gday neels

i never fished for blueys off karratha but hit em up hedland on a regular basis with good success... our choice of gera was a 120lb handline running straight thru a small bean sinker - just enough to slowly sink to the bottom and onto the hook of choice... something large enough to go thru the crab and have good exposure was good.. deoending on the size of bait your using u can either cut the crabs in half or use whole... we use everything shellfish for bait fresh whole prawns thru to muddie and cray legs.. they all work... i used a rod on a number of occasion - a tld 20 on a 24kg backbone stroker with 60lb gorilla braid and a locked drag for a couple of fish but the big ones almost always win... they are extremely powerful in shallow water as you probably know... my preference was early morning or afternoon and i liked fishing the larger tides on the last of the run out slack and run in... another thing we used religiously was burley mate... any shells old bait ect u have left over mix it crush it up with some oil and chook pellets... in shallow water u can see them react to this and our catch rate bettered when we began using this.... anyways hope this helps mate... always gonna be other members with different ideas but thats mine bud... our biggest went 89cms and over 9kg.... old man got that and it was a truely wonderful fish... one of my fav's to catch eat and just look out..

cheers mate

poddy

I always go out to target a species. Lately it has been the humble flag, because a sweeter fish on my tongue has to be found. Beats the Dhus hands down and reds, well we would argue. A small Jack close, but all Latjanus rate.

The boss has the flags under control so time for me to re-target.

People up here rate the blue and I have caught heaps of underlings, no size yet.

So the target is now well and truely set. The boss can bottom bounce her Corals, snapper and flags (yum) but I am focussed on the blue.

Listened and learned.

Neels

shoally/reefy bottoms, no more than 10m deep, i caught all mine on fresh squid and a big bit at that on a paternoster rig using 100lb jinkai for the rig, single dropper about 60cm above the snapper lead to a strong swivel, caught them on 50lb braid, biggest went roughly 65-70cm, don't be afraid to find somwhere with some current running and all mine have been on the outgoing tide too strangly.

AND HANG ON!!!!!

Neels,

Use a hand line ,as poddy said 120lb minwith running ball sinker.Push the crab all the way through so that it sits at the top of the hook, they dont strike hard , they like to swallow they down so DONT set the hook straight away as they will spit the bait out , let them take some line first then srike and get him up very fast or your F#*ckedLOL.

P.s If you dont have any luck soon ILL jive you a nice fillet as i still have some from the last one i speared

Haha I used a 50lb jigging outfit once when Brad and I went for a bluebone sesh and I got destroyed 3 times in about 15 minutes... Brad got a donkey on heavy handline and lost bigger..

My advise, handlines or the straight hook are the only way to go... Use strong hooks too, you'll be applying so much pressure that shitty ones will straighten way too easily.

That should do it vs the Monster mesh.

I have yet to see anything straighten these beasty hooks, but not my favourite for much else but the nasty hoods!!!

Neels

100LB handline with a small enough ball sinker for the tide. A leader around half a metre of the same line to a Mustad Tarpon 7766D size 7/0.

As for braid, when you start loosing good fish, you will go back to mono.