Few photos from some recent trips.

Gracetown was hard work with the dhu coming up on the last drop. Fish came from the high 40's, but also did a lot of driving between the 50 and 100's without finding much. Took bro and a mate out chasing some salmon the next day, big schools around and we found a few. 

DHI trip Easter was good to get away, not the best for fishing though. To say the weather was bad would be an understatement. Managed a few fish between us though.

Stopped in at Leeman on the way home and topped the engel up with some good fillets of baldy.

Gave Geo Bay crack a couple of weeks ago. There has been a heap of pinkies getting around but they stayed clear of me. Managed a couple of u/s pinks and dhu's that went back, but not before one caught the interest of this big cuttly, netted right next to the boat. 

Cheers Ben. 

 We fished from 4pm -8pm using scalies, mulies, live herring, herring fillets didnt get a bite. Guy next to us caught a ripper 78cm pinkie and lost a good one in the rocks he was using squid. There were heaps of fisho's down there did anybody else get one? 

 Well after several years since my last trip, I snuck onbard a mate's boat for a well earned break from work. Our challenge was to find some fish, have some fun and create some memories, well we did all three in ample quantity, though the number of fish that ended in the ice box were well within our limits. 

We headed out super early on Friday morning to a very calm and foggy landscape. A quick piss break somewhere near GinGin I guess, and a snap of the sunrise over a sea of fog.

We were comfy in our rig for the trip, a nice Prado with a Commodore 670 Allrounder in tow.

The trip up was broken up by a night in Carnarvon. All in all we made good time and another early start saw us hit Yardie Creek by around 10am.

After offloading we headed straight to Tantas to check out the ramp conditions, it was high tide and we were a bit reluctant to put a big glass boat in and not know what low tide looked like, so we left our mates in an ally boat to launch there while we fanged it around to Bundegi, thinking that would be a safer option. Unfortunately the wind was in the wrong direction and several other big glass boats were turning around and advising us not to launch there as the waves and wind were smashing the boats up against the jetty. So after another deliberation we finally jumped back in the car and launched from the marina, which meant an extra few nm's to get to any fishing grounds.

To say the fishing was none existant was an understatement, so apart from one spanglie we got sharked or had charlie courts and honeycomb cods on our lines all arvo. Well at least the weather was kind and the trip back was a glass off.

The next day we studied the tides and decided we could get a launch and retrieve window from around 8am to 3pm at tantas. We managed it with a few millimeters to spare and headed out to south passage.

After a few shark encounters Matt managed a reasonable Spanglie.

Pete nailed a reasonable Rankin

I had a couple of Spanglies and a few shark encounters, then with a few moves in to shallower ground to try and give us some time to get the fish up (rather than in 70m giving the sharks too much time) I got monstered by a very nice Rankin. A personal best for me for this species.

The next day we got a few more minutes on the water as the tides changed a bit in our favour (still needed to be careful though or risked a swim to shore with the boat on a mooring. 

We headed out of North Passage and decided to troll a while with the view of getting a mack, but despite 5 or 6 hook ups none made it to the boat. Instead we headed wider and put on some metal headed skirts. After a few minutes my reel screamed and in the didtance we watched an acrobatic show courtecy of my first Exxy Dolphin fish. A PB at the time and a very happy camper.

We did a bit more bottom bouncing for nothing but red throats, when up to the back of the boat came this little visitor.

Day 3 and we trolled early.

The sharks continued to win so we started to bottom bash. A few spanglies and other odds and sods before Pete got smoked by this big bad amberjack.

Day 4 started as a repeat of days 2 and 3

But with persistance and some quick freespooling action to avoid the sharks our luck finally changed, with a few macks landed in succession.

Try as he might young Matt just couldn't get one to the boat, with several fish getting boatside only to be snaffled before the gaff could be set or bolt under the boat with a shark on its heels to ping off on the boat. In the end he had to settle for a little tuna.

A move out to deeper waters cracked the goldband code and Matt was rewarded with his first of this species.

We have a pic on Matts phone of the mother of all Goldbands that Pete battled for several minutes before playing tug of war with a huge shark, only to get back just a head. Massive would be the best word to descuibe it. Ah well not to be. But we now have a Goldband spot with some monsters on it.

Our final day of fishing was to be nothing but trolling for Marlin, so we only took 5 rods out (the two big game rods plus two right handed reel rods for the boys and one left handed one for me., just in case we could snaffle another Dollie in the 50's or 60's. Well no more than 5 minutes after setting the rods out mine goes ballistic with a much bigger specimen than my earlier fish. A series of acroobatic jumps and a single run and I had this little puppy boatside.

A further 5 minutes and Matt's reel started screaming and after the usual fight he landed his first big Dollie. A great accomplishment after such a nightmare with the spaniards.

We were totally stoked by now so decided it was time to get the big game sticks out. Pete was using his for the first time (having kindly lent it to me a few years back for me to catch my first Marlin) and I was using my neighbour's rod and reel (again unused and being christened by yours truly). We put Pete in the harness so he would take first strike, then me (as Matt had just landed the Dollie). We set the spread and I kid you not, after no more than 5 minutes of trolling Pete's reel growled like a polar bear and we both dived for the rods. I had one thing on my mind and that was to clear the other lure to give Pete a fighting chance. As I grabbed the rod it lunged and screemed, but it was my reel making the noise not Pete's. OMG we had two marlin on at the same time and a totally green crew other than me, having seeing countless marlin landed whilst only landing one myself. This was going to be pandemonium. 

I had Pete on his first Marlin, Matt on the helm and camera and soon to be first time leader man. I was shouting instructions and encouragement all the while trying to focus on my fish too. Mattt was runing between the helm and the camera and undoing the reel saving lanyards, then racing to get me some kind of groin protection anything would do...aaaaggghhh!!!

Petes came to the boat first so I was instructing Matt on what to do, get the gloves, no drop the camera, no turn the boat left, wow get the camera look at those jumps, no drop the camera Pete needs you, no put the gloves back on.... it was bedlam. I tried to keep my fish wide while we dealt with Petes, but on getting to the swivel Pete's got a second wind and shot out again on another run.

Right I had to get mine in so I could help Matt with Pete's fish. I bullied the marlin in and we got the wind on onto the reel. I talked Matt through the process, which he did like he had been doing it his whole life. We had the fish right there, so I backed offf the drag and warned Matt about the rag doll shuffle. Yeah ok he said and proceeded to do the shake rattle and roll. After an initial shock and a drop back in the water, we got the fish boatside again and this time he held on for grim life. I removed the hook and grabbed the camera for a quick pic.

A quick high five and onto Pete's fish. By now my camera had carked it with a suspected water related malfunction, so I was limited in terms of what I could do.

Finally I managed a lucky jump shot in the distance, and a heavily cropped pic follows of Pete's in full flight.

He managed to get this one to the side of the boat after a few dances around the motor and some skillful driving to stay connected. Matt knew what to expect this time and man handled the beast to the side of the boat. I reached for my iphone to get a pic as my camera was by now inoperable.

High tens all around, and an unbelieveble feat of a double hook up and both fish landed with an in experienced crew. You wouldn't read about it.... unless you were a regular fishwrecked forum member.

We continued to troll that afternoon for a couple of small tuna and two more Marlin raised with short 10 second runs before dropping the lures.

What a great way to end a magnificent trip. One I will remember for a long time.

 Took my brother who is visiting from South Africa for a fish and managed a solid Pinkie of 84cm. Chaps around us nailed the Salmon but we managed none.

 Shot out the bay yesterday arvo to try and jag some pinks.

They were on the chew straight up and even got lucky with a bonus little Dhu.

Biggest pink went 81cm.

 Very quiet night at the wall quite a few groups but no action bring in the next blow stir the snapper back up

 nice morning in close 

The stories (you really gotta read it!):

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2014/05/2014-virginia-day-1.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2014/05/2014-virginia-day-2.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2014/05/2014-virginia-day-3.html

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2014/05/2014-virginia-day-4.html

The pics:



#387 for Elijah...tying my #387 for a short while...then completely surpassing my lifer count after. Super happy for Elijah and his accomplishments on this trip!



Swamp monster...



Finally a lifer for me...my only lifer of the trip...and my first lifer of 2014...yes, it was a difficult trip...



We caught more species...but Northern Snakeheads are just too cool not to highlight. Lia's lifer Northern Snakehead was impressive! It was about 8-9lbs, but the photographer did a pretty good job to make it look massive :wink:



The snakehead whisperer



Yes, we did have a blast!!!

Nobody really does deep dropping here in Quepos, so i thought we'd be the first ones to try and man we had some pristine fishing.  Every drop was something, if we sent down three hooks, we had three fish, amazing day out here deep drop fishing!  These were all caught at around 400 ft (I know this isn't super deep dropping) but there are just a ton of rocks I always marked and knew there were fish down there.  We are going to ramp up the bait size on the next couple of deep drop trips and i bet soon we'll start seeing the 100+ pound groupers.  Right now we are fishing a simple 3 drop chicken rig with dead squid, these guys said they just wanted action.  We filled the cooler getting a couple of grouper from each spot of the 50sh spots that I have marked while I was billfishing!  These were all done on my 28 foot panga at around 18 miles out (that trip runs 600 a day).  Great deep drop fishing, I WISH MORE PEOLE ASKED FOR IT, lots of fun nailing the big ones here in Quepos Costa Rica!!!

Fished Mindarie marina wall from 4pm till about 8.30 last night along with heaps of other blokes along the wall nobody got a snapper. Most guys using whole bony herring and scalie mackeral i was using big squid baits. The swell was still real big coming in so we were hoping that would keep the snapper in close seems they've gone back out deep. The weed is a pain in the arse. Looking forward to getting down there after the next big blow. Any other rock fishers got a snapper? How about the north and south moles are the snapper still hanging around?

With all the talk around town of Mulloway and Pinkies moving into the bay a couple of mates and I decided to give it a crack last night.

After 2 or 3 hours of nothing nothing nothing Fiddler Ray nothing Fiddle Ray nothing all hell broke loose when Rhys' rod bucked under a screaming run.

He was pretty nervous being his first BIG landbased fish but after some pointers/bagging and a mad dash to find the gaff this appeared in the wash

Not a bad way to open your Mulloway account with plenty off 'yews' and high fives going round.

Looked every bit of 15kg+ possibly 17kg (128cm).

Thinking 'lets get another' baits went flying back out.

About an hour later my rod bucked big time in the holder and after a mad dash to the rod (and a broken chair) it was hooked up solid. This guy was ANGRY!

After what was a close fought head banging affair this appeared

Screams of PINKY!!! filled the night.

Being my first Landbased Pinky I was pumped to say the least!

Came in at 86cm and looked around 6-7kg

Happy days!
 

I whipped this up quickly last night. It needs more editing so I'll take it down soon. I need to get rid of the swearing....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1Fh-nwl4F0&feature=youtu.be

 Any fish being taken currently at Tims  thicket? I am heading down next Saturday with a 13ft spinning surf rod for live baits, and a 7 and 8 foot spinning rods for lure fishing. I will mostly be going for salmon. Are the schools still hanging around here? Or will it be stray salmon there?

would port beach or north mole be better? Sorry for all the questions

lachie

 had a crack at these north mole pinkies this morning.got 1each

hey FW finally got around to posting this years shark bay trip. dont have any of the photos as of yet except this of the pirate vessel (below if it works).

left perth thursday night and stayed at a mates half built farmhouse in gero, complete with redbacks including 1 eating a baby tiger snake, awesome... stayed there that night and left nice and early the next day (rained both days...) didnt look like rain was going to clear untill we hit useless loop road where some blue finally shone through. the road in was rough as always and the boat trailer and water supply suffered to it. water tank we towed in broke and lost 800lts of water and the boat trailer lost numerous fittings wheel archs and buffers. finally made it to camp and the set up but the bung had fallen out of the boat on the way up sigh... oh well set up camp and waited for the other group/boat. just hung out and had a few drinks that day and launched the still ok boat on the beach. next morning the damaged boat trailer was taken to the loop for repairs and a new bung and we managed to get both boats in. weather was bad so went for some 4wd exploring instead, had to do some serious water crossings on the way back due to some big tides and heavy rains. still a bit of fun.

next day finally had both boats in the water and head out for a days fishing, was a fairly slow start to the day with alot of undersized bluebone. first decent fish managed was when i left my baitrunner in the rod holder when nature called, barely started off the back of the boat when the drag buzzed and i had to call out for someone to grab the rod, 8000d and shimano terez with 30lb braid (a little overkill i found) made short work of it and before id finished business my mate had landed the first decent fish, a 410 bluebone (tuskfish) on my new gear, which he happily pointed out...  not much else happened before the same mate scored a 570 pinky out of nowhere. we caught up with the other boat who had bugger all at that point and rafted up for lunch. during which casting out the back at a shallow reef we we got about 12 sized black snapper ranging from 340 tp 450mm 3 of which belonged to me and i got my first pinky of the trip only barely over at 510. we kept the 2 pinks and a handful of blackies for dinner.

weather turned bad after that with 30 - 40kph winds almost all the time. we tried what we could to get some more fishing in and went for a beach fish at a few spots that looked ok. best manged was 2 30cm pinkys and i scored a 60cm shovel nose on my 2500 sedona on 8pb braid, but have to say it didnt put up much of a fight. tried another spot but that was it. we got desperate mid week and pulled the boats out and cut across to a different inlet in hopes of avoiding the wind or at least reducing it. worked to a degree and we got an ok day on the water but the fishing was slow. had a little fun with some snook at a drop off, i personally landed 6 in and hr and kept 4 to try smoking,which i found to be delicous and will happily do it again. otherwise there was a longtom, more undersized pinkys and then some norwest blowest started wrecking the rigs so we pulled the boats out and explored more.

got up early 1 morning to a fairly flat sea and we skipped breaky to have on the boat and got out there before it turned bad, hit some more spots from last year and cooked a bbq on the boats. 2 of the guys caught some more shovel noses 1 just over a meter on his stradic Ci4 4000 which he rated highly. both went back and we saw some small sharks about but none wanted to play. weather stayed ok and we head off to explore new, deeper water, caught a few more blackies and baby bluebone in  few spots and nothing in others. started heading out for a spot right out deep in the gulf but got turned around by the weather and had a slow trip back to base. hr and a half over heavy chop for about 12nm was less fun, but not too bad in the end and we made it back safe and sound.

last day we spent most of exploring, visit the blowholes and played on the 4wd tracks and just messed about in general, we got back to camp at nearly 5pm and the wind had just dropped off, we had a last little window. no time to waste we rigged up as fast as we could and jumped on the bigger boat that was still in the water leaving the less keen behind. we nailed it out to a nice little rock wed had luck at before and got to it, wasnt long before a few small snapper were landed and thrown back when a mulie i had slowly winding in got smashed and i got my first decent fight of the trip, the terez bent over and a few meters of line lost (more worrying in 2ms of water in very rocky ground) but after a short fight landed a 60cm pinky biggest of the trip right on sunset and i was stoked! we kept at it and i and a mate got another 3 blackies between us before it was too dark and we head back.

the fishing was alot slower than last year and no personal records broken but a few new (to me anyways) fish landed/tasted and a few fillets to take home. in the end theres alot of good memories and thats what matter most so all in all a good week camping with the boys and looking forward to it again next year.

Ryan Thipthorp and staff member Dave went to North Mole late last night/this morning targeting land base pink snapper. The boys did well with Ryan getting a pinky on the first cast, Dave got one 30 minutes later and the boys hung around for another fish which Ryan landed. Congrats fellas, Ryan left his DSLR camera at home so shitty iphone pics were supplied.

Gotta love the storms for land base fishing!!

Took my boy out the other day in Safety Bay to get a quick feed of Herring and squid.

We trolled 10gm Halco twisties most of the time and came across a few big schools while squidding, so it was just a matter of casting out and we were on.

I have always wanted to try a single hook on a little twisty for Herring but for the life of me can't work out how to get the treble off the split ring when the hole in the body of the lure is so small. You just can't feed the eye of the hook around the split ring to get it off.

So while rummaging through the tackle box I came across an old 10 grammer with a busted up & rusted treble, so I cut the split ring off with the pliers and managed to get another split ring on that I pulled of some other old hard body lure and managed to get it through the hole and get a small wide gap hook on it. It wasn't perfect and the hook wasn't swinging perfectly but it was enough to give it a burl.

First few runs I used a twisty with a treble to make the comparison and as usual about a 50% loss rate per hook up.

Changed to the one with the single wide gap and sure enough 'my get the fish to into the boat' rate went up to more like 90%.

Also noticed a distinct change in the way the fish fought - harder (by Herring standards anyway). I guess the single hook 'swings' a bit easier. 

The single hook also made for a far easier release for small fish and caused considerably less damage.

I know hezzas are only small fry but I would be keen to hear other's experiences with single hooks on lures for bigger fish and if anyone else has worked out how to change to singles on the smaller twisties without damaging it.

Here's a quick vid, part of my attempt to cram a mornings fun into one minute. All GoPro edited in GoPro Studio.

A couple of hours fun, a nice feed and just a couple of bucks in fuel.

As always, best in HD.

http://youtu.be/QLJy-MV9dtk

 Hi all, any king george around at all?.

 got a feed of squid(13) on tuesday the 6th. but no kg's only trumpeters. 

 went out about 4 yesterday aiming at getting a feed of squid then anchoring up for a the sundown bite.

After about 30 minutes we only had 3 small squid(dhui bait) so we headed up the sound and got on anchor.

Pinks were going off for a good hour and we landed 8 keeping 4.

 Have been fishing the north mol non stop the past week or so. Nothing seems to be too large in numbers, with the most important influencing factor being time and tides. All the usuals around herring skippy etc. Tailor fisho's in their numbers though there havnt been any noticeable runs. Mainly casting metals along I got stuck into an unidentified tuna late afternoon. Fairly large fish and was the only hook up for the day, and unfortunately spat the trebles on a jump. Switched all my trebles for singles in the hope for a noticeable difference.

Does this count?

 few pinks around. released a fair few. good couple hours

 G'day all. I headed down south over the Anzac Day long weekend. Embarked on a huge trek to find some lightly fished ledges. Didn't really find the deep water I was looking for but made it to a likely looking ledge. A school of big, fat salmon were there all day, and all too willing to fight over surface offerings. This kept me very amused inbetween chasing blues. After chumming up with some salmon, what I initially thought was a small bronzy chasing my salmon, turned out to be a big Samson, who had some smaller mates. I picked one up on a stickbait and another larger model on a plastic, but the latter straightened the hook as I was trying to drag him up the rocks. Was one hell of a fight though. Also managed a little bluey for my troubles

Last minute decision to head out in the boat lastnight after my brother inlaw said he was keen for a fish... night started pretty bad after forgetting my phone and having to turn around to get it :/ half an hour latter we arive at the boatramp realising I needed fuses for the nav lights....  well we first left my place at 8.30 and eventually had the boat in the water by 10pm...

 Just thought I would give a bit of a update of the Coral Bay conditions and use to chance to show off a couple of our better nad more unusual recent captures.

School holidays where good with some good weather for once, but since then it has been a bit up and down. With weather forcasts not helping too much lately and the second decent bit of rain for the year tonight after about 100mm the other week. But we have still been able to get out most days. Fishing has been made a bit harder lately with some strong currents in close and out wide that have been sticking around for a few months now. But I'm happy to say the fish have been bitting hard, we have had to look around a bit some days but have allways been able to find a hundgy school of fish, bagging out or close enougth to all trips this season so far. The fish have been good to with the Goldband and Rosey Jobfish regularly firing.

We have just finished our first group for the year and they did well. After running out of room in the eskys the first day with big goldband the plan for the second was just to head out and have some fun with the small stuff in a little closer then troll for some makkies. But it didnt go to plan with the boys getting onto some of the biggest reds we have seen for a while. The best two in the photos went 11 and 13kg. 

We have found some fish a bit far from hole lately too. Early in the year we got onto a few smaller mullaway out wide, and a during the school holidays we got the 8 bar cod in the photo much shallower that it should be in about 100m. But the most odd one was a 7kg Green Jobfish in 120m of water on the first day of the group.

First time out for ages as busy at work, we got a dhu, baldie, a few B/B's and this YFT after having a quick troll to break up the jigging.

Tim landed the tuna on 10 kg mono, the thing went very hard and he did well to land it. It went 19.6 kg on the scales.

 Found plenty of gummy sharks in close today, not really what we had set out to target but the bigger ones gave a good account of themselves. All returned much to the shock of an old guy we we're telling on the ramp after . We catch these back in Ireland but they are a lot smaller and they are called smoothound but generally don't keep them there either. 

Are they easy to fillet? Might keep a couple next time...

 Headed out from 2 Rocks at 9:20am Lines in the water for 10:00,and fish were on the bite. Baldies, dhuies and heaps of shit fish ,Picked up 5 baldies all kept and 6 dhuies all released on the first spot, So we only need one more and it was time for home. We were looking for the big dhu but he didn't want to play today so we setteled for a 6kg model. Ended the day with around 20 -30 fish for the few hour we fished . Good fishing and good company.[[URL=http://s291.photobucket.com/user/pen850/media/P5040116.jpg.html]

 Went out tonight and got our limit, beautiful  night no wind.