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Have been reading reports on this web site for a while now trying to better my knowledge of my new home in mandurah and thanks to some cracking story's and photos have started to understand a bit better the local area and it's waters time to give back I think so here are pics from a little run out the cut to the southern end of the James service reef and a couple of extras from a recent trip to exmouth

Any one been to waroona dam recently? Hows the fishing there atm? 

Please delete.

 Hi guys

Does anyone know whats biting in the Mid West at the moment?

Tomorrow Im heading off for a couple of weeks staying in Dongara, Denham, Kalbarri and Geraldton.

Im mainly land based but hoping to hire a tinnie in the murchison.

Hopefully the mulloway are running but any info would be great.

Cheers 

Brendon

hey dudes. i went down to burns beach saturday arvo about 5 so try my luck. it was my first time down there so i was hoping the waters would be abundent. i didnt even get a single bite.

i was using gang hooks with mulies. i was down there for about 3 hours total, untill the sun went down. nothing. not even a nibble. i was so dissapointed!!

i fished from both the little rock formation down there and up the beach surfcasting. both were horrid.

Nice double header of YFT on 10 kg mono for me and Tim, two lost including a big bustoff on strike, hit like a train!. Also got a nice kingie and a KG. Was a great day on the water.

 Out fishing off Bunno yesterday and lifesavers came out to let us know the becon picked up a 5 metre white. how reliable is this technplogy? there were no reports on ch16 and there were a heap of divers out as the water is clearing up down here.

Went out from Freo yesterday chasing a feed of whiting, squid and such.  Whiting were on the chew and ended up with a four Kgs and a few sandies.  Afterwards flicked a jig around for a squid.  Old mate ended up with only one but it was a stonka.  Great day on the water.

Results from an hour this morning, looking forward to the BBQ tonite. KG taken on a prawn while waiting for the divers.

 Went for a drive from Tim's to about 10k south of the white hills entrance, had a bit of a burley and waited for the herring in a few spots but nothing showed up, got a couple of bambino sand whiting nothing else. Anyway beach condition, very low tide this morn so getting around the headland between Tim's and white hills no prob, the beach itself is getting pretty churned up from all the lazy arses that can't be bothered reducing tyre pressure ( counted 4 bogged and letting tyres down) the usual washouts just south of the big house but easy to get around on made tracks into the dune or close to the waters edge at low tide( check the low side before attempting) was no weed to speak of but was an offshore breeze this morn, sea breeze came in about 10, 10.30 so no doubt weed would follow as there is heaps washed up on the beach in places, hope this helps anyone heading down in the near future, good luck.

 went squiddind this morin and the buggers didnt want to play ball,

they kept coming right up to the jig and backing away at last minite
got 1 but there was plenty more hanin round
 

any tips to help with the tricky squid?

Successful offshore angling is pretty much reliant on the weather conditions, especially if fishing from a small to medium platform of under 10m. I consult an App called Willy Weather which is linked to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) to plan my fishing outings. When the weekend plan is to get out to the blue yonder, I already start consulting Willy Weather on the Monday to ascertain which of the two days on the weekend is the better. As the weekend draws nearer so the information displayed for that timespan becomes more accurate and one can plan where to fish and what species could be targeted. A strong South Westerly will keep me in Cockburn Sound in the shelter of Garden Island, a moderate Northerly or Southerly will keep me ashore, a moderate easterly and I will fish the western side of Garden Island and so on and so on. Understanding the wind directions and the effects of islands as wind shields could still provide the opportunity to have a session even in moderate wind conditions. Furthermore the swell and to a lesser degree the temperature and rain add to the variables in this decision making equation. Other factors which I consider are the tide times, moonrise and moonset, sunrise and sunset and lastly (and often importantly) my partner on the boat (get to this one later).

So by Wednesday I knew that Saturday would start with a moderate (19.8 – 28.8 km/h) wind and settle to a gentle (12.6-19.8 km/h) wind later in the morning only to pick up in the afternoon after 14:00 again. Wind direction was a southerly changing to a south westerly as the day progressed. The plan was to hit Five Fathom Bank in the morning and move into the Sound as the wind picked up later on during the day.

I called trusted angling mate Nic on the Thursday evening and it took no convincing for him to confirm his attendance. Nic has spent many hours on the boat with me and we complement each other well. By this I mean that we know exactly what is needed to be done when the other is hooked into a fish, communication in terms of working at a strategy to get fish, keeping the boat clean, assiting with launching, anchoring, and so the list goes on. Nic also does not go green when the water starts becoming choppy or when a decent swell is pushing through. Important? Heck yes, because there is nothing worse than being out on your favourite spot and having one of the crew heaving and giving you that land loving look. Unfortunately I am not one of those hardened skippers that stay out there regardless, but rather look to the welfare of my crew.

Enough said – let’s get down to the important stuff – the fishing. We launched just after 06:00 from Woodman Point and after radioing our schedule to Cockburn Sea Rescue, sped our way across a reasonably flat Cockburn Sound towards Five Fathom Bank. Once we passed the northern point of Garden island we had to reduce our speed as the open ocean was still being tossed up by the prevailing southerly. Our plan was to cut the Yammie about 500m due south of Seaward Reef and allow the wind to push us towards this fish magnet whilst we dragged mullies behind the boat and bottom bounced along with second rigs. As the wind was pushing us along at a reasonable speed we added a small ball sinker to the trace in an attempt to keep the bait in “the zone” and off the surface where the birds were picking them up.

The first fish caught were Wrasse, Breaksea Cod and a couple of small Dhufish – all on the bottom rigs. As the wind subdued I removed the ball sinker from the drift bait and lowered the bait down below the boat before allowing sufficient line for the bait to be drifting about 15m behind the boat. It was whilst I was dropping the bait below the boat after rebaiting that my bait became snagged on the bottom – or so it felt until the bottom started moving. I set the hook and the slow moving resistance suddenly turned into a steady hard pull away from the boat. Nic immediately realised the situation and dived into the cabin to retrieve the landing net which had not been called to duty as yet. A decent fight on the 10 - 15kg rig ended with Nic landing my largest Dhufish to date – a specimen of 60cm. The customary high-five and quick barrage of photographs concluded with the Dhufish released to fight another day. It was whilst we were taking snaps that Nic’s rod which was trailing the drift bait jerked violently calling Nic to action as he set the hook into a 50 cm Pink Snapper, which was also snapped and released.

A couple of minutes later and the same rig indicated an enquiry at the business end with a couple of short jerks on the rod tip followed by the reels drag protesting as a fish consumed my bait. After a hard and deep fight I landed a Silver Drummer which pushed the “lie detector” to a decent 62cm – my largest to date. The rest of the morning was slow with the odd nuisance fish taking the bait.

The wind started picking up around mid-day and the ocean was becoming decidedly uncomfortable. We decided to take cover on the north eastern side of xxxxxx. Gail had caught a decent Tiger Shark here earlier in the year and with the foaming water resulting from waves being pushed against this rock and a nearby reef, we were sure that there should be some action. We dropped the anchor about 20m from the rock and allowed the south westerly to push us away into an open patch of ground between the reef and the weed in 6.5m depth. We set about burleying and this done dropped our baits in anticipation. Nic had the first action as he hooked into a ray which gave him a good pull before we cut the trace at the boat. A short while later and I followed suit also with a quick release at the boat. We noticed that we were not catching the ever present Wrasse and Trumpeters under the boat. We also noticed that every so often the fish finder would alarm indicating a large fish in about 3 – 4 m below the boat. Nic looked down below the boat and exclaimed that there was a large fish swimming around under the boat. This was the clear reason why we were not catching any of the nuisance fish. I grabbed the GoPro and pushed it below the water surface so that we could identify the fish at home later the afternoon. Oddly the fish seemed to remain in the vicinity of the boat patrolling up and down as if it knew that free offerings were available. Nic and I jumped into action and started dropping a number of baits below the boat to entice this fish. No matter what we put down or how well we presented it, the fish would investigate the bait and turn away. After about 45 minutes of frustration I decided to hook a red Western King Wrasse which I had caught earlier at FFB and drop this below the boat. With a 7/0 Extreme hook at the end of 1.5m length of fluoro-carbon line and my 20lb braid as a main line the Wrasse was hooked through the back and dropped below the boat to about 4m. Ten minuted later a screaming reel followed by the hook being set followed by my line parting at the knot between the braid and the flouro. Nic quizzed me as to the bait and it took a bit of convincing when I told him that it was the whole Wrasse. One more Wrasse in the live well and this time a brown one of about one kilogram. We both thought that this bait was too big, but in the absence of anything else it was worth the try. Same procedure – same result, the 20lb rig smashed. Time to play dirty and out came the Daiwa 50SLH loaded with 15kg line on the 15-25kg rod – take no prisoners.

Nic gave me a Trumpeter that he had caught and which I was having extreme difficulty in catching, whereas normally I could not keep them off my hooks – something to do with “fish fever” I believe. The bait scarcely hit the water and it was gulped by a hungry customer. Once the hook was set the fish took an easy 20m of line before I could stop the first of a number of runs. A good ten minute battle and I landed what was going to be the first of no less than seven Samson Fish to be boated for the day. At one stage the Sambos were biting at such a regular rate that we had three fish on the boat before we could snap and release them. The largest Sambo pushed the measuring tape to 106cm, the largest taken from Fish Eagle to date. Nic and I hastily caught Trumpeters in between the Sambos to ensure that we had a constant supply of bait whilst enjoying this golden period of fishing. Eventually after about three hours of splendid angling the bites slowed down and the bait supply exceeded two Trumpeter. With seven Sambos landed and a further six dropped, we pulled anchor on a setting sun and made our way across a very bumpy Sound to complete 14 hours on the water. See You Tube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifA1LlJRMzo.

I like to catch fish and release them. I probably haven't killed a fish that I've caught in sport fishing for 20 years. No reason to kill it. You know, just take it and release it. - Jack Nicklaus

the river is chockers with flatties ATM. I must have spooked nearly 20 yesterday while walking the shallows on low tide. I was in knee deep water and the flatties were between me and the bank. also got some today and kept a 35cm model for lunch.

Have had some success so far this season wading the flats, throwing lures in the river for flathead. Have also had some luck during the evenings on hard bodies and getting into some chopper tailor late arvo around Sth Perth. These are just a couple of the more standout fish, all caught on Atomics and Strike pros. 3 lizards 50cm or over already this year, by far the best start to the summer season ive experienced in the swan

The Club had its latest competition on Saturday night up near Jurien Bay, weather conditions were good but the wind was constant all through the night .Fishing was good with good quantities of Tailor ,Rays , Sharks, Mulloway caught .Alan Davies caught his first Pink Snapper and I caught my first Shark Mackerel from the beach making it a great nights fishing

Results were Mat Loncar 1st Place
Alan Davies 2nd Place
Vincent Stacey 3rd Place

Photos to follow shortly

 The wifes becoming a bit of a tuna magnet. I went out to get to know how to use a new dragonfly plotter/sonar i just bought and thought well i may as well pull a lure behind. she got her first of several nice southern bluefin tuna off rotto westend last summer, got her first YFT at coral bay a few weeks ago and now just got her first striped tuna - it was 82cm long felt like about 6-7 kilo's. Got it on a medium size rapala magnum in basic mulie pattern in 19m  line right on the safe lead line out of Mindarie keys yesterday arvo at 5:30. Birds and tuna were feeding there so pulled the lure around and through the school - whack straight away. caught on 8kg line and took a while to tire it out after several runs from the boat. Went looking for the school again but couldnt find them. Lots of flying fish out there water temp varied from 21 - 22 degrees. Saw Heaps of schools of large fish sitting mid-depth but never got a strike from them. even stopped and threw SP's down around them but nothing seemed interes. Weed not much of a problem either only hooked it about 3-4 times over a period of about 2 hours. Bring on the pelagic season!       

With the forecast showing strong easterlies early on and dropping during the day, a full day of seafood sampling was locked in.

Began at 7am at Trigg for a few abalone. 20 minutes in the water and we all had our limit.

Back home for breakfast and then hook up the boat. Launched around 1030 – 11 and headed out with still a stiff breeze behind us.

A couple of pretty easy dives with great vis and plenty of crays and then headed back with a dying easterly about 3pm and about 35kts. Not a bad way to spend a sunday .

Cheers

Brett

Hi guys, went down to club cap on Saturday for a fish. Got there around 4 , decent seabreeze and swell was easy easy to deal with.

Lets start with the positive stuff. Guy 40m up the beach caught about 6 nice tailor all on bait, I managed one myself and my very first on a richter plug, was very happy with that. Now comes the bad part. There was another guy fishing next to the man who caught the tailor, he was there with his wife and kid. Anyway I see him hooked on and after a decent fight his partner manages to "net the fish", that's right netting a fish on the beach.

I found that bit quite funny actually as there was a good chance that it could have snapped his line as she wasn't doing a very good job. Walked over to have a look at what it was and was shocked to see it was a big snapper and unfortunately his knife was already in its head and all the damage had been done.

Didn't want to say anything to him since he already had killed it and im just a young bloke and he probably would tell me to piss off anyway, that really spoilt my trip to see someone killing a fish during a period when its supposed to be protected.

My deckie Tim cut our day short today. Shout 3/0 dual barbed jig hook.........yeeeeeouch!

Hello all,  

I decided to take the bathtub out for a look in the swan this arvo from Pt Walter with Benno.  We headed out from the ramp to quickly learn the battery was flat:/ So much for the new electronics package we were fishing blind! Dropped 4 pots for crabs with tailor for bait with no luck, but one pot dragged and lost, another dragged but recovered in the middle of the channel.  This despite all pots being laid along the south western side of pt walter well outside of the channel. Anyway the real action was trolling for tailor.  We spent bloody hours cruising back and forth for nothing.  Finally as we turned back from Blackwall reach we headed back past Chidley pt.  Benno said he was getting hits but I called it for weed/Bullshit before my rod went off.  

Straight off I gave Ben the tiller and my beer, and once the rod cleared the holder the fight was on.  Fish was peeling off line on port and starboard runs as im trying to tighten drag and clear Ben's line.  First jump and I call it for big F#$@$#@ Tailor, Ben misses this and the next few aerials steering the boat for me.  He is still calling bullshit when he sees the 4th jump and calls it for a massive tailor.  We get it to the side of the boat and all I can think of is that the last time I had that outfit out I was on Logue Brook Dam for Trout and when I tied on the Rapala Xrap the leader felt thin.  

Ben has the net ready but the tailor sees the hull and does a 4 foot backflip at the side of the boat and tailwhips the 8lbs leader.  We see another tailor swipe the hooked one as big as it as the tail swipes the thin leader and the biggest few swan tailor I have ever seen swum away.  Despite heaps more trolling with different lures we didnt get another hookup or even sniff.

I called it for 50+ on the first jump after boating a 48cm last year, but when it was boatside before backflip it was at least 4.5-5" wide in girth.

No photos but Ben clearly saw the fish boatside with the net before it went psycho and said it was the biggest tailor he had ever seen.

Not another touch or even a mark on crab bait. 

Bryan

Hey guys 

I've been having some joy with the mulloway this week and was thinking what with this lovely weather today taking the 4wd and family out any news around Tims thicket or whitehills thanx guys 

Well......I can't stay still for long. Very soon, I headed down to one of my favorite snakehead spot in some distant bkk town to chase after fries mama toman.

The snakehead mama are getting smarter. Each time I have to use different tactic and lures to catch them.

What make the situation worse is that when the baby fries snakehead are small , they will stay near to the bushes which make fishing even more challenging.

As an experience snakehead angler myself, I know my timing and accuracy must be on the dot...

Any mistake I make, I will lose my catch. The mama will dive straight for cover under the bushes if got hooked up or our boat got too near the baby fries.

Watch my video clip for the full actions!!!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDv9ZOSlWl0

My kind of favorite toman fishing terrains..

Photos highlights of the catch...

Razor sharp teeths....

 Hi fellas,

Just wondering if anyone has much luck targeting Yellow Tail Kingies, Tuna, Mackies and Sambos this time of year up in Cervantes?

Any pointers would be appreciated.

Cheers!

 Had a crazy bite like I've never seen. After pulling a skippy on fly A squid went for the fly.

after that there was heaps of squid attacking the fly and each other. Of corse the one time 

U Dont have a squid jig haha. Had too let them eat it than hook them on the small fly ended 

up with 4 And left as it was dark and they were still Attacking the fly :) good times

 been busy out and about all over metro the last few days with the nice weather.

sunday night hit a new spot SOR with a few mates and we landed 4 little dusky whalers on balloons and 20lb gear and droped a 5th.

monday morning did a solo shore dive north of two rocks for a bag full of crays in an hour then got a couple of swan river flatties with a mate all on lures with the best being about 42-45cm. 

wednesday out in the boat behind garden island for a bag limit of big sand whiting before diving for a cray and big KG then picked up a squid off the weed beds.

Heading to Dunsborough for the weekend and was wondering if their are any crabs around in the bay. if so are they on the shore for scooping or do you need a boat with drop nets. if a boat is required how far of shore?

Any info would be appreciated

Started on FFB on Saturday to catch a 60cm Dhufish and a 62cm Silver Drummer. Moved to 6.5m and caught seven Sambos in two hours - largest 106cm. At one stage we had three Sambos on the boat. Got smashed and dropped by several fish in the process. Mate Nic also landed his largest Sambo to date. All the fish were released unharmed (apart from a hole in the mouth).

I flew up to exmouth over the weekend to visit a mate who just moved up there and done some fishing with him. We done a bit of bottom bouncing but mainly trawled. Here's a few of the fish we picked up whilst trawling. The coral trout measured about 76cm and the coronation trout was 63cm. I was very stoked with the coral trout. We picked up plenty of other fish aswell such as red emporer, tuna, spanglies and a massive spanish mackeral.

Last night I got back from a trip to Eiao, in the Marquises Group of islands.

The trip was with a number of other forum members, and there were two boats fishing each day, so it is impossible for me to write a single report on the whole lot – so I’ll include only pics of my fish and leave the others to add their photos and stories to the thread if they are keen.

Despite only fishing for 5 days, I was gone for 11 days due to the travel time required to get to this extremely remote location (a total of 9 flights and roughly 26 hours of sea voyage return).
We were living on a large sailing vessel which we used as a mother ship, making day trips out on the two tenders to fish Eiao and the surrounding islands. It was a jigging/popping trip, with my personal target being a large (30kg+) dogtooth tuna.

The scenery at Eiao is incredible. Severe rockfaces which appear out of the sea, and span 100m or more straight up. Of the 1100 photos that I have from this trip, not one did the place justice – it is truly something that needs to be seen.

The first day was to be a bit of a ‘warm up’ day, so we didn’t cover any large distances from the mothership. Having said that on Eiao, this really isn’t necessary, as some exceptional fish were landed near to the mothership – with some GTs even being taken on popper from the mothership itself.

On this day we tried jigging at some of the deeper grounds in the 80-100m range chasing the big dogtooth that we all badly wanted. Unfortunately, we may have underestimated our opponents. Everybody on my boat hooked up to suspected BIG doggies – but nobody got a fish more than 40m off the bottom. Despite our heaviest tackle and near to locked drags, everyone either got blown away into the structure, or had their assist cords bitten through. This wasn’t going to be as easy as we thought.

We also had a bit of a fish close to the cliffs, were I pulsed some red bass and blue spot trevally on popper, as well as some coronation trout and other assorted reefies on the jig.
Despite the good hook-ups I was a bit concerned by the end of the first day, as no decent fish were landed.

The second day was a bit hotter – with lots of bass on the topwater (but lacking on the GT front) and some really hot jigging action for bass, trout, jobfish and GTs. We found a spot holding lots of doggies out from an island known as ‘little eiao’ (15nm or so from Eiao), but a combination of getting smoked and sharked meant that once again, our boat didn’t land any doggies. The sharks were intense on this day, and I must have lost close to 10 jigs that day alone, getting me scared I’d run out before the trip was over. The other boat had a really great session at the end of this afternoon (including double hook-ups of small to medium doggies on stickbait), but I’ll leave it one of them to add this to the report.

The third day was both my birthday, as well as the best day of fishing I’ve had in my life. The action was flat out from the get-go, with the first fish landed being a big YFT on stickbait by Tom, which I’m sure he’ll add pics of. I jigged another good YFT later in the day, but lost it at the leader so no pics.  The GT jigging action was nuts. I got around 15 of them for the day to around the 115cm (est 30kg) mark, as well as my first three Dogtooth. All those doggies were taken on the same jig in a crazy 60 minute session with double and triple hook-ups of doggies and GTs happening.

On day 4, we went out to a very rarely visited sand cay which was around a 2hr steam from Eiao. This place looked insane, with a vast area of shallow reef which looked like it was going to go off. Both boats landed some GTs on the topwater here, but the place didn’t fire like we thought it would (and like we were told it often does), so we went back near to Eiao where we landed some more nice GTs on the jig.

On the fifth and final day, it was another slow start. I picked up some small reefies on the jig as well as missing a heap of red bass on the casting gear (couldn’t keep the hooks in them!) before we went out to try for the XOS doggie at the deep grounds again. Unfortunately, it was shark central. Heaps of great hook-ups at that spot, but everyone on board got sharked, with only some jobfish and small YFT being landed.

To finish up we went back for an afternoon session at the place we’d gotten the doggies on day 3. Unfortunately I’d had issues with an aftermarket handle on my heavy jig combo (rendering the reel unusable), so was down to using my lighter reel (spooled with PE5) on my heavy rod. This wasn’t an idea setup, and I got blown away on the first two doggies which I hooked, during which time Erin got a nice doggie and Tom had landed a nice GT. Determined to get one last good fish for the trip I re-rigged and dropped again, only to get a cracking great hit on the jig. Line was flying off the reel under full drag and I knew straight away that this was a really good fish. The runs were blisteringly fast and erratic in the dogtooth style, but the thing felt really weighty and I had some doubts as to what it might be.

Eventually this big beasty surfaced, which measured a touch over 150cm to the fork and was estimated by the guide to be around the 47kg mark. I’d gotten what I came for, and was stoked to say the least! The fact that the fish was taken in around 30-35m of water and extremely close to land made it even more satisfying.

There was a wide range of flash gear used on the trip, with a heap of new gear from Temple Reef being tested out, which performed really well. I’ll leave it for the Temple Reef guy(s) to comment further.
In addition to that, my combos used were
Carpenter MH80H, Stella 18,000, PE10
Carpenter CV79/40, Stella 10,000, PE8
Carpenter BC75MHS, Stella 10,000, PE5
Synit Razar 350 ‘White Tiger’, Saltiga 35LD, PE6
Smith AMJ52H, Ocea Jigger 4000P, PE5
Yamaga Blue Sniper 77/3, Stella 5000, PE3 (was a waste of time bringing this in hindsight)