Hey guys just wondering about the weed sitch up at yanchep, planning a trip there and from reading up on it on here it sounds like the weed can be problem. 

Any reports appreciated , cheers 

 Decided to put the boat in last night and have a cruise around Cockburn Sound with a mate to see if we could find some pinkies that people say are there. We launched the boat at 5pm at the small Palm Beach boat ramp and noticed that in the shallows off to the side of the small jetty there was two nice snapper frames sitting in the water perfectly filleted. This immediately had my mate forgetting his launching duties and he was straight into rigging his rods for the snapper we were soon to be catching.  FAIL..... we motored around the sound, we anchored up here and there, we burlied up, we prayed to the fishing gods and all for nothing of any merit. We caught 1 x banjo, 1 x Port Jackson, 1 x small whiting, 1 x chopper tailor, and approx 20 small picker wrasse looking things. To top things off a full corona fell over on my dash and poured its contents over my new phone.

This was my fish snapper fishing trip so I guess it was a case of more homework required for the next trip. Some days you win and some days you don't...

JJ

Met up with SuperPeg & Callum24 for a lure session this morning. We only had a couple of hours together because there were other places we needed to be but the conditions looked good & I just picked up my new Stradic from Oceanside yesterday so was keen to go test it out. It was fairly quiet with only one fish landed between the three of us, fortunately, for me. So this was my first fish on the combo & I'm hoping it's a sign of things to come. Big thanks to SuperPeg for braving the swell & landing it for me.

Hi All
On our way north I called into the Fortescue River mouth to have a look and see if it would be suitable to launch an 8 mtr boat..
Myself and a mate are looking at launching there in October for a trip across to the Montes and thought it best to check it out while going past..
There used to be a cement ramp there, but not any more.. See below pic

It is quite steep and loose stone, ok for launching but would suggest that retrieval would want to be carried out on or near high tide and or have a second tow Vehicle to get you up the bank.

The one thing I did learn very quickly was that the old Grey Nomads that camp there every year don't like it when the ramp gets chewed up... ;-) Bit of a sore point.. LOL

Hope this post helps anyone out that may be looking at a Montes trip and launching from this ramp..

 Fished the e shed and north mole tonight didn't get a bite...anyone have better luck?

Well the weather has been nothing short of "Very Average" and we have had to work hard for a feed, we are currently camped at one of my favorite place's.. Balla Balla (Not everyone's cup of tea though)
So here is a couple of photos of yesterdays trip in the dingy.

First we put our 3 nets in just to try catch a feed of Muddies, the result was 2 x very clean and chocker's of meat crabs.. Dinner was looking better already..

The fishing was a bit slow with mainly small yellow fin bream, some whiting, a small Shark Mackie and a couple of queenies around the 50cm mark, So I decided to jump over the side and this was the end result.. Yummo Coral Trout and Dinner tonight..
And I have done it again, started to fillet it before I thought I would grab a photo.. :-(

We are leaving here tomorrow as the weather is looking crap again and rain on the way, not to mention the 6 mtr high tide which will just about flood our camp spot. Notice the water behind the Vans (Pic taken this morning just before a 5.2 mtr High Tide) 5.9Mtr tomorrow, oh Crap..

Fried in the pan coated with Tandaco fish coating and went down a TREAT..

Not sure on the next camp spot??

Hi Guys,

Went fishing at Floreat Drain this morning and something hit my mulie that I had soaking.  Anyway, after some excitement, I reeled in this.  Can anyone identify this for me, is it a Mulloway?  Was completely stoked as it's my first decent fish that I have caught.  I was jumping around and shouting 'Yeeesssssssss'......luckiliy was on my own :)

By the way, didn't have a tape measure with me but when I got home I measured my knife at 30cm.  Fish was returned to the ocean.

Steve

Has anyone caught any tailor in the river lately?? Went around canning/mount henry area today caught nothing except for 50 blowies 10 of them on twistys WTF!!! Did anyone else have any luck around there today?? All i wanted too is have some fun on chopper tailor :( Cheers

also i got a 24cm blowie did they even get that big?

Went down burns beach late Wednesday arvo and got a nice 41cm tailor, on blues code 34g. Smashed it!!. THEN!!!!! cast again, bail arm flicked back and lure goooooone!!!!!. man was I amped.

A few years ago I met DazSamFishing on Fishwrecked, he was into jigging, me and TimVB wanted to get into jigging, so we invited Daz out for a days fishing. We got along pretty well and Daz is now a bloody good mate! I have learnt a heap about fishing from this bloke, and we have had some truly memorable fishing trips metro, intrastate and overseas.

Unfortunately Daz is heading back to the land of slow talkers (QLD) with his better half Sam (a girl…..) so me and my deckie TimVB got him out for one last fish on the Whaler before he heads off…..and what a memorable day it was…….we are gonna miss you dude, I think you’re gonna miss Perth as well!

A quick jig on the way out on some new ground resulted in a nice dhu to Tim.. Me and Daz “released” the dhu, not entirely with Tims approval, it swam off happy as Larry, and I think it gave us some good karma for what was to come……

Calm conditions greeted us in the depths and after a bit of scouting around, fish were located and down went the gear. Daz was on first, nothing huge, but up came a primo flathead….not sure what model but it looked delicious!

A few nanny’s were landed then came a few rat grey bands to the skipper and Tim suggesting we were in the right territory.

Next drop Daz is on. Hit like a train and after a great battle on full manual wind, Daz lands his first Grey Band Cod. Top effort mate!

My last fishing trip with Daz in Perth....what a day!

Next drop Tim is on big time. Either Tim is a lot weaker than Daz (tick) or this fish was a LOT bigger than Daz’s (tick). After manually fighting the beast for 20 minutes and a lot of sweat and puffing, Tim checks the meters to go…..200……….before Tim has time to reach for the electric cranking lever, I had removed the electric power cable from the reel, which together with heckles from me and Daz, then a lot of encouragement, provided a fair reason for Tim to manual wind the whole way. Great effort mate, a top capture!

The deckies......we now need to fill the third slot.......

Final tally was a full bag of Cat 1 fish.

Daz, it has been a pleasure mate, looking forward to next years annual salmon trip down south already!

 So i made my way down to the mt henry bridge last week saturday for a casual stroll on the canning, armed with the trusty motor oil grub.

I proceeded to walk the sand beaches and in doing so scored about 3 or 4 bream between 25- 30cm.  It only took about 1/2 hour to get all of em

Was pleased considering I slipped of the bridge pylon into waist deep cold water the first moments i got there.

Me and TimVB went out for a last fish with Daz before he heads back to the east coast to live. Here are a  few fish we got. My young bloke seemed impressed.......

theres been numerous mullaway been caught at the jetty lately, and recently a 62cm snapper that me and my mate got at the very end, whats the biggest been caught off the jetty this season?? :)

Just a breif report. The squid are quite thick on the jetty at the moment, no probs bagging out if you balloon some baits. Mulloway have slowed down a bit, we need another good blow to stir them up. Some thumping good tailor are around on the good nights with sizes getting into the 50's. Herring have also been quite large some up around 30cm. Plenty of bait fish out past the bend, a heap of slimy macks out deeper. Several Pink Snapper have been landed in the past month at the end averaging about 5-6 kg but they are not thick and not a usual catch. Crabs are yet to turn up in good numbers.

Saturday shaped up nicely so we headed south rub gunnels with the rockingham deep drop crowd. The trip out in the dark was freaking freezing and i was cursing myself for leaving my gloves at home. With a light easterly it was a quick run to the shelf and on arrival we found very little drift. Perfect!! We sounded out Puka hill but with nothing exciting on the sounder we moved to the 400s and found fish, but thin. Did one drop for a tasty sea perch and was baited on the next and decided to move back to the 250s. There we switched to jigs and it was kaos there after. Some solid reds and pinkies were boated and if you dared jig higher than ten meters of the bottom sambos were all over it. Gave some new custom acid wraps a work out but the stand out tackle for the day was my mates  $60 pelagic extreme spin rod, (with more flat spots than an old volvo) he had us cringing at the shapes it was in but it never failed! He loves it...

Anyways it was a great day on the brine.

Steep Point Report 2013 It was twelve months in the planning and only took a week to expire! But the 2013 Steep Point fishing trip has now been and gone. Five of us this time with only one boat, so it was necessary for one or two to stay on the beach each day. One boat in this remote location is not my ideal scenario so for next year, we have identified a second boat and got a commitment! Friday 7th June Planning is finished and work is done. A after a trip to the Biltong shop in Plaza Arcade to buy ½ a kilo of beef jerky and Dan and I head for my place. The plan is for Andy to pick us up in the morning, hook up the boat and head to Shane’s for the final pack. Dan and I get the boat packed and have a few reds and hit sack. Saturday 8th June Andy arrives early. We hook up the boat, kiss the wife goodbye (I do anyway – Dan and Andy miss out on that), and head for Shane’s. When we arrive Shane and Gary are busy packing the trailer… How the #$*& will it all fit? Its Shane’s first time to the Point, and he gets a ribbing from his wife and kids, “Dad never catches any fish!”, they tells us. “No worries! He’ll catch a fish this week!”, we say. And we’re off. Murchison River crossing is our destination, but not before stopping at every tackle store en route to try an appease my desire to put single hooks on all my lures! All to no avail, I’ll have to do with trebles. Get to Murchison and a packed camp ground with enough time to build a fire, have a bite to eat and some fellowship and cigars before hitting the sack ready for an early start to the Point! http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/812/p8n3.jpg Sunday 9th June Up before dawn, pack up and away. Great sunrise through a heavy fog. Breakfast of Champions (bacon and egg sandwich and coffee) at Overlander, fuel up and away we go. Andy and me towards Denham with the boat, Shane, Gary and Dan with the trailer towards Shelter Bay. Andy and I arrive at Shelter Bay about two hours after the others and find the camp all set up. Bonus! A bit of beach fishing and Shane, despite the mockers being put on him by his family, lands the first decent fish of the week, a long tom! Fillet steak, snaggers and salad for dinner and of course, fellowship! http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/593/jenx.jpg/ http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/845/zqp2.jpg/ Monday 10th June Gary, who is suffering from the flu, and Shane choose to stay on the beach. Dan, Andy and I head out trolling along Dirk Hartog, before bottom bashing for a while and heading in. There was a fair bit of excitement when we had a triple hook up. Dan and I hit instantaneously and Andy on his retrieve. I landed mine singlehandedly and straight into the esky. I then gaffed and landed Dan’s, and again into the esky. While all this was happening, patient Andy was just keeping his fish close to the boat waiting for someone to gaff it. As Dan reached over with the gaff, it spat the hooks and lived to fight another day! Tally for the day is 2 Spaniards, and a Mangrove Jack (this being a first on my boat). We released 3 pink snapper, a couple of Baldchin and a few Charlie Court cod. We also released something we didn’t recognised, but after referring to the fishing guides, decided it was probably a brown stripe snapper. In the evening, more fellowship and a nice Japanese curry made by Dan. http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/266/0j9b.jpg/ Tuesday 11th June I slow day on the water, only one Spanish mackerel landed and a Baldchin and an unknown type of cod released. Conducted an experiment when dumping the carcasses out in the bay…. Stopped the boat, turned off the motor, didn’t throw anything over the side. But three big bronzies showed up within 12 seconds, looking for a feed. Later in the week I got some amateur underwater video of them. Attached the camera to the boat hook and stuck it over the side… http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/845/mzie.jpg/ Wednesday 12th June Myself, Dan, Andy and Shane head out on the boat. Gary is still suffering the flu and happy to rest up at camp and may be find a rock or two to fish from. Dan lands a little schoolie, that will be dinner later in the week. Then we head out deep, 60 – 70 metres and pick up one sized Baldchin, and a couple smaller that were successfully released. Went back to trolling, Shane seemed keen for the boat to be moving again…. We trolled for a bit longer and Andy landed two Spaniards and Dan landed one. Shane was yet to land a big fish on the boat and was desperate to do so. http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/14/5qic.jpg/ Hmmm, dinner was spaghetti and meat sauce (Andy style!). A few drops of rain started to fall, but lot more was on its way (unbeknown to us). Thursday 13th June I could feel the rain coming in the end of my sway for most of the night, but my towel hung over the end overcame that. At about 6am, I decided it was a bit too much rain and got up to see how things were in our kitchen gazebo. Hmm, is that Dan lying on the ground in the kitchen looking very wet?? Yes, and his tent looks more like a paddling pool! Bonk bong! Waterproofing required for the kitchen and Dan’s tent heads for the bin. A couple of tarps and things are looking better. Just need a dry out! The dawn brings some drier conditions and Andy, Gary, Shane and I head out on the boat. I am determined for Shane to land a big fish, so it is agreed that if my rod if hit first, he will take it. And that is what happened. Shane lands his first Spaniard and then another on his rod! Two in a day, he is a happy camper! Now it’s time for some bottom bashing. Starting near Monkey Rock, we start a series of drifts across the drop off. Eventually we hit the spot where the coral trout are (all undersized and released). But we keep one pinkie, a sweet lip and another mangrove jack. We release half a dozen baldies, four coral trout, some Charlie Courts, black snapper and a couplke of pinkies. It’s time to finish off with some trolling. Off goes Shane’s reel, screaming. He says to Gary, “you take this one”. The fish almost spools him. A couple of jumps, and a few sideways runs…. Hmm this is not a Spaniard, could it be a sailfish of some kind. Some more big runs… And when we get it to the side, it is a really good sized wahoo, about 1.4 metres! Gary has the fish of the week. A nice fish curry for dinner and a game of ‘dice’. The rain starts again… and the neighbours fire up their karaoke machine??? We struggle to bring the bare essentials, they bring a karaoke machine!!! http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/836/qsnf.jpg/ Friday 14th June Weather is shit, so we decide to pack up and come home a day early. All good for me and Andy, we are leaving by boat. And we do. Only to find out later the road was closed and Dan Shane and Gary spent another night at Shelter Bay… would have been ok, had Andy and I not taken ALL of the fishing rods with us…. Next year? Planning has already started.

 Headed out at first light .Hit the first spot before the sun came up and the fish were on the bite.Getting 6 dhuies in the first few drifts.all returned .Moved around a few different spots finding dhuies,sambos,harliquin,break sea,and other small fish.Had a few whales playing close by.in all a great day and some good conditions .total fish for the day 

17 dhuies up to 7kg no big ones. 

3 Sambos

3 break sea

2 harliquin

1 flathead and redthroat

 The weather man got it spot on for once and Sunday out of Two Rocks was some of the best conditions we've had for awhile. We had a pretty slow start and only managed a couple of small dhuies before deciding to move out a little further. Proved to be a good move and first drift both my mates hooked up resulting in a nice baldy and then 10mins later a fat chunk of a dhuie. Was quite strange with f*!k all wind on the surface but the current taking our baits quite quickly on the bottom and making it hard to hold bottom. Ended up drifting between 1 and 2 knots while out wide. Managed a couple of blackarse to add to the esky before heading in to join the que to get out of the water. Dhuie went 94cm but was super fat and made an otherwise quiet day. Anyone else find it a bit quiet out there yesterday?

mackrel-arrived at bout 10.30 unpacked and in the pub for 11.30 to meet a couple mates few beers and a countery and decided to go balloonin this was the resulte of my first cast balloon bout 250m-300m taken on a slab of tailor red white skirt alvey 50lb line it went 140cm long and est 15-20kg? what do u recon it would weigh

tailor-spinin for tailor hard work the first week but turned on in the second with plenty of lost and released fish, that ledge is hard work on low tide to get them in fav lure livlely lure trembler blue silver

mulloway- mrs got her first decent mulla in gero wear the car shit itself on the way home so we had to spend another night fishing bugger it went 109cm 10kg gutted and gilled my mate in the photo is joe reef who bailed on a night fishing at rotto to come tow us back and was rewarded with a nice mulla to stoked

plenty of bust off weather it was at the jetty breaming or sharks at whittacara creek never a dull moment when we had our lines in 

. 

 went out of mindarie sat morning to the usual spot behing the reef about 10km out and caught the two king george and dropped a sand dhuie at the boat spuin he was about 60cm i got one 63cm same spot about 3 weeks ago. And caught about 7 squid which i always get. Is there anyspots closer to pick up dhuies? Im just too scared to fish in shallowe water because of the million wrass you always get 

After many long days sounding the depths, numerous drops to the depths and cranking back up, tankers full of petrol, a deep drop tackle budget that would support a small Africa nation and even the odd tear, we finally cracked the deep drop.

Myself, my main deckie TimVB and Langa headed out on Sunday to what can only be described as the best conditions I have been out in for ages......simply a sensational day, with glass off conditions out at the shelf for the best part of the day.  We ran two electric reels, with a back-up third Stella 20k with jig.

After a lot of sounding and quite a number of greeneye and spot changes, the "tide" started to turn around lunch with a few red bight fish coming up from the depths, then a few knifejaw.

Langa was first to hook up, and by the look on his face, the bend in the broomstick and the protest from the electric reel, it was big. Then Tim hooks up, double hook-up, yehah! After a few minutes Langas pulls the hooks, very dissapointed, but all attention turns to Tim, who is loosing PE6 at a rate of knots. It was a dead heat for 5 minutes and the fish put up a much better fight than any of us expected.

The fish had no bands in the photos but once back on land, very obvious bars identified it as a grey band cod I think.  Great reward for all our hard work!

After we landed the fish, a few dollies came arounf the boat to check us out.....in mid JUNE!!!! Landed one on a soft plastic, lost another as it bit through the leader, and then got a dhu on the way home. Made for one epic day!

Launched Saturday at 10.30am from Port Geographe marina, had a look around for some ground in the bay or should I say desert LOL. After finding a few small lumps we ended up with a Queen snapper, Pink snapper, Dhuie,Black Arse and a leather jacket, and plenty released, Then on the way back in stopped at the end of the Jetty and picked up some nice tailor and a few squid, a good mixed bag.

My lad Josh got bitten badly by a Tailor, his thumb wouldn't stop bleeding!! I think he just wanted to copy his mate who had the same thing happen to him the week before. 

We Caught a few Gurnards as well, all released. One very lightly stabbed me in the thumb, I'll not let that happen again, bloody painful, I wouldn't want a deep stab from one. Does anyone eat these Gurnards? According to the ID section there not bad eating.

Sorry no pics, I'll get more organised and start to post a few.

Gav

 G'Day,

Put the boat in at Bent Street ramp in Warnbro Sound on Saturday to check the area out.  It was the first time in Warnbro Sound so my girlfriend and I weren't sure where to go or what we could catch there. We decided that a cast over the weed for some squid wouldn't hurt and were rewarded with three squid for dinner. It took us two hours of drifting to get them and we only had mullie coloured squid jigs. I think next time I will take along a better variety of jig colours to try and produce a few more. However in saying that, the three we caught were enough for us and we were happy just to be out on the boat and enjoying the day. 

Cheers

 Went out from woodies pt with the boys for a squid around lunch.  Got into 5 decent ones, a cuttlely and a few herring.  Chad however learnt that when using a hand line for squid and it is directly under the boat, its not a good idea to lean out over the edge to see it come up.

One of the best I have seen in a while!

Just thought i'd post up a bit of a report and some pics of the last trip I did with a few mates, works colleagues and brother in-law up to the Mid Coast section of WA.

It was going to be a bit of a come as you go trip, with us all starting and finishing our trips at mostly different times, but with most of the time us up there together. Basically we ranged from Port Denison all the way up to Port Gregory and fished as much as we could inbetween those towns depending on where the fish were biting or where we thought they might be biting. For the last section of the trip my mate brought his tinnie up so there was to be a bit of boat fishing done too.

For the first few days(Wed, Thur, Fri) it was all Landbased fishing. Our general routine of finding some nice looking onshore reefs to cast lures for Tailor in the morning, spending the middle of the day driving and looking for the night fishing spot then finding a nice suitable looking gutter to fish into the night for Mulloway. The first couple of days proved to be quite slow with me and two of my mates only managing to get 6 Tailor in the mornings all around 65-70cm, with the biggest going 71cm and 6 Mullas all about 60-65cm during the night fishing sessions. Add to that some Wobbys, and Rays :(

By Friday lunch the other 5 guys rocked up in their four 4wds and one boat in tow and our anticipation of getting a fish out in the boat had us excited. So Friday night was spent with a half arsed attempt at beach fishing until the weed moved in(caught one 40cm tailor) then a hasty drive back along the beach, before the tide could cut us off and preparing the boat for the next day.

Saturday started with an early morning LB tailor session. We managed to land 5 tailor averaging 65cm with me also getting the biggest for the trip being 79cm. It was then back to camp to have some breakie and to grab the boat. the Boat fishing started with a beach launch and out to throw some lures for tailor on the just offshore reefs. This proved to be a lot more productive than the LBased fishing had been, with instant hook-ups and 11 fish hooked and 8 landed in about 45mins. The average size was only about 60cm with the biggest landed for the session 67cm, but we dropped two boatside that would have been pushing the 80cm mark. Was cursing my mate for forgetting his landing net :P After we all had our tailor fix we left them on the bite to head out and try our luck at demersals. It wasn't to far to travel before we started getting our first ones. Undersized Dhui's and lots of them! Fishing only 6-12m of water all swam back quite easily. Thankfully it wasn't to long till one of my mates finally hooked onto something more substantial! After a brief fight(only 7m deep) up popped my mates second ever legal Dhui and first on a SP. Ended up going 73cm. On the next drift the lucky bugger managed to get another Dhui, 51cm. So he caught his third ever legal Dhui, but with the 73cm already in the esky we made the call to release this one. After that Dhui the sea breeze started to come in so the call was made to start heading in and try a few spots on the way back in. Well a few of those spots were found to just be harbouring hoards of NW Blowies so we thought better than sacrificing SP and metals to their bolt cutting ways and headed in.

Sunday pretty much followed the same format as the previous day with us starting with throwing lures for Tailor before heading out after Demersals. Again the tailor were there and hot on the bite. As the previous day most were around the 60cm mark with a few bigger ones around 65-70cm. Hooked 10 in total and landed 6 in about 30 mins. at one stage my mate actually had two big greenbacks on his bullchop at once. After our casting fix we headed out to find some demersals again. This day proved to be very slow indeed, with just more hoards of NW blowies being encountered and again heaps of undersized Dhuis. The days only notable capture was my mate christening his new rod and reel combo(Saragosa/MM Max Rod) with his first ever Sambo and the biggest fish he's ever caught. Was priceless watching this Sambo make him piss in about 8m of water. Soon the sea breeze started to move in again so the call was made to head back in earlier and have another tailor session before pulling in for the day. Managed to get another 4 tailor off 6 casts averaging 60cm.

Monday again was the same script as the previous two days with a Tailor session to start with. 9 hooked and 6 landed again all around the 60cm mark. This day turned out to be calmer than the previous two so moving about was comfortable indeed. Thankfully we were also blessed with not having as bad a problem with the hoards of NW blowies we had been having the previous two days. We managed to catch a few undersized Dhuis, before one of the lads hooked onto something with some decent weight and heavy slow thumps on it. We called it for a Dhui straight away and sure enough after a brief fight(only 8m deep) up popped my mates first ever legal sized Dhui! It measured 71cm and you couldn't wipe the smile off his face. We spent a bit more time trying different spots out but for not much else other than a couple of NW Blowies and more undersized Dhuis. It really surprised me that over the three days boat fishing we hadn't caught any Pinkies, Baldies, or Spangled Emperor, all usual capture I have caught there in previous years. In saying that I had never seen so many undersized Dhuis there as we had been pulling up this year. Most of these undersized Dhuis we were catching were between 40-50cm so a lot weren't too far off legal.

Tuesday was the pack up and head home day so it started with an early morning tailor pop from the land and we managed to get 4 with the biggest going 68cm.

Was an great trip for me and I think the best thing about it all is I had all my mates up with me, most of whom had never been to this region before or had never fished it the way I showed them too. I think I spent a majority of my time watching them fish, teaching them, driving the boat and taking pics. Such a great feeling getting your mates onto good fish. Needless to say we are already planning our trip back next year, but I might bring my big boat up next year :)

Thanks for reading, Buz.

*The photo of my mate walking out in the water on the shallow reef is him retrieving my lure. I lent him my rod to cast for tailor, he hooks one but then drops it but forgets to keep winding. On lure stuck on reef and my mates going for a wade! Hahahahaha. He did get it back from me though and said the swim woke him up a bit :P

 Had 2 good days over the weekend! 2 great feeds aswell!:)

 10 miles out and bugger me this jerk sneeks up on us .Anyone know who he is .Was very abusive and was throwing bait at us .Even pulled a couple of dhuies up just to give us the shits.

G'day Fellas

Just a quick report. Me and a couple mates headed out to the west end of rotto, did a bit of trolling around the chicken run for no reward. The sounder on the boat then decided that it wasn't going to work anymore, lucky the GPS still worked. So it was old school fishing, just using the charts to find some ground. Found a nice drop behind Rotto and started drifting. Did alright considering we had no sounder, ended up with 3 nice Break Sea Cod (and a couple undersized), a nice baldy, 5 or 6 undersized Dhu fish and about the same in Pink snapper and some Emperor, which we think were blue lined emporer. We kept one of the emperor released about 10 more of them, the only reason this one was kept was the condition of the fish, swallowed the hooks real deep and was dead as a door nail when we tried to chuck him back. The Sargent Bakers were pretty thick at times too, probably would have got 20 of them between us, some of them were big buggers too.

All in all a good day out on the water and goes to show you don't need all the nice shiney electronics to find some good fish. We didn't get any monster trophy fish, but still managed a quality feed.

Hey guys just got back from an amazing trip to Exmouth fishing with Josh from Onstrike Charters, as usual he put us onto some great fish.

After watching the weather report like a hawk for weeks seeing nothing but lots of wind and swell it cleared up just as we arrived with light winds and hardly any swell making for some great conditions. The afternoon before the charter it glassed off and we decided to buy some cheap spin rods and head down to the point to flick a few lures off the rocks in hopes of some queenies. We each landed a few small queenies and had some good fun before Roger hooked into something more substantial - a short fight and a bit of hopping around the rocks later and he guided in a nice golden trevally on his el cheapo spin combo. A great start to the trip!

First morning onboard Onstrike II as soon as we got out behind the reef at tantabiddi I couldn't believe how much bait was around, at some points we where surrounded by tuna bust ups the size of football fields in all directions! The ocean was literally boiling with fish at times. With that much bait around we knew there had to be some big fish lurking!

First up we decided to troll some deep divers and each boated a couple of smaller model spanish mackeral, a good start to the day! After getting a couple of spaniards each over the morning we moved on and decided to try some vertical jigging after lunch for trevally. Great fun and we all caught and released some nice Brassy Trevally using light gear that really gave the arms a good stretch. We spent the afternoon landing all shapes and sizes of Trevally on jig also hooking into some unstoppables before finally wearing ourselves out as the sharks started to move in so we made the decision to call it a day and head in.

New day and a new goal, after seeing all that bait around the day before we decided to bring out the heavy gear and troll some skirts for billfish hoping something big was taking advantage of all these bait schools. It wasn't long before we had a solid hit and a good run, a few minutes later and a close tangle with a hungry shark and we had our first fish of the morning in the boat - a nice dolphin fish sporting a few battle scars from its close call with the tax man.

Back on the troll again and looking for something bigger, a few quiet hours passed and just as we where thinking it had all shut down the rod buckled over and the drag screamed. A blistering first run! We where all initially calling it for a billfish but after the long first run with no jump we where not so sure now as it slowed its pace. After a good 10 minute battle we had a nice Wahoo on board. After bleeding it out and letting it settle for a few photos we decided to see how much it weighed, it pulled the lie detector down to a solid 17kg - great fish!

With a nice dolphin fish and a solid wahoo on board it was time for a billfish! Over the next 5 hours trolling we had 5 black marlin and a huge sailfish appear in the spread but none would commit to hitting the skirts properly. They where just checking them out and playing with them resulting in an amazing 6 billfish raised but none landed. Josh was not to be beaten and assured us with a change of tactics we would come back the next day and really nail them. 

The next morning and last day of the trip we decided to anchor up and chase some hopefully bigger spaniards on stick baits and poppers in the morning before having another go at the billfish. We set the anchor, set out a little burley trail and started throwing some stick baits and poppers around. It wasn't long before I had an awesome strike on my popper right at the back of the boat, the spaniard came flying clean out of the water and was swimming through the air towards us with my popper wedged firmly in its mouth. An awesome sight, it almost looked like it was going to land in the boat! It hit the water and screamed off at top speed. After a solid fight I had my first spaniard on a popper in the boat!

A small break for some morning tea and a couple more casts before another great surface strike on the popper, I was on again! Another spaniard hit the deck. Having never caught a spaniard on popper I was stoked to have landed back to back mackies on poppers. Was really cool seeing the big surface hits and a lot more fun than catching them on the troll!

Time for the billfish! Seeing as most of the billfish we had seen the previous day where smaller models Josh made the call to bring out the lighter spin gear and troll skipbaits with circles for a better chance of hooking up and landing one. We set up the spread and headed off with high hopes as it was still early in the day and we had seen plenty of action the day before... unfortunately for us that same action from the day before was nowhere to be seen. We trolled from around 10am through till 4:30pm constantly surrounded by bait schools and tuna bust ups but with no action to be seen. Late in the afternoon we had a big sailfish followed by another small black marlin appear in the spread for a look but neither where hungry.

4:30pm of the last day approached and with our hopes all but shot Josh made the call to hold out for an extra 15 minutes, just in case! What followed can only be described as epic and something I'll never forget. I dont have all the footage / pics just yet and think it deserves its own thread so I will put a link below hopefully by the time you get through reading this!

Stay tuned! :)

Edit: Here is the link!

http://fishwrecked.com/forum/500lb-blue-marlin-30lb-spin-gear

Hey FW people..

My first real report post. I could've done one before but didn't think that a whole bunch of sand whiting caught was much to report on. Anywayyyyy.. here's some squid I caught from South Mole this late afternoon/evening
The cuttlefish was from a trade I got from my friend, he didn't want it so he took one of my small squids and I took his cuttlefish. :)

The big squid has a 20cm hood, and wow it was massive!.. Gave a real good pull and fight which I enjoyed. I thought my rod was going to snap when I lifted it up!

PS* This is my first time squidding properly and I'm very happy with the results.. Plus it was good fun, which is the main thing!