Got some nice fish . Wind in morn was bad , some big wind waves. Good thing was . Got 2 different dermersals prior to dhues . Let the poor Harley go , let few back ass go and few pinks .wasn't easy going , but worth while

 Missed the incoming tide as work got in the way so fished the outgoing tide. Theadies didn't play the game but caught a couple of solid bluenose salmon so broke out the smoker and results were delicious.

2 loads through the smoker and happy days.

I wrote the story below as a bit of a reminder to myself of how special this fish is to me and what it’s taken to achieve. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I could of beaten my old best from the middle of Perth after only 17 hours of effort put into fishing for a ghost of the river. Of all the far off remote places I’ve been all over WA it’s pretty special to have got it from within 30 minutes of my house.

Long story warning.

This fish has been a long time coming for me, 11 years ago after 2 years of effort I landed my first big mulloway then 2 weeks after that I landed my biggest that stood for a long time at 20kg. I fished for them hard for 3 more years catching heaps but never over the 20kg. I lost one about 25kg after seeing it at my feet before cutting me off on some rock, I pretty much gave up from that point for a few years. I’ve fished on and off for them since and other than the river fish in Albany on lures, I’ve never had much success.

With the restrictions in place that I can’t leave the Perth area I’ve been going crazy trying to find things to target in Perth. Snapper and mulloway where my main goals, Mitchell convinced me to come try for a swan river mulloway which I had only ever done at E Shed with a fish about 17kg being released years ago. First 2 nights with Mitch and nothing but 2 decent tailor landed. 3rd night I managed a small mulloway at 75cm. Total of 12 hours put in for one fish at that point! That’s pretty good odds I thought.

4th night chasing them I decided to go chase snapper on the northern beaches and after driving around trying to find clean water that wasn’t full of weed I gave up and decided to race back to the swan,drovefrom yanchep to the river to fish a bite time. Met Mitch and cast out my baits, pretty much on the bite time to the minute my rod went off and 15 minutes later I got to see the fish for the first time, I thought maybe 17-18kg when I got to first look at it. Took another 5 minutes before I had it in knee deep water that I jumped in and went to hold it and I got to see the true size of the fish! Well and truly smashed my old PB.

Got a length measurement on it at 142cm. We had scales but I didn’t want to hang the fish to weigh it as I thought it would kill it so I decided against getting a weight and we let it go back into the darkness that it came from.

New goal is to get a fish over 1m on a hard body lure from the swan, so far I’m 20 hours in of casting for one big bump.

I’m still buzzing while writing this and can’t thank those who helped enough. Hoping one day I get to see that fish again when it’s 1.7m long.

Haven't been on the water since March 7 and after I kicked my son off the PS4 today and hearing him say there's nothing else to do decided we'd hit the river with the large swells in the ocean.

The pics speak for themselves and the kids drove for a good 20 mins while the Mrs and I kicked back with a brewski.

I got some 4” sluggos as a gift and i really love their action, but when i looked into rigging and stuff i found that for my area the preferred size is 6, 7.5, or 9. I don’t use plastics often, so i couldn’t tell you what size my fish normally bite on.

I tend to use 2/0 hooks and up for bait, and 4/0 for Bucktail jigs, and i fish inshore saltwater, usually pretty strong current. I originally was just gonna get a 6” of each Black and White and use a worm hook, but I’ve fallen into a hole of all the different possibilities. pnrstatus.vip/

https://nox.tips/

 Quick trip to our usual crab spot yesterday.

 Tide fuller than we like to start with and first couple of pull empty.

Next run of pots put 3 in esky so happy with that then last run  a double header of big boys in one pot.

Happy days and a feed of chilli crab washed down with Corona tonight.

Brendan got few nice critters . Squid a cracker . Mully not on the bad size also .some good feeds on way.

Took advantage of a good looking forecast recently and blew work in hopes of finally catching my first Dolly. Well and truly ticked that box with one of the best fishing sessions i have ever had, only downside is now I want to upgrade the boat so I can get out there in any conditions!

 Was meant to be a relaxing family day wife did a great job on the net. One of those fights I'll remember for a long time

 Massive jumps wicked runs and had me around the anchor twice but we got it into the boat

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Got some nice fish . Hate to say it but baldies pain in ass. Pretty relaxed day enjoyed it

 Great captures on yesterdays charter with a early morning bag out on mahi mahi and a few great demersals thrown in also weather was amazing.

 Found some great fish 

They were hard to find in my usual honey holes and the flats were completely barron. Day one camping we worked hard for six working depths moving shallower and day two we went deeper for no joy amd then deeper again and bang. Most are just size but very heavy.

 Heading out deep today off Point Peron thought 1st up we might have a crack at KG's so rigged up for them, well we got this lot and left them biting didn't bother going out deep chasing Dhue's was already a good day and back early.

 Went out on Friday for a wee fish in the shallows to try and entice a pink or one. Failed again ! Anchored in a patch of 8 mt gnarliness and berlied up hoping for the best. First was Port Jackson followed by a dhubanger , steam train that was stopping for nobody and another 4 Jacksons with the last one being the first one I caught coming back for seconds. Great night and feed to come home with. 

Brined and smoked the wings and frame to snack on with the fambam , bloody awesome!

I am assuming the fish the greenhorn caught was a sand bass? 

Glamour conditions last week had us launching at 4.30 with the plan to target the sunrise mackie bite then top up the eski with some tasties.

Lures out at first light and just as the sun started to rise my mate screams "MACKIE" pointing 100m further west. As we troll over we're greeted with a sight I will probably never forget, up to 50 mackerel free jumping metres into the air, one after another over the size of a football field. We're left scratching our heads as we troll straight through the middle of them all without turning a reel. As I double back into the direction we just came my mate grabs his casting rod and starts flicking a stickbait either side of the boat, frantically swapping sides as fish continue to launch all around us.

Finally he hooks up which leaves me to clear the spread.

As im winding in the last rod the laser pro gets smacked just meters off the prop, yeeha doubles!

I land mine but mate loses his, which starts the trend as we go on to lose 6 fish in a row in an unbelievable hour of power.

Next on the agenda is for some dhuies and baldies so we move to some likely ground in the high 40s. With only undersized dhuies coming over the side for the first few hours and a very strong current from the north that was dragging our rigs away in the direction faster than the boat was drifting (never had that happen before.)

My mate says "let's stick it out until the wind swings SW, then we'll be on."
Finally the wind swings and the bites start increasing, then in 2 drifts hooks fall out of 2 good suspected dhuies halfway to the boat then on the next drift we finally stick one, coming in at 90cm.

We come home with 2 fish after a very frustrating session with lots of bent rods but plenty of fillets to go around.

RDO again and dropped the kids off, punched out a 9k run and headed to the ramp to be met by some kind gentleman who waved me through the zebra crossing... thanks Unc.

Headed out to my whiting spot and loaded up on 20 plump sandies and also bagged 2 slimeys and headed to the 28's for a quick drop dropping them down butterflied.

Saw my drift bait slowly bend over then line started peeling and I thought I'd hooked a big dhu and started to win before it smoked me and after a decent back and forth pulled up a tiger around 1.5m.

Setup again and was onto my last slimey so dropped down the whiting rig and hooked a mid 30s snapper on my 4lb 1-2kg combo which was awesome fun then my drift bait took off again and it was a telltale pinkie battle and pulled in a nice 65cm model.

The weather turned extremely quickly and I raced in only to run out of fuel 2km from the marina... appears it pays to calibrate your new Suzuki Interface as it doesn't store the info from your fuel sensor. Thanks Whitfords Sea Rescue and I'll happily pay my donation Monday.

been loving the new beast, upgraded the barcrusher to a nz built extreme cc. took a while for one to come up second hand in aus but was worth the wait. if you cant tell my son is loving his red neck no front teeth look at the moment!

 My son and i had a nice day out in the 50's off Mandurah last week during the good weather.

 Went out for a quick dash this morning looking for some new ground first drop landed these beasts before a quick jig in close also what are peoples thoughts om the sounder shot in 230m didnt pull anything off it only tried once though

 Headed out on saturday morning with my two young blokes. As i went to leave the ramp i find out the GPS/sounder decided to a hissy fit and not work at all. Luckely i was heading out to similar area with a mate (he was in his boat) he didn't mind me following him out. hit 40m mark and he draw an X on the water an told me ground was good around this area. so with all that info i through out the drift anchor and baited the hooks. I was giving both my boys a turn of the big rod and getting to feel bigger bites then our usual target of whiting. i was playing with the sounder trying to get it to work, next thing i hear "dad, dad, i've got something" turn around, rod up and tip bent right around. with a bit of help from dad and he landed this. First for the boat (since i've owned it) and his first dhu was about 6kg 70cm.

we went in to our favourite whiting hole and got a great feed of whiting. some good size sandies with my littlest nabbing the best for the boat on the day. IUt was a great day out with my kids

My first kid free RDO in 10 years with all 3 in fulltime school now and the weather was a cracker so walked them down and packed the boat hitting Hillarys by 9:30 for a solo run.

Hit my 23m mark with some ox heart and the whiting were like rats but so were the baby flatties. Caught a dozen very quickly but it slowed a bit as they were concentrated in one patch and CBF dropping the pick. One was a beast coming in at 29cm. Once I had a decent feed I shot off to a spot I caught a small Dhu previously for a couple of drifts then moved to my 30s honeyhole and second drift landed me a nice 54cm Dhu.

Drive in and trolled the 3 Mile for a bit for no joy and got the boat home and unpacked just in time to walk back down and grab the kids.

I can get used to this veeeeery quickly.

heres a few photos from some recent trips 

 Well, that has to be the best consecitive 4-5 days of fishing weahter i have seen in my whole fishing career down south in Albany. A collection of pics  across a few days fishing. Great deep dropping weather. Fish where on the chew from the first drop.

Yes- its a lot of fish. Yes its within our bag limits, so pls dont comment if you don't know the rules yourself :) i'm very aware of what we are allowed to take etc. Remeber these where not all taken on the same day.

Great times on the sth coast 

 My son asked me to post these photos of some whitings that he caught today in Warnbro Sound. It's the first time he has caught legal sized KGs and was quite proud of himself.

Took the old man and my boy Lachie out today with a plan to hit the 40's. The swell and chop were running 45 degrees at each other which made it a bit bumpy but were able to push out at 24kn with a bit of groaning from the old boy.

Wanted to give the jigs a crack today and hooked up on my third crank and Lachie was onto me like a hawk and I reluctantly handed over my TypeJ but it spat the hooks after he gave it too much slack. He caught a baby blackarse and then went very quiet and the poor kid threw up 3 times and after the 3rd one I drove back to the 30s to get him some fresh air and hit a spot in 26m.

Bloody hard fishing and we got a couple of good hits but Lachie was moaning so I told him 1 more drift and chucked a whole squid on my drift bait rig and as we went over the ground it bent in half. Lachie miraculously came back to life and I was again handing the rod over and the fish went off like a cracker peeling line off and pulling the rod tip into the water so I gave him a hand keeping the pressure on and after a decent fight it began to surface 10m from the boat and he was already hooting when he saw it. Gaffed him in and you can see the joy on his face. Not bad bagging a 63cm banger just shy of your 10th birthday on a PE2 setup after being close to death!

The old boy bagged a 43cm blackarse on the next 'last drift' and last drifts 3 and 4 were getting uncomfortable in the strengthening wind so he headed in fairly satisfied.

Got some cracker crays in close then spent half hour on occy. Could have easy got more . Couldn’t be bothered . Getting soft :)

Thought I'd do a Mandurah reccy yesterday and headed down to grab Dad and my son who went down Fri night and hit the water at Dawesville at 11am.

Tide was very, very low and I'd been told to drop in 0.8 to 1m and we headed down the Harvey to a spot I have halfway down and ran the nets from 1m to 0.8 and it was only tiddlers but the bigger blues were in 1m+.

We pulled the nets and headed much further south and spread them out further and ran them from 1.6 to 0.8m. Finally got a size one in 1.2m and again on the second run so we moved the rest along that contour and managed to pick up 7 size crabs and threw back 5 that were only just size and about 20 that were 1-2mm under.

Hard work doing 18 miles and at least 10-12 runs on 10 nets but I reckon I've found a nice lil honey hole for the coming weeks, got a feed of fresh, clean blues and spent quality time with my dad and oldest boy.

Havnt posted anything for a fair while now and because Im now back at work bored Ithought I would throw up a few photos of the few catches on the few days off at Chrissy and New Years.

-Crays were thick again this year, getting full pots right up until mid - late December. Chrissy lunch is always a winner, I usually cook up about 15-20 crays for the family lunch. On a side note I have been fishing the same spot for the last 6-7 years and have been getting big numbers in that period. This year was the first time I had other people potting around me and the first time Ive had pots move. Thankfully none went missing but will be looking to sound out a new patch for next year I think.

-Just before Chrissy was able to get out for a quick fish, was able to get a good bag with 2 dhuies and 2 baldies. Dhus were around the 15kg mark and in shallow around the 25-30m mark on small bits of ground. The dhu in the photo was the one my mate caught.

-I think yabbies have to be one of the best feeds going around, on par with Marron. Took the nets to a mates farm used a couple of pesky birds as bait and an hour later had a good feed or yabbies which were all great size. Garlic yabbies with rice is the best!!

-Start of the new year focussed on getting onto a few crabs, first in the swan and then mandurah. Mandurah is way easier to get a bag than the swan and with the new 5 per person rule I had to share the swan catch with 4 blokes haha. Swan crabs are so much bigger than the Mandurah ones though, you may be able to see the comparison in the photos.

Now that Im back at work I think for the next few weeks I will be focussing on getting a few Marron and hitting the crabs whenever I can, hoping for some low winds over the next few weekends so can get back out on the fish as the freezer is looking a bit bare.