Hey guys, been heaps of fish getting about around my area of Mandurah. 

Heres a few pics. Got my Skippers ticket the other day so its awesome shooting out from our canal house and trolling for Tailor or flicking surface lures for Whiting and Herring :)

Cheers

I started making my own Stingers for my Whiting lures, works a treat!!

First Metro Mulloway on Lure

 Anybody know if the water temps any higher at jurien? With whispers of mackie in metro was thinking of heading towards jurien presumably if they are here then they would be up there?

Hi guys just returned from southern Oman a couple of weeks ago. Biggest GT was around 65kg. Enjoy the pics.

  Hey all

long time no post, just a quickie and will update and add photos tomorrow at the airport when im bored sh**less!

Been fishing for the last 5 days, involving 3 days of heli fishing through out the aranga atiki ( i think its called), and through some areas im not aloud ot disclose.

Had one of the most memorable fishing experiences of my life, was fishing a deep pool and first cast with a nymph through the only drift in the pool resulted in my first doulbe digit fish. A rainbow just weighing in just a tadd over 10 pounds. Was stoked! but that wasnt the best part of the day, that afternoon we came across a pool, with a serious mayfly hatch starting and had my first ever session on dry fly. While standing and watching from a far we counted 13 different fish rising, at different sections of the pool. These werent small fish, and we hooked all 13 of them (landed 9), picking off the ones at the back and mooving forward. The smallest fish caught went 7 pounds with the largest between up to 9,5 pounds. (4 were in this weight range).

we have some stunning photos and ill update the report more tomorrow with a day by day little summary.

Back in perth tomorrow, im over the rain/snow and cold weather bring on some sun and some crays!

brett

 Heard of a lt of boaties getting them, any chance of us LB fishos getting into an and where?

Thanks

Acipenser, a genus of sturgeon, are magical creatures. Long-lived, slow growing and ancient, these great fishes have suffered assault from humans across Canada. Development of ravines degraded water quality while channelization, dredging and damming contributed to loss of habitat and spawning site. In Ontario, the once plentiful Lake Sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) had suffered a dramatic and rapid decline due to overfishing. Only in Northern Ontario do pockets of Lake Sturgeon continued to survive in sustainable (and even overpopulated) numbers. Southern Ontario Lake Sturgeon are rare if not of mythical status. Here and there, reports of the odd sturgeon were caught at the Lower Niagara River, the French River, Lake Nipissing, Ottawa River and the St. Lawrence River. The simple fact that these wonderful gentle giants are so rare had us jaw dropped for what had unfolded over the weekend.



In the spring, I visited my friend Eli as he helped me accomplished my first Greater Redhorse. He had mentioned, under a quiet breath, that he knows of a fall opportunity for constant channel catfish with a possibly of a special whiskered bycatch. He suggested a visit in mid-October to “try” for my first Lake Sturgeon.

We treated these animals with utmost respect by gentle handling, short photography session and an unrushed, careful release. We used heavy gear to bring these fish quickly to hand such that they are in prime condition for release. We kept the fish in the water at all times possible except for a quick lift for a picture. In all cases the sturgeon swam away strong as soon as we put the back into the river.

My recent fishing protégé, Michael, had been quietly expanding his own lifelist. Looking for someone to share the adventure (and costs LOL), I invited Michael on this quest for the mystical creature. There were also additional target species that Michael could benefit on this trip, including walleye, sauger and redhorse species. What unfolded was nothing short of amazing.

On Friday, we left Toronto for the land unknown. After a very long drive, we finally arrived at our promise land. The weather was threatening with strong wind and heavy rain. The wind reminded gusty and the rain came down steadily. Adorned in rain gear, we struggled to fight the wind and driving rain to set up camp. In anticipation for a long night of tough fishing, gear and food were well prepared, if not over prepared.

We finished set up by late afternoon. Perhaps the Fish Gods were favouring our quest as the rain stopped not long after we began fishing. The water level had risen a bit and the current was rather strong. Our terminal tackle choice also had to consider the amount of sticks, leaves and grass that drift down this ever-moving conveyor belt of water as it flow southeastward toward the Atlantic Ocean. We were using heavy freshwater rods, large baitrunner spinning reel or conventional reel with a clicker, and heavy mono or braid line. Although Michael and Eli used 2oz sinkers, I preferred a 3oz bank sinker to anchor the line on the muddy and sandy bottom. Even so, a clump of eel grass often entangled the line and dragged the rig downstream. Since we were after channel catfish and remaining hopeful for the right kind of bycatch, we used whole nightcrawler to entice our whiskered friends. We used clip on bells to help signal bites in the darkness. In addition, we borrowed a couple of rod pod and bite alarm from Andrea for this event since we were prepared to fish three straight nights to accomplish our mystic goals. The loud alarms were our insurance policy in case we felt asleep at 4am and the mythical creature decided to bite.



Fishing was fairly slow on Friday afternoon. I started the action with a medium perch. Michael bested me an hour later with our target Channel Catfish.



Just as the light was fading, Michael was checking his rig when something felt like a snag during mid retrieve. The “snag” magically turned into a Silver Redhorse that didn’t fight much on Michael’s rig. Michael was beaming since this was his first Silver Redhorse.



Once dark, we started to catch a few more channel catfish. Most were in the 1lb range and not very photogenic. While waiting for something bigger, Michael had a small bite that turned into his first ever Walleye.



A little later, Michael was reeling in his line to check bait when he noticed his rig was not coming in smoothly. Indeed, at the end of the line was the smallest Burbot I’ve ever seen. We did not expect to catch any Burbot here and it was a welcoming surprise for Michael as he checked off one more species!



Action was pretty lame for me since they were mostly small bites with the odd channel catfish. By 8pm, my friend Eli arrived and proceeded to put on a clinic. He set up on his favourite rock and quickly caught some better channel catfish in the 2-3lb range. At about 10pm, he had this knowing but relaxed stance as he held the rod in hand to sense a steady, vibrating bite. When the hook set finally came, the rod doubled over and a great fish surged. Somewhere in the darkness, we heard a sizeable breach as the fish identified itself. Yes…this is our target “bycatch”. Michael and I held our breath as the mythical creature soon came to colour in the shallows. I had the honour to tail this wonderful juvenile, being careful of the sharp scutes on the tail and back of this young specimen.



Michael and I were hopeful about our prospect. Every strong bite we received appeared to be the “right kind”, but we were disappointed a few times when channel catfish revealed themselves. Eli, being the sturgeon whisperer that he is, hooked up to another mythical creature an hour later. This fish jump in the distance and we already knew it was bigger than the last fish. However, when the fish jumped close to shore and sounded like an air dropped cinder block, we knew this was no baby.

Wow! This one is just about mature.



We started pestering Eli for information. Were we missing some subtle technique in bait presentation? Were we fishing at the wrong depth? Should we aim for a certain structure in this large flow body of water? Apparently, Eli said it was just a random shot of luck. Somehow, after the entire weekend, Michael and I still cannot be convinced that it was dumb luck.

At about 11:30pm, Eli had to leave. Michael and I stayed behind and got ready to settle in for the long night. We had a scattering number of hits where most were small channel catfish. It was not until 1am when Michael received a sizzling run and a confirming jump. Yes! Michael had accomplished a feat of mythical proportion!



To be completely honest, I was a little jealous. Before this trip, Michael and I agreed that whoever caught the first sturgeon would relinquish all future bites to the unaccomplished angler, such that our cooperative fishing aimed to maximize our respective chance for each of us to catch this wonderful creature. Now it was all up to me to man two rods.

A couple of times, slightly bigger channel catfish would get us excited. There were even ones that would thrash on the surface and had us fooled.



We were planning to fish the entire night. However, rain and lightning soon spoiled our party and we had to pack and sat the storm out in the truck for an hour. Well, we took the opportunity to get an hour of shuteyes.

Return back to the shore at 5am, we continued to catch a few channel catfish. Again, these larger channel cats had us hoping they were the right kind.





This is what happened when a channel catfish spine poke you in the finger…dropped LOL.



Soon, the day broke and the bite slowed. I did find a fine specimen of a Silver Redhorse that made me rather happy.



This Silver Redhorse had an unwanted hitchhiker. I often say there are no ugly fish…but the Sea Lamprey quickly changed my mind.



Kind of a cute face I guess...



…but lips no one would want to kiss!



I debated whether to count the Sea Lamprey as a new species on my list. You can’t fair hook a lamprey, so you can never target them and fair hook them. But what if you had a live fish on your hook and the lamprey was attached? Hm…
By 8am, we had already been up for 26 hours except for the short hour nap. We decided to call it a “day” and crashed at Michael friend’s house.



At 2pm, we woke up once again ready to fish. We explored some areas for a sauger but there were none to be found after 2 hours of fishing. The small Smallmouth Bass, a couple of big Rockbass and a couple of Pumpkinseed Sunfish kept us from getting bored, but we were yearning for more.

Finally, we decided it was time to return to our magic land at 6pm. With our bellies filled, we set up once again with the understanding that all bites are mine. However, Michael did manage to add another new species to his list, one that even Eli in his 12 years of fishing had never seen in person out of this body of water. The Yellow Bullhead is the least numerous of the three bullhead species in the region. Encountering one is a rare event. This was turning into an even more mythical trip!



I soon took every single hit including another wonder Silver Redhorse, among a few smattering of channel catfish.



Eli once again arrived at 8pm. After setting up, we sat around chatting. Eli got up to look into the darkness as I stared skyward admiring the constellations. Our of the corner of my eye, I saw a bright streak descended and disappeared behind Eli’s head.

“Shooting star!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah, a bright one too.” Eli confirmed.

I swiveled my head toward the southern sky to wonder if I could find the origin of this celestial event. I just happened to look in the right direction when a second meteorite (or perhaps space junk) burned up brightly in the atmosphere.

“Another one! You know what I had wished for, right?”

“Haha, I think I had an idea.” Michael chuckled.

As soon as he finished his sentence, the bells on my rod shook with two violent rings and the bite alarm immediately beeped with a furious tone. The fish was already taking line out of the baitrunner on the hit. I grabbed the rod with lightning speed and the rod turned into a full arc. Woah!

I felt three big thumping headshakes as the fish ran off on the first run. Before I could even control the fish, it had already run into Eli’s line to my right. We were both fishing with braid and this turned into the scariest fight I had in a long time. My nerves were a big mess as I tried to play the fish gingerly to avoid any extreme rubbing of our tangled braids. In the dark, it was difficult to determine which line was over and which line was under, especially when the intersecting point was way out far. As if this was not difficult enough, my easing of the fight allowed the fish to run into Michael’s line. Now we had 2 lines of 50lb braid crossed with a 30lb mono. My chance of landing this fish looked more bleak by the second. Fortunately, the gentle hand on the rod helped to bring the fish close to shore rather successfully. With the tangle within headlamp illumination range, Eli and I managed to free our respective line. Michael’s line was still crossed with mine, but at least now I had more control of the fish. We were still wondering if this was a big channel catfish at this point since the fish did not jump and I couldn’t really feel the fight as well with the tangled line. Eli grabbed the net and got ready. He soon sound excited when he had first to glimpse the shark like tail of the sturgeon. With a little bit of tricky maneuvering of two lines, we finally had the sturgeon in the purse.

As soon as the fish was landed, I said to Michael and Eli “After seeing the shooting stars all I said was ‘Lake Sturgeon, Lake Sturgeon’. Unreal!!!”

Truly, I am not a very superstitious person, and wishing upon a star was often done humourously. As if catching a Lake Sturgeon was not spectacular enough, I managed to “wish” up my first sturgeon with double shooting stars. This made the catch even more unbelievable as this magical circumstance was likely once-in-a-lifetime, happily-ever-after fairy tale!



Stardust Sturgeon…my first Lake Sturgeon. (Acipenser fulvescens)…species #275 with a story to be told for a lifetime.



Simply, simply unbelievable…speechless…jaw dropped…



I was so fulfilled after that everything else was just cherry on top. We caught a few more small channel catfish when Eli almost had a rod yanked into the river. These sturgeons are not shy at all!



Again, Eli left at 10:30pm not long after catching his sturgeon. Michael and I stayed a little later until 2am for a few more channel catfish including this nice one by Michael, and I got a nice Brown Bullhead.





The next morning, we picked up Eli at 10:30am to explore a river for River Redhorse. This is a species I’ve hunted for the last couple of years but yet to accomplish. The river looked primed and according to the fishery report, good number of them had been collected in the river in the spring and in the fall at this time of year. However, after a day of trying, we ended up with a measly perch for each person. I’ll have to return again next spring when the River Redhorse congregate in the shallow riffles for their procreating events.

Eli had a dinner arrangement before he could join us for the last evening. Michael and I started early to find a very slow bite. In fact, we were pestered by small fish that proficiently nipped away our bait. If the small fish were not biting, it was likely crayfish that kept stripping our hooks bare. When Eli arrived, we only had a small walleye and two channel catfish to show for. The small fish were such a pest that Michael caught a rock bass that pulled the clicked and pulled drag. We all thought it was a decent size catfish on the hit.

However, in true form, Eli came to show us just how it was done. A little under an hour after he arrived, Eli noticed that his line went slack and he tightened the line into yet another mythical creature. There is no way you can convince me that it was just dumb luck. Eli has to be doing something right!



It was an exceptionally slow night. Perhaps the fish we well fed on Friday night and they were content. Even the ever-present catfish failed to keep us constant company. By 11am, Eli called it a night. Michael and I persisted until 2am hoping for one last sturgeon but it was just not to be. In truth, I had rather preferred it this way since my one and only Lake Sturgeon would put on more of an exclamation mark in my angling history. The only real exciting catch after Eli left was Michael’s second ever Burbot. Burbot often hug bottom and this one was infested by leeches. We tried to help the Burbot, but the leeches would not let go.





Overall, the weekend of fishing was nothing short of fairy tale epic proportion. For such a difficult to find creature, Eli had this spot dialed in and we just happened to hit the conditions just right. Michael and I were both delighted that each of us had checked off the Lake Sturgeon with a respectable specimen and I was even happier that Michael managed to catch 4 extra new species. We caught enough Channel Catfish to feel several families, but we decided to release all of them. They were truly fun to fish for, but for a total cost of under $100 for the weekend, there is nothing remotely close I would trade for such an experience for that price.

Mate and I went to our usual Tailor spot Sunday night.  It has been a long time since we had a good tailor session and both have been waiting for the weather to warm up for our next productive session. 

I was quietly confident after seeing the conditions; chilly southerly, decent swell with high tide just after dark.  My assumptions also supported by tides4fishing.com  ...But i've been let down before!

But this evening hopefully is the first of many solid Summer tailor sessions.  First fish came in as anticipated, just as it got dark!  It wasn't our typical 'hot' session where it would be a hook-up a cast, the fish decided that they would spread themselves out over about 1.5hrs. 

The tailor shut down around 8ish and we had 8 in the esky ranging from 38-44cm.  Other fishos on the other side had some big herring and a tailor or two.

I slid out a fresh tailor head as i was gutting and scaling but that was untouched. Most likely because i have no idea what i'm doing when it comes to slide baiting.  It's something i'm looking to get into this season in hope of catching my first toothy. 

All caught on my default rig of 4/0 gangs with a cork, and a running star sinker above the leader.  A little bit of weed around but has been clearing as the days go.

Happy to have finally gotten into some good tailor myself... sick of you blokes and your awesome river tailor sessions!!!!

hey anyone got any crabs yet? thinking it's a bit early yet for consistent numbers.

want to go for a dive but its a fair trek.

After 13 days at work frothing about the upcoming trip, I managed to get the last day of swing off and head down to Exmouth to go to the Montes with Bernie on Mahi Mahi 3 (Montebellos Sportfishing Charters).  I could do up a full story, but I reckon the pictures tell most of it.  I will put a few little bits and pieces in there for you guys to put the puzzle together.  All in all a most memorable trip and even though the sharks were fierce, we produced some magic fish!!  Here are a few of the best ones I took that summed up the trip from the hundreds I took.  Hope you enjoy.

The boat on one of the first drifts after steaming most of the morning with lines out but unfortunately little action:

Once we stopped, baited up, along came one of the first fish onboard, things were looking good!:

Two in a row, nice:

Double trouble:

There were some big ooglies down there, not long after this the sharks moved in and we moved out to goldband territory:

Mick the deckie holding up one of the boys saddletails from in amongst the goldies:

Ok, steamed most of the way to the Monties, got a good bag of fish already so lets just get a marlin as well:

No worries, marlin ticked off in the first arvo, lets get everyone in on the action and go for a cast at an old weather station marker:

Rainbow Runner:

Tilly Trevs:

Twas going off every cast, people hooked up every where, just chaos:

Cruising into the island after a top first day, marlin, quality reds and bottom fish and a hot sportsfishing session:

The next day started a bit overcast and with some rain, yep, rain in the Pilbara, unbelievable.  GT popping was on the cards and things were pretty slow unfortunately, we had one good gt swipe and I scored a decent goldspot:

West Coast Poppers in action, nice looking lures:

Seeing as the popping was slow we went out to do some shallow water jigging and bouncing:

Jigs were getting huuuuuuuurt, bent, broken, smashed, lost, you name it!

We had one of the hottest session I've seen on cobia, I lost how count of how many were caught, but plastic, metal, pretty much anything that touched the water got eaten:

Heading out for another popper fish we put some skipping gars out the back, well Mr Mackie decided to get hungry and we landed 4 or 5 in 3 passes with quite a few other schoolies and small tuna hooked and released:

It was the other boys turn in the small boat, they managed to land a 20kg odd GT which I wasn't able to get a photo of, after that we then headed back into the island to camp for the night:

This photo doesn't do the food justice, it was one of the highlights of the trip for me and as far as an operation goes for customer service, anytime you felt hungry, food just seemed to appear and then more would appear and then more and more.  I can speak for the crew on this one, the food was top notch and we were never hungry and I don't just say this, it was bloody awesome.  Fresh beer battered mackie frames for entree and fish two ways for main, both sensational.

Next day we headed wiiiide to the blue marlin and ruby ground:

We hit an estimated 70kg fish in the first hour, unfortunately it didn't do much and the hooks pulled soon as the tag went in, a capture none the less:

Another hour later and we had a solid hit and run, getting a good look at it, it was well over the hundred kg mark and would be getting close to the 150kg.  The photos don't really do it justice, but it was a solid bit of fish that unfortunately didn't stay connected for more than a minute as it greyhounded back at the boat during the first run:

As we were about to drop for a ruby fish in near glass conditions, along came a school of hungry dollies, smashing anything that hit the water straight away and going shy not long after:

It was then ruby time, they really weren't on the chew, but we were able to get enough to put a few in the tub:

The decision was made to stay out wide for a broady fish:

Unfortunately the weather came up to 15 knots and made it uncomfortable out there so the decision to head in was made late, which turned out to be a good call as to not ruin the next days activities.  It was also very difficult to get any live squid which would have been the perfect bait.

Next day we had a bit of a look around some shallow water spots for jacks:

We then headed to a little cave swim spot, pretty cool for the boys to cool off in:

Then it was dive time, what can I say, it was goooooood:

New PB at 730 within 20 seconds of rolling out of the boat and I saw a horse on my second dive jumping out of the boat that was a scary sized trout, just didn't have the gun loaded in time.

We then headed to the back of barrow slowly making our way south, unfortunately someones swag was not tied onto the roof and blew away, some quick swimming down shark alley and it was rescued......

Nice conditions to wake up to:

Fishing the back of barrow, well these pics tell the story:

We then camped at long for the night and had decided to fish the rigs off Exmouth as word had gotten around about the record blue marlin caught.  Spending most of the day out wide we didn't even turn a reel, it seemed it was just one of those days, that's just marlin fishing I guess.

All in all it was an awesome trip and great to be able to access all of the montes in style and not have to worry about fuel every 5 minutes.  Anyone thinking about doing a trip, all I can say is don't wait, just do it!  Bernie, Andrew/Mick do a top job in making sure you've got the best chance of catching a monster or 20, what ever style of fishing you prefer.  I got my PB trout on spear and biggest red which were my objectives for the trip and all whilst kicking back, drinking beer and eating damn good food.  Again these are just a few of the better photos I took, there were hundreds, do yourselves a favour and get on a trip with Bernie whilst the Monties are still accessible, who knows what the government will do next.

Cheers,

Adam

 got a few sharks lately, few bronzies, blacktip and a gummy :)

got the blacktip last night, my mates also got 1 each 

Took the son out early this morning before the weather picked up and we got our bag within an hour.Plenty around in 4-5m of water, nothing huge all between 35-40cm and home by 8.30.

 Hey guys, just got some video editing software and put this video together from our latest Abrolhos trip. Hope you enjoy :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Hw5pj2K7ls

We will be posting alot move videos now that we have the software, so feel free to subscribe. The channel will be soley fishing and diving vids so you won't be spammed with random stuff. 
Thanks,
Jesse

Had to get out for a fish over the weekend despite the conditions before going back to work for a month. First spot we accidentally spooked a roo off the rocks into the water, scared the shit out of us, tide was racing out but he/she eventually clampered up the rocks and back into the bush. 2nd spot we had to dodge the showers and run out onto the reef while we could. 1st cast produced a nice 45cm tailor and the video below is of the second fish i caught. Try and watch the vid in highest quality available.

Can anyone point me in the direction of where you might be able to catch herring off the beach at the moment? Thanks

theirs been loads of sharks down at amo jetty recently and its been hard to get some room so just wondering if north mole has been producing any? might go down this sat

Fishing on the jetty has been a bit on again off again over the past few weeks especially with the Tailor. The most consistent fish recently has been Snook with numbers in plague proportions making it difficult to catch other species at night. I caught aprox 40-50 Snook in one session this week throwing most of them back since they are quite bony. If you don't mind eating the Snook some real monsters can be caught right on sunset close to the pylons and can be found along the entire length of the jetty. Tailor have been a bit inconsistent with hardly any being caught last week but heaps being caught the week before. If you are heading out to throw some mulies at them check seabreeze.com and head out on the nights the SW winds are blowing at 15knots or more, the stronger the SW winds and the more chop the better. Herring numbers have been down over the past week probably due to the Snook but a good feed can still be caught on sunset on the Dunsbrough side of the jetty. Squid have been quite consistent at night and have been quite large, I caught some huge ones this week while throwing mulies around for tailor. During the day Gardies can be caught out in the deeper water, just keep the burley going and they will hang around. Sampson fish are still hanging around towards the end in the morning chasing the bait fish. Small King George whiting have started to turn up on the sand bank at the bend of the jetty, try fishing for them on the Bunbury side near the first shelter. Two Bronzies were seen feeding last week right up near the first platform and I have heard reports of them hanging around for a few days but no-one has hooked them up. Crab numbers have been down but I have heard reports of them being over at Quindalup boat ramp. 
 
That is all for this report, tight lines and good fishing.

G'day fellas,

Havent posted very often thought I better chuck one up.

Managed to find a few buildup barra just out of Darwin last weekend hot and sweaty work but you don't mind when you manage to find a couple of fish.

Got one casting to a back eddy and the other one was snavelled in the creek pic attached, (just of the main river drifting in with the current) shallow tight water with a big mullet style soft plastic on good fun.

Cheers Muntzy

Raced home from work, itching to get down for a Tailor sesh.  Bagged out in no time, left them firing.  Nice feed for tonight.  Bloody lovely evening down the beach as well.

Went for a bash of hillarys on monday to kill some time. fishing in 7 meters of water burley bucket over first drop 40 cm wrasse. Swaollowed the hook so cut the line and threw him over. He was flapping on the surface for all of 5 seconds when WHAM.........smashed by a massive sambo. The sambo hung around under the boat so we dropped eveything at him - he showed interest but i think his gut was full.

Moved in to shallow water after that (3 m) to catch some herring and skippy for dinner. Got smoked by something when pulling in a small herring. Had our floats chased but what ever it was it wouldnt hook up. Eventually my mate got him in but we werent 100% sure what it was. Can somoene ID it for me. At first thought was thinking tailor but once we had it in the boat i was thinking it looked more like a salmon.

A few piccies of the second sambo from Saturday (thanks Langa).

Fish was fould hooked and was one of the toughest fights I have had for a long time, backing up on the fish 3 times with the boat and the fight taking over 15 minutes. Caught on my el cheapo outfit comprising Majorcraft Crostage (at $122, best value rod going around!) and a 4 year old Daiwa Tierra 4000 (at $105, probably not the best value reel around as the handles are crap......and it has been pulled completely apart about 4 times to unsieze it and add banana peels after too much abuse on big fish)........just shows you dont need the expensive gear......that being said, I think the Stella will get a gernsey next outing.......

 Went out fishing today on a mates boat, left the marina just after 6am for the run up to the tip of the cape. Got to the cape and put out a spread of 3 lures to try for some mackies while on the way to the fishing grounds. Had one run, but the lure was dropped, so we kept going and found some gound in around 50m of water. Sent my a halco gold twisty jig down and on the 3rd drop got a nice golden trev around 60cm. sent him back down. My fishing buddy got a hookup and pulled up his first red. He was pretty happy !

Few more drops and got a few small charlies and a couple of small snapper, sent them all back, then kept getting busted off by sharks so gave up that spot and moved on. Went searching in some deeper water and found an awesome path in 90m. Got this double hookup was pretty happy.

And got this one a few drops later.

Was a top day out, ended up with 4 fish each in the esky and phil got a nice spango on the last drop of the day. We were both pretty tired by about 2pm so headed in. Couldn't have asked for better weather all day.

Nice leasurely crusie back down to the gulf to the marina !

Cheers Joel

Hey guys,

Landed some pumpers over the weekend, couple of stray dhus on the bycatch. (released promptly)

Off JBay, 32m, good hangover cure.

Hi Guys,

 just quick report from Saturday’s fishing. with the ban on we decided to head to rotto to see if we could catch a YTK. We anchored  up and started burleying the water and it didn’t take long for the fish to start biting, wrasse, sweep, footballers, then from out of now where one of the rods got smashed and after a long fight on 20lb gear we pulled in the biggest buff bream I have ever seen, i feel a little embarrassed posting a photo of a buff bream but I have never seen one that big. Then we started getting a few skippy around the 1kg mark, one of which I put out as a livie under a balloon.  Not long after the tide change I was drifting a small squid head down with a hand full of cut mulies and I had a strange bite and as I pulled the fish in it didn’t really fight, as it got close to the boat I could a beautiful YTK but as I saw it, he realized he was hooked and then my reel lit up and the fight was over in a few seconds. Then as we were packing up the skippy under my balloon was hit by something really really big, I pulled the rod from the holder and just hung on as whatever it was pulled drag like it wasnt there, then snap. The moral of the story is bring some heavier gear. We then headed north and found some nice ground to try some jigging for the first time. I have attached a you tube link if any wants to see our efforts.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CcMnK4svKk

After a couple of cracking shallow water sambo sessions over the past few weeks, I guess we were due a slow day.......and man, was it slow! It would seem the combination of tide, moon phase and the colour of my jocks meant we had to work very hard for every hit on jig.

Me and Langa went to a few spots we had done well in the shallows, and whilst there were enough signs of sambos on the sounder to suggst we should have been hooking up, no go no matter what we did....big jigs, small jigs, fast, slow, stopped, pharrrrrrrrk. Softies did not help either. Baron was in his tug nearby and he had similar issues.

TimVB and Silly were in Sillies new rig (nice one mate!) trying another spot a bit deeper that we had also done well at previously...no go there either. I am not sure, but from the radio silence, I think they may have scored a globe for the day................

After several hours without a hit and in quite a bit of dispair, we headed out deeper and got a few fish on the sounder.....again, no action, and in desperation, I got out my favourite jig and on lighter gear to try and entice a hit as it was obvious there were sambos there from the angry red marks on the sounder.

Finally, had a hit but did not connect, but then 2 cranks later, bang, on, finally......it was about now that I started to regret going down in line size and even worse, I only had my Daiwa Tierra 4000, as I left all the good light gear at home............luckily the sambo was not too large but more than a good match for the 4000 size reel. Langa hooked up about 5 seconds after me, but his albright leader knot failed (evidenced by a bimini with the loop entact......time to learn the FG knot Matt.......).

About an hour later, I hooked up again, and after a huge fight on the Tierra and backing up on the fish 3 times, what I thought was gonna be a 20 kg plus dhu turned ou to be a fouled hooked sambo about the same size as the first......strangest fight I have ever had and a lot like a big shu. Dissapointed in some regards but given the ban, I was glad it was not a dhu as even though we release all big dhuies regardless of ban or not, some no doubt still die from the trauma of catchand release.

Anyhow, very hard day and we did a LOT of miles and a lot of jigging for 2 sambos.......makes the good days even better!

After buying a new sounder, new jigging rod and a crapload of jigs, I was ready to hit the water and chase some sambos so I went out to the 40-50 meter mark for the first time to sound around some contours and look for spots. On the way out we saw a large amount of birds diving the water and heaps of little baitfish jumping out of the water so out came the poppers, stickbaits and divers but between trolling and casting just infront of the baitfish, we had nothing and not even anything on the sounder and it was THEN we worked out, it was a massive school of flying fish, which was awesome. We then kept on going out and sounded around for about an hour and literally nothing showed up and with only a 20L peterol tank and 3 jerry cans, we decided not to waste any more fuel and started heading back in.

THEN the sounder showed something, not exactly what we were looking for, but a pod of whales had swam near us somehow without us noticing, so off went the engine and we just sitting there crapping ourselves waiting for one to just flip the boat or something crazy, but was great to watch them play, seeing whales in the wild is a first for me. After they buggered off we decided to keep going in to avoid more whales, and I saw a nice lump in the 20-30 meter mark just near FFB which was holding a lot of activity.

Out came the jigs and I could see things chasing it up, big dark shadows but then smaller demersals were also chasing it so I decided best not to jig incase of hooking one. I cleverly told my mate who was sleeping to get off his backside and float a mulie down there, so he did. Next minute his line screams like theres absolutely no tomorrow and I could see by his rod this was no ray. As I scrambled around for the net, just as I look up, a 3-4 meter (what I think was a bronzie because of the tail but not sure) jumped about a meter in the air, about 10 meters from the boat. As we were screaming like little schoolgirls, my mate forgot that his rod only has a certain amount of line, so now somewhere there's a shark in the water with 100m of mono attatched to it's gob so if anyone catches it, please return it ;) haha.

We drifted around that spot and ended up with 1 55cm flathead which was surprising before going in to mewstone for some tailor, where we met my boss on his boat. Around there we saw a big group of dolphins playing and the biggest stingray I've ever seen that was about 3/4 the size of my 5.1m boat. Basically the night proceeded like this: loud cheering from his boat as they landed 15+ fish and 20 meters away, us falling asleep and wondering what we were doing wrong using the EXACT same rigs and bait.

As for fishermen, we failed. After 12 hours in the water we had 1 fish but I still rate it as one of the best days I've ever had.

Its been a Good while since I've had a decent fish

The afternoon started a lil bit slow, with fish being caught just after the sun had sunk behind the horizon, Infact I was packing up when my Old man started pulling them in.

A nice afternoon sunset too. (C)

The Goods!

This weekend, we tried finding the warmer surface water temperatures to try and target SBT's.
 

After heading out early morning and trolling in the 90m-110m mark, not getting any fish hooked up, headed back to the 30m contour where we had picked up some Bonito and SBT's (up to 2kg) the previous weekend. Didnt catch any SBT''s there either but we did manage to catch 7 Bonito's.

We also caught a little shark of some sort nearer to the Dawesville cut. (Not sure what shark it is....)

Has anyone tried trolling for some SBT's and caught any nearby Mandurah???

Hi All,

Spent the day down around Point Walter to see if any flathead have turned up early for the summer season. I used a Penn Slammer 260 with 10lb braid onto 12lb mono with silver and orange switchblades on a full graphite flick stick. After a long 4 hours in the sun, must say its still a bit early, and the heavy boat traffic today made the water a little churned up.

I managed one fish around 30cm, and spooked a few other small ones at my fav spot, point walter did not produce. Good to see some fish around already, hopefully a few more weeks and a quieter morning of evening will see some flatties turning up.

Ed.