Hi All,

It is alarming that only 3 days into the season and already 1 pot stolen. It is really concerning people refer to pots as shopping trollys ( be it a joke or not) and actually do not own a single pot themselves.

I don't have the answer, how we as a group can stop this behaviour, but appeal to everyone to respect both Comercials and recreation pots. Respect is mutual, for Comercials this is their source of income, for recreational it's hard enough trying to find a gap between work and weather to get a feed. I trust the authorities will enforce the full punishment for culprits that get caught, because I know if I catch anyone on mine or my friends pots they will delt with accordingly.

LETS MAKE A STAND TOGETHER!

The Offshore Angling Club held it's October field day on the 11th and 12th of October.

Some good fish were landed, most notably a Samson Fish and Small Shark both released.

Condtions were pretty favourable for the most part, which made a nice change. 
They were tricky into Saturday evening but Sunday morning was magic.

Report and some photos http://beachfishingwa.org.au/field-day-reports/october-field-day-2014/

Enjoy.

Cheers,
Diesel80

 Had some fun on this morning on the banks of Wilson Inlet. Hooking in to under sized snapper, skippy and leather jackets. All of the fish released and kicked of strongly. Hopefully it rains a liitle more next year so the buggers can swim out and clean themselves up a bit!

 Had a great day out on the water & managed a good feed to top it off!

Big thanks to Paul G for the helpful advice he gave my girlfriend Jess.. Couldn't imagine a better way to finish off the season an I FINALLY BEAT THE GF WITH THE FISH OF THE DAY!!

The big dhuey went for a 5" plastic on the light gear. Was the second fish of the day, but sent it back to make some babies. Ended up keeping the first and last Dhuies of the day which went 57cm and 65.. Great on the chew.

As some of you are aware we ran King of the Cape for it's second year & I am so stoked to see it's growth albeit not without some serious blood n' tears by the committee, sponsors & volunteers plus the avid participation of competitors. So to them I can't thankyou enough for what you have given to our community & angling in general particularly Pflueger Salt Reels for coming on board & looking after the kids with all the awesome goodies!

Our focus is & will always be on the future generation of young anglers in the South West & beyond, getting them into our beloved sport & ensuring its future with catch / release style competitions. A previous post has highlighted a concern for me with geo tagging, sad that the exploitation of technology can undo others hard work & therefore I will only post my own pics & those I have permission to do so.

We started on a Friday evening & with the previous day being a cracker & the weekend forecast being average competitors were keen to get cracking that night, as you can see the bay was a pond with the wind yet to steam in. Thankyou to Dunsborough VMR for their hospitality, great blokes & all too keen to share our vision!

This year we got unbelievably fortunate to secure local artist Annie Heyring to carve a perpetual trophy for the annual comp which will reside at Dunsborough Outdoor Sportz, what an amazing piece & I have never seen any fish carving like it let alone the identical features of a Dhuie.

Most of you know Dave aka Xtreme Coolers who again was a big prize donator for us, I always enjoy fishing with him & his boys. This time around his eldest was unfortunately struck down with the dreaded school holiday lurgy leaving him green with envy as his younger brother got down to business catching his share too.

Young Bailey getting stuck into the squid early on the 1st day

That’s how you do it! Giving the biggest squid prize a good old nudge

The competitor’s toughed it out as the wind & swell swung in hard from the west, trying conditions for all with great resilience from the kids displayed. Whilst I was hitting up a bay mark that looked to be holding well we struggled to entice the pinkies for a chew & the young bloke puts another run on the board with his first dhu banger.

Black smoke billowing constantly on the horizon & nobody able to identify what it was saw us head out into the thick of the washing machine hoping nobody was in trouble. Ended up being a Chinese tanker with a serious smoke stack, happy days & even better that Bailey had some serious sea legs under him as we made a few drops wider but without joy.

Back in & grabbing a feed of plump whiting to make fish taco’s for Sunday night

Few beers with Seakem, Dave, Tiimmbo & the young lads that night whilst watching my young bloke pull some serious moves on the girls at the next table had me thinking of some stunts inspired bad grandpa style (pity that the better half was onto it quicker than I). Waved goodbye to Dave & Bailey & prepped for the next day with the wind forecasted to drop but late, needed a game plan that would see us back in time to set up for presentations.

Headed out with Damo & Habanero dodging whales & enjoying the sledging

Damo with a good flatty that had fillets of pure cream!

Amongst the smaller pinks this bruiser came courtesy of a jigged bonito from Habanero

Struggled to get the Dhu’s to chew & with Damo losing a good one to an unfortunate or hilarious (for us) mishap with a strong run & the braid catching his finger like wire on a block of cheese.

This sheila followed my line up some way as the last drop was over & time to get home, yep what a tin arse.

Conditions far better Sunday, my son hitching a ride with the boys

Will get some pics up from the other boys but here was the winning team slaying it, they played a smart game & good skippering from Toby saw them come romping home.

Edge with an absolute monster on an unusually quiet seriola front

He was having a day out too by the looks

Well done to PJ, Edge & Toby. Thoroughly deserved win fella’s

A quick late arvo run with the lads the next day but the sea breeze decided to say g’day early. Dave from DOS with a jigged dhu in some lightening quick drifts

Cheers to Seaquest, Dave, Toby & Mark for all of the hard work you put in.

Thankyou to our sponsors & our local community for enabling this event to occur

Well done to the winners in the categories & a special mention to the young forum member double header king aka Max for some cracking form in the junior section offshore.

I will make a few edits with more pics when I can get to my hard drive & add a few more in for those interested

 Went out on Monday with my mate Matt (FW member).

Left the ramp at around 7:45 and had a very rough trip out to the 3 mile, wondering if the forecasted wind drop was ever going to happen.

Anchored up on top of the reef, got 3 blackarse (one of which was legal - 35cm) and a few wrasse but nothing more.

After around an hour the anchor had slipped and the spot gone dead so we moved a few hundred metres to the south and dropped the pick once again.

We sight fished a couple of skippy, hooking quite a few but only landing 2 (one to me on the pen rod - great fun  )

And a couple of sambos on live wrasse which measured 86 and ~105 cm.

Not long after a noah of around 2.5m turned up and circled the boat for a good 30 mins or so.  Think it was a bronzie but not 100%

Hooked what was called for a pink, saw colour, only for it to spit the hooks 

Finished off with a quick 20 min C&R tailor sesh in sh*thouse conditions, hooking 2, landing 1

All in all not a bad day, had sambo curry and fish cakes for dinner, didn't taste too bad, will definitely give them ago again should the opportunity present itself 

Cheers

Hutch

Angler's fishing with angler's- We have the same mindset and share the same attitude towards fishing.

We have many common topics as regard to fishing, chat & exchange ideas during long distant travel.

For this 2 days fishing trip, I was been told to  facilitate 2 days of predators fly fishing trip for them.

1 angler from malaysia and the another angler from New Zealand.

They have a wonderful 2 days fly fishing trip in Thailand.

Many species of variety predators fishes landed on their flies.

Enjoys this actions packed video youtube clip.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okpIxTbxTGg

Photos hightlights of the trip.

A massive 60KG arapaima- Beautiful fish

Massive redtail Catfish on flies.

Another arapaima on flies.

Even snakehead on flies....Well done !!!

 Hi guys,

Thinking of heading down to the cut either thursday or friday afternoon and flick around some lures. Just wondering if anyine has fished there lately and had success. Will be targeting herring, whiting and hopefully some tailor.

 Hey guys

wondering how ppl have been getting on in the river with crabs?

Hi guys as the demersal ban is on (in a couple of days), has anyone been for a jig at the containers behind Rotto....? If so are the sambos around????? 

My wife and I managed a deckie spot with my brother and sister in law on Saturday. We fished in the Daintree in the arvo but the out going tide was a bit quiet. Still we managed a nice Fingermark before dropping the missus off then heading offshore.

The bite was steady with not too many fish coming on baord but they were reasonable quality fish. I got blown away by one big fish, probably a Red Emperor which was annoying but we did end up with 5 Red Emperor to go with quite a few Large Mouth Nannygai, some Small mouth nannys and a couple of Spangled Emperor. All up we got around 20 fish.

It's nice to get a haul where not all the fish can fit on the table for a pic!!

 just curious to see if anyone has seen any mackies about yet in local waters?

Took my dad and brother, both visiting from South Africa for a fish near Rotto. They both managed to catch a Dhufish on their first outing (took me several months) and also lost a couple of good fish in the process.
Video clip here - http://youtu.be/BPSMB0dvX4w

As some of you may have seen here:

http://fishwrecked.com/forum/jigging-shetland-islands

I recently got back from a trip fishing the Shetland Islands on the Oberon, trying out some light jigging gear from Temple Reef and Jigging Master on the local species there.

I took a whole lot of video footage up there, and finally got around to editing some of it for those who are interested. The link can be found below, and I suggest watching in HD!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOSSaAwDqy8&feature=youtu.be

It is my first attempt at video editing, so go easy ;-)

Dan

 Got out for possibly our last fish before the ban begins. Started well with a 5kg dhu first drop, and a double header next drop, one undersize and one just over size. Made a captains call to release both as surely we can upgrade the just size one. Whoops, we caught a couple more undersize Dhus but not another size one. Still managed our bag with a lovely Baldie of just over 4kg and a couple of smaller Queenies.

Lovely day on the water. Had a bit of a worry when we rocked up to the Mandurah Marina at 5:30 to be greeted with the Boat Show getting set up. No one around but it wasn't completely fenced off yet. So we put the boat in, 2 boats followed me, and no one said anything when we got back. So all good

Took a couple of non fishing mates (keen but not experienced) last week for a quick fish from two rocks. WIth the reality being a far cry from the forecast (ie shite) a quick change of plans was required. WHere i had initially wanted to fish the 80s for some bigger snapper we were forced to stay in close and hope the wind dropped off. With no marks to speak of and having not fished for 9 months I poked around in the 38-41m area hunting for ground, which was bloody hard given the swell and sea. The boys picked up a few random fish that were all undersize and had some fun with some smaller sambos. Having a fractured ankle meant I was resigned to playing skipper for the day. By 1:00 we had all had enough and with the wind picking up we turned for the ramp, knowing we were in for a horrible run home. HEading back i came across a small patch of ground that looked great, caves everywhere but not a lot of fish life. I had a light drift bait rigged up and figured I better have a drop on it(first for the day given my ankle). I wasnt expecting much and after what seemed forever I figured I didnt have enough sinker to fight the current and my bait was swimming mid water. I wound up only to come up tight on what was a good size fish. Right after the first run I knew I was stuffed and it was a big dhu, 30lb leader was never going to be enough and sure as eggs I lost weight after the second run, pulling up to find a shredded rig. A quick rerig with 60lb on a heavier outfit and back for another drift. As soon as I hit bottom old gobble guts couldnt help himself and I was on tight, four or five big runs and I started to win some line, sure enough in true dhue fashing he started doing the float of death and up he popped about 40m behind the boat to much hi fiving and shouting. 8 Years of fishing two rocks and finally cracked the 20 kg model. Sadly after two fights he was done and wouldnt release. Funnily enough he tasted great, whereas the 18kg one last year was dry and stringy. Apologies for the terrible photo, but given the conditions and having a broken ankle it was all I could manage. He is leaning up against me so no tricks and I am over 6ft to put into perspective. OUtfit was a synit mantis 3-5 with an ocea jigger 2000 and pe3. Bait was a slab of sargent baker on snelled 5/0s.

 Hi all, at 2am this morning we arrived home from 10 great days camping in Exmouth. We drove a 1983 60 series up there and towed our 5m 1982 quintrex centre console. The first day we got out behind the reef at tantabiddi, but the Sharks were too quick. The rest of the trip was spent diving down the bottom of the gulf while the southerly blew... I have attached a few photos of the results...

hey guys my first report. Today went out off two rocks today with my dad chasing some dhuies and sambos. Arrived at the boat ramp around 7:30 and launched the boat straight away. Headed out slightly north into around 35 meters and hook up first drop. Great we thought! Fought the fish for a couple of minutes to then see color and realized its a north west blowie. Dad gets a good hit and misses it then winds up and all his hooks a gone. We decide to move spots and try and find some new ground out a bit further. Found some good ground in the forties and decided to do a couple of drifts first drift got some good bites and one hook up wasn't much of a fight but turned out to be a good sized red throat emperor kept drifting and then drifting and hooked up again and got a 47cm pink snapper. Went back over for another drift and first drop BANG!! big hit and managed to set the hooks was a great fight and managed to land a fantastic 55cm breaksea cod decided to leave that spot and find even more new spots found a couple of good lumps drifted over them and managed another red throat emperor and another breaksea cod and pink snapper which were both released.Overall had a great day on the water and managed a few fish which made it even better.
Cheers Boyd.

well well well.....it was opening weekend , the weekend just gone and lets just say it was rather challenging. Fishing was tough due to conditions and the rainbows still have not totally arrived back from spawning. Plus fishing in the back country isnt about numbers for me its quality of fish..

Arrvied at an area which i cant name and treeted to heavy heavy snow. it wasnt snow on the ground, it was basically down pouring. We assesed the conditions and though we would at least give it a shot. So we got on the quad and started heading down into the wilderness in a WARM 0 degree tempreture. The battle of constant constant heavy snow falls while fishing was challenging as well as the fingers getting to freezing point. Fishing was hard, with limited fish seen in the monring and accounting for 1 measly 5 pound rainbow.

Around lunch we decided to get out of this weather and head down into the kind country. The kings country was alive, with sun out and may fly hatches happening. Unfortunately it was just to early to see an afternoon rise. We were gobsmacked when we came across this pool see the proaly the biggest rise and have not seen a single fish. We fished nymphs and picked up a few nice browns and rainbows to 5-6 pound.

The Sunday: We headed back up into the mountains to be treeted with grey skys, and gave a look to each other with sigh and said welll we are going to give it a shot. Arrived in the area, unloaded the quad bike geared up, checked the tempreture for a nice 3 degrees. Off we went for roughly a 20 mintue wuad bike journey down into the gully followed by a 45 min hike down a gorge, which to say can get very very interesting at times. We came across the cool little hut that was bult roughly 20 year ago... going to stay in it in the summer time!

We finally made it down the system (river) where we rigged up and hit up the first pool. As always each pool we get to, we spend a good 3-4 mintues just watching from a distance to see what is "happening" in the pool. Bang a BIG dark shape appears and i sneak down hiding behind a rock and launch a nymph in its path, it was a rainbow and definately double digits , it came for a look but turned its heads and into the depths it went. Slow drift fishing is alot harder then fishing for tropheys when they are in feeding mode and at the tops of pools closer to the faste water. i launched another cast into the rapid , did a few mends and let it swung out i was on on!! hoping it was the rainbow, unfortunately a little 6 pound rat came out. if the fish sturs up the pool jumping every where, it shuts down the pool and its time to generally moove on. These back country fish are alot more smater then your average spawning fish.

 The fishing here is really really difficult with multiple currents comming into the one pool making line management very teadiuos and i was how do you say a tad rusty. We came across some 'pocket water" that was holding a brown roughly in the 7-8 pound mark and i launched a cast and completely missed the pocket hitting another pocked, and with frustration i yelled out that F*** , only for the indicator to go down and a hook up to a different brown! we hooked three fish from there and missed a few more!

we headed up the gorge and kept fishing and i was slowling getting my form back in line management with a few more fish. We came across my favourite pool of the system. I call the "trohpey pool". We watched and noticed 2 fish feeding, which one we spooked as it was right out our feet. I launched a cast to prospect the far wall on the back end of the pool and hooked up to a nice 7 pound rainbow which luckly i mangaged to moove the fish towards the backend of the pool and not disturb the feeding fish. few photos , next cast and was probaly my best cast of the day and i saw a nice big brown rolll and bang i hooked up, 10 mins into we were playing the game  i get back line he takes double back....we were calling it for a nice 8-9 pounder after seeing it roll in the current... after a long battle with a few touch and go moments including falling down some rocks and managing to hold my rod up  and keep tension on the fish, we netted it and my guide all of a sudden said " oh brett" , once he said that i knew it was double digits. A quick high five, we got it in and put the net in a pool where the fish couldnt get out to keep him in the best condition possible and photos were taken. A few possible magazine photos shots were taken and it was released, fish went just a tad over 10.5... We had another shot at a nice 9 pounder but after changing nymphs about 10 times he caught on and wouldnt even look....

Going to be a ripper of a back country season this year i think as long as there is no major flooding like last spring. The dry fly will start in november and its looking amazing! over all we saw around 4-5 possibe trophies and there only going to get bigger within the summer as the revoer from there spawning runs! i hope you enjoy the photos and the report! All fish were released in good condition.

all in all numbers were 7 fish saturday and 5 fish sunday, which is OK considering the weather conditions. 

Unforuntately the best shot of the brown cant be posted here due to the possible addition into a magazine.

Rod used was a 6 wt Sage z axis and a Kiwel genesis reel. All photos were taken by Peter Fordam from All Fly or Brett Hallam and a copy righted for our use only. (sorry this needs to be added in).

Hi all. Finally had some success out on the five fathom yesterday. First Dhuie in metro waters, plus a pair of black arse and a foxfish. Conditions were incredible, so we moved around a bit. Highlight of the day had to be looking over the side in 8m of crystal clear water and seeing the dhuie, then dropping an unweighted mulie past it's nose and watching it get smashed! Sight fishing dhuie's in 8m of water, does it get any better?

Cracking day out with good mate, and brought home a good feed to top it off.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers,

BD.

 Hi everyone, this morning I went tailor fishing in Yanchep below club Capricorn. firstly i though I would try the beach, and there was so much weed that it wasn't even funny. I tried casting an old 8-25lb rod and snapped first cast because the bail arm flicked over unexpectedly and the force snapped the end. Then I tried casting my baited rod and pulled it in and got weed in about 10 different spots so it took 15 minutes to just reel the line in.

I then saw people fishing off the rock groyne and catching a few tailor so I thought I would try it. At about 7:00am I sprinted down to a good position on the rocks and did a few casts, reeling the bait in every 5 minutes, not feeling any nibbled/bites, but noticing some huge teeth marks and bites missing from the mulies. At 7:30am I felt a hit at the bait and struck the rod and there I had it, my first tailor! It fought really hard and when I got it to the rocks, i was so careful not to lose it through the rocks. It measured 36cm!

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About half an hour later, the tailor were coming on the bite again and getting some good tugs on the rod but failing to hook up, but then at about 7:45 i got a huge bite and I was on! It fought really hard to the rocks and again I was treating it as if it was part of the royal family, and got it to the bucket to take it on. I was even happier because I now know that the groyne there is a reliable tailor spot!

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The tailor were still on the bite and then dad finally got a hookup but was a bit slow in reeling it in, managing to let it swim into a snag bream style and busting it off. The tailor stayed on the bite until about 9am when we ran out of bait and started heading home. someone got a haul of 10 tailor off to the right and some got 5 but most of the people (only about 10 people fishing over the time that we were there) got 1 or 2 tailor.

We bled the tailor as soon as we caught them, which is a good idea, then when we got home, i filleted them to the best of my ability. In the picture the tailor looks red, but it's actually a really pearly white. We got some nice chunky fillets off them.

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To finish off, today was a great day and I hope to go down to Yanchep again next weekend!

 Just got back from a fish at Woodies and saw two asian fellas catch a massive salmon that would have been 5+ kilo, they got broken off on 2 more fish. Never seen 2 guys as happy as they were to catch a salmon, was fun to see them really enjoying there fishing. I was fishing with a lure and they were not interested at all.

Was a large school just off the rocks, gotta say I was surprised to see salmon being caught at this time of year. Is this normal?

Decided that yesterday was the day to try our luck out wide. We got down to Palm Beach Jetty at about 6:30am. My intention was to basically head due West from Point Perron and hopefully have a sound in a couple of hundred metres of water. But we found that there was short choppy waves as soon as we got out from the marker on the reef so I had changed my mind and decided to have a fish past the Five Fathom Bank as it was going to be an uncomfortable drive out. We were catching a few Break Sea Cod with two that were worth keeping and also a Harliquin. I started to head over to Rottnest Island way and got to the 40's to drop another line. Picked up a Dhu that was a centimeter under so that went back to the depths under it's own steam. At this stage the water seemed to have calmed down a fair bit and my uncle wanted to try out deep again. Looked on the charts and wanted to try west of Rottnest where all the contours came in close to each other but when we got out there after a 50 minute drive, we found a couple of boats already in the area so I had to slow down to pick up a clear bottom and started to slowly drive South to head away from the other boats. Picked up a few too many green eyed sharks and then on my sounder, I saw the bottom as an echo and with another faint echo showing the ground leading away underneath the main echo but it was very faint. Still trying to work out the sounder but we would drift over the ground I marked with no luck but at the end of one of the drifts, my uncle pulls up a Red Snapper. I couldn't see anything on the bottom but we did the drift again and my uncle catches a small cod. Our boat was in one spot but I don't know where the baits were as we had a little bit of long lining going on. Then after a few more drifts he caught another larger one. My uncle and I were fishing with electric reels while my other mate just chilled out on the chair and working the landing net when a fish was pulled up. We called it quits as it was a long drive back in and I wanted to make the trip back in while it was still calm and the wind was supposed to have already picked up according to the forecast. I was stoked as it stayed calm the whole way home. We were fishing in 290-350 metres of water.

Took my young bloke Rob and a few of his mates out for a fish today. Neither of his mates had caught a sambo before so that was the aim.

Magnificent day on the water, but it proved hard to find sambos early, but the dhuies were loving the jigs and we had to content ourselves with 2 dhuies over 600 and a nice black arse by 8.15 am.

The boys were happy, but wanted a sambo, so we headed for a few spots I have.

A few fish on the sounder and all 4 of us hooked up, but my young blokes got comprehensively bricked on his light jig gear.....his mates really struggled with the power of these fish but on heavier gear landed a couple of nice ambers, as did I.

Looking for something a bit bigger, we decided to head out wide and hit the barges. Waste of time, first drop sharked, so we hastily retreated back in shallower, likely spot resulted in this fattie on PE2, which was released to hopefully make more dhuies.

Great day, a few grunts of approval from the 15yr olds was the pinnacle of conversation for the day....haha, funny buggers pubescent boys!

 Went Tuesday this time. I put the tips my brother gave me to good effect with Shean and I managing 2 fish from 8 hits in a 5 hour paddling session.

Shean's went in the mid 90s and mine was around 106 cm. Our first hit was within 50 metres of the ramp and the best bit was seeing the fish on the sounder just prior to the hit. That happened 4 times for the night with all fish not staying connected on those occasions.

The moon wasn't right and the water is heating up so looking forward to a session when they are keen to feed.

on short notice i packed in work and decided to hit kalbarri for a few days the misses holidays were at the same time as school holidays but we made the most of it and having a good mate to stay with made this trip possible cheers tangles!

first day we got there early and went spinning at oyster reef  for tailor and got some good fish misses got her pb at 75cm while i done every thing but land one that night with a couple big fresh tailor what else was there to do but go chase mullas and after a few 80cm mullas and a pink to tangles i hooked this steam train 25kg of mulloway defently my best fish to date

the  next couple days were constant fishing with pinks and goldens off the stones heaps of unstoppables pinks and mullas off the beach the last night kat tangles and i landed 4 pinks and 2 mullas in couple hours and dropped a few good fish as well one red hot session, what a trip my best lb pink 76cm and some smaller models misses mulla at 80cm misses first fish on lure and that bloody croaker what a donkey   

I have been around for a while now and thought it was about time to put up a report (actually turned into a bit of a long-winded story). My brother in law Matt and I just got back from False Entrance on Friday after what turned out to be a really nice trip with a few mates of ours.

We left Sunday week ago at 4am from Gingin on as it turns out one of the worst days we could have chosen to travel on. A strong cold front hit in the morning which we outran up until the Billabong roadhouse. Looking on the radar on the way up it seemed as though the rain wasn't too strong around Shark Bay so we were optimistic that the road would be nicely dust free with a little rain and we could setup camp in dry, albeit windy weather. Once we got off the tarmac on the useless loop road it was good for a while but the rain continued to come and the road had turned into a salty mud pit. The ute and camper-trailer copped a "life-reducing" layering which will no doubt induce an unhealthy dose of cancer even with a pressure wash.

We dropped off the trailer after arriving at 3pm at the spot where we camp and went off for a look at the swell on the cliffs to see if it was worth having an evening bottom bash.

It turns out it was a bit rough for a fish after a long day so we set up camp with a couple of beers and got prepared for an early start in the morning. With September being the off-season for fishing in that part of the world we weren't expecting the world from this trip but we usually go home with a few fish from our annual winter/spring visit.

So we got going nice and early on Monday morning with a strong southerly wind to get our balloons out hoping to get on the board early and get one-up on the rest of the crew that were arriving later in the arvo. It turns out it was a slow day with poor water visibility and nothing coming out to play except for the odd bolt-cutter. It was quiet on all front with the balloons, hard-bodies, SP's and baits all coming up empty handed.

The rest of the crew arrive about 4 and obviously they hadn't missed out on much. They hadn't done any setting up at camp but decided to put a couple of balloons out for the setting sun. Finally just after 5:30pm my reel started screaming with a good run that added some much needed excitement to the day. After 30 odd seconds it went for another brief run then the fight left and a dead weight retrieve took over. Got it in sight and saw half of a decent sized Spaniard. Got it up the cliff and it came in at 9.5kg which yielded a healthy 6.5kg of fillets. We were on the board!! As it turns out after 5 trips up to False this was my first Spanish Mackerel so it was well over due.

On Tuesday it was more of the same with progress quite slow although the weather was getting better with the winds dropping off a bit leading up to the new moon on Wednesday. So with 4 balloons out and no action on those a couple of us try on the bottom with some baits with Mark pulling up a couple of sized pinkies. I manage to get busted off a couple of times on a suspected baldy taking a fancy to my scalies but unfortunately I lost all 3 battles even with 50lb fireline and a locked drag - . The only other thing caught was a couple of Longtoms and more bolt cutters which Matt seems to be catching most of.

Roll on Wednesday and with a poor day yesterday Matt (brother in law) and I decide to try and get our balloons in the water before dawn incase we are missing out on an opportunity. The baits are out and mine is slowly moving against the current which is a bit strange but with no bait skipping on the surface and no line taken, I thought bolt-cutter. So I dragged it in with the customary small splash on the surface my suspicions seem confirmed until I see a pectoral fin that seems out of place on a blowie. I reel in with a bit more purpose to eventually see a mack in the water and yell for a hand with the gaff before I pay any more taxes. We get it up and it tips the scales at 12.5kg.

With it's tail bitten off that would explain the small splashing but we worked out it was probably on the line bleeding out for about 10 mins!! Very lucky to get that one in the ice box. The wind turned mid morning to a north easterly so we moved spots and went to the washing machine. Matt's balloon was on the way out while I was concreting in some rod holders on the cliff when it was smoked with a powerful run. After a spirited fight suspicions were confirmed and a 1.3m bronzy was landed. This was a regular pattern for the next couple of hours with a couple of other sharks caught. There were plenty of large tailor around which we were spinning at but with soft mouths the 5 or so hook-ups didn't materialize into a catch. The wind had done nearly a full 360 from the morning so it was back to the point for a ballooning session in the afternoon. The low-light feeding time produced again for a timely 14.8kg mack for Mark. Meanwhile Matt has caught/been debaited by another couple of bolt-cutters. I think his tally for the trip at that stage was 7 with no edible fish on the board and frustration really starting to set in!!

Thursday was very similar fishing to Tuesday but with lighter winds and not many fish around. With the lack of action all round and a need for something to do I decide to let my balloon out across the bay on the SSWerly wind. I had caught a pinky on my balloon a couple of years ago deep in the bay like that so I figured I may as well give it another shot. After about an hour the rod loads up and balloon goes down and I feel a few small head shakes. I had let out around 700m so it was a long skull drag in. It was history repeating itself with a nice 4kg Pinky landed.

The last catch of the day was another shark to add to the count which was hooked on the fin by Tom resulting in an epic battle for only a small shark. With the day done discussions move to the pack up and trip home tomorrow. Leaving at lunchtime means time for an early fish so we are there at sun up on Friday. Setting up only took a few minutes and I'm the first with my balloon heading out. Bait goes off the cliff and I lose sight of it into the whitewash. It's only out about 50m when suddenly a Spaniard launches itself 3m up out of the water with my bait in its mouth and it's on for young and old. Peeling line at will with it's first run it soon tires and after about 5 minutes I get it to the cliff. No taxes which is a relief and the result is a 26kg monster!!

Only 5cm off the Fishwrecked record of 163cm so I think it's a PB that I think I'm going to have for a while. I haven't had much experience with macks but it seems fish like this don't come around too often - well for me they don't anyway.

20 Minutes later Marks bait got nailed and he landed another good sized spaniard at 22kg.

An awesome end to the trip!! That took me over 20kgs of fillets so Matt who ended up with 10 North-west Blowies and a shark for the trip, ended up taking some fillets home in the end. Always a great place to go and as usual can't wait til the next time we are up there.

Sorry it got a bit long I hope it posts ok and the pics show up. Cheers for reading.

 After lunch out at Clancy's, we popped out from the Quindalup ramp and headed towards Siesta park. Using chicken necks and mulies as bait and only 50m off the shoreline, there were crabs in every pull. Plenty of undersize that went back, along with a couple of berried and big girls. Ended up with about a dozen keepers. My boys, 4 and 6 loved the quick trip and the crabs will make a good feed for lunch tomorrow. 

Special mention to the bloke at Dunsborough sports for the bait and advice. Looking forward to posting about a snapper trip in the coming days. 

Buddha

Earlier this week, I got back from a 3 day trip fishing on the Oberon in the Shetland Islands. The main aim for me was to test out some of the light jigging kit I was used to using on the species most commonly found around the UK.

The targets for the trip were cod, pollock, ling, coalfish and maybe if we got lucky, a turbot or halibut. Most people seem to target these fish in the UK using either baits or pre-rigged soft plastic lures, but I was dead keen to fish them with light metal jigs and the Japanese style of gear.

The main combo I intended on using for the trip was a Temple Reef Mytho LJ510B paired with a reel that I had never previously used – being the new Wiki Jigging 900H (which is distributed by Jigging Master). I had also brought along a favourite combo of mine – a Jigging Master Evolution Titanium 150 with a Shimano Ocea Jigger 1500NR for slightly heavier jigs. I had a range of jigs with me – mostly from 150 – 200gr, but had brought a couple of heavier ones just in case.

The trip to the Shetlands from London is not the shortest. To get to where we were fishing involved flights to Sumburgh (via Aberdeen or Edinburgh) a ferry journey and a fair drive. The Oberon skippered by Kenny is the only boat fishing the area, and I’d heard reports of excellent fishing from Billy the trip organiser, who had been there the previous year.

When we finally sat around the night before the first day’s fishing and started discussing tackle for the day ahead, I began to think I’d packed too light. There was talk of big fish, deep water and strong currents which had prompted Billy to bring up 2lb weights. Skipper Kenny shared my concerns as soon as I put my Mytho combo on the boat with a statement of ‘ye’ll no get any fish up here on that!’. The metal jigs that he uses up there are around the 750gr – 1kg mark, and he thought it unlikely I’d even get to the bottom with the jigs I’d brought. If this were the case I’d have been stuffed, as there was no chance of me being able to jig 750gr on the gear I had with me.

Luckily on the first day we had great weather with minimal wind, which made for a slower drift than we might otherwise have had. First drift of the day I used my heavier combo as I was going to be jigging a 200gr CB One Quick Zero jig. With the light PE2 line I was running (in contrast to 100lb on the combos provided on the boat) I had no problems getting down with the 200gr jig, and it wasn’t long before I’d hooked up a nice cod. The cod fights involved a bit of a tug of war on the initial hook up, but they are by no means a strong fighting fish, so the combo made short work of it.

After the second fish I decided to downsize the gear to the Mytho combo and 150gr jigs, and this is the combo I used for the majority of the trip. I was incredibly happy with the gear. The rod was comfortable up to 200gr jigs with the relatively slow jigging style that seemed to work best for the cod, and was light enough to make the fights really good fun. The reel too performed faultlessly. Plenty of super smooth and progressive drag to stop all the fish I encountered on the trip with a really smooth retrieve. Plus the whole setup is feather light, weighing in at only 470gr for the combo, which made it a pleasure to jig with all day. This is to my mind really a perfect combo for the UK, particularly if you don’t want to go all out with a more expensive reel, and it is the combo I’ll be reaching for first on my upcoming Norway trip.
The first day we boated around 750lb of fish, with the vast majority being cod to around the 30lb mark. The second day the weather took a turn for the worse, but we still stuck with our initial plan to head out to a wreck which was in 120m of water in the hope of getting a ling. It was a long steam out in trying conditions, but the chance of a trophy sized ling made the pain worthwhile. We did a number of drifts over the wreck and could see plenty of fish on the sounder, but I was struggling to get much interest from them. The water was deeper and the drift much faster than the day before, which gave you very little time in the strike zone with the jigs. Sadly I didn’t manage a ling on jig, but Kenny did get a nice one on bait. I did jig up nice coalfish though, which really fight well, particularly as compared with the cod. Actually throughout the trip it seemed that every species in the area was very happy to hit the jigs (with jigs proving the most effective catch method) other than the ling, with all ling for the trip being caught by the other guys on baits.

On the final day the weather was still average which meant we’d be fishing the sheltered side of the island. Although we didn’t get the same number of big cod as on the first day there was still loads of fish to be caught, with the jigs producing on every drift. Because the drift was much faster I was primarily using larger jigs (with a favourite being a Smith Meijume 220gr) and found that the addition of a plastic squid on the assist hooks made a big difference in strike rate with the cod. The larger sized jig also helped reduce the number of hits I got from the small coalies and mackerel allowing more time to hook the larger cod. I have taken a load of GoPro footage which I’ll hopefully get around to editing soon to show some of the action.

All in all it was a really fun trip despite the wind. It was a new experience for me fishing in such cold weather, but once you got used to jigging in 3 layers of clothing it was still great fun. Kenny is a great skipper and works hard to keep you on the fish, and I’d certainly recommend a trip up there to anyone based in the UK. I understand that they are also looking to send a boat to La Gomera in the Canary Islands in the coming months to focus on game fish trolling in the summer and jigging for grouper in the winter months, so hopefully will be able to get over there for a fish sometime soon!

Dan

Hi all,

Heading up to Denham next week with the family for 10 days. Was wondering if anyone has any info on how the fishing has been up there lately? Haven't fished there for a while so any information or hints would be appreciated. I am taking my 6.5 meter boat up and hoping if the weather holds to head out to turtle bay.

Thanks