G'day 

With every weather report saying something different, we decided to chance it and head out early for a morning bash. We were at the 'west end of Rottnest' as the sun came up and had a few drops - all the right fish were coming up they were just size or a bit under, so all went back - bald chin, dhu fish and pink snapper.

We saw some birds causing a racket so went over to investigate, we could see Tuna free jumping clean out of the water, they were Southern Blue Fin Tuna around the 4-5kg mark. They spooked quite easily, so we needed to go wider around the school to keep them on the surface. Chased the school around for a few hours, kept these 5 for a feed released some more and dropped a few more.

Good fun for a sunday morning!

Sorry about the kill shot. Conditions out there on Sunday morning, were OK and not great. Well worth the trip out.

Cheers, 

Alex

 getting bigger lots around atm

 Went for a deep drop off rotto a few weeks back. I had a mate follow me in his boat. Got to my first mark and it looked quiet on the sounder but we decided to have one drift as the boys wer pretty keen. Our lines had just hit the bottom and had sum complete f@$k whit burn over at about 30knts between our 2 boats so he could get our drift line and drop!!! As you could imagine I was real happy about this so I went over to ask WTF he was doing?? I got the usual bull sh@t I had this spot already an Iv been fishing it for years. If this was the case I'm sure you would have plenty of other spots you could go to if sum one was on the mark! If anyone sees a red 6.5-7m chives with a white cab I'd be moving on real quick! 

So so after all that we decided to put the marlin gear out. Didn't see any bills but marked a lot of new ground! We had a drop on the best looking edge and pulled 3 bass! My mate got the biggest at 48kg! 

Decided to go for a balloon on the strong southerly got down there early to beat the crowds. 2 mullet were about 250m out under balloons by 6:30ish. Around 7 I noticed alot of slack line on the overhead, after winding in around 50m of slack the fight began. A long sluggish fight of around 45 minutes ended with this beauty. Close to 7 foot and a guesstimate 50-60kg. It just shows you put the hours in and eventually it will go your way. Stoked to say the least :)

 I had always tried using lures for bream upstream where it's dirty but I've had no luck. Closest I came to catching one on a lure upstream was hooking onto a bream but then losing it when the hooks pulled.

Went fishing downstream with my cousin to target bream on lures which I haven't done before and my cousin gets a hookup using a sebile flat shad 35. Hooks dropped, we were both disappointed because it would have been his first too. He hooked up another and this was big, I'm talking 40cm but as we got it close to shore, once again the hooks pulled. Few minutes later, he hooks another! They were definately feeding and this time, he actually managed to land it and so he finally caught his first bream on a lure.

So I thought I'd put on my tt switchblade and give that a go. A few minutes later, the lure gets smashed and I'm on to a bream. I managed to land it too .:) 

Here's the pic.

 Headed to Coral Bay end of Jan for the wife's 30th birthday. Managed to get out on a couple of occasions and did really well.

Fish of the trip was this 10.6kg red. Sorry about the photo. Didn't realize until we got home that there was a scale on the lense.

 G'day 

Went out a couple of times the weekend just been for a last big bash of landbased fun before my new boat is fitted out this week. 

Appears there are plenty of sharks kicking around. Me and a mate managed 3 from 2 trips and a few tailor. Sharks were all between 90cm-1.1m - good fish and chips size!

Also saw more sharks get landed including a 5' hammerhead. 

Only downside was I snapped the tip of my Xzoga beach rod, anyone know any good rod repairers?

All the sharks were caught of fresh fillets 2x on tailor and 1x on snook - 

Cheers 

Alex

 22KG Bass Grouper from 450m

Jessie Harvey-Travers with a recent pinkie.

Check out the head on it.................

Jessie Harvey-Travers with his P.B Bunbury DHU.........

Me and a mate decided to give our favorite spot out the back of 3 mile a shot yesterday morning.

After setting off at 5am, anchoring and starting a burley trail we began the morning with a few skippy and a 690mm Pinkie on SP. About an hour later my mate's half mulie got smacked mid water and took off West in a blistering run, we both called it for a Samson fish and just waited for it to stitch him up in the reef below - but it didn't happen. The fish seemed to come up to the surface so we changed the call to a shark and I left him to fight it while I got a few more fish on the SP's (more skippy, breaksea, little dhuie and another snapper). After another couple of big runs and getting the fish near the boat it went deeper and the fight turned into a tug of war. Finally, after over an hour worth of fighting we wrestled an absolute horse of a sambo into the boat.

It was caught on a certate 3000 and 20lb line and having the fish swim over the anchor twice and a large knot in the braid 'magically' come undone about 1/3 of the way into the fight, we both considered this to be a catch as spectacular as it was lucky. We estimated it at 35kg+ and it swam away after a bit of a drive. We continued to fish for another hour or so without much else happening. Also threw in a photo of my first pinkie on SP too, all I can say is there won't be much bait on my boat in the future.

Anyway - thought I'd share a good story and we're both pretty chuffed on our second Metro trip on the water. (Apologies for the dodgy phone pick - just my luck to have the wrong setting when we land an absolute horse!!!!)

Cheers

Nick

....

went busso found some tailor only there for three days also got in to some good crabs aswell all diving

i went for a early fish this morning
managed this 39cm tailor on bream gear.

 After spending most of this summer chasing yellowfin whiting around the Peel estuary system, primarily to avoid the yahoos at the various boat ramps throughout the school holidays, I finally decided to haul the old girl out of the shed, dust her off, kick her in the guts and give her a bit of a run offshore.

The day started not too flash when my tie up rope let go of the jetty while I was parking the vehicle, forcing me to jump in after my ride...ordinarily would've been quite refreshing but today there was a lovely diesel slick wafting across the marina! On that sour note, it was off to the FFB, where some microjigging produced three blown hookups, one of those yellow footballer things, and a miniscule flathead.  I know there are bigger flatties all along the back edge, and for anybody interested, I reckon micojigging would be the way to go for them...ambush predator's smorgasbord!

Anyway, headed out to my old demersal stomping grounds, and as I approached one of my more reliable spots, the little pink/white christmas tree skirt I was trolling got belted. Took all the 30 lb braid off my little Calcutta, and into the mono backing. Was able to chase down the offender with the boat, get some line back, and then settle in for what turned out to be a half-hour slugfest, knowing full well it was a tuna of some sort, courtesy of the deep, circling battle. I knew it had to be of good size, and figured it for a yellowfin or perhaps a bigeye. When the deadlock was finally broken, up came 12.3 kg of the biggest southern bluefin I have seen in local waters.

Gave the nearby bottom spot a couple of PE3 drifts for no result, then buggered off back in to get that puppy on ice!

Cause it was a solo mission, and I've only just worked out the timer on my phone camera, the pic is not the best but at least it tells the story! Thanks for reading!

 Today's efforts out of two rocks in close watching the storms roll in 

After a bit of assisted micro jiggin action on rat sambos few weeks back, got the boy a new outfit to suit him and gave it a shot over chrissy still assisting/teaching him with the action/retrieve but only managed a lil slimey and a baker at the same sambo spot before mumsy started feelin crook in lumpyish conditions


Got out yesterday to troll up some tailor out of the wind while the easterly blew early. Headed out as it dropped off, and had some spirit breaking moments when I busted off on whatever smashed my live tailor then an unsuccessful hour or so huntin a mass of birds workin in an area to only get a few big stinkn snook. Conditions were beaut so out we went to a lil spot and dropped my placcy down. Checked the drag and handed the rod to the boy and advised to just 'hop' but not wind as I got the micro jiggers ready. Next thing hes yellin out as I look up to see him hangin on the bent rod with good thumps of the rod tip. Learnin to fish 'underarm' now he gets up his first blackarse and it it dispatched and put on ice for dinner. Woohoo, stoked for that to happen!

With barely a drift and no noticeable current it was ideal to fish the 20g jigs in about 32m of water without having to 'hold possy' much with the boat. The boy had been learnin to jig and I was pleased to see how well he parted the action on his own so I was happy to leave him be as I was keen to fish too. As I had barely got my jig to the bottom I hear the Boy yelp again and sure enough he was on. Just a pup but stoked to get his first dhu in that fashion!

Gota love the random Buddy Franklin comment, hadn't talked about footy all day???

 The lure is 50mm in length. You mob can work out the size of the fish. Can anybody top that (or bottom that) with a smaller whiting? And anything caught by stinking bait fishos doesn't count!

 4 pots ,great fun

 had a play with my eldest boy(andy),he is getting hang of occy situation, very quick,the old man will take some beating,no matter how many pots he has.great fun having a swim and teaching the dumb ass in how its done.getting the dhue lollies built up.my youngest( luke) swims like a brick .anyone would think he was being attacked in water.l.o.l..all good .great bait

Took my boy out yesterday for a shot at getting his first Dhu and we weren't dissapointed!

Home by 10am with a nice 60cm model for him and a 66cm for me.

We keeping passing each other in the house making the peace sign at each other as in two - TWO DHUFISH DAD!!!

What an awesome morning and a great memory for the both of us.

I'm so proud of his attitude towards dealing with fish - he's very respectful of how to treat them, always insisting on a humane and quick dispatch.

I'm far from a religious person but we always say a small thank you to the fishing gods for the fish that give their life for us to enjoy our sport and to be able to feed the family.

Caught about half a K behind Five Fathom Bank in the Rockingham area on single hook (6/o) Paternoster using Occy for bait.

Managed a quick bit of video and a couple of pics. Enjoy in HD. 49 secs.

www.youtube.com/watch

 G'day 

I recently got back from a trip to the US with the Mrs. As any good fisho' would do I managed to sneak in some fishing in Puerto Rico. I had two full day charters booked before I left, one for Tarpon fishing and the other Bluewater, unfortunately the bluewater charter was cancelled due to bad weather.

Picking the right charter before you leave on an overseas holiday is even more important than it is at home, because you only have one shot at it! I went with Magic Tarpon charters and couldn't have been happier. The Mrs and I arrived at the docks at about 6am, and were quickly introduced to our captain for the day. We were one of 5 boats that Magic Tarpon run for Tarpon fishing, the other 4 boats were full of American Anglers. After a 10 minute ride during a beautiful Puerto Rican sunrise we were at our spot right in the middle of the lagoon. On the way out I was thinking we would be fishing hard up against the mangroves, but this wasn't the case, our Captain showed me the sounder and explained that we were fishing a nice drop off in the Lagoon that the Tarpon feed along. 

Our Captain had already been out that morning to catch some bait, in the way of "sand perch" these were kept live and killed before they went onto a single circle hook and lobbed out. We had been fishing for what felt like 5minutes and one of the rods buckled over, and we were on! You quickly learn what Tarpon are all about, brute strength and stamina. The first run was a good one as you would expect, then the next and the next and the next... It is never over unti the fish is in the boat, every time you think the fish is beat boat side, it will take another 50-100m and your heart will skip a beat as these guys are masters at throwing hooks. By this time, the other 4 boats were close by as well as another couple boats, we eventually got this guy in the boat and I couldn't have been happier, a nice 30kg + Tarpon was in the boat! You beauty, huge smile, high 5's and a fair bit of carrying on to let the yanks know how we do it down under! Felt good to get the monkey off my back before the sun had fully risen. 

For the next couple of hours we saw one more smaller fish landed by another boat and saw plenty of bait fish and Tarpon jumping around the boats, without too much action. For some reason Magic Tarpon have all their handles on the left side of theirs reels, I am used to having it on the right. I asked the Capt' if we could change them over. We started to joke that this would be the time a fish would take off and you guessed it, we were on! only problem was the reel had no handle! After some quick scrambling we managed to get the handle back on the reel and I was on again. This fish played a different game to the first and was all about jumping! which was good to see, but I crapped myself everytime it did scared it would throw the hooks. My Captain exlained that the best thing to do is throw your arms forward when they do to give them some line, so the hooks don't pull. Feels awkward at first and hard to remember while the adrenalin is pumping, but it seems effective as the fish stayed connected. After about 45mins we had our second Tarpon on the boat! Another nice fish of around 30kg! We didn't catch another fish after this but, dropping one more smaller fish and it didn't matter! I couldn't have been happier I had landed myself 2 very nice Tarpon and got to experience what these Magical fish are all about and got to tick another fish off the list. 

We got back to the docks at around lunch time and had a yarn to the other anglers and captains, only one other fish was caught for the day, making it 3 fish from 5 boats, and I managed to snag myself two of them! When it is your day it is your day. Have to learn to cherish those days as these special days don't come around very often and this was a really specials days fishing for me and one I wont forget. Always good givin' it to a couple of Yanks too.

Tarpon have it all. Strength, a never say die attitude, acrobatics and a crazy ability to throw hooks!

Thanks for reading,

Alex

I got an invite from a mate last week to go out wide fishing because the weather was looking mint. Seabreeze predicted <10 knots for the whole day so the plan was to explore some ground 30-50km offshore not usually possible with summer WA weather. The first stop was to collect some bait for the bottom bashers. Since I only packed jigs between 90 -230g for offshore use, I wasn’t prepare for the 6m bait collection spot. Then the Williamson Gyro jig in my tackle box caught my eye. I had previously bought this jig from Compleat Angler Boxhill when they were on special @$3. As cheap as it sounds, this is actually an excellent flutter jig, courtesy of the asymmetrical sides. I had rigged this 30g jig with a single hook for casting at surface bust up. This lure swims well on fast retrieve and flutters down on the pause, mimicking an injured dying baitfish falling out of the school. As that was my only option, I cast it out and jigged it back. On my second retrieve, I had a hook-up! The fish didn’t managed to peel any line from the reel but the rod was folding over and pulsating from the tail beat as the fish tried to win its freedom. After a short tussle, a nice fat black arse breached the surface, mouth agape with the J-hook lodged in the lower jaw from the outside. I was stoked. It looked bigger and fatter than my previous PB jigged up from Whitey’s charter in Jurien Bay. The fish looked rather squarish than cod shape but who cares? – it tasted great on the table. ☺ With only a few wrasses on the deck, we decided to move on to the deeper ground. Half way out we came across many birds working the surface. I wanted to cast but skipper decided to troll around the birds to see what’s lurking underneath the surface. Haine’s rod was the first to take off, the lure that did the damage was Halco Laser Pro 140 red head. A fat yellowfin tuna of 8kg hit the deck. We continued to troll and next was double hook-up. However, the skipper dropped his fish because he was using 6kg line to gain points for his comp. Marco’s fish stayed on the hook and soon he brought in a yellowfin of similar size to the first. I am more of a casting freak than a trolling person but since the bite was red hot, I decided to pull out my Rapala CD Magnum purchased last Xmas. In an era where X-Raps took most of the lime light, I decided to go old-school and tied on this timber lure, retrofitted with Owner S-125 singles. As I didn’t have any trolling outfit, the Rapala CD Magnum was sent out in my Saltiga Hiramasa spinning outfit, rigged with 65lb braid & 50lb FC. As the boat passed another flock of seabirds, my reel went off! It was hard pumping in the fish when it swam towards the surface in the opposite direction but once it dived deep, the parabolic action of the rod exerted enough hurt to tire the fish out quickly. With a few strokes, the fish was brought to the surface- another finz of smaller proportion. Nevertheless, I was stoke. Not because I caught the fish but because my decision to go old school and Owner singles proved to be correct! I did try Decoy Jigging Singles before but missed many strikes at the Abrolhos, both casting and trolling. Not that they are no good but I reckon they are not suited for fast moving lures. The tuna was pinned on the upper jaw on the belly hook – very clean hook-up. The lures went sent out again to troll but you guessed it, triple hook-up again within minutes! This time round my trolling lure wasn’t in the water, but I was rigged up and ready to cast when the rest were reeling in the fish. I jumped on the front deck but the birds had already gone. The lure of choice was a sinking stickbait of 80mm that claimed many tunas before. My first cast out saw a dark shadow tailing the sinking stickbait but not striking. When I swapped to a Lucky Craft stickbait of similar size, the same thing happened again. I gathered the fish were in the mood to chase fast moving prey so I put on my heavy sinking minnow and whipped out a long cast. Weighing merely 24g, Tackle House Flitz cast like a dream and could be cranked back at high speed, courtesy of the dorsal fin which acted like a keel, ensuring the lure tracked straight even at high speed. I counted to 10 to let the lure sank deeper before burning back at full speed. At this stage the birds were no longer in sight and I was merely blind casting. On my 3rd crank I felt a solid thud following by the screeching sound of my Twinpower 4000XG as the fish peeled the 20lb braided line out at the rate of knots. The tuna gave my Bayside Shooter 10-25lb a good work out as you can see from the photos. The first run was powerful, tearing a fair bit of line from the spool. Second run was strong but lacked the stamina of the 1st. By the 3rd run, line barely came out of the spool and the tuna was merely doing circles. Since we already had 4 tunas in the esky, I made the call to rel œease the tuna at boatside. Trashing tuna with a set dangling trebles in a boat with 4 person wasn’t a good idea after all. As such, there was no photo taken- my apologies! I was ecstatic to deflower a lure which had been sitting in the stash for 4 years! In the next half an hour or so, more tunas were landed. We landed 8 tunas altogether but only kept 4. The boys also picked up baldies and a few legal dhueys in 60-70m spots. However, I didn’t even manage to get a sniff on my heavier jigs! This had to be one of the best metro fishing trip for me ever. I am pretty sure the casting results would have been just as good had the skipper decided to cast rather than troll for the fish. But I couldn’t ask for more, beautiful weather, red hot trolling action and the opportunity to deflower new lures! This is a new lure, used for the first time and had caught 1 fish. But there are multiple teeth marks all over the lures. Check these out! My guess is either the fish made multiple attempts to nail the lure before getting hooked or there were more than 1 fish going at this lure. NO...they aren't hook rash. I try rotating the hooks but there are some angles where the hook points can't reach. The lure that accounted for the Black-Arse. Whilst I was rinsing and de-salting the lures, I noticed that the split ring on the rear hook had been deformed! The tuna was hooked on the upper jaw on the tail treble. Looks like the treble stood the test but the split ring gave way instead. Mine you, they were the stocked standard Japanese HD split ring and Owner Trebles.

 both boats done good, i lost a bet i was suppose to wear a dress for angelo,,l,o,l (getting a bit worried about the request) never happen,good fish great day ,my oldest boy also just got home with a few dhue lollies..great fun good company, ian and  ang beat my boat hands down,,next time.the baldies of ians boat where crackers

Hi all,

Went out trolling over the Australia Day weekend and picked up my first metro mackie.
Trolled all day no more.

Hey all, haven't posted in a while but here's something me and my mate caught couple of weeks ago.

All started with a 35cm tailor fillet on my rod with 30lb braid and 80lb leader... Few secs later ran through my other line a and my mate picked up that rod.

Then busted off on my first rod, I swapped to my other rod moments later took a massive run through my mates line.

So we had 2 rods fighting this bad boy. We couldn't believe our luck. We all though ray for sure.

A few eye brows were raised when we were pulling this is a seeing tailor flying out of the water, clearly running from something haha.

We finally got the shark in, it had braid tired around it's dorsal fin. Was dug in a little, but barely a scratch to this monster.

Released, swam off well :D

 Haven't been fishing much lately, but this arm burner was a good way to spend Australia Day morning. The bronzie was released to steal a few more rigs.

 Caught this in 5 meters of water seen it go in and out of ledge while hooked was fun glad to come up with it. Perth metro 5 meters of water on plastic

I took the old man out for a crab in the swan tonight in the bathtub.  We did pretty well landing 16 crabs from 8 nets in 5 pulls between 6:30-9:45pm around mosmans/the coombe. Good feed planned for tomorrow! 

 Hi everyone,

Been hanging around on here, being a bit of a lurker, thought I should make an account and say hello!

Parents recently bought a block of land down in Golden Bay, decided it was about time I get back into my old passion and hit the beach.  Day in question, nice gentle easterly blowing, very attractive looking gutter starting right at your feet.

Rigged up the bream rod with a little popper and waded out to the sand bar.  Couple of casts later, the water is literally boiling with herring, schools of 30 or more chasing with every cast.  If only I was more prepared, could have easily bagged out in 30 minutes.  As it was, didn't keep any as I had no way of getting them back to shore, still great fun though!

Once I had enough out there, swam back to shore (tide was coming in and with the swell I could not longer stand in the gutter), rigged the 9ft castig rig with a bait chaser to chase some bait. Couple of casts later, had 6 herring that were a bit too big to go out whole.  With the sun going down, loaded up my 12ft Prevail/Saragosa 8000 with a snelled hook mulloway rig, and left a herring fillet out to soak while casting unweighted mulies.

Within 10 minutes, big was bending and it was on!  Set the hooks and kept thinking I had lost the fish, just didn't seem like there was anything there, and thought maybe seaweed...  Then, what do you know, these 2 buggers flop their way onto shore - was not expecting to double hook 43 and 40cm tailor on my mulla rig at all!  Was intending to release, but top bigger fella had really swallowed the hook, and he was practically lifeless by this stage, so ended up being a nice breakfast on the Webber

That was the end of the fish we landed, but on my smaller 9ft/20lb braid rig, while casting unweighted mulies had 2 solid runs, but both times, just as I'm slightly putting some more pressure on, ganged hooks snapped (or were bitten through, but that sounds unlikely)!  They were the Mako brand pre-made gangs, might avoid them next time...  Anyone else had similar issues?

Anyway, going back down again this weekend, hopefully I'll post again on Tueday with my first big Mullloway story :)

Cheers