Hi Everyone I'm intending to go fishing around Exmouth in the next few months and got caught up in your forum results in the local charters in the area with people bieng ripped off. I'm aware that it works both ways but there must be someone who will be able to give an old bloke a good holiday. Cheers Flo

 Hey guys

any suggestions on what lures or rigs to use for fishing for dollies at the fads

cheers

 hi guys, 2 days ago i caught this good sized banjo shark on rockingam jetty. It was caught on a butterfish with no tail and the gear i was using was my stradic 5000. Measured 94cm from tail to head and 44cm for its wings.

Crew,

I`m chasing a Minn Kota bow mount for my Dingi but I know very little about them. I want a salt water model that has the Hold/Anchor ability.

There seems to be lots of models when you look online so I figure I would come here and ask...

PM me if you have one and use this feature so I can pick your brain. I mostly want it for Jigging/Bottom bashing.

Cheers

Tim

Not sure how many have been waiting for it, but this saturday marks the opening of Snapper fishing in the Sound!

Forecast looks pretty unkind for saturday but who's got plans to get out there?

Myself if the forecast follows in it's current pattern I might have a late friday launch and get a start at midnight and come back just after dawn

Wondering what any of you use to attach your teasers to the boat whilst trolling?

Am just gearing up for our annual Exmouth trip and one item to be fixed up after losing a witch doctor last year is how to attach (rope, stainless cable etc) to the boat.

Does anyone vary the distance teasers are run behind your boat, or basically keep the same? (therefor not needing longer leader for the teasers)

Cheers
Bodie

 I went fishing at rottnest for the first time and landed this small eagle ray. Measured from end of tail to head was 1m and 5cm. Its was caught on my stradic on a butterfish with no tail.

Hi ,

Fiddling around with my Lowrance HDS 5 gen 2 unit

Not sure whether to use zoom function or bottom lock on the sounder setting when targeting demersals .

Cheers for any advice.

Joycey 

Heading to Walpole (Nornalup Inlet) in the next couple weeks.. Got the hardbodies, softies, whitebait, okky, squid tentacles and prawns at the ready... Oh yea, got the Mrs too........

I'm guessing the water is pretty clear this time of year.. Are there still any KG's around? Looked at 2 weather reports and both are so different.. Assume mid 20's days and mid teen nights? Little rain and as always the wind?

Appreciate any updates for 1st couple weeks of Feb........

cheers-

I know I have put it out there i am happy to look at members elecy issues on their boats , but when I travel a around trip of 200 ks to fix his dramas and there isn't ever a thanks at the end of the day I get pissed off was so close to jobing him but his wife was there a simple " thanks" works wonders for me

 Hi all,

I am Bunbury based an usually launch at eithet Bunbury or port Geographe marina in wokalup.

I would like to access the waters around dunsborough but not keen to travel allt he way on sea from port Goeographe.

I have previously put in at the old dunsborough ramp but that was with a smaller and lighter boat ( quinnie fishabout, 4.5metre) and even hten with a side - on swell and the shallow rocks it was a challenge to retrieve.

I now have a 20 foot boat, weighs about 1.6 tonne and the trailer axles are wider than my vehicle which makes beach launching much less fun - even with a 4x4!.

I have never seent he quindalup boat ramp but from the research that I have done onthis site (" WA boating facilities") and elsewhere it seems that it does involve some sand driving and the entry is rather shallow?  However the Busselton shire did issue a not eof intent to upgrade this launch facility as well as the Abbey boat ramp - never saeen that one either!

I am hoping for comments regarding the better ramps to access the cape and also any specific comments on the quindalup and abbey ramps as these are a closer drive for me than say Gracetown.

Thanks!

 hey guys just wondering what is the deepest you use berley out of your boat in and would it still work if it over 10m deep ?

by the way i am not talking about pollard i am talking about mulie cubes and berley logs

Got a 40ltr I want to put up in the cabin of my 6.2mtr Vagabond.

Worried about the shocks, slaps, constant up and down motion.

Does anyone run one in a smaller boat and if so have you had any dramas.

Don't want to f&ck it that's all.

Cheers

 Hi Guys,

Currently have a Genesis 580 Islander cab, thinking of selling and am currently looking at Coraline 620 Walkaround does anyone have a similar boat or any feedback on the performance of Coraline would be appreciated. 

Thanks

Skull

 gday everyone, just looking for some info about land based diving in the steeppoint/shark bay area. if some one could point me in the right direction would be much apreciated.

 We planned on heading into the deep in persuit of HAPUKA when whe came across a few nice lumps. I decided to stop and have a look for future trips and put 2 Halcos out. We eventually left these lumps with 1x 5.5kg Shark Mackerel, 1x 8.5kg Spanish Mackerel and a pairl of Stripped Tuna. Instead of heading deep we decided to bottom bounced in 35 plus, the water was alive and showed future promise with many Dhu's between 450 and 500.

My son, a mate and I were out fishing off Pt Gregory over the weekend. My son was driving why my mate and I were hanging a couple of lures off the back when my son asked what this other boat was doing.....when we looked he was coming in at about 45 degrees and getting closer and closer even when we changed course. The first thing I thought of was all the posts on here about pingers, people getting in the way of drifts and boats in general coming to close and getting abused!!!
When they got close enough to talk they were just wondering how we were going and what sort of day we were having.......when we told them we hadn't got anything yet...... they told us they had caught too many and asked if we would like a couple of Baldies!
So if you were one of those blokes on that boat......Thanks

We caught all sorts of things including a Cobia, Wrasse, Charlie Court and tons of bait fish but ended up with a Mackeral and Wrasse to take home ( plus your Baldies).
With your donation it gave us a nice feed to take home to the girls for dinner......Cheers!!!!

So to all those people who hate other boats in their vicinity.........next time, try giving them a wave and saying Gday you might find out they aren't all out to pinch your fish or grounds.

Cheers

fishing at bicton baths.
Firstly, for flathead and flounder try soft plastics, bibbed hardbodies, blades, and whiptail jigs.
look for change in water colour to indicate drop offs, fish the areas that are sandy, inbetween weed. you can cast into weed, but only the kind that is small thin, ribbon weed that sits on the middle, not the tall bushy varieties. start at bicton baths and walk along the water casting, until you see a fish, or catch one then spend more time there, keep walking up until you reach a small jetty at the start of black wall reach.

also don't forget to cast back towards shore occasionally, as I have spooked many large flathead and flounder from within 1m of shore.

I have caught a number of flathead here on pink, bushie brand soft plastics, so they are here. just put the time in and hopefully get into some flathead. If you see me down there In a uglystick straw hat say hello :)

Good luck!

Hello,

Having done a bit of satirical writing in the past, and due to the positive response to my first post, I thought I might detail a few experiences in an effort to solicit member responses for us all to enjoy.  I would like to talk about that place where we all must go, and in some cases dread, and encounter the sorts of individuals that you would never normally associate with.  You guessed it, the bloody boat ramp.

What is with this place?  How can there be so many people without a clue?  I remember a Michael Leunig cartoon when this old guy sits up in bed next to his wife in a sweat and says: “I just had this nightmare where there were no more assholes in this world”; she pats him on the back and states; “Don’t worry dear, there will always be enough”.

There does seem to be some characterisation that can be placed on these people whereby observed traits are repeated by many individuals: do these people belong to a Club?; are there secret meetings where they pass on their behavior to others?; is this passed down family lineage?  It begs the question that has plagued geneticists over the years about whether behavior traits are learned because of environment or is it just in the genes?  Anyway, enough of the philosophy and back to the observations at hand.

From my limited experience, I would propose the following characterisations for what I would affectionately call “The Rampies”.

The Prepper – this is the guy that does absolutely nothing to get his boat ready before he gets to the ramp.  He will place his “pride and joy” in prime launching position and then proceed to f&*k around forever making sure that nothing has been forgotten, and he is really ready to go.  He goes about his business with seemingly oblivious bliss to the ever growing line of others behind him.

The Dawdler – this is the guy that is perpetual motion, but unfortunately it is “slow motion”.  It is a given that some people are past their prime and cannot undertake tasks at the rate of their youth, but, it isn’t a given that the busy ramp is a place where you must really try your best to “clear” as soon as possible.  I think back to this one bloke that took about 15 minutes to get in the water, with a flotilla of boats assembling to get in, and when he finally did he morphed from a “Dawdler” to a “Reckless” heading off at 12 knots through the flotilla that he obliviously caused.

The Quejumper – don’t we love these guys?  It is all about them.  What, there are other boats lined up to get in; don’t they know that I have an important engagement to go to; how can someone think they are more important than me; I have a nice boat so that surely means I an “entitled”.  This type of individual is probably the one to single handedly cause the most “issues”.

The Rager – this guy has obviously taken some form of “angry juice” before he gets down there.  I liken some behavior to Jeckyl and Hyde whereby some mild mannered gent crosses the line towards the ramp and has a complete personality reconfiguration.  He seeks out other “Rampies” and then rages at them endlessly over their behavior to the stunned disbelief of onlookers.  These ones are really to be avoided rather than confronted as the controversy of the “coward punch” comes to mind.

The Parker – this is the guy that does everything right but somehow has a brain fade at the end when parking – I can take up two or three bays with the miss-aligned effort.  I somehow think this condition is caused by over excitement about getting out there and there is some physiological reaction whereby previously unknown brain chemicals are released causing impairment of normal bodily functions.

The Jettie – I am not sure if this behavior trait is caused by having a “small one”, even though it is really fast.  I am not having a go at this user type across the board as many I have seen are very responsible and the true Jettie seems to be a small subset.  Even though there are rules relating to boating behavior set by our responsible government, and you have to pass a test about these to be able to use your awesome machine, the Jettie somehow believes that these don’t apply to them.  The true Jettie has a combination of other “Rampie” personality types and is really a unique species.

The Oblivious – from what I have seen, this type of person is not generally associated with the ramp but is a member of the general public that blunders into ramp land without a clue about what is actually going on.  At my local ramp there is a sign that says vehicles without trailers should not enter but the “Oblivious” does not even see it, or if they do it is ignored.  They then proceed to drive in front of vehicles with trailers turning right to straighten before launching or retrieving – yes mate, my trailer is perpendicular to the ramp because jack knifing trailers is the way they have been designed and is the normal method of use.  Unfortunately, it is generally up to us to recognise an “Oblivious” and use avoiding tactics to preserve our various expensive items that are in peril because of their actions.

The Tetherer – this guy seems to think that his ropes are coated with super glue and once connected to the mooring items at the ramp they cannot move.  It doesn’t matter that there is enough room for the Titanic to moor in front, I am not going anywhere until my trailer is well and truly in the water.

The Reckless – this type of guy is mentioned above but there are too many behavior types to accurately characterise in a few short words.  I am sure there are many observations of behavior that obviously fall into this class of “Rampie”.

Anyway, the ramp is a place where unbelievable thing happen.  In the short time I have been using them I have been able to characterise as above.  I am sure there are many members with experiences to share that will help us all enlarge and recognise the different classes of “Rampie”, and perhaps a user guide should be prepared?  I hope the above can stimulate some meaningful discussion because unfortunately we do have to go there.

Mick

 We went 20 km out on Sat morning  and the fish were bitting all day pinks, whitting, gernets, Yellow tail kingfish to 600mm, sambos had a great day on the water didnt get back to the ramp till 5pm 11 hours on the water 

Haha

 They have the Reaction rods on sale at Motackle for $349 at the moment! Thought id cash in on that and grab one. I have seen a few good reviews on them on here. 

Im not sure to whether to get one to match a Stella 4000SW or my baitcaster ABU Revo Premium.

Thinking of getting a longer one , maybe around the 6'6" for the stella for flicking lures around to get the extra distance. They have the nice 7' 302 + the 302-2 rods that are in the right weight range. 

And their 5'6" 12-16lb baitcaster rod SRB382 looks perfect for the ABU. Tossing up between that or the G Loomis CR721IMX 6-12lb.

Any info or experiences with any of these rods would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Came across these on bike forum I'm a member of & just had to share.

Q: What's the difference between english batsmen & Cinderella?

A: Cinderalla knew when to leave the ball

Q: What's the difference between the english cricket team & a funeral director?

A: The funeral director isn't going to lose the ashes.

Q: What do you get if you cross an OXO cube with the english cricket team?

A: A laughing stock.

Q: What's the height of optimism?

A: An english batsman putting on sunscreen.

Q: What's the difference between a Formula One car & an english batsman?
A: NOTHING!! Blink & you will miss them both.

Q: What do english batsmen & drug addicts have in common?

A: Both are wondering where thier next score is coming from.

Q: What does an english batman playing in the ashes have in common with Micheal Jackson?

A: Both wore gloves for no apparent reason.

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY

 Bait casting is a no brainer, but what about in the surf. I've alwaysed put the head on the top hook, always catch fish, most of the time. On fishing WA a couple of weeks ago they were baitin with the head on the bottom. Went for a fish down injidup today and changed every cast, head at the top, then head at the bottom. Would have been 20-30knot cross wind so I could bearly feel the bites, so all I did was feed the fish, caught sweet FA. Anyway, back to the point, what has the better hookup rate, head at the top or the bottom?

 Hi fellas is Augusta just  like mandurah for the crabs droppy wise. Only got one to use with the kayak as it gets to much for me.

cheers

 Read in Western Angler a while ago that Hal was diagnosed and fighting cancer. Haven't heard much since, wondering if anyone knows how he's going? Met him a few times, top bloke, hopefully he's winning the battle. 

 Hi Guys,

i am after a bit of advice, we are think of taking the kids to Monkey Mia and Coral the end of April. We will be staying in Chalets as we only have about 9 days and can't be bothered with tents, going to snorkel with the whale sharks..

Any advice does or don'ts, also how long does it take to drive to Coral bay as I know it's further than monkey Mia.  Won't be taking the Jetski as i don't think it's appropriate..

Thanks

Shane

 Just chasing some info on anyone in the metro ( mandurah hopefully) that makes strong , reasonble prices sea anchors.

to suit a boat around 9 metres.

Hello knowledgeable Fishwrecked Members,

For some time now I have watched this site with interest and am constantly amazed by the quality of the content posted by members.  The information provided, and the search engine, has helped me no end with the unfamiliar waters of Perth Metro and I wanted to introduce myself to Fishwrecked, detail my novice experiences and seek any further advice that members may be able to provide.

For 8 months last year I had the "wonderful" experience of commuting to Perth from Brisbane on a weekly basis (there is nothing like 15 hours of travel each week).  The ASX-200 company that I work for requested that I come to "fix" a business, and in the end it is not a short term proposition and the option of relocating to Perth with my family was put.  It is a long story that I won't go into however my wife is from Perth and her very extended family is here so needless to say we moved in December 2013.

I have fished all my life, although not as often as I would have liked at times.  Throughout my children’s upbringing we would on regular occasions head north from Brisbane to Cooloola Beach, north of Noosa, where you could camp in the dunes and fish the magnificent waters of the 40 mile beach.  Through a project I did on the Noosa North Shore, I became good friends with "The Bear", who is a local tailor fishing legend in his own lifetime, and through the many hours of enjoyable times (and lots of Bundys) with him I learned a lot about reading water, rigs, baits and strategy and would constantly annoy my friends with images of successful trips.  I have used the image of my daughter with a couple of nice tailor from the Noosa River mouth, taken from The Bear's front yard, as my "ID Image" to remind me of the good times we had.  Similarly, I attach an image of one trip with the boys.

I have spent a lot of time administering a district cricket club and a junior footy club, where I have been President and am a Life Member of both, however with the pending relocation to Perth I decided that it was time to focus on myself and the family and peruse my fishing passion.  There was no doubt that we were to live on the Perth northern beaches (all my wife’s family live around there), and with Hillarys, Ocean Reef and Mindarie boat ramps in close proximity, a boat was a must.  I searched long and hard for a true near shore fishing vessel and in the end purchased PilberaBrad’s Trophy Hornet and shipped it down from Karratha (see image).

Now, I have copped a heap of flack for buying a vessel like this given the ocean conditions of the northern beaches but I have been a long believer of fishing the conditions, hence am writing this post and not out on the water given the wind conditions today.  I must say that Brad is a really nice guy, obviously a fishing legend and had set the boat up perfectly – you only have to look at his photo gallery on the site to see what he has achieved.  It was a hassle free transaction and I received a “custom” boat that had been set up by someone who really knew what they were doing that had the things you needed to help catch the fish.  I named the boat as “The Incentive”, as you need something to pick up your life and move it 4,500km and Brad’s boat certainly did that.

As I am sure all are aware, successful fishing is all about local knowledge and experience.  Unfortunately, I have absolutely none so with the impending move it was to the keyboard to try and gain as much as I could from reading the experiences of members that posted about the local area.  I am indebted to “Tim-o” and “Ninety Mile” for responding to my questions with helpful advice and wish to thank them for that.  But in the end you have to get out there and do the hard yards as there is no substitute for experience.  I found a house in Sorrento – 3 minutes drive from Hillarys, a walk to the MAAC and with views of the ocean and yes, house selection was all about the fishing.  So, with all in place I started my Perth Metro journey armed with absolutely no local knowledge and experience – good luck.

And that is how it started.  I got to go out a couple of times, after transporting the boat and before my family arrived, and became quite skilled at catching wrass and parrot in the waters north of Hillarys.  It is a big ocean and I was randomly chucking baits into it so it was not a surprise that I routinely returned with nothing to show except the experience.  I did learn that patanosta rigs are the best and squid and pilchard (mulies) are fairly good baits.

I had to stay in Perth one weekend before the family arrived and was lucky enough that it was the MACC monthly competition weekend and I could go down for the weigh in and presentation.  Just being there opened my eyes to what was available in the Perth Metro area.  What a great bunch of guys participate in the MAAC competitions and judging by what was presented there is an absolute truckload of local knowledge and experience.  One very helpful member gave me a tip about catching sand whiting off Scarborough so at least I could now target something that I didn’t have to throw back.  A trip the next morning by myself, albeit a little hung over, showed that he was right and I could finally deliver some (well not many) fillets to Nana.  I also got to “meet” the NW Blowfish and the Banjo Sharks that inhabit those waters – what is with those blowies, toads on steroids that can bite through hooks?  Good fun on light gear however.

The family arrived and with my fishing mad son and his fishing mad cousin from Busselton we headed to the only spot we knew produced an edible outcome.  We thought drifting was the go but through much trial and error finally determined that the whiting had a favoured location that was between 10m and 11m depth of water.  This was a “lightbulb” moment and I don’t mind telling members about this as there are so many fish we have never not come home with plenty.  The best results are with a size 6 long shank using squid and a small piece of peeled coral prawn just covering the hook point.  Happily, we could go to the spot and get a really good feed which we did before Christmas (see attached).

Needless to say, everywhere else we tried produced the inevitable wrass and parrot.  The one thing that became apparent was that the Perth Metro area holds so many fish that it is no wonder that there are so many sharks.

When conditions allowed we ventured to the reefs of Hillarys, beyond the reef break, but with no idea where to go it is not surprising that there was nothing to show the wife who was expecting large slabs of reef fish, or pelagic species, fillets and was constantly mocking my fishing ability when we inevitably we returned with nothing to show – except more stories of wrass and parrot, and other reefy things that were too small to keep.  I did figure out that 3 Mile is actually the 10m – 20m depth reef beyond the break and that you can never drop your guard in relation to looking out for cray pots.  The other thing that became apparent is that the ocean is really huge and the possibility of “stumbling” on a spot that holds quality fish is very remote indeed.

We are lucky to have my wife’s brother that lives in Busselton and were invited to spend a few days down there just after Christmas.  My fishing memory of Busselton is good as a trip there more than a decade ago I could go out with my sister in law’s father who had tons of local knowledge and experience and he took me out in his small tinny and we bagged out on King George whiting in about 90 minutes (and that was when the limit was 20 each).  The “trick” was to find a large sand patch amongst the sea grass, lightly burly the edges of it and fish very light prawn and squid baits on the interface of the sand and weed.  Unfortunately, now days “Charlie” is past boat trips and fishing the jetty (he never failed to come home from the Jetty with a big feed of gar caught on carefully cultivated live maggots) so we could not call on his vast experience.  Again, it is a big ocean and us with no local knowledge and experience.

We arrived full of excitement and were keen to get after it as soon as possible.  The old “fish the conditions” went out the window as we immediately headed off to a reef my nephew knew about in a trailing wind of a strength where the boat should have really stayed on the trailer.  Needless to say, we couldn’t hold the boat on the reef in the swell and the wind and the trip home was a cold, rough, spray filled experience that nearly turned my daughter from ever coming out again.  We ended up hiding from the wind off the Port Geographe breakwater on dusk and did catch a few undersized tailor on floating pillies for our trouble.  Happily that was the end of the wind for the weekend and we could venture anywhere over the next couple of days.

When pondering where the hell we would go when at the boat ramp the next morning my nephew mentioned the existence of “4 Mile Reef” so we just headed offshore without much of a clue.  PilbaraBrad (sponsored by Lowrance) had of course installed the latest navigation and sonar gear to The Incentive so we had a chance of picking up some structure.  We used the Navtronics information to estimate 4 miles out with the depth contour information to suggest reefy areas.  We found a spot in about 15 metres of water with some structure and proceeded to drift around picking up our old favourite wrass and parrot.  After an hour or two of this, we headed out to 20 metres with the same result and ultimately decided to go back to the 15m depth spot as at least we got a few fish previously.  When we got back it was a surprise to see another boat right on top of the “structure” and quite disheartening to see them landing quite a few nice skippy, when we were getting none from adjacent fishing.  When they drifted off we went back to "our" spot and used the Minn Kota i-Pilot “spot lock” option to hold us there – how good is the Minn Kota (I would highly recommend it for light Aluminium boats where it can be attached).

We had basically used up all of our squid and prawns feeding the non-edible reefies so didn’t have a lot of bait options other than wrass flesh or pillies.  It was the next “lightbulb” moment that ultimately changed our fortune and at least provided some WA credibility to my increasingly sceptical relatives.  I ripped a few fillets off the pillies and placed a “half” on a size 1 long shank with immediate results.  Over the next hour or 2 we “smashed” the 400mm – 450mm King George, caught lots of good sized skippy and had some challenging experiences with Port Jackson and Banjo sharks and other things that just could not be held (see attached images).

I think that if I hadn’t filleted the pillies we would have gone home empty handed again, and this is something I wanted to tell the Fishwrecked members as it is a tip I can “put back” to compensate for all I have received from the site.  At last I had some “quality” images that I could send back east to my eagerly waiting mates for news of what the fishing is like in WA.  Needless to say, I copped jealously abusive emails and texts about the size of the whiting that can be caught here.

Fresh from the success of the previous day, my son and I launching from a different boat ramp decided that we would use the same technique and try again – head about 4 miles out, look for likely structure on the map, hunt around for something that looked interesting on the sounder, use the i-Pilot to “hover”, burley up a bit but not too much, fish with pillies (both whole and filleted) and use the squid-prawn cocktail on light gear.  Much to our surprise being absolute novices, it worked again.  The first catch was a 540mm Harlequin (which I stupidly thought was a coral trout and wondered how it could exist where no coral did) – see attached.

We then got our first WA dhufish (undersized and thrown back but at least we got one) and followed up with more King George, an undersized snapper (420mm) and a variety of other things. 

We got absolutely smoked by probably Sampson (we saw a few under the boat) or other things that would have been really nice to land.  We headed home from Busso with lots of quality fillets for the extended family and a somewhat salvaged reputation, eagerly awaiting the next weekend invitation by the “rellies”.

As mentioned previously, the MAAC is a walk from my house and a “local” in close proximity that has angling in its name – I thought this is a dream come true.  I noticed the “memberships are not open” on the sign out the front and when I rang the club to enquire I was told the waiting list was very long indeed.  I have however put together and lodged a membership application so hopefully sometime in the next 5 years I get accepted.  A “little birdie” did tell me however that getting involved with the Club and its fishing members (it seems that the fishing members have been well and truly overtaken by the social members after a nice spot with cheap drinks and food) would potentially help my seemingly futile and very long wait list application.  Given my fishing passion, getting involved and meeting people that really know what they are doing doesn’t seem like an onerous or “false” task.  So, it was with genuine interest that I asked if I could fish the monthly competition as a visitor.  This request was accepted however I do recall thinking about the potential ridicule and embarrassing weigh in performance and wondering if indeed I had done the right thing given my complete lack of local knowledge and experience, and the “guru” status of the people that fish the competition.

In the week prior, my boy had been hassling me to go fishing when I got home from work – the summer afternoon wind makes the boat a hazardous exercise though.  I had had a couple of visits to the beach down the end of the road and being an old tailor fisherman I did see water that looked like it should hold fish.  So one afternoon, just as the sun was going down and the wind was not too strong, we rigged up the trusty surf gear and headed the 200m down to the beach.  At least this was a style of fishing that I had experience with and summing up the local conditions we picked our spot and rigs.  Unbelievable, the tailor were on and we got a 500mm one first cast.  In the half hour to dark we got a couple more, lost one in the shore break and pondered the fact that we used to do 300km round trips to catch fish like this.  We went to the MAAC where there was enough light to photograph our catch (to send back to my tailor fishing mates over east – same abusive texts and emails) and it so happened that the Club Captain was there and got to see some nice fish caught on the “doorstep” by someone with a pending membership application.  This did make me feel a bit better about the looming competition, particularly as we picked up some Tarwine off the beach in the subsequent days (even though the floating weed made meaningful fishing nearly impossible).

So competition day arrived.  Sleeping in due to a late night contemplating strategy was not a good start but we did get on the water not long after start time and did the only thing we knew would produce results – no good going out to random water with false hope – and headed to our whiting spot off Scarborough.  No problems, plenty there and we did load up the kill tank with >200mm specimens and the live bait tank with things that surely the “desirable” reef fish would like.  Of course this was false hope as a mid-morning journey to 3 Mile with freshly caught live whiting produced nothing other than “we have no idea about spots” confirmation.  We headed back to “old trusty” and continued the carnage on the poor whiting but at least picked up herring, skippy, flounder and flathead as the MAAC competition is all about the number of species you catch.  Our boat score was 22.4 and whilst nowhere near winning anything at least we got some and finished middle of the road.  This was the first weigh in where the demersal ban was over and the legend status of the “gurus” was on full display – see attached.  The jumbo cray hooked on bait and the massive dhufish were certainly the highlight.  The lowlight was the following half day of filleting, skinning and boning the 6.4kg of “midgets” we collected amongst the “when are you going to catch something big off Perth” torments.

Another recent highlight was a family fishing trip to “old trusty” (see attached) however this produced a barrage of “there is no shade:, “we might fall off” and why didn’t you buy a bigger boat so we can go farther where there may be some “real” fish sledging.  The only positive was the “approval” for a new boat sometime in the future although I am nowhere near ready to sacrifice the fishing positives of The Incentive for quite a while yet.

We started to meet people and a really nice young man agreed to come fishing with us the following weekend.  We were not allowed to disclose this spot or really ever go there again but he took us somewhere that was a proven producer.  It was on this trip that we got our first boat Sampson (see attached) and of course it was caught by him. 

The “explosion” of fish on the sounder at times did prove that such spots exist and valuable lessons about rigs and techniques were learned.  With renewed enthusiasm we headed out off Mindarie to Steggies to try our new found “experience”.  Same old “favourites” although a big Sampson did follow the baits up once.  This was another confirmation that local knowledge and experience is everything.

Finally, the recent conditions allowed us to take out The Incentive at night to see how we fared.  This trip was all about evaluating the local night conditions as being from the east, my experience is that pre-dawn and early morning, and dusk and early night is the optimum time.  There is really something about getting home from work on late afternoons, when the wind is not up, and heading out chasing snapper for a few hours in the “feeding time”.  This was a hassle free experience and we look forward to future ventures, albeit many are likely to be unproductive.

As if you haven’t guessed, I write for a living.  I have really appreciated this site and the advice and tips provided.  I have written this story for publication of the difficulties in trying to find fishing success in a place you have never fished before.  I have learned a few things and at least wanted to share these with others.  I have no doubt that many are having the same issues as me, and I want to reinforce that you are not alone in the effort it takes to become proficient, and the constant “sledging” from family members is just part of the journey.  The only way to learn is to do, but any information you can get will help the experience.

It is on that note that I conclude with a request for help that anyone can provide to improve my WA journey.  This is my first post (well sort of after the partially completed stuff up with thinking save didn’t mean post and listing some very premature unedited thing without photos – quite embarrassing really) and I do hope to become an active member of the Fishwrecked community.  I will never write anything as long again and will reserve future posts to things I have learned that will benefit others.  Please feel free to PM me at any time as I am more than willing to share any experience and learn from the experts.

Happy Australia Day to all.

Mick

Happy Australia Day ya bunch of ocean pirates! enjoy the day!!! have a beer or ten, throw c few chops on the furnace and sit back and relax!!!