sundays weather was still all over the shop on Saturday, with all weather prediction sites all saying different wind speeds and directions. I took a stab at the one I liked the most, and hooked up the dinghy sunday morning, with a mission to chase Bluefin with a mate.

headed out past GI with a moderate easterly at our backs, over the 5 fathom, and out into the blue water. we were going to troll lures until we found birds, but the birds where right there anyway, so out came the twisties, and first cast we were on! awesome little fighters, regardless of how light or heavy your gear is. I ended up switching to my 1.5kg squid outfit for shits n giggles, and boated the last of our bag.

it was all over red rover, when an orange boat (who was catching SFA) decided he'd had enough of watching us catch fish, and trolled straight through the middle of the school, which resulted in the whole school sounding to the depths, never to be seen again. all good though, we had our fun, and our bag was good, so we cruised back in at a leisurely 20 knots, getting back to woodies at a gentlemanly 9am. home, boat washed, and quality sashimi filleted by 10am, keeps the missus happy.

Was almost out of bait. At the point where I almost had to buy it. Very impressed with size for time of year. Could have got 30 no problem . Others where not big so I left them. My 1 year old grandson apparently isn't going to become fisherman . Lol we will see.

.. as long as its not blowing 25knot everyday. Ive managed to get out a couple times lately between what seems to be days on end of relentless 15knt plus breezes. Surface temp is ticking over and have even found pockets of 25 degree water lately. With the wind dropping a bit later in the week and some warm daytime temperatures im expecting to see a few mackie reports by the end of the weekend, fingers crossed one from yours truly :P

Here's a few photos since my last post.

Went out with a few of the boys Thursday morning for a fish off 5 Fathom, was a struggle to find any sized snapper amongst the little ones but good to see theres are some healthy sized schools out there!
We only came across one dhu just under unfortunately so he went straight back down , had a few welcome bycatches of KGs though.

Trolled our way back in to check the cray pots and found some tuna busting up..completely spooled me on my 3k reel on the first hookup, thankfully had a heavier combo rigged and ready to go straight away and landed some

All in all a decent mixed bag for the day

now to get back out and keep looking for a metro mackie!

Had a day on the shack attack charter boat out of Cervantes last week was abit of a tough day on the fish but the skipper tried to get us onto some fish we left 40 mins earlier than normal and we stayed over an hour longer than normal trying to get another dhu or 2. I did pretty well with my new outfit a finn nor offshore and penn battalion rod not expensive gear but its alot lighter than the penn 6/0 and broom stick rod i used to use. I caught 2 dhues at 75 and 76cm so i was pretty stoked. Only have a photo of 1 though which i got from Facebook. 

Got a good feed. Mate from work never got sized dhue or tuna or jumbo. All done .

 58 cm on a king wrasse fillet

 Caught a bone this morning in close down the end of the cliffs trying for a pinkie. Filthy conditions, wind, swell, forgot the sea anchor. Caught the bone first, then a big dart, a sand snapper and even a spangled. But no pinkies. Oddball collection of fish.

in by 8 30am love them morning didnt bag but good feed 

Squiding near d9. Had 1 only one. Come up and smash herring near us. Seen it for 2 mins. Then left. Didnt have any gear to try catch it.

 Fishing 100 metres deep, west of the muiron islands, hooked up to a beast and felt seriously undergunned with my pe3 jigging rod, got it up after a serious effort and we saw a cod shape, thought it was a greyband or eight at that snuck in close, but it was an absolutely massive rankin, 94cm long, estimated weight 12kg, I was chuffed with this fish, but my back wasn’t! 

 first jumbo for me, suprised how this thing even got into my 3/4 pot

1.85kg's - tasted real good 

size comparison & yes the white is size !

 can never get sick of these goodies 

Today but happy to come home with these 

Decided to give the dinghy for it's first run since May so got fresh fuel and headed out after the Mrs finished training this morn.

Knew the tides would be rubbish at 11am but I was pleasantly surprised to pull in a fiesty 28cm model on my honey hole flats after 20 mins along with half a dozen or so 22-23cm bream. Moved to the deep snags and caught a few Billy Grunter and then hooked a solid very dirty fighting bream that hit liike a train. Reefed him away from the snags and had a great fight on the 1-2kg rod with 6lb line on my 1000 reel and he went 35cm.

I spooked a few easy 35+ bream trolling the flats too and I reckon the presence of yellowtail grunter and nice clear water is a sign of some great bream hardbody fishing to come in the upper Swan this season similar to 3 years ago.

 understand many cant post a pic into an existing post but it will be worth posting your pic on the site and copying the link into this post. lets make a years worth of memories in one hit. cheers and beers all 

 While cray season has been good to us we decided to give the pots a miss yesterday and go for a fish in the 40's and play with the new Furuno. Was a productive day while Dhuies weren't large we were able to find them, released 3 kept 2, 1st 2 fish of the day were nice KG's and the last fish a beaut Baldy. Back to check and remove the pots today good choice after 2 days 7 crays 1 being a Jumbo. Christmas all sorted. Be safe over this period and spend some quality time with family and friends telling fishing stories.

 Awesome day on the water yesterday with plenty of quality fish caught on bait and artificials, also got two small bluefin tuna (not pictured) sashimi tonight 

 Went out for a quick session this morning and caught a nice 68cm model

weather needs to improve markedly if we are to have dhui on the menu for christmas , so whos going  out for demersal with 20-25 knots winds .

 Went down the beach and caught these little fellas with the sun shining.It was dead that night just Tarwine robbing baits.I got 2 on the single hook and one on half a small mulie on a white bait gang

 Had a few mates up from perth for a couple days keen to catch a feed .boys were pretty stoked with the result

 chris G and i made a mad dash to steep point for a weekend fish also being my first trip and where lucky enough to land a couple.

 chris had said the track in is the best he had ever seen, lots of work has been done to the track.

 we left perth thursday arvo and we where fishing by 9am fri morning, unfortunatly left a day early due to change in   weather getting us home sun night.

 landed a few fish and no drama with the sharks

 spinning won the weekend over ballons but nothing beats a mack busting into the sky hitting a balloon bait

 BIG shout out to mick, cal and hutch at shore catch for the storm gars that where huge in comparrison to the rest of   the   guys on the cliff. rigging them was made easy because of the way they handle the their products keeping them straight as an arrow. this resulted in chris landing the biggest mack (brag mat pic) by far over anyone else on the point 

 like always, never enough pics and cant wait to go back

Managed to snag some leave last week and joined a couple of mates for a trip south. Had a shocking start to the week with my car going down on the beach and some bad weather but we managed to get 2 days on the water at the end and made up for it. I added a couple of new species to the list and we ended up taking a fair few fillets home to restock the freezer with. What more could you ask for.

 few Crays from freediving adventures this season so far

 seas looks rough but sea breeze @ rotnest hasent looked to bad today , just wondering whos pulling pots in the morning , 

 Another early start and a different dirrection from Albany today. Picked up this horse of a sambo at a new ledge we where scoping out in the low swell. Managed a little blue and a good harlequin also. Let everything go today so they are back out cruising the reefs. 

First real big fish for my new heavy setup and it handles it well. The sambo had the Stella singing under nearly 18kg odd of drag but was much easier to control it that the shorter or lighter gear we have used in the past. Stella 18K with 80lb Tasline Hollow braid on my Maven Coast 10ft 37-45kg rod. The best LBG combo ever and I can't imagine going back to what we used to use!!

Another mercy dash to the south coast and we found ourselves with a 1:30AM alarm leaving Albany to get to our location by first light a few hours out of Albany. Hour walk to the ledge and it must of been one of my first casts after collecting some herring as bait and hooked up and fought a good fish that took my herring fillet. It was slow but powerful and was swimming around. Felt like a heavy fish but to slow or lazy for a good pinky or Queen snapper so I guessed a small sambo that couldn't take much drag on the heavy 80lb gear. Quick fight from shallow water and this silver fish popped up next to the ledge and the screams of joy and excitement from us could of been heard in another state!!! After finally cracking a good dhuie not long ago after years of trying to pull another even bigger I was blown away.

 I've been getting the Mrs onto fishing with me and she is more than happy to tag along here and there. Had some awesome times just back to basics catching herring with her or even banjo sharks and sweep we seen one arvo but a while back I took her along on one of our mega missions to try get her some real fish. She wasn't happy about getting up at 3am driving 1.5 hours then walking 1.5 hours to the spot but she did it and I'm so glad it was worth it or I would of never heard the end of it. She caught her first blue groper all on her own and it played out perfectly with me hoping for a nice small fish to eat her crab and a lovely little blue of 5kg popped up. Lucky because the next 2 we landed just after where 13 and 19kg so she would of really struggled haha. After the blues shut down we burleyed up and fished hard and got her onto a good smabo. I had to do a bit of sweet talking at the end to steer the fish close to the rocks but her first sambo around 17kg which is a very good fish. Bloody proud partner moment right there and thank god it payed off!!

 We have stepped out gear up and got some heavier stuff to try land some bigger fish and so far it's working. My brother Aron yesterday landed this monster while fishing solo. Gear used: Stella 20k, JC Customs built CTS GT fight 37-45kg blank, 80lb Tasline and 200lb Varivas leader. Loosing a lot less fish now and getting better results compared to the pe4-6 gear we have been using in the past. 

Bit of a quick story Aron wrote up about the capture.

Had a sleep in for once in my life this morning, woke up and checked the swell realised it was a full lake so I rushed around and grabbed my fishing gear and set off, headed to a local spot I haven’t fished in over a year, collected a few crabs then after about an hour I caught and released two smaller blue grouper and then it went quiet so I moved spots to where I lost a massive grouper last year, had a few casts and straight away grouper bites got a small one to the rocks then pulled hooks, started to bring crabs back in so I did a fancy burley trick my mate told me about 5 minutes later I saw a big blue brute cruise in, I quickly raced back to the crab stash and put the biggest one I could find on, watched it pick up speed and nail the crab I don’t think I’ve set hooks so hard before, I braced myself as it took its first run but it was no match for a Stella 20k 3 clicks off locked I pumped it close to the surface and it still took another run, finally got it to the surface and started steering it to the landing ledge,biggest moment of joy grabbing hold of the beast! My new personal best blue grouper took me soooo long to beat my 22kg one

getting much closer to the 30kg+ ones we are looking for on rod and reel which is a massive achievement