Well, I don't normally post any catches - but was pretty stoked with this one I got yesterday.

Was out Solo again yesterday (9-4-2012), and after 3hrs of fruitless trolling the West end of Rotto for the elusive Macks I spat the chewy and did a bit of bottom bouncing.

Got 2 small dhus on bait in 30-40m, both released.

Then headed out to a few different spots (60-100m) to give the jigs a go.

Arrived at the first spot to find a  Charter Boat on it, so headed further north to another spot without success.

Nearly hit a weird drum / spool / float thing out in the middle of nowhere (see other thread "What's This ?" ), then headed back in for a bit.

Then a bit of Over-Dhu luck came my way....

Slowed to close the lid on a tackle box, then got back and saw a sweet lump on the edge of the sounder screen as I was drifting back into more desolate ground.......... scroll back......... point stored.

Got a new drift sorted over the lump and dropped a jig.......... nothing.

Sent it back down and ........... BANG, the stradic was screaming in protest.

After what seemed like an eternity up came my new PB Dhu.........  @ 98cm / 17.5kg

 (I reckon I might have to check the scales - felt WAY heavier than 17.5kg)

Was quite an effort on PE2 (Stradic 4000 & Demon Blood Combi Jerk), thought I was bricked for a while and then started to get some line back.

He was stuffed by the time I got it up from 60m+, so after a failed extended attempt to get some kick back into him, he ended up taking up most of the space in the new Xtreme Coolers Mack Box. 

Forgive the pic quality, it's a bit hard when you're solo - so this is a still shot from my screen-mounted Contour HD vid cam.

Unfortunately I didn't have it running for the catch ....  D'oh !

Pretty big bugger, considering I'm 6'4"+

Then the Missus & Kids were out when I got home so couldn't even get a decent one of me holding it then !

Was a good time to head back in.

I sounded around for a while longer but found nothing but dead flat desolate ground - so it was my lucky day to have stumbled on this spot.

Would have preferred to have the pic and send him back down, but it would have just been a waste.........

 The weather was good for a late hour or two launching from Hamlin bay in the tinnie. Only got to around the 20 meter mark but found some broken ground and we managed a fairly solid snapper.

With the salmon here its time to chase the big sharks!! went out today and caught some decent ones.

landed 2 sharks, mate lost a 3m+ one after fighting it for 3 hours, i lost another 2 much bigger than the ones i landed, all in all an awesome day with 30 big salmon caught and released (except for the ones used as baits).

both where caught on a toruim 50 with 1300m of 55lb line and shimano catana overhead rod. baits where whole salmon fillets on a slide bait rig.

first shark took 45 minutes to land and my back was killing after it,

soon as i released it my mate hooks up on a monster that took 900m of line from him in one run so out goes another bait from me with another 3 sharks swimming around below me. an hour later off goes my rod again and as the mono topshot dissapears i counted 600m in colours in my braid backing dissapear in one solid run!!!

1 hour and 45 minutes later beached this monster!!! i was well and truly buggered by this stage!!!

after relaesing it i got back and my mate is still fighting his monster with about 600m out of 1000 on his reel this was looking like a lost battle! 15 minutes later the skin fianly rubs through his line and it was over!!!

got plenty of good photos of big salmon on light gear but ill save them for later.

and this was just day 1 of my week in albany!!!

cheers chris.

 A FEW PICS FROM AN AMAZING SAEASON

Some pics might have been posted previouse, but thought ill put all my pics in one thread

 went out yesterday, hoping to get a couple nice sized crabs, got this one 1st pull

 Just landed my first pinky, coming from the rocks on a fresh scalie. Measured around 55 and estimated 2.5kg. A big thanks to the guys who helped my land it. Have a photo on my iPhone but can't upload it. 

A few select pics from Exy, more to follow

Seaquest doing damage with a Jackson Pintail

Followed up with a nice CT

tiimmbo's Longtail on the light gear

Myself 'Lamby' aka 'Kitten Arms' returns with the offensive boardies to notch up a black & has been relegated to the steering wheel for the next 2 days trolling

 thanks to the Adam and guys for a great weekend comp.

Team Donzi did well,

and Alfred took out biggest Spangled Emperor and biggest Coral Trout and second biggest Trevally

My fat bull Mahi Mahi was just pipped by Adams skinny female fish by 2cm!!!!... bugger 

Paul was a great skipper, kept us on the fish and always smiling, even when we where drench on the way back from the Murion Islands

i havent posted anything in awhile so i thought i'd share a few photos from the last month or so.if any one was wondering why theres 5 dhuie in that eski,it's because they were caught on a charter. i hope you guys enjoy the photos cheers

Got a few more mulloway over the last couple of weeks. both where caught on 6-8kg rod and a little saltist 30.

first one went 14kg and was caught north metro, was going to release it but had swallowed the hooks and was bleeding bad so he was kept. Ate a fresh tailor fillet. i was fishing on my own so landing it was again difficult but still managed.

next one was caught at E sheds last night and was around 16kg, wasnt weighed or measured as i wanted to release it as fast as possible, took a live scalie.

for those who where wondering i gaffed it in the bottom jaw and lifted it up, took a few photos and climbed down a ladder with him and swam him for a few minutes before he was right to go

nothing better than seeing such a big fish swim free after all the hours put in.

letting this fish go raised a lot of eyebrows and i hope a lot more people realise how important these fish are and that releasing big ones will keep plenty of these fish around for us to enjoy for years to come.

cheers chris..

Headed out for a fish early Saturday with Barneyboy, top bloke and a great fisho, always putting us onto awsome fish. We headed wide about 25 mile or so with the hope of getting into some macs. Trolling out got a stripey around 4kg then got what we came for bringing a 10 kg Spanish Mac onboard, great way to open my Mac account :-) cheers for another top day out Mark

spent many hours chasing this little guy finaly got him easy as

fishing a gutter i found a week ago which i caught 2 small mulloway and 2 wobbegong which i posted on fish wrecked

arrived at the beach about 4 rigged up and had my line in by quater past high tide at 4:30 this after noon gutter looked beautiful clean and deep kicked back with a beer having a chat to the young bloke when the rod buckled over, grabbed the rod and nothing, dissapointed, put the rod back in the holder and sat down about a minute later he came back for a second go, GOT HIM!! he took off only had a light drag on he took off took 100m off me straight away, i was getting worried because he had gone around behind the reef, managed to get him back in front of the clear beach, 20 minutes of head banging 3 - 4 good runs i saw a big yellow tail sticking out of the surf about 10 m off the beach took it really easy on him ran down and dragged him up the beach had him only just hooked in the lip. absoulutely stoked jumped around on the beach and celebrated with my boy biggest fish in the world he said haha.

had him on the beach 5pm on the dot so a gruelling 45 minutes of fishing. not including the hours and hours spent sitting on the beach in the dark for nothing but stingrays though.

got a leave pass from the boss tonihgt which was great considering i am back up north for work for 5 weeks tomorow

went 22kg on the bathroom scales

cheers guys

dan

p.s will post a couple more pics tomorow

2nd day on our Exy trip, we spotted a Marlin free jumping but ended up with this Saily taking a soft grassy from the outrigger

A big thanks to the crew off Team SouthWest - Seaquest, Feral & Tiimmbo for helping me land this

ps. tried to upload into image galleries via photobucket but had all sorts of issues, any ideas from the tech boffins?

edit - gone all old school & uploaded / updated thread with some other pics

Hi guys .. got  this little baitfish out around Tryal Rocks just a little while back .. Took it on a Saltiga 4500H, 63s, 50lb Satliga braid and blue Yozui Hydro Magnum..

 had a mate who booked accomidation and 3 days of fishing on a 7.1m center console over the weekend at kalbarri. friday through to saturday.

He told me to come up and stay at the place as they had a spare bed and also a spare spot on the boat, all expenses paid (what good mates i have).

I missed out on the first days fishing as i had uni on friday, but after uni on friday i packed the cruiser and drove overnight to kalbarri, arriving at 12:30am.

Was met at the front of the house by my mate and was told the fridays fishing was very quiet. not many fish landed, which was not good news. I was too excited to sleep so me and my mate went to gather some bait. We went to the river and got a dozen baby mullet and yellowtail.

The next morning we got on the boat and headed out to the skippers secret spot, and on the way out we popped for some tailor at oysters reef. Just let me say, Your dreamin if your popping for tailor with a 1000ci4 and a 1-3kg rod. I lost so many poppers and stick baits and couldnt land one tailor. closest i got was boatside and lost, they were that big! lost of surface hits.

we arrived at the spot, anchored and got fish non stop for 4 hours. 10 mulloway 5-10kg, snapper, dhuies, cobia, coral trout just to name a few. we got home filleted the ones we kept and forgot to take a photo. damn.

The next morning we went for a troll around waego area and cleaned up. got a hit every 10 minutes and at one stage had a 4 way hook up, landing only 2. and the highlight was a big 20kg YFT. after troll we did somemore bottom work and also pulled up a few mulloway, coral trout , snapper, BA and dhuie.

Was a awesome weekend. Gee i <3 my mates.

Photos were from the last day (sunday 25th march)

hello people

Here's some pics of our recent trip to Exmouth, we were up for Gamex and AIBT and had a few days inbetween to Hunt. Ill do a report on TackleHQ blog when I get a chance, the pics for now.

Headed out with mate late sat arvo/night, had absolute ball and didnt do too bad!

awsome fun catching dhu's on SP's at night time.

All in the same spot in only 12 m of water

With yesterdays good forecast I had to get out for some Super Deep jigging (300-500m)

Staff member Mike had the day off also so he jumped onboard to get amongst it!

I spent some time doing reconnaissance on new spots and went to a few of my favs also!

I was trying out the new rear weight 1kg Super Deep jig in the new silver/blue/pink and ended up getting my two fish........that being a Blue-Eye Trevalla on jig and a Bass Groper on jig!

Mike landed a Bass Groper on the rear weight 1kg Super Deep jig in the pilchard colour and next drift after that he hooked a bigger Bass again but spat the jig not too far from the surface but was not to be seen!

We had an awesome day with the weather gods being very kind which just made it even better!

Myself with a Blue-Eye Trevalla caught on the new rear weight 1kg Super Deep jig!

Myself with a Bass Groper caught on the new rear weight 1kg Super Deep jig!

Staff member Mike with a Bass Groper caught on the new rear weight 1kg Super Deep jig! 

Well today was the day. After 20 + hours over the last month, i thought i would give these "elusive" macks one last shot. Headed off to rotto at sun up, not confident, not expecting much at all to be honest. It just wasnt my year i thought, hit a patch of area which i had been getting told by numerious people they were picking up the odd mack, Lures in , teasers out, and the shit talking began between a old friend and i.

five minutes in , noticed on the sounder a nice ledge in 24m, turned the corner, speed up for the slak line, and BANG short corner is peeling line like no tomorrow. deckie grabs the rod, i started clearing the rest of the deck, after two largest run, i called it for a mack but just didnt know what type. 10 mintues in i finally see colour and its a spaniard, out comes the gaff, and with my luck lately i knew i had one shot all it was all over and catch ya later mackie. Gaffed him straight through the head.First ever matro mack boated,fish went 10.5kgs. Stokkked!!!!

Re-set the lures, out to the ledge i marked,and bang again right on the turn , right when there was slak line and i increased it the speed. I picked up the rod a diawa Sealine SLD-30 (old i know) screaming like no tomorrow, and then all of a sudden, it started going at me, and for around 30 seconds i couldnt wind, there was no tension anymore, the reels drag just shat itself!! so i said F*** it, this is not ruining my day, and fought the fish by hand, with no gloves, and burning mono going through my hands constantly, 10 minutes later to my dispise in a way, but also stoked in a way as its a species ticked off the list now, a small shark mackeral appears.. photos and back in the drink he went.

Things went quiet so we trolled off to west end, for zilch in the next two hours. made the call, with high tide approaching, i wanted to be back where we were originally. Right back in the spot lures out spreed of teasers, this time we past right over the ledge for nothing, hmm.....headed out a tad deeper to a current line i saw, and BANG! Triple hook up, It was mayhem on the black pearl, with only two guys on board, three fish hooked, two teasers out.It was full on, Ollie lost his first, while i was still fighting the fish on PE2 gear.Ollie after clearing the teasers, grabbed the third rod, and he was still on. After around 10 minutes being gentle on this fish i had boated my first metro mack weighing in at 10kgs Yeoow!Ollie boated his as well.

Fort the next 1.5 hours we were in absolutely mayhem, constant double hook ups/triple hook ups, it got that full on we had to put the 3rd rod away, and at stage we werent even getting time to set the witch doctors in the water. We ended up landing on board 8 macks and a sharkie. Numerous macks were lost boat side (all in all we got 12 to the boat)when we started fishing lighter line class's for fun!

So after all it all finally payed off, and the frustraitons over the last month over. Im one happy camper. All the cards were in my hand today and for a change it felt good!Ive added a couple flicks, i used three of the same fish to show everyone the satisfaction and joy of what this morning has brought to me,my summer goal was a metro mack, and finally on the last day i was going to dedicate to trolling for macks it all payed off! Today was one of the most memorable days on the black pearl to this date.

pretty good for being at home cleaning the boat by 12 pm

just thought i would put up some of my old photos some from professional boats and some not

cheers

dan

couple of baldies and black snapper

caught 17 trout that day

red emporer 8 kg not the biggest one ever

little blue estimated 80 - 90kg

macky 18kg

crap photo of wahoo 28kg

another mack somewhere 20 plus kg

what i cnsider to be my best catch ever 43.8kg

nice cod 18kg

couple of cobia caught sight fishing on a handline with a peice of freyed out rope for a lure (the guy in this pic is a dick nearly caused me to loose my job W*#$ANKA)

Ruby Snapper 28 kg

i have lost most of my fishing photos these are just about all i have left hope. enjoy!

...

Quick report.

Magic day out there, near glass most of it.

Fish shut down in the shallow's early, quite a few big mackies chasing bait up, few bottomies bagged.

Fish quiet out wide, went trolling.

Trolled for an hour and Gill got her first marlin, ate the teaser 4 times before switching onto short black, best ragdoll I've had at the side of the boat in a long time (little f*n so n so), swam n released, awesome colours no jump shots.

Had snorkel after releasing black for a bit, then tried trout spot, got 1 decent trout and dropped 2 donkeys (not happy jan), then sharks moved in, home time.

Got to Bundegi, word to the wise, do not drive that stretch of beach, always a few that learn the hard way!

Nitey nite, cactus.

I'm 22 from Scotland. Started in australia as a backpacker 2 years ago. Now have a sponsorship on a fishing boat. If i'm not working i'm fishing. Mad fisho. Live in bremer bay now but i've been everywhere from melbourne to brisbane to cairns to darwin and the rest. Fished my way around OZ just a small few pics of some of the fish i've caught and some other pics on my travels hope you guys enjoy.

Sad thing i was traveling with a dutch guy for a few months and he was crazy about fishing too. but he lost his camera with all the pics of fish we had lost some awsome pics of big GT's from darwin and bara :(. Remember every fish here is caught from a jetty. Except the sailfish! Cheers and hope you like these pics. Alot of hours fishing into these. and alot more lost as you all know how jetty fishing goes!!

Alot of these pics are pretty bad photography but most taken with ipods mobile phones etc along with no knowledge of how to take a good picture haha but i know how to now :)

Story of the last picture with the rat. We put some bread in a bag and fishing line round the top lured him in and we caught him . Just messing around while waiting at the jetty. Spent many long fishless nights doing all nighters need to keep yourself occupied!

Cheers

Ben

First flattie i ever caught last year in the Sunshine Coast. Enough said check the pic. Went 89CM and 4.9KG if i remember correctly!

last year carnarfin, grabed a double header of small spanglies in 24m of water

 hey guys had a corker day with 9 dews 2 kept ,two sharks ,a black bum ,baldie and a large tuna lost boat side ,as well as a macky was a action packed day !!!!

Hey guys, first post here thought id let you know about the weird catch I had last weekend off Bunbury.

I went out for a dive with a mate and while we where stuffing around with the dive gear I chucked a mulie over with a cheapo rod I always leave in the boat. Within 5 mins I'd somehow hooked onto a Tiger Shark, I couldnt believe it!! Boat was full of dive gear and crap it couldnt have been setup worse really haha it had me climbing all over the place.

About an hour into the fight we realized my contour video cam was in my dive bag so pulled it out and tried to tape what we could. Got some good footage of it alongside the boat, water was super clear! Had hooked right in the side of the mouth I got it tired out and up along the side of the boat and was able to pop the hook out.

Awesome looking shark!

Heres the vid, looks good in HD! hope the link works: www.youtube.com/watch

 Was out the back of 3 mile about a month ago came accross a nice little bomy. Eyes nealy popped out of my head when I saw the Bluey just sitting there.  My was was about a meter closer than I was so the next few seconds were agonizing waiting for him to pull the trigger.  The shot was quite good so no need for a second. I raced in and ensured the fish was dispatched with a quick iki jimi.  As soon as the fish was in the catch bag there 3m meters away was Black ass, lined him up and my mate taps me on the shoulder . He then points out a better sized Haliquin fish. Couldn't believe my luck a shot through the gill plate with my trusty 1.2m Rob Allen and I was on the score board too.  Not to bad for a metro dive. 

got my first few whiting on lures the other day, not surface but still awesome fun.