Hi all, in the market for a pair of flick rods. One to cast lures from the beach (surf) with lures up to 3 or 4oz  and the other that I can use for light lures for the rivers and dams ..  I'm a bit tired of lure fishing with my 12 foot surf rod .. it's just too much .. so a shorter/lighter rod is what I'm after .. and i would also like to get my hand into river and dam fishing with soft plastics and small lures .. what are the opinions?

 Next time you in store make sure you check out our selection of Salty Crew clothing and save 10% off RRP with your FWM discount.

Just got back from the Mackie Islands so thought I would do a bit of a write up for anyone thinking about going. We took 3 boats and 10 blokes

Day 1
Woke at 3:00am Drove straight up from Perth to Onslow. Got to Onslow around 5pm that afternoon and swagged it at the caravan park. Onslow tav for a good feed and to establish a few competitions for the trip!

Day 2
Checked in at the resort in Onlsow where we were told that we aren't allowed to bring Engels and fuel. Apparently not even allowed to have an Engel on your boat from what we were told.... Found out all this information that was supposed to be sent to us in an information pack but they forgot to send it to us. No dramas unloaded the Engels and left the Jerry cans in the kill tanks as we had 200 litres in fuel in jerries.
Went for a cruise down one of the local creeks before heading over to the island. Quick half an hour walk managed to hook 2 big buck muddies out of their holes. Stoked!!!
On the way over found schools of mackeral that we were sight casting lures at which was awesome fun.
Made our way to the island and unloaded the gear. Team was helpful and had a ute there waiting to unload us so we could go out fishing. Quick unload into our cabin and straight out. Didn't need to go far where we found Reds, Rankin, trout, Spangos, Saddles all in about 25m of water. Was a great little arvo sesh.
Dinner was a feast... Muddies were amazing!!

Day 3
Weather all week looks like its going to be windy in the morning, dropping off around 10ish then picking up around 3pm. Headed out around 9 towards the long island direction. Fished from 25m to around 70m picking up the usual Reds, Ranks, Trout. Had awesome fun landing a few massive chinaman and cod.
Came back towards the island around 3pm where we decided to have a quick dive on a few bombies we found. Crays and Coral trout everywhere. Got a few crays for a feed as we heard the painteds and ornates weren't the best eating and plucked a few trout on the straight hook - According to the Island manager they come in close this time of year waiting for the turtles to lay and hatch so they can eat the baby turtles so was more than happy to help the turtle population haha
Had surf and turf tonight for dinner and no matter what anyone says about the crays, fresh they were bloody awesome!!

Day 4
Thought this day was going to be the better of the days weather wise so my boat decided to head out deep dropping to get see if we could get a few rubies and fish the wells out wide. Rubies were everywhere however getting them past the sharks was a problem. Could have gotten our bag easily but was only getting in 1 in every 3 fish. Got a bag of rubies and headed into the wells. The wells are very fishy and very sharky. If you could get them past the sharks there was everything. Robinson sea bream, pearl perch, Reds. Sounder lit up when you went over a well, but could see the sharks hovering above.
Came in, filleted and had an awesome cheese platter.... Definently a hightlight for the trip hahaha

On this day when we went to put our fillets into the island on the freezer we found that the fillets from the first day weren't frozen. The freezers on the island don't work properly which is a bit average when you cant bring your own engels over. We were transferring fillets from their big freezer to our freezer in our cabin to freeze them then back into the big freezer. We talked to the manager and they turned another freezer on and transferred everything over but still didn't freeze the fillets. In the end they offered to put the fillets into their big freezer which helped but to not allow you to bring your own engels then not having adequate freezers to freeze your catch frankly isn't good enough.

Day 5
Headed towards Rosily Cay. Had a bit of a troll trying to get a couple of Mackies…… Got Rankin on the troll hahaha managed to get some mackies at the back of rosily cay. Casted lures into the wash at rosily but only managed to get long tom. One of the other boats got a good Spaniard on a stick bait casting into a school of bait fish which was epic. This day was extremely sharky, only bringing up probably 1 in every 4 fish. On one of the spots thought I had a massive shark on but ended up pulling up a 35-40kg Cod. When retrieving my hooks the poor bugger had about 5 jigs / assist hooks in his gob and in his gills, don't know how he was still living. Managed to get most of the air out of him and swam him back to destroy someone elses gear haha.
Later on in the arvo I was trying to untangle a couple of lines. Lucky I didn't have the braid wrapped around my hand but resting on it... Something big grabbed the line that was still in the water and burnt / Sliced my fingers open... Was painful and didn't want to look at my hand for a bit but after looking all my fingers still there and not huge cuts but still hurt. Lesson learnt... Get someone else to hold it haha
The next day was looking really windy so this night was pretty big.... Lots of beers and rums resulted in racing the local crabs on the beach which was bloody good fun!!

Day 6
Windy day today so had a sleep in to try cure the hang over. The guys on the island took us over to the sheltered side of the island on their bus where we had an awesome 30 minute session catching GT's off the beach, I managed an GT on a lure shaped like a dick which was one of our competitions we set so I was stoked with that.
Wind died right down in the arvo so 1 boat headed out with 5 people on board that wanted to head out for a sundown session. Massive trout were on the bight. Managed our bag of trout and rankin in about 3 hours. Was a great little session.

Day 7
Headed in from the island back down the creek to grab another couple of crabs, Got a few and headed into Onslow. Drove from Onlsow to Carnarvon where we all got on the sauce and regretted it the next day driving from Carnarvon back to Perth.

Conclusion
All in all was an awesome trip, if its on your bucket list I would 100% recommend it. In saying that I would only do it once as I think theres easier places to go with just as good fishing.
A few things
- Sharks are terrible. Cant do anything about it except keep moving. Some days only bringing in 1 in every 4 fish.
- Cant take Engels but the island needs to improve their freezers
- Cant take fuel unless you leave in on board like we did. Fuel is around $2 per litre on the island
- Cant take booze unless you leave it on the boat. We bought booze from the island which was about $10 per carton more expensive which isn't too bad considering
- Sand flies / mozzies etc weren't that bad, but leave your food items up off the ground as the mice are bad
- Bait out fished jigs / placcies 10 times over so use bait... Also cheaper than using jigs and loosing heaps
- Staff were pretty good and helpful. Some were very good to look at hahahaha
- Fillet station, island amenities were amazing. Good lights and everything at the fillet station which was a bonus.
- Moorings were great, ropes on the moorings must have been changed as they were all in great condition. We had 30knot winds one morning and were no issues

 Anchored up yesterday chasing KG when I was pulling in a butter fish and all of a sudden this hungry squid decided to have it, I won. Dropped a jig off the back of the boat while we continued fishing and landed another 2 not quite this size and ended up with 7 KG, good day.

 Spent few days down Harvey dam with 

few mates . Weather played the game til

wenesday then she blew up hard from 

the east . Couple rainbows caught on 

the celtas and little blades doin the 

damage on the Redfin. Good too 

get out bush for few days. Cheers 

pirate .. 

Enjoy

Howdy,

Age old debate but does anyone on here have any experiences that prove it makes a difference?  I use it for the confidence factor but have no real evidence it works better.

recent fakebook article popped up that i read years ago and it rekindled alot of doubt over its effectiveness. The people that seem to push its effectiveness are normally involved in the tackle business.  Apperently a lot of FC is line just coated with FC.  Sorry couldnt get the link.  Bream fishos run all FC for more bites but im still not totally convinced.

Cheers

 Going there next week 

Anyone got tips on flyfishing for Bones?

 Ozflex Drone Master Rods now I'm-store in both spin and overhead models!

come check them out!

dont forget to mention you are a Fishwrecked member to gain 10%off in-store 

 I am setting myself up to start deep dropping and about to make some weights.

What weight range to people use for the varying currents, winds, etc. Going to start in the 250 - 400m range.

Thanks for the advice.

 Hi all.
I'm in a bit of a dilemma at the moment. There's a really good chance that my wife and I will be moving to Broome next year. The problem is I've got a 8.5m Shark Cat living in a pen at the moment and that there's nowhere to pen it in Broome. From what I can work out my only real options are to get a trailer for it and put it in the water for the dry season and maybe ( no idea really ) moor it at Gantheaume point?. I would either have to look at buying a 4x4 truck or get someone to launch/retrieve it for the dry season, can't really justify buying a truck if it's going to sit around and only get used twice a season for drop in and retreival. I've got no idea who to contact regarding moorings up there as there's not too much information as to who operates them. The other option is to sell my boat and downsize. This is an option that I would not like to excercise as I've just finished a year long refit and I'm pretty sure it would be a killer rig for exploring the Kimberleys. Flip side is the boat ramps up there up there are none too good and I'm not up for launching a flybridge boat just to go for a days fishing. 
Any ideas? 

 Just down south exploring Esperance and surrounds, has anybody launched a boat at Duke of Orleans bay and fished the area?

Howdy folks,

a few months back I won the shorecatch monthly prize, and ventured out of my comfort zone (south of the river), up to meet Mick at shorecatch. For those that haven't been in there yet, I can safely say there is nothing like this set-up in Perth, and you would be hard pushed to find anything like shorecatch or its quality bait selection in Australia.  
 

anyway, after a half hour introduction/chinwag, he offered me selection of one of the many quality knives he stocks, and I eventually settled on a saucy little swibo/victorinox number that I hadn't seen before. My reasons for choosing this little knife were it felt nice in hand, was light, and I didn't have nor had seen a filleting knife like it. Mick made comment it would be good for smaller fish, and was a brand new edition to their shop's collection, and that was the clincher. 
 

Fast forward to yesterday, which was the first time I had a chance to use it, as I took the kids whiting fishing. A perfect time to christen the slick narrow little 15cm blade. Man, that knife made it a pleasure to fillet the fat sand whiting, and no boolshit, I reckon it took me a bit more than half the normal time it normally would have.

I usually get a bit brutal on whiting, and just slab the sides completely off, then cut out the belly/rib cage, which results in a bit of wastage, but quickens the tedious task of doing 20-40 fish. The edge and prescision of the little RAZOR SHARP weapon made it easier and quicker to fillet them like normal, and go over/around the rib cage, which also resulted in less wastage. Win win! I'm looking forward to testing it out on something bigger, as just it's sleek little manoeuvrability, would certainly make it shorter work on some bigger slabs.

anyway, I just thought I'd return the favour of Mick's, Shorecatch's, and Fishwrecked's generosity, and write up how good their prize is. 
 

 Looking to get a tender for the new boat I'm buying. I want something around 2.6m and preferably about 4hp outboard. I've seen Island Inflatables that look pretty good value but have no idea about the better outboard choices. Any thoughts on the cheapest option to get a good reliable tender? I'll probably go for an air-deck for storage reasons.

Thanks!

 hi peoples

looking at fishing trip here with a few mates

ive had a look on line but any personal recommendations welcomed

we are fishos so keen on fishing biased charters

thx

bowlsie

 Hi All,

With the weather starting to get better it won’t be too long before we’ll be getting the pots back in the water.  I know fisherman should never blame their gear but I think there is an issue with my pots, mainly the depth/size of my hatch.

Last season I had my pots over at Rotto with mates with their 4 pots and they all fished the same areas.  They had a combination of plastic and wooden pots.  My mate’s pots generally did pretty well whereas mine failed to catch barely anything – in which I drew much criticism and derision from the skipper and other deckies.

After the Rotto stint I tried my pots closer to home off Hillarys with no more luck, although one time I pulled one of my pots up to the surface and a decent sized cray managed to swim out the hatch just as I was lifting it out of the water.  So my theory is, the crays are getting in there ok (my bait seemed to deteriorate the same as the other pots over at Rotto) but due to either the size of the hatch and/or the depth of the pot I think they are getting out when they want.  I checked the escape gaps and they are all standard sizes and there is plenty of weight in there.

Photos attached.  The size of the hatch is 250mm x 190mm, the slats go down 180mm with 180mm gap down to the base of the pot.  All up the pot is 390mm high.  The pots are actually built pretty well but a suspect I might be wasting my time using them in their current configuration based on the results of the last two seasons.

Any advice on what the optimum hatch dimension and depth/clearance from the base of a cray pot should be would be much appreciated.  Cheers.

 I've read some posts about a local spray painted/sand blaster who's done some great paint jobs for some forum members boats. I can't seem to find his contact details online, would someone be able to give me his phone number or email address. He's referred to as "Dan from DMACC" Cheers 

Enjoy

 We now have a bigger and better display and stock of the richter lure range. Come in and check them out. Remember you get 10% off with your FWM.

 Hey guys I've recently purchased a boat and am looking for some help to find best ground to find some snapper to get my mum who absolutely loves fishing into  some decent fish I have a leeder650 with a lowrance elite 9 not looking for anyones spots any info would be a big help 

Cheers in advance legends  

 It was pretty damn good to finally get back out on the water, and especially good to get some nice fish!

 Am chasing any info on the South African made Sea Cats. Especially the 636.

Have seen a few around town and was hoping there might be a member here who I could chat to about them.

Cheers

 Staff Member Justin ticking off a bucket list fish after a rough day and night. Full Read on facebook.

  Hi just wondering does W.A give a concession to pensioners for boat rego . I have seen that some states do . If not why does W.A not have it .

  Cheers

Hi everyone. Heading up north to shark bay next month and just need some help on what type of solar setup i need for myself. recently bought a 80L fridge to take up however not sure how what type of solar panels i need to run the fridge. I dont have a second battery in my car so will need to buy a separate battery and battery box.

Any ideas will help

Thanks

 Found on a beach west of Esperance 

Looks like it’s been reported and some removed possibly for testing as one of the cuts is definitely man made and there were fresh tyre tracks to it .

This all we kept last night. Sorry folks can’t get the new phone to talk to the computer, hopefully fixed tomorrow 

One of 

went out with BJ skipps were waitng they were everywhere,then the ytk's moved in. we must have released 10 all caught on
small jigs.they moved on and the skipps came back, then we tried for pinks, caught a few undersize then the tailor moved in. we kept 2 tailor and 3 skips. it was an insane session in close.

Ouch.