Brag Board

Brag Rights, Catch and Release or Unusual Captures

Couple from the weekend

 A mate and I took the tinny north of the river for a couple days. Fished shallow on Saturday and everything we hooked smashed us.

Sunday we had better luck with me landing a 78 cm dhuie and dropping another 10 minutes later. We shifted to another spot and first drop resulted in my first baldy for the area, 52cm.

To round the day off my mate landed a 57cm dhuie.


couple more yesterday

 glassy conditions made for some good fishing all fish released.


A dhu or two

 Quick run out the back of three mile today stubbled across this in the sounder dropped down a jig and a placcy ended up with this and one released after 2 drifts over it.


PB Mully

 Have to have a brag about this one. Lost the last three big size mully's I hooked 2 pulled hooks and one my knot came undone in the surfs edge. Have not stopped kicking myself over the knot mistake.  Hopefully the lucks back @ 147cm and estimated at least 30kg. 


Finally An Offshore Pinky

I still haven't nailed a size pinkie beyond the 3 Mile usually getting plagued by 45cm models. Reckon I've lost a couple by them swimming at the boat and shaking the hook though.

Headed out on a solo mission yesterday at lunchtime to explore that lump I marked last fortnight in the 30s and the bite was disappointing slow. Drifted off the lump and was getting a couple of good hits on the drift bait rig while I was setting up my jig and pulled up a small pinky over ground showing not much at all.

Another drift and nailed a 320 Blackarse and next drift not even a bite but  kept the drift going and hit that rubble again and my rod bent over and took off. Head shakes galore and this time I was ready to wind hard when he swam up. After a few good runs I had the gaff into my first offshore pink.

Now where are those baldies at!


Pb kg

Had a ball , wind was crap. Stayed in close. Kg 58 , 1.395 good size.. solo run . Got snagged free spooled went back around. Got lead off . Pulled jumbo kg up.


recent trip

 few pics froma  recent trip to the gulf of carpenteria fished hard for a few weeks and then  did the cairns to perth drive home got a heap of photos to go through but here are some enjoy.


Guess the foot

Squid are brilliant ATM . I can't catch fish anymore I may as well catch the bait. Few hints in pictures regards feet. All good fun:)


PB Dhuie

Went 10.5kg - nothing huge but I’m chuffed with a new pb. Managed to get my first ever metro bag out too with another dhu and 2x 45cm break sea. Home in time for the footy.


Exy Reds

Managed to get out once in Exy a few weeks back with the weather being horrible.

 

Found some amazing ground but struggled to get past the sharks. Managed to sneak a couple up !

 


Metro Deep Drops...an ongoing saga.

After investing in some new electronics (FCV295/3kW/50kHz), been last few months giving this deep Drop thing a crack. (What a mugs game). Without any marks to go on, it’s been lots of time invested with sporadic small Greyband, knife jaws and big nannys, some surprisingly big pinks and LOADS of green eyes. I’m Learning to be very snobby around what to drop on and has resulted in much less green eyes captures though.

Last weekend tried off two rocks for first time, didn’t find any ground before wind kicked up, with a very strong N to S current too. Sounded around, and found the smallest spot where fish showing no bigger than a house. Landed it first two drifts, with 2 greyband. Then they went off bite and wind kicked up so called it quits. Nice eating size at around 10kg, with a smaller 4-5kg model.

I've noticed this supposed scatter/descending layer of bait regularly out there, Is there any value in following these depths it sits at for fish?? This is where the GBs were sitting this day. 

Added some sounder porn from weekend :)

 


Swan river bull sharks

 Has anyone had any luck with bullsharks recently? Caught this one over summer. Was targeting mulloway but this was a nice by-catch


Been a tad caught up fishing here’s an update

 hello crew been a while since posts here is some from the last couple of months been getting onto some alright fish . The pic of the two dhus and four snapper came from the sounder shot. 17 and 15 kilos the dhus went :)


PB Landbased Dhu! Big upgrade this time

 Chasing a good Dhu off the rocks has been a goal for years now, a few years back they where so hard to find but the past 2 years huge numbers of smaller fish up to 60cm have been caught Landbased down south, the old Pb of 68cm was certainly a good fish but still a juvenile with the baby markings. Getting a proper sized Dhu has always been the goal with a 10kg+ one being the ultimate.

This weekend I set off on another adventure with my mrs and a mate, drove down from Perth Friday night, slept for a few hours before getting up and starting the walk in to the spot. It took much longer that I expected to walk in and it was 8am by the time we started fishing. Straight up burley was set up and herring caught with live baits put out. The Mrs live herring goes off but it’s big headshakes before being reefed. Hmmm that was very odd certainly not the sambo or king I was chasing. Re rigged again and lucky to be 9am by this stage her rod goes off again before pulling hooks on what I was calling for a 5-6kg Dhu. Few minutes later my mate jake looses a Dhu at the ledge on another live herring. My turn and I’ve cast a big bait out behind a shallow bommie and hooked up to a powerful fish that tried to reef me on everything possible. Even on 80lb gear it gave me hell and fought so hard from water that was lucky to be 12m deep at most and littered with Bommies. Over the last bommie after dragging my line all through it and a big silver flash was seen and I knew exactly what that belonged to! A good Dhu popped up 5-6m below us in probably the worst location to gaff with huge surge smashing this fish all over the place. Finally got the cliff gaff down and into the fish we still had no idea how big it was. Lifted this Dhu over the edge and onto the rocks and screams of joy came out! I was pumped this was a bloody good sized fish! Not the 10kg+ model I was after but it certainly wasn’t a juvenile and a fish any boat fisher would be proud to get let alone someone off the rocks! Finished the day off with a good snapper on live herring that we released and the Mrs pulling hooks on something else very big. All up fished for 4 1/2 hours and the total we walked there and back from the car was the same amount of time we fished for. My body is killing me today but I still cant wipe the smile off my face!  8.5kg Landbased Dhu is now the PB and getting ever closer to the 10kg+ one. 


New pb red 60cm :)

 New pb red


Nice baldies

Fish where nice today :). Ended up with a variety of fish . 650 mm biggest of baldies .


here some recent shots from coral bay

here some pics from a quick recent trip we took to Coral Bay, love that place and always do well.
Not your standard set up and you won’t see this too often on the road, tends to snap necks!
Drove all day, parked and slept through the night, boat ramp by 0630 and fish were on from the first drop :)
We both caught deep water mulloways (defiantly was not expected) plenty reds plenty GT's bloody hell these things fight hard few rankin cods no sharks !! all good fish. Very happy and well worth the trip.


Mangrove jack

 6 kg mangrove jack and a nice lunar tail amongst a mixed bag of pearl perch red emperor from today 


Aron finally found that 30kg fish off the rocks!!

 Getting a 30kg Blue groper has been a huge goal of ours for a long long time. There has been the odd one landed on handlines over 30 over the years but trying to stop a fish this large on a rod and reel setup is just phenomenaly difficult. We have hooked so many fish in the 20kg+ bracket and been destroyed. PE10 140lb tackle has helped us land a few more larger ones on a more regular basis, but that 30kg fish is a case of pulling as hard as you possibly can and praying the line doesn’t break and send you cartwheeling over the rocks. No idea on its actual weight but a 105cm fish went 25kg which was Arons old PB and this fish was 10-15cm longer than the 105cm brag matt he measured it with. Absolute dinosaur of a fish and one that is going to take some effort to beat!!


rat barra runoff fun in crab creek

 Bycatch while trying to get threadies. Local charter operater got there clients onto about 20 of these within a hour


Few fish latley

 Heres a few fish of late. 

Finally ticked the metro mack off!


Good day out in sunny Esperance

 Finally got around to beach launching the Barcrusher yesterday out of town and it paid off. Caught nearly our bag limits for 2 people in under 2 hours after we found a beaut drop off in 40m and spent another 4 hours sounding around and marking spots for next time. 

Home in time to fillet, clean up and watch the Eagles win! 


Couple Metro Macks

Managed to tick off a few metro macks this season, highlight of them all a landbased capture that came in at a new PB, 1370mm long, guessing around the 15-16kg mark. We were seeing huge numbers around mid Feb, just really hard to get a bite as they were feeding on micro sized bait. We called the landbased fish for a tailor or salmon initially before it chucked a U-turn and took off.
Reports seemed fairly quiet this year compared to past seasons, maybe people were just keeping things close to their chests, who knows.
How did everyone else fair?

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Clayton's winning squid

.981 . I miss having young kids . His old man Steve over the moon. Voucher got used well.thanks to complete angler and other sponcers. And also mangles bay. The young lad over the moon and addicted now. Watch out for new generation.


My new beast

 New Genesis weapon has finally finished being built. 300 ponies to push her along


Occy run

This morning. Water cold used semi dry. Fresh bait ready for tue, wed


Roko dhu on spear freedive

 Got this inside the five in 16m new Pb 16.5kg 101cm


mid-west mack

I went up to the mid-west over the last long weekend with the families and a few mates. due to the first few days of windy weather, we couldn't really get the boat out, but did some exploring up and down the coast a bit. ended up with some XOS tailor from the beaches, which was good consolation.

managed a very quick arvo troll on the last day, and had 2 good strikes. dropped the first hit, but picked this Mackie up on the 2nd hit, going 19 kegs on the lie detector.

heading back up that way for easter, so here's hoping for good weather, and a few more!


Finally caught a Spaniard

 jeez, it's been a lousy year up here for the. We went out ealry today, got out to the 3-mile at very first light looking for some clearer water. Perfect conditions. Not a sign of activity until a few minutes before 7, when a double strike gave me this little spaniard and the other was dropped.  Then things started to liven up a bit, with small numbers of fair size tuna making momentary appaerances, and even had a couple of vertical spaniards. One more strike, lost, at 7.30 so gave it away and pulled the pots.


Spear and fish

 Ok went off the local and thought head out to an area and have a sound. found a good looking lump threw  anchor and put the freedive gear on. After a few dives we had a nice dhu and baldie. Thinking we will leave the other fish and try for pinks hopped out. The sounder shit attached is the mayhem that should have happened. Sadly the pinks were grabbing the baits and dropping them. Sometimes taking 50m off the reel. But hey it’s fishing.