Went out yesterday from Mindarie around 11am for a fish and found really nice conditions with the eaterly bowing the swell down to less than a metre. Sounded around a bit to the north of where I normally fish and couldn't find much except something that kept biting the tails off the plastics. The nor'wester started to blow a bit so I headed in closer.

Anchored up near where I normally fish and only managed a wrasse. Moved over 50 metres to where my mark was and almost straight away was rewarded with a nice Dhu of about 70cms. This fish hugged the bottom to start with and everytime I got it closer to the top it took me back to the bottom again with strong runs. This is the most lively Dhu I've caught in shallow water. After a terrible phone photo it was returned to water and swam away strong. It took a small squid head bait and I barely even felt the bite. 

With that excitement done I started to fish with some scalies and they were getting chomped pretty consistently. I ended up using whole scalie with a flap butterflied to give it some action and it wasn't long before I caught my first ever Sambo. I've been trying to find them and haven't found a showing on the sounder to indicate them like I see others posting. Turns out this one found me. It was only small at 55cms but gave a good account of itself. Again, it was returned healthy to the water. 

After that I decided to try my brand new jig. This is the first flutter jig I've bought and I have to admit I was a bit excited to try it - rigged it up with a nice assist got it all tied on and first drop to the bottom - bricked on terra firma!!! Maybe next time.

So I've been venturing out a big lately in my new tub, just sounding for some lumps and chasing some of these elusive Cockburn snapper that I keep hearing about, Me and a mate decided to get up at sparrows yesterday and head out to some lil lumps I've found, Most of the morning turned up one rat snapper and a lonely herring and the easterly was starting to really howl Making it increasing difficult to anchor on the lumps. i made the call to go and catch some squid an try and save face, well at least they were there! We got twelve pretty quick with blues and pinks doing the most damage. With the wind not really dieing off yet ,The call was made to head in Heading back to woodman point boat ramp, we came accross two boats hooked up, i stopped and watched for a bit before dropping a deep diver in and sounded around the general area, once I seen the school on the sounder I knew the day was saved, my deckie has never caught or seen these missiles school up before so he was first up, once he hooked up I dropped my light gear down and soon had my 2-4kg gear screaming in protest. this lasted for around 1 1/2 hours and it was just pure mayhem! At one point we had salmon busting up 50metres on each side of the boat! Hitting everything and anything! ive never seen a more fired up school in my many years of salmon hunting down south. And to have this in September in metro waters less than a km from the ramp .

 good mix last weekend

I wasn't able to visit San Diego for some hot tuna and yellowtail action during this El Nino. This is as close as I can get to that action without paying for a charter to chase tuna on the Atlantic coast. Perhaps the El Nino also affected the fishing off New Jersey. Water has been warm and the August bonito fishing had been phenomenal (relatively speaking...but not on my day of fishing). I hope the hot trend continues and the Little Tunny fishing will turn on in September.

Full story here:

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2014/08/2014-new-jersey-inshore-fun-day-1.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2014/08/2014-new-jersey-inshore-fun-day-2.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2014/08/2014-new-jersey-inshore-fun-day-3.html

I caught 7 new species on the trip, bringing my total to #410!  :D

Brook Silverside (Labidesthes sicculus) - Species #404



Striped Searobin (Prionotus evolans) - Species #405



Atlantic Bonito (Sarda sarda) - Species #406





Banded Rudderfish (Seriola zonata) - Species #407



Northern Searobin (Prionotus carolinus) - Species #408



Altantic Chub Mackerel (Scomber colias) - Species #409



Northern Kingcroaker (Menticirrhus saxatilis) - Species #410

Just wondering if anyone been getting pinks in the sound yet. Got this one (90cm, 8.5kg) the other night right outside in 20m.He looked really pissed off! Suppose I would be too. Should be getting them in the sound soon...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=iVEk5V9VoD8

http://fisheagle.homestead.com/Outings2014/PinkiesAugust2014/Pinkies.html

Mate Nic and I decided to have a mid-week fish despite the 3.5m swell that was pushing through. We launched from Woodman Point just after first light and whilst making our way across the Sound we already encountered some fairly large swells. By the time we arrived between Garden and Carnac Islands the swell was breaking all over the place and I was contemplating returning to the jetty. We eventually got through the islands but Five Fathom was white with breaking waves. We decided to eliminate the risk and travelled parallel to FFB to about 5km before Rottnest where we found a safe passage through. From here a further 30 minutes and we were on our favourite bommie.

Not long after dropping anchor and setting up a burley trail we started catching Pinkies one-after-another and at times with double hook-ups. We managed a couple of smallish Sambos and both got smashed a couple of times on light gear. When the bites eventually slowed down we decided to do a drift with the sea anchor deployed and I managed to catch my largest Dhufish to date - a specimen of 79cm. Still a long way to go to the magical 100cm, but this goal is in my sights now that we are gaining a better understanding of these magnificent waters.

All in all another wonderful opportunity on the waters of Western Australia (and a great feed too).

YouTube - http://youtu.be/iVEk5V9VoD8

Story - http://fisheagle.homestead.com/Outings2014/PinkiesAugust2014/Pinkies.html

Done a quick trip to lucky bay with joe reef and his home made boat, with a big swell running for the first 2 days the boat was dry and fishing off the beach was tough with no fish bar a few whiting not even a bust off to a shark!

The last day we were there we managed to get out for a spin for tailor with no luck but by about 9 am things really calmed down joe reef made the call that were gonna head out through the crack in the reef and get some fish well we made it and the last 2 sessions went like this.

After checkin me jocks i put on a 7 inch gulp and had hardly jigged it yet and away she went after a good 20 minutes a nearly metter long gold spot trev pops up a first for me and on a 3000 sol with 20lb great fun this was followed by a few skippy,spango then a sambo or 2 chasing smaller fish up the sambos werent big bout 4-6 kg but good on the light gear

In for a feed and few more beers we were back out for the arvo sesh first up i snaped me rod so re rig while bill got stuck into 2 good pinks in as many casts then we both had a bust off on suspected big pinks followed by some big silver bream and sambos, right on sunset we hooked what we called for a tuna chasing him flat out in the boat the call was made to bust him cause it was getting to dark and its to dangours to get back in spewin.

All in all another top trip to some of my favourite spots also tried the spango for the first time defently one of my favourites on the chew  

 Hey guys just brought Furuno 587 with 600 w tranny,and elite 7 Hdi Lowrance as chartplotter,just wanna see ppl opinions on both units, heard good things about Furuno not sure about Hdi as chartplotter ! Fishing up to 150 m max,chasing kinges ! Cheers guys Frizz

 had a pretty eventfull trip this weekend to the abrohlis started of by running out of fuel 15 ks south of jurien at 5.00 am ,wasnt expecting such a head wind all the way and didnt leave on a full tank either so my own silly fault , any way sent the deckie for a hitch into jurien to get fuel only took an hour ,not to bad except had to buy 2x 5 ltr jerry cans @ $27 each plus the fuel spewing normally always carry a spare 20 l when i go away.Got to gero launched the boat pulling out harbour and 1 motor stall,s what! pull back into the jetty and checked a few things ,found a wet spark plug so changed that and the motor seemed fine ,so headed out again got to the first channel marker and the same motor starts shutting off then on very rappidly the gauges were going on and off as well so had to be electrical fault so back to the marina again. pulled every plug ,fuse and checked all the connections gave everything a spray with crc couldnt find anything obviuos so went for a run and seemed to be runninig fine ,headed out again just slowly to make sure everything was running fine ,all seemed good so of we went trip over was better than expected with the forcast that was given sat on 25 knots the whole way over. got to the lagoon and rigged all the rods and straight out for a fish ,went to a few marks ive fished before as it was 2.00 pm and didnt want to waste time looking around this late in the arvo but when i got there the sounder wasn't really lighting up as much as hoped and the fishing was hard ,still got some snapper ,baldies ,trout ,dhuies and red throats but nothing like normal .Went back to the lagoon around 4 and set up for the night ,Next morning woke up had some brecky then headed straight out ,the swell had picked up heaps over night and getting out of the lagoon was breathtaking to say the least with a 6m swell coming through there was a few zero gravity moments ,decide to fish inside of the islands to stay away from the swell so headed around the gun island a fished a few lumps around there did ok but nothing special ,sharks were everywhere so far every time we hooked a good fish it was getting sharked ,spent a lot of time moving around to get away from them ,found a mooring out that way for the night and threw a line over the side while i cooked up some trout for tea ,not much was hppening till josh and greg my deckies decide to put a piece of trout wing on there hooks then lets just say the next hour and half was the best night fishing sesion ive seen ,from 60cm tailor ,77cm spangled emporer ,82 cm dhuies ,80 cm pinkies ,we caught and released over a dozen pinkies and dhuies nothing under 70cm.N ext day swell was alot better so headed out the west side for a troll got a sharkie and a very small mack but not much was happening ,then paul g gave us a call that he was on his dhui hole so we so we headed over there , picked up few with paul    then headed for a bit more of a troll picked up a few little yft around some pots in 50m then had a free jumping sail fish jump 4 times 10m in front of the boat  , headed back to gun island again after that to have some tea and prepare for the night fish again ,well it turned on again as soon as it went dark with more snapper, dhuies, tailor  ,next morning was time to head home so a quick fish on a few lumps on the way home then back to the marina 11,00 quick catch up with rob h and paul again then a nice un event full trip home ,All in all a pretty good trip but was a bit slower than normal on the fishing front dont know if it was the new moon or the swell ,now for a few photos

Hi everyone. Went out on a mates boat Sunday morning, left the ramp at 7am and headed along the inside of garden and anchored in between the islands. Started to burley up and got a sand whiting and decent flathead but it went a bit quiet after that. Around 10 i got the first run, unfortunately it decided to ignore all the big baits out and grabbed my whole prawn on my little rod. Nearly spooled me with the first run and eventually busted me off, things started to pick up from here as soon later I had a run on my big bait, another decent fight and had the first big fish on board, a 80cm Snapper. Not long after I had another run on the big gear but again couldn't stop it and got me on the reef. My mate caught a small eagleray and finished the day with a 90cm Gummy shark. We started the day as the only boat on that particular spot and when we left there was at least 10 other boats around us. But we had what we needed and now have plenty of fillets to eat over the coming weeks. Thanks for reading.

Headed out of two rocks in a WNW direction to the 70m line where weve got a few dhuies and baldies in the past. We drifted SE with the wind and zigzaged between the 60 -70m depths with great looking ground for 1 sea sweep both of us using squid and occy baits.. Had a gutfull of that so decided to head into the 40's. My brother decided to start jigging and got a big arse giant cuttlefish on the first drop. A few minutes later he got a undersize dhuie on jig then I got an undersize pinky on occy. Not much happened for a while then finally my rod loaded up and it felt real good. Slow swimming but strong running fish hardly any head shakes taking alot of drag on my 80lb combo so we called it for a good dhuie then up came a bloody shark measured 1.4m. Didnt know what type of shark it was so released it, now that ive checked google i see it was a gummy and apparantly they taste great so should have kept it,  anyway was not a great day for fishing probably the worst weve had out of about 6 trips from two rocks marina  Did anybody else do OK in that area ? 

 Hello all new here 

Been following the site for awhile now thought I would have a crack myself Love me fishing out out of rockingham 

nice swell this week end nice dhuey 

Made it worthwhile 

is any one geting snapper in the sound yet 

Last week i was lucky enough to be able to get a ride from denham to exmouth on board a boat my mate skippers for apache charters, the plan was to drive Lady Grace from denham to exmouth with 4 days to do it in for the start of their monties season. 

On the first day we left Denham at 4am and steamed up to the northen end of dirk and did a few troll's past cape inscricpion for 2 shark macks and a dropped spaniard before heading north and going past dampier reef then on to the top end of Dorre island for the arvo and to anchor for the night. got to anchor about 2pm and weather and water looked incredible for a dive so while the crew got the tender off the roof i suited up and jumped in. beore the guys got the tinny off the roof i already had a decent cobia, 6kg baldie and 13kg macky in the boat all shot with my little 1.1 rob allen gun. by the end of the arvo we all had a heap of fish including my PB rankin, Trout, Baldie, Cobia and Rene got a fish of a lifetime spearing with a 3.1kg Robinson sea bream from 11m of water!!!

At anchor that night i picked up my PB spango on line before sleep and the plan to leave the next morning after a dive. we ended up staying the day and bagging some great fish including my monster Amberjack, PB trout at 780mm, PB estuary cod at 930mm, Rene with his 15kg Golden trev and a heap more fish to add to the bag. Added another decent spango after dark on line and off to sleep then up at 4am to steam up the coast, change of plans and it was decided to drive the rest of the way straight through to exmouth and just have some drops line fishing along the way, found an awesome spot about 18nm off cape cuvier and did 3 drifts over it with the 4 of us getting about 50-60kg of demersals including double header reds, spangos, pinkys, baldies and red throats. continued on and dropped a few more spots on the way up for a couple more red throats. just south of coral bay we had one of the pushers we where trolling at 11knots get munched and Rhett the decky got his first wahoo on the boat. continued on but after getting north of coral bay the fish just shut down and with a decent northern current and no fish biting we continued on to exmouth arriving around 2am the following day. 

this was hands down the best trip ive been a part of and was so lucky to get perfect weather the entire week all the way up the coast, fishing and diving was just out of this world in those hard to reach places. 

5m swell today made it a bit hairy at times. Decided to give the gap at Hillarys a miss and took a more conservative route up toward Ocean Reef through the 3 mile, but even that was dicey as we had to pick our way through breakers in places I have not seen break before. A big 45 ft cabin cruiser that was hanging inside the 3 mile decided to follow me through, and it almost went tits up for him as he was about 400 m behind me and did not time the swell, with a friggen big swell breaking between me and him, and he needed to gas it sideways to the wave to miss it.....lucky!

Anyhow, the day got better quickly and by 9 am was calming off nicely, but it was not nice early!

What did others think?

Took my boss and his young bloke Marcus (who is an avid FW member and was keen to get out for jig on my boat) out for a fish today. Given the 5 m swell at Rotto overnight, I almost called it off, but we weaved our way through the 3 mile, it was breaking places I have not seen it before and the 45 ft gin palace that followed me through almost binned it as a large swell started breaking just as he was crossing the reef. Hairy moment! Anyhow, Marcus was keen as mustard, a 5 m swell was not going to slow him down and he wanted to get out and have jig come hell or high water....literally. I indicated the huge swell and stronger breeze than predicted would keep us in close so don't expect much. Maybe a few small sambos. Sounded a few good fish, likely sambos, and before long we jigged up several sambos and amberjack including a double header on one jig. Good fun.

We then had a 3 way hook-up on jig, me and Greg getting our fish in pretty quick, but Marcus was stuffing about and started winging about it being really big.....no interest from his old man or me, we just told him to hurry up and land the fish......

15 minutes later and he was really struggling, so we decided he may have a good fish on! And it was. Jammy little bastard gets one of the best YFT seen on my boat, and on JIG!.

Ended the day with a nice KG and dhu and came home at 26 knots in nice conditions, the swell had halved by the time we went back over the 3 mile. Great fun and awesome job Marcus.

 With the nice weather Saturday my brother and I headed out from the geo marina. Plan was to get a pinkie or two and then have some fun in closer with some sambos.

If you swapped the pinkies with Dhuies, the you could say the plan worked perfectly. 

Managed a couple of Dhuies around 650 (not the biggest but they still taste the same) and headed in closer to a spot that usually holds sambos. They were there and smashing everything we dropped in front of them. 

Great day on the water. Was surprised there was no pinks though. Will have to look harder next time.

Went out friday off Mindarie and had a jig on a sambo spot had a few suprises. None more than this 15kg Mackie on jig in August in 18.9 degrees WTF??

Father in laws first Mackie. I got a 6 kg Kingie mate got a double header of sambos on jig. Finished off with a bottom bash  and got a nice 51cm Black bum.

All in all great day.

Only wish i could have got out again on Saturday!!!!!

 Managed a few hours on Saturday afternoon to get the boat out, the water was an absolute dream so we headed out to do some drifting past the reef.  The action started as soon as we felt the sinkers hit the bottom.  Caught our bag of these guys in less than 30 minutes - thanks to all the double headers!  Haven't caught any whiting since moving here from SA, and was hoping they were KG's but these will have to do!  I think they are silver whiting from looking at the Fishwrekopedia unless someone else knows?   I do know they took bloody ages to fillet!

Anyway, had a fantastic day and I'm sure there were many happy fisherman on Saturday too - conditions were unbelievable.

Cheers!

 Got out sat for first time in couple months made the most of it and went deep fish were on the bite got all the nannys and pinks off the lump in 150s

couple fish from yesterday off Mindarie (57cm and 66cm). Haven't been out to the 40's for a while after continually getting swarmed by NW blowies making fishing very frustrating, these colder months make fishing a lot more worth while. Had our bag before 9am so spent a few hours finding new ground. It was a bit sloppy early on but glassed off for the ride home. Plenty of boats out taking advantage of the good weather.

Beautiful day on the water Saturday, some of the best weather we have been out in. With conditions this good, the plan was to get a few fish under our belt early then head out deep to sound some new ground.

Hit the 200's and it was a glass off, awesome conditions. Made for a very easy drift and we had 3 nice grey band cod and a pinkie in the first 3 drops. Matt (Langa) has been out wide about 8 or 9 times and had not landed a grey band cod, with a series of bad luck and bad luck stories.....but today he killed it, first with this nice grey band, excellent eating size. Check out the conditions!

Then Langa got a bigger model, smashing his drought.

It was 8.30am, and it looked like we would bag out on the next drift, so we decided to head wider to try and find new ground on some prospective looking deeper contours we have been waiting for better weather to check out, as its bloody hard finding new ground in rough weather as the sounder does not work well. This proved harder than expected, as it was like a car park out there, boats everywhere on the depths we were planning to sound, so we sounded about a bit further afield till we found a few fish shows. After plenty of greeneye, we hit a nice patch and hit some XOS fish, Langa's leader wore through on a huge fish he fought for ages and I got bricked after another monster proved too much for my dodgy back......Langa then landed this nice hapuka (a first for our boat) to top off a great day for him.

As the day was getting on, we decided to head off and check another mark we were given, but on the way there we found a nice ledge and TimVB landed a Bass Groper, another first. Gotta say, the Puka and bass groper certainly pull a lot harder than grey band. I hope they taste as good.

Hit some good bait balls on the way back from out wide, this show three nice arches herding bait. Trolled several shows like this but unfortunately no hits on the pelagics yesterday.

Out from Point Peron.

I took the day off today when I saw the weather was looking good and went for a scout around to try and understand my sounder more.  Sounded over what looked like fish showing but couldn't manage to anchor on top of the show. Found a lot of bottom junk but then switched to fishing the top and boated about 10 skippy around 1kg. Good fun on the PE1 gear - all fish were released. Took off for another look around and tried a few other shows without much success.

Decided to head to my tried and true spot to see what the ground looked like where I had done well in the past. While it didn't look overly different in terms of the bottom, it did show some fish in mid water and also the bottom. Threw out some floating squid baits and was mauled by the skippy again. All good fun size fish, albeit a bit smaller than earlier in the day. When they went quiet I switched to peeled coral prawns and it fired them up again. Caught so many I put that rod in the rack for a breather.

Since I had been using the same squid baits over and over I a few whole squid left so decided to put large baits out to see what would happen. Managed to pick up an undersize Dhu and 2 cod. One I know is a breaksea, can anyone tell me if the yellow coloured one is still the same or a different variation? It was quite a bit bigger than the breaksea. Again, all fish were released.

Anyhow, it was a good fun day and way better than being at work!

I thought I would do a little post of my first trip up North.  Allthough we didn't kill it it was so much fun and can't wait to go again.  Towed my 4.5 Meter boat up and stayed a week in Shark Bay and a week in Exmouth.  Mainly fished fairly close in Shark Bay and inside the reef in Exmouth due to wanting to create a safe and comfortable experience for my lady.  Also when we got back we went for a rip in the sound and got some nice pinkie.  Anyway we got some fish and had lot's of fun so here are some photos.  Also thanks to Sea Hunter for the advice

First Pinky on soft plastic

Day on Mac Attack also on SPs

Cockburn Sound 

Hi Everyone,

thinking of a run down to Walpole this weekend - does anyone know the condition of the inlet ? - is it brown from winter runoff ?

is the Franklin raging ?

 Hey guys check out my video I finally got around to editing from exmouth this year plenty of action for us with some awesome bites. Enjoy in full hd 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=442ThWyP1M8&feature=youtu.be

Hi All,

First report. Headed out Saturday morning for my second fish on the new boat. Tried for a couple pinks, no luck but pulled a beautiful 17kg dhu from only 10m!!

Cheers,

Ben