drove up from Perth and met me at my place on the thursday(paraburdoo) we left para at 4am on Friday to head to dampier arrived by 9.30 fueled up and hit the water by 10am. We cruised over at 22knots conditions were pretty awesome there were whales everywhere it took us 3 hours to get to the islands and we used 105 litres of fuel. We spent the afternoon cruising around found a bay to camp in on Bluebell and spent the rest of the day unloading the boat re fuelling and setting up camp and a couple quiet beers.

Day 2 we woke to magic conditions we cruised out the west side through a gap in the reef and started sounding around I was lucky enough that a mate give me a couple of spots to sound around so we looked for a bit of action on the sounder which didn't take long then it was non stop action for most of the day we fished in 15m to start with then out to around 35m and some great fish caught the number of coral trout caught was incredible I had to put the jigs away as it was almost a trout every drop and they were averaging around 75cm so it was good fun the reds were only interested in bait. We forgot to take lots of pics as the action was so good but managed a couple.

Day 3 was much the same as day 2 but the fishing was a bit slower really only on the bite an hour either side of the high tide but still plenty of fish caught and released.

Day 4 the wind picked up considerably it was very hard to drift as the tide and wind were the same direction still managed a few fish due to the wind we thought we better check the forecast for the next couple of days so later that day we had a look and it wasn't easing up so we decided we would cut the trip a day short as it was better wind direction to travel back in on day 5 rather then day 6.

Day 5 we packed up camp loaded the boat up and had a cruise around the islands while jumping in the water having a free dive on some of the coral bombies. The coral colours are amazing and the marine life is superb. Some huge cray fish around and some massive cod we didn't spear anything as we had our fish limits for the trip. Once we were out of the island group we thought we would have one more fish before heading back to dampier so we found some flair ups just past the gas pipe line and had a quick jig session with a few fish raised but there were a lot of sharks around. We could see plenty of dolphin fish but couldn't hook any. So it was 1pm so we thought we better start the journey back it was a fairly strong sw wind but still managed to comfortably cruise at 18knots back at dampier ramp by 4.30

A huge thanks to all members who helped me with some info it made doing the trip so much easier with the knowledge before hand. 

We travelled 250nm and used 360litres of fuel. I took over 500 litres as i thought I would use 150 litres to get there and have 50lt a day to use but the economy didn't change much at all being fully loaded. I have a 6.5m pacemaker with a 250hp mercruiser.

I can't wait to do the trip again.

Cheers 

Rod

Spent a week in Point Samson earlier this month. Didn’t have the best weather but still managed to get out 6 times. Went out wide for the first time and came up the goods bagging out on Reds. Was 30nm to get into the 40s.

Biggest Red was 7kg. 

 Took advantage of a day off yesterday and headed out with a mate (who hasn't really fished). Was super stoked about the forecast so headed out deep to see if could get that elusive fat dhue!

unfortunately deckie ended up vomiting all day so I couldn't focus as much, no dhue unfortunately. Missed a few hits while checking my deckie was still alive. Ended up with 2 decent baldies. Would have loved to have stayed out longer, but felt bad asking him to get a license just so I could keep fishing lol! Magic afternoon conditions. Bit bumpy and quick drift in the morning. Releases a big harlequin, couple undersize blackass, and a decent shark.

not sure my deckie will be keen to head out again any time soon! At least he was alive enough to have a picture with the fish when back on land.

Was great to get out for a fish yesterday, very wet offshore and not so great with no protection against the elements in my new boat, third world problem, lots of whales, found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, ended up with a great bag, my decke Eric hooked the fish with the big tail and I have never seen a spool empty so fast, 

Quick run out Sunday morning in spectacular conditons, averaged 35 knots on the run out and back which made for a quick morning fish. 

Lots of dhuies around, got our bag in less than an hour, then headed for a KG fish, no KGs but Den got this on a No.1 kg long shank hook.....released well. We were not keen on hooking more dhuies and doing unnecesary damage, so we headed back to Hillarys for bacon and eggs and coffee breaky at the Marina. 

Heaps of Minkie Whales around, they would not leave us alone, we had about 10 hang around the boat for 20 minutes checking us out.

Show up good on the sounder. 

 Well it got to 1/2 time on the footy and with the eagles already with a game winning lead and with the wind sitting at about 5knts at OR I made the decision to go for a quick snapper bash.   Went outside to hook the boat up and it started to rain pretty hard.   not a good sign ....checked the radar after 20 mins and all looked clear so off I went. Went out to three mile to an area I have fished recently with mixed success (few undersize and just size snapper).   Decided  to go slightly north of my previous spots and follow a channel of sand which drops to about 12m but which has Bombies running along both sides. After working out the drift and failing a few times (the wind swung to the east, a south weat swell and a northerly current) I ended up anchoring in about 8m and then drifting until I was pretty much in the channel before tieing off.   I started to throw a few cushed mulies and pellets into the water and within seconds  the skippy were going bananas. Caught a few on my 6/0 snelled mulie rig .   The swell was pumping which was painful but the absence of any wind made it otherwise ok.   All went pretty quiet until just after sunset when one reel screamed and with all the head shaking I knew it was a big snapper. I probably got a bit excited and tightened the drag too much and about half way into the fight the hooks pulled.   No sooner had I rebaited and got the line back in the other rod took off. Same thing - big run and lots of head shakes.   Having learnt my lesson I was softer on the fish and got to about 3/4 of the way through the fight and the hooks pulled again. I knew I had lost two prize  fish!   Next cast ....on again but the dead weight was a giveaway.   A big ray which I cut off close to the boat. For the next ten minutes I had that sinking feeling that I was going to go home empty handed and then the reel screamed again.   After a decent fight a nice 650mm pinkie came on board.   This fight was nothing compared to the two I lost so I suspect they were biggies.   This one was caught on 7/0 octopus circles which I put on after cutting off the ray.   The hooks that pulled were 6/0 octopus so I will continue to use the circles in future and see if that makes a difference to catch rates. So happy with my snapper but that feeling of what could have been has annoyed me all day. But hey that's fishing. Hope to get out again this week! 

 Just back from a great 12 days in Exy , covered all bases fished the shallows on plastics , jigging in the 90s for goldband and scarlett sea perch , couple of feeds of muddies and deep dropping for grey band and rubys with an exceptional amount of very large rubys accounted for including one that bottomed out 20kg scales with ease !!!

Over the years we have received significant help from a fish market monger, and have long talked about going out for a fish together.  We have been limited to a Sunday due to work commitments, and last Sunday showed some promise with the forecast easterly around 10-15kn.  We made the plan, and Dean really wanted to bring one of his employees (Spring) as a reward for doing an excellent job.

Given the forecast temperatures, the afternoon looked a lot more comfortable than the morning so the plan was to leave around midday and fish until dark.  We decided to play it by ear as to how far we ventured out based on the wind conditions when on the water and unfortunately it was blowing closer to 15kn so we had to stay inshore, much to Spring’s disappointment as he really wanted to catch a big fish.  Our “on the water” plan was to burley up a weed bank close to the marina, head to a spot that can hold big sand whiting and then settle at an inshore pinkie haunt that has produced the goods previously at dusk.

10 minutes from launch and we had the lines and burley in.  I keep the offcuts from our commercial burley manufacturing process, and use them myself so we had a lot.  We had herring and garfish all around our boat, and some large predators that smashed the schools every now and again – saw a big pike launch itself out of the water right on top of us.  We checked licence status, kept the big herring and released all of the southern garfish, small herring and other undesirables.  Unfortunately we couldn’t tempt the bigger things and the live baits went untouched.

A short move down the coast and we fished for sand whiting as the order from home was to get some fillets.  As usual in this location, they occasionally school through but you do get some bigger models.  The burley had fish all around us again, and we got some nice whiting in amongst other various species.  The highlight was Spring’s XL sandie, and this was a big fish in its class at probably near 300g.  Another highlight was Dean landing a small eagle ray on the 4lb whiting gear after a long and entertaining fight.

As the sun started to drop it was time to move and set up for the late afternoon.  Again, burley in the water and we generated an aquarium.  Skippy were the main species this time although there were plenty of smaller pinkies, and the herring again.  Spring managed to hook up to a nice tarwhine amongst the smaller pinkies, but it was a job to get a bait through the skippy although the bite fluctuated quite a bit. 

As the sun hit the water my baitrunner started to sing as something sizeable hit the floating mulie.  It is always a relief when you engage the reel and the hook up is solid, as was the case here.  I had the drag set reasonably tight but it still pulled a lot of line in the initial runs.  The head shakes were unmistakably those of a pink and when we finally saw colour, that’s what it was.  A skilful net job and we had a good fish in the boat – Spring was over the moon to see it.  We stuck it out for a little while longer but the school had moved on, it was quite dark, and time to come in.

My family is fussy about the fish we keep so it didn’t take much convincing to let the visitors take them home.  It was a nice mixed bag and was good to hear the skippy and whiting were consumed raw that evening by family and friends (and settled the anger about getting home so late), the herring were given to relations and the pinkie weighed in at 6kg with a 2.5kg fillet return plus the wings – it helps being a professional fish filleter.  I have arranged to pick up the frozen frame so I can donate it to the Fisheries skeletons program.

It was a nice afternoon on the water, testament to the fact you don’t have to go very far in Perth metro to get a reasonable return, and there is value of using various burley types and techniques for targeting different species.  We have already talked about doing it again. 

 Had just as much fun catching these kgs , almost as good as catching a Dhuie. almost.

Built up the awesome squidding down here all day to the kids and launched from Port Geo Marina with a stiff breeze still blowing at 2pm with Bailey our pup on his maiden voyage.

Headed straight for my honey hole and the look on Lachie's face said it all when he saw the colour of the water. We did three large drifts for no interest on a range of jigs so pushed out to the 10m line where the water was nicer.

Hit a couple of broken up areas with jigs and whiting rigs and not even a bite and kept a sardine cube untouched!!

Oh well... the beer and lemonade was cold, the tunes were good and Bailey was a star.

 Fished the mouth of the Murchison out the end of Chinamans last night. Tried baitcasting some mulies for Tailor, but they were a bit mushy and the pickers were cleaning them off the hooks.

My daughter's boyfriend thought he would try a popper in the dark and he eventually hooked up big time. After a good tussle, he had a very big Tailor at the base of the rocks (est 6 kilos), but he tried to lift it up onto the rocks we were fishing from and the line snapped and that was the last we saw of the jumbo Tailor  .

Another one that got away...