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.

 Bugger me I was out the back of FFB TRYING to catch a feed this arvo when I spotted what I thought was possibly some sambos smacking up a school of baitfish. Due to the poor response from the whiting I was chasing, I up anchored and went after the splashes with a troll past the surface work. Saw the fish on the sounder and whack ....got one. Good size salmon. So I had another go and bang again another. They were like small horses!!

So anyway I do have a photo but cant work out how to get it off the iphone. Dont care if you all say "no photo it doesnt exist" but I just wanted to let everyone know that BIG salmon are about and bloody good fun on the troll.

Quick-ish report of our pre-easter trip to Exmouth with the first time taking up the "big" boat. Spent most of my time up there in a 4.5-5m boat so having the much bigger 6.4m boat we had to change the usual tactics a bit.

Day 1 started with a trip out to murions to show a couple of Exmouth first timers the islands, trolled out to northwest reef on the way out there the hope to open the account with a mack but to no avail. Fishing was pretty quiet so majority of the day was spent snorkelling the shallows out there.

Day 2 launched at tanta's and started trolling south in a bid to crack the first spanaird of the trip. Only got a shark and couta on the troll, so that was quickly given up and headed to an shallowish area where I usually get some good coronation trout and emperors on plastics. The spots were quiet although we still boated a few coronation trout and some emps. I was changing spots and came across a whaleshark cruising just behind the reef in less than 10m. Quickly jumped in and swam with it for a good 20mins or so, it was an awesome experience and with the added bonus of having the whale shark to ourselves rather than with 20 other people. It was something I have always wanted to do but could never justify paying $400ea to go out on the tour boat. So I’m glad I finally got that chance. After the whaleshark we trolled back in and had a triple hook up of macks but lost all three.

Day 3 weather forecast was strong northeasters so it was decided to troll out first thing then head back inside the reef to fish for shallow water spango’s. Only longtails around and with the wind, well and truly howling we came in to fish the 1m mark for some shallow water spanglies. One of the guys got bricked a few times but I managed to land a good 60cm spango’s in a metre of water. Awesome fun and a great alternative (even in a big boat) when the wind is up.

Day 4 started with a troll to find these now elusive macks which we’ve been struggling to find or land. Didn’t take long to get our first and was quickly followed by another. Finally with 2 in the bag pressure was off and we headed back to the shallows targeting shallow water spanglies. No Spango’s landed this time just a few small but tasty yellow tail emperors.

Day 5/6 was a trip back out to Murions and peak. With a couple of the guys on board trying to catch their first GT’s we started the morning popping/stickbaiting around the reefs. Found some good white water with gulls working above and sure enough the G’s were there. Only landed a few pups but some big black gt’s were cruising around. Did find a metre long queenie amoungst them tho. Went for a spear around peak chasing some trout or bluebone but only managed the one bluebone and no trout to be seen. Tried some bottom bashing around peak only to find sharks everywhere! It was getting on in the day so decided to head back to have some more fun on the G’s. Landed some good sized goldspot’s and a 12-15kg GT. At one point we had a feeding frenzy with trev’s, queenies, couta’s and shark's everywhere under the boat. Also trolled up some YFT for the day.

Last day was only a half day as we were planning on leaving that night. Decided the freezer needed some topping up, trolled up a decent mack and had a nice hoo get sharked, Bugger!. Hit up a lump in the 40’s and boated a bluebone, spanglies and a small red etc. PeteVb also managed a good sized robbo! Ventured out to the 110m mark and got a couple of saddle tail and a goldband. Lost a few good fish out there too.

All in all a good trip, sharks were a problem but no where near as bad as my last trip there, had a few magic days in the weather along with a couple of howlers but all part of fishing I guess. Can’t wait to get back out there again with next trip a bit more emphasis on the islands and out deep.

I just got back from a short but enjoyable trip. The weather severely curtailed our plans but we managed to sneak out to a few inshore spots for some good fish.
We managed some big Herring in the cast net and as soon as my Livie touched down I was on. The end results was a Fishwrecked upgrade to beat Nicko's Large Mouth Nannygai. At 91cm and 11.5 kilos it's a big one but I'm sure Nikko will upgrade it in time!!

We went back along the headlands then to hide from the Northerly and got stuck into some cracking Fingermark.

They took both live herring and squid. The Squid were good quality and the Fingermark thought so too.

My biggest went 84cm which is also a FW record so it was a good night. All 7 Fingermark boated were sizeable fish with the largest at 85cm and 8 kilos. The smallest would have been just under 70cm. It included a couple of double hook-ups.

Headed out from Point Peron ramp about 6.00 out to the 40's. bottom bashed for a few hours picked up a 70cm Sambo and a few undersize pinkie's. Swell was pretty big so came back into FFB and caught a few wrasse and a Fox Fish. day was getting on so we decided to head through the causeway and try some squid in the sound. 8 in 20 minutes not a bad day out on the water.

Well another trip to Exmouth has been and gone, and another great trip it was.

Again we hired a house on the marina, makes life a lot easier when loading and unloading, a couple pictures of the boat at the jetty at sunset.

A Little different to the past years, this time the wives and kids joined us for a few days prior, then departed and the rest of the boys arrived. We had 2 main bucket list items for the trip, Yellow fin Tuna and Ruby's on the deep drop!

My partner and I decided to give the whale shark thing a go this year, and booked in for a day out on a charter swimming with the sharks.

Must say, well worth the money at least once in your life. Amazing majestic creatures with little to no care in the world, not even with 20 people in wetsuits getting in their way!

Whilst it was family time for the first few days, we did manage a couple days out on the water when the weather looked red hot. And the fishing was just that, red hot. We managed one solid day chasing bottom fish and another chasing pelagics.

Day one

Not a bad start to day 1, bagged 6 reds, a few rankins and Spangles!! and couldn't believe no sharks!

2nd day was a trolling day. Decided shallow water chasing tuna, mackies, anything that would take a lure really. 5 minutes into trolling we managed to get 1 of the bucket list fish!!! and a nice one at that!

Not 5 minutes later another rod went screaming! A nice solid mack

Even my missus was getting in on the action!! I think we had 2 go off at the same time.

This guy hit a lure after we had stopped whilst landing another fish and one lure still floating out the back!

We had hooked 8 or 10 fish in lass than 2 hours. hot little session. Spent the rest of the day throwing plastics, getting a few more spangles and other bits and pieces. As well as a nice cobia

The weather on the way back in

Easter Monday came pretty quick, and the rest of the boys had arrived for 8 days of fishing with just the boys.

First day out on Tuesday was a nice day out, where we managed to jump in for a spear as well as get out into the deep chasing a few more bottom fish. The ride out up around peak was average, taking over an hour and half to get out, but I had promised the boys the weather was going to be mint. we pulled up in behind peak sheltering from the SE wind for a swim and managed 2 trout on the spear, and the first fish on spear for me!

An hour later the wind had dropped right out to almost glass, so we pushed out to some ground I found the previous year. We were about 2 hours before high tide.

First drift resulted in Den's first red! not a bad way to open your account that for sure! Den was using some old Penn overhead thing that was about 100 years old. It was spooled with braid, but very very slow on the retrieve. To our amazement he barely got sharked. his combo was quickly named 'the datto'. Estimated 9kg

2nd drift the datto is on again!

This was the sounder at anchor. Mind the high gain, I was playing about at the time someone took the photo

We ended up anchoring for the high tide, with our other boat anchoring only 10 metres away. The end result was 3 reds, 3 rankins, some big cod, plenty of spango's. Biggest red went 10+kg but I don't have a picture of it yet.

We moved out deeper after the high about 3 mile or so away to another mark I had which in the past, didn't seem to be so reliant on the right tides. First drop!

Red and Gold band!!

Another Red for Scano. Think he had had a few by this time!!

By the end of the day we ended up with 26 or 28 fish between the 2 boats. 5 reds, 2 trout, a few rankin, Gold band and Spango's!

Thursday was a bit of shallow water fun again, firstly with another swim, but couldn't find any trout. There were a few very very curious sharks about which liked coming within a foot of your fins. None the less, no harm done so we kept an eye on them and kept swimming about. One of the other blokes did manage to get hold of a nice painted cray which ended up on the BBQ and tasted pretty dam good!

After a swim I pushed up further around flat island for some shallow water plastics action on some more ground I found the previous year. Now its taken me quite a few years to get the boys into plastics fishing. In the past, they struggled to get many fish, and generally only hooking Charlie cout (Plastics sitting too long on the bottom) I would end up catching the majority of fish while the boys just got pissed off. Well I think I've now convinced them plastics is the way to go!

Carl with a nice 54cm trout on 12lB on plastic!

Nick with a nice rankin on 15lb on plastic!

A Few hook ups on plastics too. Some never to be seen! got plagued by Large mackerel which seemed to love the plastics

We pushed a bit deeper again looking for fish before we went in.. I managed a nice Rankin and also a few spango's

sunset coming back into the Marina

Friday was deep drop day, with only a 3 tide day and absolute glass, was a good decision. Being the first attempt at it, I was determined to find fish. All on manual gear!

After playing with the sounder a bit, this was the first lump I found!! and didn't need to look any further!! Must say I was bloody impressed with the glarity of the Furuno in those depths! first time out there with this sounder!

this was the 2nd drop!

3rd Drop

4th Drop

We ended up with 4 ruby's all around the 4-5 kilo mark, so nothing huge but success for our first attempt!

We trolled up out around the rigs a bit chasing billies, with little success only managing a few small tuna. The other boat managed a nice Dollie about 10 kilo.

Along came Saturday, and with it the rain!!! it started raining Friday night, but simply poured down Saturday morning. The floods was a first for all of us (Except one who was from the NT) a pretty insane sight. the main drag flooded 3 times.

Trying to ride a pushy through the flood :)

Standing in the middle of the road in front of the Marina!

the floods

We did have 2 Roo's try cross the flood right in front of us, one made it, one was in trouble, so one of our mates waded out to try usher him across, to our amazement he actually grabbed the Kangaroo and lifted him across the flood to safety. The Roo didn't kick or try get away, was just grateful to be out of the water! some of the locals couldn't believe that, that just happened.

We managed to get out on the Sunday, the Gulf was filthy, this is some crap we found on the way back from the Murians

The house, water almost made it

All in all, a bloody great trip, I think we went through 35 cartons of beer in 7 days between 8 blokes.. work that one out!

Some great laughs, some great storeys, a beer or 10 with some great mates and a few fish to boot. What more could anyone want!

Bodie

It's about that time of year when the prawns should be running, so I may give it a go this weekend.
Has anyone tried dabbing from the boat lately? any luck?

Couldn't get enough of fishing this weekend...after the steelhead marathon, I took a marathon 16 hours nap...only to wake up and arranged another afternoon of fishing.

This time we were fishing at Pickering Nuclear Power Plant.

We caught about a dozen Smallmouth Bass in 3 hours. Most were about this size.



These smallies paled in comparison to the action from other fish. I broke my PB Freshwater Drum thrice today. This Freshwater Drum was my PB for a very short while...



...but you ain't seen nothing yet!



...and still...that wasn't my PB....

Check out the blog for the full story and the real PB. ;)

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2014/04/fishing-so-hot-it-was-nuclear-meltdown.html

Adam, we miss you. Wish you were here fishing with us.

For the full story and lots of pics, you can visit the blog

http://muskiebaitadventures.blogspot.ca/2014/04/2014-trout-opener.html

For a short summary:

It was a complete madness first thing in the morning. As soon as we got more colour in the sky, the fish turned on!

Here's my first of the day at around 6:30am.



Here's my last of the day...but also my first ever steelhead on a silver spinner. I love the violent hit you get on the hardware!



We only landed one fish under 5lbs all day. I would say the average was 7-9lbs. I finally caught a legit 10lb steelhead that we weighted on the digital scale. Fishing was insane!!!

 Some photos from our family holiday at monkey mia

Over the Anzac weekend we went to stay with the relatives up at Gero for a few days with my Dad salivating for some crays. My uncle had been telling us for months that he has been cleaning up, and with the last few photo's of crays coming though my Dad just had to go up there.
The weather had not been consistent on sites, but we figured we figure we might as well give it a crack and see how it goes. We packed the boat up, dropped in at the local and picked up the gear we needed, mainly leaders and some more jig heads + plastics as well as a new loop as the old ones spring what shot.
We left with the weather looking promising, with the idea lingering of a trip across to the Abrolhos on the Saturday. Although this wasn't to be with the weather forecast changing when we checked it later.

Day 1:
The first day was overcast, we left the boat ramped and headed out into some dodgy looking seas with some very large swell rolling through. The idea was to head out to a do a wreak dive, then come back in for a Cray dive. We arrived at the wreak, secured the boat and they rigged up. I gave Dad the Gopro and they descended down to the wreak. Not being allowed to fish there I rigged up the lines ready for the next spot.
They surfaced after around 22 minutes and my Dad was telling me about the huge crays with no where to go in the wreak and the huge school of around 100 mulloway balled up at the back. With our mouths watering we left and headed back to the spots my uncle had marked. We anchored up in an area with the swell pumping but some awesome ledges as described by my uncle. Again they rigged up, and swam off. I gave them five minutes and started flicking my plastics around. But it just wasn't meant to be. Had a couple of odd pumps but nothing more.
When they returned to the boat a while later I hauled the catch bags into the boat, both very full and heavy.
After remeasuring the sizes of the crays and throwing a few back they were put into the live well and kept fresh. We got 10 that day but they said there was so many more down there and my dad couldn't believe it.

We got home and cooked the Cray fish, as soon as they were out of the water dad and I were into them. To which my uncle gave us a funny look; "It looks like you haven't eaten crayfish before?"

Day 2
We woke up at 4 to leave for the Anzac ceremony where the rain didn't stop but a nice south easterly was gently blowing. With the day looking promising we headed out, my uncle brought a mate he promised a dive, so it was back out to the wreak where the three of them dived again. Then the same as the previous day they headed to the same spot, moved 50m north of the last pick drop and off they went, collecting, not hunting, for Crayfish, again returning 10 crayfish. But the jigs were no good while they dived. We dropped the crays back with my uncle, along with the dive gear and we headed back out in search for some fish.

We headed out to a mark where we new sambos were and just thought it would be good to have something pull some string. After getting there and not having anything show up on the sounder we thought we might as well give it a shot and we started cubing and dropped some burly (Cray heads from previous days).
I continued to jig with a plastic but it was looking grim. But all of a sudden, BOOM a solid take and I though it had to be a sambo, with how much it weighed, but its runs weren't very fast so I was starting wonder. After a couple more minutes I got it closer to the boat and called it for a big shark, when it saw the boat it peeled a little more line off, again backing up the call for a shark. My Static 5000 with PE 3 was almost locked and I was just able to pull it up, the Temple Reef Mytho sure had a good looking bend in it, handling itself nicely. I managed to pull it up a little more and before long it was next to the boat but still a little green and it wasn't a shark.
It was the biggest Cobia I had ever seen, it had to be easily 1.5m and Dad and I looked at each other like; shit, now what?
The net was too small, and with no Gaff on board it caused a bit of panic, with the lip grips running off to narnia it was looking bleak, dad put on some gloves and we tried to grab it in the mouth, but Mr Cobia didn't like this, making him thrash on the surface and peel some more line off. This happened a couple more times as well as attempting to lassoes its tail with a rope but we had no control of her and couldn't manage this. I thought the Cray looks would be perfect!! But they had been taken out with the other dive gear D:
With dad on the back deck next to the motor he decided we would try pull it up on the deck and proceed from there.
Dad grabbed her mouth but noticing the cobia was tail under boat and not in the best position I figured this ain't gonna end well, a solid thrash and she was away but this time, ping out comes the jig head and off the big girl cruised slowly, waving goodbye to the two retards on the boat with her huge tail. The only thing to show for myself and the effort is a bent TT Jig head and some cuts on my Dads hands. The fillet knife nearly ended up in my dad and some choice words exclaimed, it was just going to have to be one of those stories, no photos, no gopro video, no nothing. We estimated it to be around 30-35kg and at least 1.5m long it was an absolute cracker. My dad said when it rolled and thrashed it nearly broke his wrist, he ain't the smallest fella either so it was definitely a solid fish.
The rest of the day was shit with county north west blowies caught.

Day 3:
Day three was called as a Cray diving day, the plan was to back out and head home with a Esky full of crays. The rain had really set in now and being almost non stop the rain passed down all day. Two dives on the area pulled out 16 crays and having to sent heaps more back. But this time, while they were diving I had a bit more luck.
When we anchored I made a good sound over the ground and anchored the boat in a good area with some coralish bottom. Pulled the rod out, made sure the leader was sweet and set the jig down, with some bait school moving though I noticed some nice arches on the bottom, with some more aggressive jigs and working it a little further from the bottom I got a solid hit and the first run the fish screamed off. Thinking to myself awesome if might be a big Dhufish the fish finished its run and decided that it had enough and I pulled it to the surface. A little coral trout, my first ever and it was 44cm. After taking a quick photo I sent the little fella back (after admiring the awesome colours present on the fish).
This really got my heart racing and the jig was sent straight back down, the bottom was still looking good with some lines here and there and a few arches. While I was jigging I thought to myself, if that's what a little trout does on its first run, imagine what a big one does!! And as I thought this BOOOM, the jig was slammed and my reel started to change colour, I started to clamp the drag down and it kept running. IT started to slow and I could feel it was because I was in Mr Fishes hole and the leader was rubbing bad on something. I managed to pull him out and the fish put up little fight on its way to the surface, when it go there it was a solid trout, my second ever and weighing 3kg. With both the guys in the water no one could take a photo of it with me which was pretty gay so in the Esky it went.
No other fish were caught and the guys arrived back and unloaded their crays into the boat, the second dive got the 4 extra crags needed to bag out and we were set. The afternoon was spent jigging sambos.
We went home at around 5 and drove for 3 hours in solid rain.
Needless to say next time I return to gero there will be a gaff aboard the boat.

Cheers for reading and tight lines!

P.s. If you haven't got a gaff buy one, you might think you don't need it now, but you will never know what you're gonna jig up next!

A quirk of fate meant that April was pretty much a no work month for me. Six of us booked into a camp site in Kalbarri in May last year and the almost year long wait was killing me. Then a couple of months ago a mate (optimont), also coming on the Kalbarri trip, called and asked if I wanted to come up for a week in the boat off Port Gregory because someone had pulled out of their annual trip.

Three of us headed up to Port Gregory at the start of April and stayed in one of the older houses only a few hundred metres from the beach. A perfect fishing base for the week. Since moving over here from Victoria I was yet to catch a Dhu so my aim for the week was to break the hoodoo. The weather gods were smiling on us and we managed to get out every day with only two of the days proving to be anything approaching choppy. Over the course of the week we bagged out almost every day and I managed to get my first (of 5) dhu, first spangly, first WA snapper and my first dhu on sp's. We also managed a few baldys, coral trout, a heap of red throat, a couple of long battles with local bronzies, as well as several other species. An awesome week!

After a week at Port Gregory we travelled the 8 or so hours back down south and 5 days later geared up and headed right back up again for our week in Kalbarri. This was more of a social trip with the women coming up as well, but fishing was still on the cards and a mate brought up his tinnie so we could get out into the river mouth. My bucket list fish for the trip was a mangrove jack. We stayed at Murchison Caravan Park which is a perfect location with large sites, clean ammenities and the river only 100 metres away.

Our second day there we headed out onto the river and threw out some crab nets in the hope of snagging a few muddies but unfortunately they weren't playing the game and we came up empty handed. The three of us all had fairly light gear in the boat and decided to anchor up near the marina and soak some bait near the pylons. As dusk approached I had a small livie smashed and the drag screamed on my stradic 2500. The run only lasted a few seconds before the 15 pound leader broke. I baited up again with a whole squid and threw it in. 5 minutes later the reel started screaming again and after a short battle managed to nail my bucket list fish.

I was absolutely stoked.

The rest of the trip didn't really prove to be much in the way of results with a heap of little chopper tailor and assorted other non-keepers, but it didn't matter as I'd caught my Jack, and the beautiful surrounds, great company and wads of alcohol was more than enough compensate. I'll definitely be heading up that way again as soon as I can.

 here is a picture of the engine after we landed. I can tell you from first hand experience it was chaos inside the cabin. Credit to the pilots who kept there cool and followed procedure. Very happy to be on solid ground. 

Went and did our first trip out to the Abrolhos Islands.

We drove up Wednesday and camped in the boat at the marina in Geraldton. Launched first thing in the morning and headed across.

Got in close to Pelsart Island and saw some birds working the water so went for a troll while keeping an eye out on the sounder. We found a couple of lumps on the sounder and dropped on them. The second drop got a little dhu on a soft plastic.

Kept on trolling and got a couple of really big hits on the lures, however lost the first few fish. Eventually my mate got one to stay on the hooks. Nice big mack.

After that we got a double header of stripey tuna.

Found another nice looking bottom spot so dropped down and got a snapper on a soft plastic.

Then found some birds working the water and trolled through them to get a double hookup of spanish mackeral.

After that we were both pretty tired, so we went and camped up at bitey holes. (Thanks Rob for giving us directions there).

The front entrance was closed out from swell, so we had to sneak in over the shallow reef. We did it at pretty much walking pace with the prop almost out the water. Still bumped the skeg a couple of times though.

Where we moored for the night.

The next morning had some south easterly winds, so we headed out to the north west of the island group. Did a bit of bottom bashing and got a little snapper.

We then trolled right out deep into the leewin current. Got a double hookup of dolphin fish for our troubles. They put on a big aerial display, jumping out of the water and fighting hard.

I landed my one, but lost my mates at the side of the boat.

We then headed back in to the reef and did some more bottom bashing.

There was hundreds of those charlie courts out there, but my mate managed to get a few snapper between them.

We were out there in the middle of nowhere, when a big boat came steaming straight up to us. Turned out to be the fisheries boat. Good to see them out and checking people.

As they pulled off, my mates rod went beserk and after a long fight he pulled up a shark.

After that we went and stayed overnight at gun island. We tried floating out some baits on balloons while we had dinner, but couldn't temp anything.

Got up early in the morning and went for another bottom bash while waiting for the easterly winds to die down a bit. Caught a little coral trout.

After that we had a back breaking ride back head first into a 15 knot easterly. It got better the closer we got to geraldton though. About 60 seconds after we got to the marina storm clouds rolled in and it started bucketing down.

Had a fantastic time out there. It's a fishermans paradise. I will definetly be heading back there sometime soon.

10/04/2014With the weather starting to turn pretty good around this time of year in the metro area myself and a couple of mates have been trying night fishing out on the 3 mile. With none of us having much experience at boat fishing when its dark we were all pretty excited to see what we could produce.Launching from ocean reef weve headed out to various different lumps on the 3 mile just picking them off the contour map. Our first trip out was a little rough and choppy and pretty quiet to start. With a couple of hours down and just a few pike and herring the morale was quickly dropping! But at around 10:30pm my mates rod started peeling line with a good 20-30meter run tjen as he struck and started to wind there was little weight and felt something swimming back to the boat as he wound in. After a couple of minutes we had colour and what an awesome colour it was!! A bright blue 6foot mako shark that swam right up to the motor still hooked and swam around for a bit before taking off like a missle with an 80 to 100meter dash before throwing himself at least 8 to 10 foot in the air about 6 times with double backflips and all! Was an awesome site to see and will definatly be in the memory bank for years to come! The same night we managed 1 size dhu of about 60cms and that was all. Since then weve been out about 4-5 times and have done pretty well with dhus, pinks, pike up to a meter long, tailor, squid and herring. It has made us all realise that you dont have to go out 20-30kms fishing in 30-40meters of water to get a good feed and with the price of fuel at the moment its a hell of alot easier on the back pocket only heading out to the 3 mile each time! Its been great fishing and weve had a ball doing it and would recommend it to anyone willing to give it a crack! Weve been in water from 5-15 meters just anchoring and burlying up with most fish, including dhuies on just a floating mulie out the back! Cant wait for the next half decent night to go explore some more! Heres a few photos of our fish from the last 3 weeks.  

Cheers 

 Thanks to the members who helped with a little advice prior to fishing Cheynes. We had a great time, with the fishing being a fish per cast. It was so good the teenage kids were having a good laugh. From the beach in front of Caravan Park we just lobed half Mulies 30m out and wait two minutes. Big jumps and fish around the 6kg mark.

put the kids onto the nearby rocks for a spin session and watched them hook and loose masses of Salmon. Lost count of the total hook ups over the weekend, must have been close to 100.

again, thanks for the works of wisdom that made the weekend great. To top it off I had a Humpback whale surfacing a 100 meters out from the kayak !  We all had a great holiday.

 Hit the water Yesterday with Steve, George And Jody things started a little slow but picked up pace as the day went on .Dhufish, snapper, baldie ,break sea and plenty of shit fish. Finished one short off our bag limit for the 4 of us, just couldn't find that last baldie, kept 2 dhuies 15kg-8kg and 5 nice baldies.plenty of dhuies realesed lots around the 4-6kg along with the snapper and BB. Around 30+ fish caught  for the trip.Top day with great company.

 Had a quick trip out on Thursday in great conditions. Can't remember the last dhuie I got from our own boat, although i have caught them on other people's boats. Had four people fishing but only two licenses so ended up bagging out early but kept space for the last fish to go in the esky, my first dhu on my own boat for ages. So, was pretty happy with that and though certainly not a horse was in the high 50's and good enough for me. My arsey mate caught the bald chin on a double header with a nice black arse on about his second drop.

sent back two undersized dhus as well as heaps of black arse (most were decent size) and some red throat. Also kept a small shark and some skippy. 

So the freezer is looking better than usual with some dhu, bald chin and red emperor from up north.

Hi Guys

Just thought I’d share this experience with you all!...With the missus and I both having yesterday off I talked her into getting out in the boat for a relaxing squid session and hopefully get a feed of whiting.

We headed off from CPBA at Woodies around 7.30am and headed over to our favourite squid spot and started our first drift. We bagged out on some of the biggest squid I have ever seen! And, I couldn’t believe how aggressive they were being! On three occasions big squid actually broke the surface attacking our jigs when we were retrieving them. The first time it happened Yvonne was winding in her jig and something attacked it on the surface. I said “shit, see that fish have ago at your jig”! She said, “it wasn’t a fish, it was a squid,” “a bloody big squid.” I cast my jig over near where it happened and within 15 seconds a very big squid had grabbed my jig.  This thing was actually dragging line off the reel. They were bloody sea monsters.  They were coming up as big as wine bottles, the biggest measured 34cm from base to tip of it’s hood with others measuring 32 to 33cm. It was a truly amazing squid session that we’ll both remember for a long time, catching these aggressive little sea monsters J

After bagging out on huge squid we headed over to our whiting patch in the hope of getting a nice feed. We dropped the anchor and got a bit of berley going. First cast something other than a whiting hit my bait.  Whatever it was, was giving the bream gear a bit off stick. At first I thought maybe I had a smallish gummy shark on the line but as it got closer to the boat and we got colour I realised it was a fantastic Flathead. Once netted and safely in the boat I put it on the fish ruler and it measured 62.5cm and the biggest flattie I’ve ever caught J Although the Whiting weren’t playing the game we still went home with big smiles on faces and a very nice feed J

Cheers

Paul

 Headed out at 11:00 from 2 Rocks to check where the fish were for tomorrows big day .Took Lisa out for a run, didn't take long to find good fish back in the marina for 1:15 Lisa got her first baldie and it was a cracker, 2 dhuies also realesed.Looks like it could be a good day tomorrow.

Weather was good and one of my mates was free for our first trip to the southern group for a few days, I thought I was organised for Monday arvo departure but as I checked hyd/electric trailer brakes with controller turned up for full pressure, 1 of the lines developed a pin hole leak, ran around local suppliers and had new line fabricated, installed, fluid bleed and system tested ok. The call was to now leave at 3am Tuesday morning, which went smoothly and we arrived 9am at Gero. Stopped at servo and loaded eskies with ice, fuelled boat and spare containers. Departed from Batavia boat ramp with flat seas and cruised over to Islands at 20kn taking approximately 1hr 45 mins. Spent rest of the afternoon taking photos around Post Office and Newman Islands while checking water depths and possible mooring options. We had a quick fish west (and outside) of the coral patch observation area and easily found a good feed of sweet lip for dinner. Motored in to anchorage location at the northern end of Pelsaert Island to find 3 other boats already there but they were more than happy for us to find space and helped guide us into position.
Wednesday morning we started pulled some skirts from north end to south and around the south west side of Pelsaert Island for a few hours with only 1 screaming run and fish dropped after short fight. Spent the rest of the day bottom bouncing between 20 and 40 meters on the west side with various demersal fish caught and released with the majority being sweet lips, no big fish but enough action to keep us entertained. Kept a few fish for dinner and returned to our mooring at the northern end with the same 3 boats plus 1 other boat for the night.
On Thursday morning we decided to move around to the north east side of the Island, we started fishing in 20 meters of water and found plenty of fish, I fished with plastics and my mate fished baits, again nothing big but a lot of coral trout that mainly fell to the plastics. Moved out to the 40’s and fished some lumps but after 1 good baldie and 65cm pinkie we kept getting sharked, so called it a day early and headed to Middle Island for overnight anchorage as there was some dark clouds forming with rain setting in and we wanted to navigate our way to Middle Island with the light available just in case visibility got worse. Anchored in mooring area near some charter boats and couple of yacht’s, sat back, had a few beers and prepared coral trout and baldies for dinner. A couple more beers before bed while prepared boat for early morning return to Gero and trip back to Perth.
Friday morning we left the Island and cruised back to boat ramp with car and trailer as I had left them, which is always a relief to see when on extended trips. Trouble free return to Perth, (Safety Bay) except for Friday arvo traffic jams on freeway south of Perth, Next trip I will time my return better and probably fish the morning before returning to avoid Perth’s peak traffic hours.
So a great place to visit and although we never caught anything for the brag board it was great fun and a learning curve for future trips. Not many photos attached due to quality and back ground discrepancies, will do better next time. Can’t believe how fast the days flew by while out there, I will be back soon.
Boat: 6.8m ally, Motor 200 Yam 4 stroke, 225lt fuel tank, 80lts in gerry cans under floor, 50lts fresh water, 1 large drinks esky with lower level filled with frozen 2lt water containers and topped with ice, 1 large fish and spare ice esky with lower level filled with frozen 2lt water containers and topped up with bags of ice, 1 50lts waeco for food. Used 60lts from Gero to Island, 120 cruising around and 65lts for return to Gero all in flat calm conditions, 60lts fuel spare at end of trip.

 Long but good day out on the water.  Conditions were very calm at sun up.

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Caught some bait first up and then headed north.  I tried my fresh crabs that I caught last night and got one pinkie but it was undersize about 40+ cm.  The wife caught two nice pinks, a 53 cm and a lovely old man humped snapper at 63 cm.  We trolled for a but a lost a couple of school maccie.   I then headed east on my own as the wind was picking up. Landed a nice 54 cm black spot tuskie.  :))  so a good day overall.

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Bit of a bumpy wet ride home across the "second channel" in about a 15 - 20 southerly (those who have done it will appreciate it)...

 Fished a slow day on the  5 fathom bank today and can anyone tell me what the first fish is also got 2 black ass good size and the dhue 51cm and returned 

It has been a long time coming, but yesterday the old man and I got out with Whitey and his crew from Jurien. It was my first time offshore from the WA coast....so I was pretty pumped as you can imagine.

Arrived Tuesday arvo and had a quick flick around Greenhead LB - knowing the conditions well, when the southerly failed to drop off after sunset I said to the old man "It it's still blowing like this by the time we get back to Jurien, tomorrow is gonna get messy".

The next day was messy. Left the ramp just before 5am and it was very lumpy. Not ideal for fishing, but especially not for a first timer like me. The southerly was blowing hard and by the time we got to the first drop we were all soaked.

First drop started productively. The old man pulled in a baldy within a few minutes. Soon after, the bloke fishing between us pulled up a dhu, then within a couple of minutes he was onto a pinky. So he had two keepers on the first drop. Things went quiet so Whitey made the call to hit up the next lump. That's where it went a bit pear shaped for me.

The next thing I know, I'm on the dunny cr*pping and puking at the same time. I've never been one to experience any type of motion sickness....but there is a first for everything I guess. I lost a good couple of hours but at least recovered to get back into the fishing for a few hours at the end.

Unfortunately the fishing was slow all day after that first drop. There was one you beaut pinky caught and a number of baldies, bluebone, red throat etc. Probably no more than 15 fish on the boat all up - despite the best efforts of the skipper and crew to put us on the spot. One of the deckies caught a nice Sambo - would have gone 15-20kg which was duly released. A couple of pups landed earlier in the day too while I was curled up on the deck.

Short of the long - I caught bugger all so for a first experience, it was enough to make me want to stick to chasing tailor and mulloway! However, I'll take nothing away from the Whitey and his crew. We must have hit 20 lumps of more trying to find the fish - it was just one of those days where they were not really on the bite and the conditions were awful. Whitey said to me on the way back in if the conditions had been forecasted he would never have run the boat that day.

Wouldn't hesitate to go back out with him and in fact will look to book something up for next summer (or next month if the mrs lets me..... :-p). Hopefully the fishing gods are a little kinder then. The boat is fantastic - great layout, lots of space and everything was really well run.

Of note, he is running the operation from Kalbarri this winter for the first time. If anyone is looking for a winter break.....there is your excuse :-)

Cheers

Buschy

 My report for today is that I have hopefully caught some of tomorrow's bait!  Fresh crabs that I hope the pinkies and tusk fish will feast upon... 

And some lucky bugger (not me) caught a lovely mulloway off the beach near the boat ramp.

Hi All,

First time poster, been waiting to catch something more worthwhile than a wrasse. 

Went out from Port Geographe yesterday at around 10am, with the plan of searching for some reef off Peppermint Beach to catch a skippy, my Navman was 'aquiring sattelites' so i didn't have much to go on, eventually got the GPS going after unplugging and replugging the cables numerous times but still nothing was biting so threw out some lures and headed toward the cape sitting around the 35m mark. Gave up on that after 40 mins and roared over out the back of Wright's Bank. The sounder was lit with bottom fish, i was catching a few various wrasse (my specialty) when a few fish started breaking the surface 5m from the boat. Looked up to the rocket launcher and saw my crusty old jarvis walker combo with a smiling jack lure sitting there, 2nd cast and it was on with a nice stripey, the whole fight i was looking at my brand new penn combo spooled up with 30lb fins braid wishing I had swapped the lure onto it. Didn't matter in the end as I swung the net under this tuna and into the boat. A quick search of the Fishwreckapeadia and I decided it was a striped tuna and the best option was to bleed it and take it home for the smoker (next one will be catch and release)

A few drops later and I caught this McCulloch's Scalyfin, it went straight back. Was going to put up a Fish ID post but searched and found it. I later took this as a sign that I was in a reefy area and will return here, found a few lumps around 2m with fish on them drifting around and marked them on the GPS. 

Next I hooked some unstoppable monster of the deep, fought with it for 30mins, I got it up off the bottom and then the battle began, I'd get half a metre and it would take 2, eventually the mono pulled through my allbright knot and that was that. I looked at the time, around 16:30 and figured it was time to go back to the ramp. Put in the waypoint for the Marina, 20 nautical miles away, looked around and the glassy conditions were gone, it was all choppy whitecaps. Managed to get back accross the bay at around 17kn, with my eyes going from the fuel gauge to the distance remaining and back again. Made it back no worries, boat on the trailer just as the sun was going down. 

Taking the little brother and his kids out on Saturday morning so hopefully will have something worth posting about again after that. 

Cheers for reading,

Robz

Here's a complimentary pic of my tub, upgraded from a 4.3m tinny about a month ago, hoping to catch a dhu or two soon to start recouping some of the cost

 From WESTAG:

Impressive 80mm growth in a little over 12 months, it pays to look after your released fish.
WESTAG RECAPTURES
TAG NO 77676
SPECIES DHUFISH
TAGGERS NAME R Mc 
RECAPTURES NAME Joel 
DATE TAGGED 31/03/2013
DATE RECAPTURED 22/04/2014
DAYS OUT 387
TAGGED LENGTH 480
RECAPTURED LENGTH 560
WEIGHT KG N/A
GROWTH 80
LOCATION TAGGED GPS 43metres
LOCATION RECAPTURED GPS
MOVEMENT 
FISH KEPT/RELEASED kept

R Mc is my daughter and caught this fish over a year ago 31/3/13. She did the deco stop to allow the fish to self vent at around 5m depth and that simple action that takes less than a minute meant that this fishes survival rate percentage increased dramatically. 80mm growth in a year meant Joel (whoever you are) not only has one of my fishing spots in his GPS , but also managed a legal size dhuie for tea.

Take care of your undersize fish guys and we can all enjoy a much bigger average size fish in the future.

 What are the chances of catching the same fish twice?  I lost a soft plastic to an unseen fish and about one hour later, fishing the same channel I caught a cod on a live bait.  When I unhooked him, low and behold inside his mouth is my soft plastic!  It was his lucky day, he was 46cm which is size for an estuary cod, but I wasn't 100% sure it was an estuary cod due the lighter colourings,  so I took that yucky plastic thing out of his mouth and released him.

Other than that got a few under sized pinks and blacks and kept an 800 mm Queensland school mackerel.

Took the boat down for the long weekend down to bunbury to go out with the family. Got a mooring so we didnt have to launch it every weekend. Was good fun weather was great pity we couldnt have got more fish but still happy with what we got here is a few pics. The last time the boat was in the water was last easter now its has a new trailer, fuel tank, anchor winch and a few other things. Gave the new artifical reef a go but there wasnt even a bite on it. At one point there was 8 boats sitting on it. Snapper was 600meters off the beach.