Nice trip south 

Some big boys in 1 pot. Someone thought they needed other pot more apparently( one stolen ). Engraved to the shithouse. But more than 14 ks out, so fisheries can't check out that far. Gone.

Scrapped my plans to go wide and took the dinghy up to Basso for a solo  hardbody bream sesh. Launch from Fishmarket ramp and changed things up by heading down river around the Helena rivermouth and scored a fat little rat on my 3rd cast.

Spent the next 90 mins casting into snags, along flats, under reeds and trolled some flats and didn't get so much as a hit and the baitfish were casually floating about with no tide running which is never a good sign.

Decided to head up to my usual ground and there were about 5 crew in kayaks fishing baits and getting no action. Tried a few of my marked spots for nothing so packed up and trolled some flats with the electric motor on the way back and caught a small billy grunter. 

Chucked out again and got a snag so stopped to sort it and the snag started peeling line off my little 1000. Knowing I was on flats I knew I could play him with my 6lb line and had a great little battle in front of an audience. I sighted him and thought it may be a PB but he was 1cm short at 37cm.

A quick pic and he went back in much to the surprise of the kayak crew.

Nice swim with the wife today (two licenses)

Bored today. Got some great bait. Skinned heads out this time , rather than throwing them away. Fantastic bait. Normally can't be bothered. They never go slimy or get water pockets in them.

Had fun last few days

 Got picked up by my mates at 4.30 am and the plan was the hit up lano for some big dhuies. Get about 5 mins out of town and my mates car starts over heating so I suggested we take my car and after checking the forecast I made the call the launch from two rocks. 

The ramp wasn't to busy and we got on the water on at a reasonable time. It didn't take long until we saw schools of bluefin working we managed to hook 3 but didn't stay connected and the school was very flighty. 

So we kept heading out North West but didn't really have any spots out of two rocks so we put out the wind socks and drifted for about 2nm. 

From the drift I managed 2 dhuies a bladie and the others managed a Baldie each and a scorpion fish.  

The wind had picked up at this point so we started our long drive back to the ramp but everything worked out for the best in the end and we have some more marks out of it. 

I'll be heading north again tommorrow but at least will have some fresh Dhuie to take with me.

7 40am bagged with our 8 not super huge but got a wicked feed!

Hi All - just a big shout out to the fantastic team that run the Mackerel Island Fishing Charter. We (me, my wife, 2 x kids) went out with them yesterday and had a fabulous time. Loads of demersals, a couple of Mack’s and plenty of sharks! The skipper and deckie were great - on the fish fairly well all day, and very helpful for those that needed it.

We couldnt recommend them highly enough - so if you are up this way, get on their boat!

and for anyone thinking about bringing your own boat over, it looks quite easy and really well set up on the island for boaters. We did this trip to take a look before having a go with the bar crusher - looks like it should be fairly straight forward. 

 Spent another day chasing crabs around the estuary uhh well back to work now

Seen a number of dhus schools over the years, usually high and narrow, but this one had to be the biggest I’ve seen, purely due to the width. Practically on nothing but a small bump in 50s. School was over 50m wide and 10m high. Weights from two trips were between 9-11kg, all males but non of them dominant yet. (Small fin).

any theories out there why males school up like this? Seen it before many times, but not to this scale. 

Went exploring on the South Coast on Boxing Day and found what looked like a reasonable spot after a 1 and a half hour trek. Bit of berleying and a nice fish came up to have a look. Managed to catch this bad boy. Didn’t get a weight as we filleted it to save weight for the trip back but it was 1.24 metres long and solid. Went real hard on a SU400 and Stella 20000 with 80lb braid. First one for me landbased so pretty stoked.  We also got a smaller one around 15kg that we released 

 All the negative reports made me second gues myself couple that with a staff xmas party hangover and a 15knot southerly had to work a little harder than usual but got a 2 person limit

 Hi team

Got up early today and went for a fish from lancelin. 

Trolled a popular spot first up for a lot of rat kings, so continued on.

First 2 drops 2 baldies, not a bad start!

Moved to new ground hoping for a dhu and wasn't disappointed! Dropped 2 and deckie dropped 1, then hooked up solid.

Called it for a big big sambbo the way it was running, but up popped by new PB dhu, 101cms and 18kg. So so happy!

Rounded the bag out with another baldie and headed for home. Longer drive but usually worth it.

 Got a jumbo today in the cray pot, couldn’t believe the size of it for being caught in a cray pot, I’m used to the usual whites between just size and 25mm over, up until last week when I got a nice big boy @ 1.2kg, but then today I got this big boy weighing in at 2.569kg’s with carapace length approximately 154mm. Are Crays this size caught in pots very often? 

Now, how to cook it so it presents well on the table as a big centre piece? 

 It's taken almost 6 months for me to have time to go for a fish after work and will be doing a lot more from now on. I don't think I have ever heard so many booFs before in my life as the mullet come with the incoming tide

Went for a squirt out to GI the other morning and jagged this pair of healthy lookin KGW! Light gear and small weighted baits just around dawn did the trick. Didn't get a weight but the trusty ol bunnings tape says 53cm and 54cm. 

 youtu.be/l4U4z-C6mFI

Video from our trip earlier this year.

Well lads, glad I'm finally on the board. Caught 2 Blues this RnR to open the account for this season. Water is cold, getting mid 23s max with not much current, this time last year was 26.5. None the less she should only get better if that wind would let up.

another trip and a better bag.

Dhus, pinks, breaksea, harlies, Fox fish, queenies and nannies.

Best part of the day was catching some of the fish only 10m off the stones. All of the dhus on plastics. Harlies were huge too !  

Palm beach ramp.unreal

 decided to head to a local reef we know holds ytks mostly year round we dropped anchor and started the burley flowing after seeing a few yellow tails hangingg at the back of the skippy school out went the soft plastics and stickbaits landed two kingys around the same size and then hooked  a salmon which was weird then the misses hooked a donkey the pictures of the reel speaks for its self what started with 300m of pe 4 is now gone skiiis and left with backing hahaha spooled!!! big kungy.

 Got this beauty off freo this morning PB from the shore by far

Put the boat though its paces in the rough southern ocean.

She passed with flying colours and i am extremly happy with how she handles.

On top of all that we caught some fantastic fish on baits and plastics.

She was pretty happy with this.

 Went out for a fish with Frank yesterday, caught some nice sand whiting, then a couple of 49-50cm kg's. Awesome. Last drop and frank pulled up this beast. Went 57-58 cm on the brag matt. Big Kg. Wondering what everyone else's biggest has been. I have caught one at 63cm, a few years ago in the 30's, have photo on measuring stick. Would like to see any genuine big KGs on a brag matt etc. Tight Lines, Richie...

 Landed these with my boys, but my son did lose a absolute monster of a KG that would have easily been 650mm. That would have been something to really show. All in only 3m deep water.

These KGs came in at 440mm, largest Flattie was 460mm

Only went out for 20 mins . First ever trip .cast his rod out gave it to him ,instantly thought he was snagged, his first ever squid , I helped hold rod while he brought squid up. Classic was a trial run. He loved it.

 Good morning out on the first day of the ban.