Some nice ones from Terry in the MAAC inshore ANZAC Day Comp on my boat.  Biggest was 1.56kg. 

 Well-done to 12 year old Sarah and Terry for winning the Wally.  The combined bag was 9kg+ for 2.5 hours of inshore fishing.

 G'day all, been a while since I posted here. Thought I'd just quickly share my recent trip to whats become one of my favourite destinations behind Kalbarri. Got up there Tuesday just gone for the school holidays thinking it would be busy but nope, it was an asbolute dream, plenty of spaces and was able to set up right near the main beach access. There were quite a few day trippers and groups of offroad enthusiasts coming by during the day for some fun and it seems to me to have grown in popularity since my first visit in 2015. The weather was perfect (except for Wednesdays drizzle) and only light arvo sea breezes. For those who haven't been up for a bit, the place now has a food van so if you get bored of the old instant coffee swill you bring with you can you can grab something a little better from there plus you can also get bags of ice if a ten minute drive to Jurien is too much of a bother.

The first morning was a bit discouraging as I failed to land anything and also had to call it quits due to the rain sweeping in. There was quite a bit of seaweed lurking about as well which did not help (fishing the back beach would've been an absolute chore on all but the last day) but the next day things picked up, pulling up five decent sized tailor. The following morning saw six landed, lost a couple more and the sizes got progressively bigger before todays morning shenanigans. Took my wifes friends teenage son out back for his first ever tailor adventure and whilst I was essentially landing a fish each cast, the poor sod (whose no slouch himself) kept dropping them. He finally landed a couple to take the morning tally to twelve (kept four), with one 50cm specimen, with the bite lasting longer than the previous days. Lost several horses that I just couldn't bring up over the reef even with 30 pound mono and my trusty 12ft penn. I'll land one of them one day.  Plus I finally broke out the old Smiling Jacks on my spin rod and landed my first fish on a lure ever which was quite exhilarating. Got enough feed for a few days plus some fillets to provide temptation to any hungry mullas.  Cheers. 

Congratulations to the winners of the ORSSC Masons Bar Beach Fishing Classic following weigh-in today. Difficult conditions over the period with swell and weed, but some excellent fish were presented.

Mulloway - 12.76kg - Chris Webb

Pink Snapper – 7.76kg – Bernard Bouteloup

Salmon – 5.76kg – Dale Wright

Herring – 0.417g – Ken Riches

Whiting – 0.170g - Dylan Hutchinson

Tailor – 3.76kg – Graham Bently

Samson Fish – 19.32kg – Russell Grover

Skipjack – 1.09kg – Kai Grover-Boyce

Bream – 1.83kg – Russell George

Flathead – 0.615kg – Bronwyn Gaston

 Salmin covs

 Just got back from my new job with Cone bay Barramundi working 3 on 3 off and couldnt help myself and had to see what was going on at the jetty• The tides wern't very big and i got there just after high tide got some small mullet in the shallows with my thrownet then pinned them through there nose and walked them on the edge off the light with 5 minutes i was hooked onto a nice size tarpon doing plenty of acrobatics then i beached him got a quick snap and released it then my next drop got another one. They are a awesome fish and one day will want to go to America and catch a monster. 

Just got back from 9 days in Exmouth. Got some great fish, but it was super hot.

Fished tantas, top of gulf, west side of muirons and back of peak.

 Hi

 We are heading to Steep Point ( Blackies West ) on the week of the 23rd April via Boat from Denham this year

 This is our 8th Year in a row, such a world class fishing destination, unfortunately one of our boating parties had to pull the pin so we are solo, which is all cool

 Just reaching out if anyone on the forum is also going to be around Shelter Bay in a boat that week at this time, say G'day

 We are in a Boston Whaler 255 Conquest, Call Sign/Rego| DT406 Elite | New boat this year from the Gemini Rib in years gone past

 Some random Pics to get the forth on 

 It is amazing the variety we have had in the years too, but also the increase in sharks out wide. but more so the relatively new resident bullshark in close in Shelter Bay and the southern side of Dirk H, makes for getting Crays  and swimming to the boat a fair bit quicker....

Fished the MAAC comp yesterday with the daughter in what were atrocious conditions in my small boat. It actually became dangerous mid to late morning and we had no other choice but to come in early. Nice work weather forecasters!

The catches for the day were generally down on normal, EXCEPT Dave’s massive mackerel. In a combination of skill and luck Dave landed the fish on a snelled mono rig where the top hook had set in the corner of the jaw. Apparently, the first run was very close to spooling him too.

The fish was an absolute beast in real life and the photos don’t really do it justice. Well done Dave for a truly momentous metropolitan capture.

Thank goodness for retirement as today gave a real opportunity to enjoy what has been really scarce good conditions.  Launched well before dawn and to the moron who went out with NO lights whatsoever honestly FFS.....you were invisible !   I headed out initially to the high 30's but bites were really scarce apart from a good KGW and some fox fish very little doing. The wind dropped to nothing making drifting impossible so I headed out deeper and simply sounded until I found a good show....actually the screen lit up ......dropped three baits all of which were monstered within seconds.....what to do when you are by yourself, took what I thought was the biggest expecting a good dhuie but pulled up a stonka baldie, second rod going ape so fought that fish to the surface , a good dhuie around 8kg but the final rod was now bent double making it hard to get out of the rod holder, now this was a fish, deep surging runs with strong tail beats.......a male fish over 94cm so the smaller one went back and swam away strongly.  Came home at 26 Knots @ a nautical mile to the litre....just love the yammy! 

Started off good Friday taking the kids out for a squid session in Cockburn sound. fished one of our usual spots alongside G.I with only 1 squid in about 6 drifts. we moved to another spot near the causeway which resulted in 3 good size squid in 2 drifts. this included my eldest son getting his first squid.
Sunday was spent at whitehills with the family and managed to get in a sneaky fish before the sea breeze. 6 good size herring in less than an hour.
Monday was time for me to have fun. Left point Perron ramp around 6.00am headed to the 40's. the easterly was gusting and the chop was pretty rough. first couple of spots nothing and the days was looking bleak. we headed to the 3rd spot of the day and first drop landed a sea sweep. Second drop resulted in the first sized Dhui for the new boat. the mood shifted dramatically on board. Next drift 2 blackarse. esky was looking much better now. 3rd drift resulted in a nice Baldy. happy with the mixed bag and sea breeze immanent we headed home.

 Well thats exmouth for 2018.

Tough time with the southwesterly winds this year and a swell that was breaking across the north chanel on the first day making us turn for home. We lost a couple of days to wind but turned those into beer days

With the winds up making trolling for bills to uncomfortable, deep dropping was the next plan and we did well. Loading our freezers with our limit of ruby and 8 bar fillets made this a great trip none the less. Minimal issues with sharks made life easy.

Still managed to raise a handful of small black marlin and chrisG getting to issue his first tag on a acrobatic little rat marlin was a plus. 

Make sure you hit up mick and the boys at shore catch for quality bait, we had ordered some squid for this trip and man they were huge ruby lollies. We tried herring for first time this year and the 8 bar demolished them. Thanks again mick callum and hutch. 

If your looking for accommodation close to tantabiddi ramp then i suggest yardie homestead. The new managers have got the place looking great and enjoy a beer. Being 2min from the ramp is huge bonus

Not a great amount of photos and funny how water looks calm in these pics.

Already planning nexts year trip

Blue 19 kg. Huge harleys. Nice dhues. When it was to windy ,they went for trout. They had a few good days. They left today to Beat tomorrow's traffic..

Being a teacher has its perks. Recently, we had a week of school holidays in March. I found some cheap flights to the Canary Islands and decided to spend 7 days there. We started with 4 days on Fuerteventura followed by 3 days on Tenerife.

I haven't had time to write the blog yet...I just managed to edit the pics and upload them onto the blog. Maybe I can work on the writing on Easter Sunday.

Let's start off with a bang with some panoramic views...

Parque Natural Jandia



Cofete and Pico de la Zarza



Fuerteventura



La Entallada



Parque Natural Corralejo



Punta de Teno



Masca



Masca



Even more Masca



Teide



Teide Caldera



Chinamada



Some extra scenery shots...

Hornos de Cal de La Guirra, Fuerteventura



Antigua, Fuerteventura



View around Mirador de Morra Velosa



Castillo del Toston



La Entallada



Parque Natural Corralejo



Punta de Teno



Teide



Teide



Anaga



Did you expect me to go anywhere without catching some new species? There was a bit of overlap in species with the Mediterranean, so it wouldn't exactly be easy to do well on with a large number of new species in the Canaries. However, with a bit of determination, I did catch 21 new species :)

White Seabream (Diplodus sargus) - Species #772




Guinean puffer (Sphoeroides marmoratus) - Species #773



Canary Damsel (Abudefduf luridus) - Species #774



Golden Grey Mullet (Chelon aurata) - Species #775



Azores chromis (Chromis limbata) - Species #776



Madeira Goby (Mauligobius maderensis) - Species #777



Rock-pool Blenny (Parablennius parvicornis) - Species #778



Bastard grunt (Pomadasys incisus) - Species #779



Axillary Seabream (Pagellus acarne) - Species #780



Common Two-Banded Seabream (Diplodus vulgaris) - Species #781



Salema (Sarpa salpa) - Species #782



Sharpsnout Seabream (Diplodus puntazzo) - Species #783



Black Scorpionfish (Scorpaena porcus) - Species #784



Saddled Seabream (Oblada melanura) - Species #785



Madeira Rockfish (Scorpaena maderensis) - Species #786



Red Porgy (Pagrus pagrus) - Species #787



Pearly Razorfish (Xyrichtys novacula) - Species #788



Emerald wrasse (Symphodus trutta) - Species #789



Molly Miller (Scartella cristata) - Species #790



Rock Goby (Gobius paganellus) - Species #791



Macaronesian Sharpnose-Puffer (Canthigaster capistrata) - Species #792



~~~~

And some non-lifers

Annular Seabream (Diplodus annularis)



Comber (Serranus cabrilla)



Mediterranean Rainbow Wrasse (Coris julis)



Cardinalfish (Apogon imberbis)



Painted Comber (Serranus scriba)



Flathead Grey Mullet (Mugil cephalus)



Ornate Wrasse (Thalassoma pavo)



Planehead Filefish (Stephanolepis hispidus)

Bluewater Tackle World

Metro Fishing Report 23/3/18

There have been mahi mahi absolutely everywhere at the fads lately. Staff member Luke says, ‘The fishing was going nuts with multiple 4 and 3 way hookups for most of the day. The fish were not fussy at all and it was crazy to see how many fish would chase down a stickbait and fight each other for the lure!!’. Luke also mentioned that although they were catching fish off the FADs, they found many schools between FADs which were easily spotted from the birds above them. Upon arrival to each scene there were hundreds of dolphin fish smashing bait. 

In much closer, dhusfish and baldies have been fishing well all up and down the coast with great reports stretching from Bunbury to Jurien. Mindarie customer Sam Mcnamara caught this epic dhu on a day trip up to Jurien last week. 




An insane amount of mulloway have been caught lately. We have seen a surge in the amount of catches both from the river and ocean, but the river is seeming to be producing an unusual amount as of late. Regular Joondalup customer Alex Franklin has been doing extremely well! Now might just be the time if you ever wanted to tick that long life goal. Also off the beaches, tailor in the northern metro region have been firing on dusk too, with anglers having no problems reaching their bag limits and keeping a reasonably sized feed!


(Above: Alex Franklin with a modest 1m+ mulloway from the ocean)

 
You may have already noticed the salmon have been making there way up for the annual run. We are already seeing the smaller schools of juveniles in the metro area, with anglers like Zac Elisarow reporting schools of 15 tonne around Hamellin Bay making their way up the coast.


 (Above: Zac with an example of a fish from one of the southern schools)


Gamex has been fishing amazingly, with anglers reporting the weather being kind and no shortage of billfish. To end day 5 of Gamex, the SKED STATS show 712 – 491 – 253 billfish. @mshaw had a cracker trip the week before knocking over a few billfish and getting out for a deep drop. 


(Above: @mshaw with a classic example of an Exmouth billfish!)

 
For those with pots still out, they might just be worth a check if you havent recently, as Mindarie customer Ryan Scanlan reports that there are plenty of reds around Mindarie at the moment, with some great catches coming from his pots. Check out this beauty cray from Ryan!
 


 
Mindarie Staffer Troy Aberin had a ripper trip up to the Shark Bay region, here is his rundown:
The boys and I had a cracker trip, though the flies and sharks were thick, we still managed some good fish off the cliffs along False Entrance & Steep Point. When it came to spinning from the cliffs, the stand out lures were Rapalas, GT Ice Creams, Halco Maxs, Jackson Pintail 40s, and Dr. Hooks School Bullies. At night we got into mulloway and good spangos on bait!

Dan picked up big dart and plenty of tailor on small stick baits such as Duel Adagios, Maria Blues Codes. The Shark Bay flats turned it on with big whiting & bream and even flatties on surface with Bassday Sugar Pens, Daiwa Silver Wolves, Zipbaits Skinny Pop Jrs, and Jackson Ebi Panics doing the damage. Further down the coast Kim White out-fished the boys in Jurien with a solid Dhu pictured below.

 Just north of perth

 has been way to long between trips! Decided to head out for a crab in the Mandurah estuary then a beer at the ravo. Managed our 20 with 3 pulls so still plenty around! Packed the nets up and sacrificed 4 crabs for lunch, crabs were cooked and mostly peeled when we arrived at the ravo pub. Fresh crab sandwiches and had a couple pints to wash them down, was a good day out.

Hey guys,

Heading down to Walpole for a week on Friday and just wondering if anyone has any recent reports? Just saw the KG whiting video so good to know they are on the chew. Any crabs still about?

Will be mostly throwing lures but do like to target Gummies at night on live Herring. Will probably try for Salmon along the local beaches too and at the Nornalup mouth.

Cheers and tight lines 

Did a two dayer over at Rotto Tues/Wed with the sweet weather. Aim was to give the new carbon fibre wanker poles a good work out prior to next months Exxy trip. They worked sweet but there was no activity out at the FADS so we caught nada but drank a lot of beer and burnt a shit pile of fuel. 

Topped up at the Rotto pub and at the Gov that night, only to be blasted by a nasty southerly overnight, which added to the hangover next morning on the boat......

We manned up and hit the demersals Wednesday and bagged out on dhuies and baldies, then hit some activity in closer on the way home with a few bustups ending in a tuna on the troll and a few sambos on jig in the same area, not the biggest models but a first for Ross on jig so he was happy. 

Tuna was supurb rolled in chillie flakes. 

Great few days despite the lack of pelagics. Bring on Exxy. 

 Out last night on the brother in laws boat chasing Pinkies. Beautiful evening on the water.

Got the burley going, but was a bit quiet for the first hour. Decided to give it another 10 minutes before moving spots. Then all hell broke loose. I started with a small one on the soft plastic, calling it for a nice Pinky....nope a small Sambo, then Doug hooked a small Pinky followed up by a XOS Sambo keen to inhale it. By this stage the sounder was lite up like a Christmas tree. I kept flicking the SP around until it was inhaled by this nice one, and gave me a good run around on the 5000 Stradic in 12 metres. 

Bloody good fun.

I only keep them for Thai Fish Cakes, but you can't beat them I reckon.

Doug hooked a beauty after this pic was taken, it took him around the boat once and tried it again a second time. It was a ball tearer that made this one look tiny. We got it boatside but it was just about knackered, so gave it a quick swim before I could get a pic and let it swim free. In 12 metres of water there were some bloody big fish that even made his one look average.

Bluewater Tackle World
Friday 9th of March 2018
 

There have been reports of early season salmon around North Mole and schools are popping up in various locations in the Sound as well. Using small metals and stickbaits has proven to be a sure-fire way of catching these awesome fighting fish. For some more reliable action Dunsborough, in places such as Bunker Bay, are seeing big schools come through.

 Locally, the Swan River, specifically around the Garret Rd bridge area has been producing some quality sized bream with a few flathead in the mix. To target the bream, try using mussels/river prawns on an unweighted hook thrown around the snags. Be on the ready, because as soon as you hook up, the bream head straight around the pylons. If you’re after a bit more fun, try using hardbodies lures such as the Zipbaits Tiny Khamsin Jr. Further down river the bream have been ravenous and staff member Laith has been cleaning up some afternoons. He had three good sessions this week landing between 12 and 20 fish each trip, all on Z-man 2.5” grubs. The fish seemed to be in feeding mode late in the afternoon, with big schools of bream hugging the shoreline and the larger fish were biting more readily as the light faded. There is plenty of bait in the lower reaches in all shapes and sizes and Laith witnessed scalies busting up on schools of grass shrimp. So, if you are after bigger predators here would be a good place to start.
 
Good numbers of shark mackerel have been caught lately with most being cast to. They have been swimming along with tuna and yellowtail kings taking advantage of all the bait on inshore reefs. 5 Fathom Bank has also been producing a number of these speedsters. There are still a decent number of Spanish mackerel getting caught with ballyhoo rigs (garfish/sanmar trolled behind the boat) and deep, medium divers trolled along drop-offs in changes of water depths of about 5-10m. There are good numbers in the Sound with anglers who are squidding reporting some big fish clearing the water after fleeing baitfish. Cobia have also begun to make an appearance locally and this is no surprise with the number of turtles that have been reported lately. The good size GT that was speared off Kwinana is also worth a mention, as it points to the fantastic warm water currents bringing down some seriously cool fish from up North.
 
The majority of the demersals have been coming from the 40’s with some solid dhufish, snapper and breaksea coming over the side. Good baldies have been landed North of Two Rocks right up to Jurien this past week up to the 70cm mark. Reel Force Charters took Sue to celebrate International Womens Day who landed a boat breaking record bass groper of 62kg. Well done Sue and not bad for a 68-year-old.


Customer Mark a solid dhu caught on premium occy

 
Sue and a massive bass groper on board Reel Force Charters. The fish was landed using the Daiwa Seaborg Megatwin MJ1200

The beaches are firing this week with tailor, small sharks and some very decent mulloway been hitting the sand. Most of the action has been North of Two Rocks but plenty of bread and butter species such as herring are still coming from beaches south of here and in some instances, plenty of chopper tailor too.

 
Alex and a mate had an awesome night on some mulloway

 Big white grub got nailed in the rod holder while i was battling a pink. Tough going out there until i found some hungry ones 

Went for a brief mid morning fish yesterday. Appears to be a few baldies around. Back by lunch. Pic below.

So after not fishing with my two older boys who live in Gero for about 2 years i arranged to meet them at a location between Perth and geraldton for the long weekend. We all arrived frisay night and had a few drinks then up early today. ESE was cranking so we didn't launch the tinny till about 7 and stayed in close till it dropped below 15 kts. Ended up a ball burster of a day. We kept some large skippy, big fox fish, 2 pinkies, a blackarse and an 80 cm dhuie. We released a few sambos and a couple undersize dhus too.
All from a 13 ft tinny
Love spending time with my boys, now to do it all again tomorrow

Abe's 53 cm skippy

My 82cm dhu

Foxfish and pinky

Father son trip installment number 2. I was awake by 4 this morning, wind was light easterly so woke the lads and headed off at about 5am. On the first spot 10 minutes later on his first drop and middle son is into his first dhu, 65 cm in 6 mts water. He then followed it up with a 52cm that we released.
Both boys were using occy and getting plenty of bites while i was casting an abrolhos tackle plastic on a big johns jig head ine the direction we were drifting and working back to boat. I had a brief battle with a sambo but that was the only hit until i came up tight on an 87cm dhuie

Helped my brother out a couple of weekends ago on his holiday home, little did I know when I got there on Friday night he had also brought the boat.  So after a few drinks that night to plan what needed repairing it what quickly came about that we should go and do a quick fish straight out.  Left around 9am on Saturday morning to some ground he had marked on his GPS and he caught a rather large (90cm) Dhu.  We decided to go back as we wanted to do some work on the home ( - otherwise it would result in more fishing, more drinking and less working).  Sunday we decided to do a bit more work around the home rather than take the boat out again first thing, but after a bit of hinting (by me) he decided that we should go back to the same ground and try again.  We (I) then got this beauty, measured 110cm, did not get a weight.  Did get numerous bites but nothing that stuck.  Also surprisingly flattish ground.

We worked out that it was 3.5 hours fishing (line in water) in total for both days.  The remainder of the weekend was painting three rooms, redecking the back verandah, and installing some shade netting around the verandah.... and some, well lots, of drinking.

Just want to personally thank my brother, he is not on here, for a great weekend.  Happy to help out again next time he goes up.   To top it off I did not bring any fishing gear! so it was on borrowed equipment (does that still class as my catch)

Cheers

 Good simple guide I found online for towing oversize boats in WA. 

https://www.mainroads.wa.gov.au/Documents/Brochure_OB_Online_version.RCN-D17%5E23737090.PDF

 Just come back from work and put in a bit of time targeting Spanish mackeral after work hours.  The pearl farm is located 50km north of Broome and the mothership acts as a FAD holding lots of baitfish and close to the sailfish grounds.

We catch the storm garfish during our lunch break with a thrownet and a bit of bread then after work rig them up with gangs and wire or two treble stingers with a pink skirt unweighted, the later it gets the deeper the mackeral seem to sit.

The bait that seems to get smashed the quickest was live barracuda the mackeral froth them .

As we move into the dry season we should start seeing larger sizes.

The biggest caught was 134cm on the fork going to me then 127cm came in 2nd also caught by me then Anthony came in at 3rd at 122cm great way to gave a bit if banter and something to look forward to after work with the mackeral competion.

 21 mackeral were caught 14 of them by me. 

Everyone walked away with fresh fish and the chefs on board did a great job in cooking the mackeral many different ways with some meals being 11/10 look forward to next trip already defiantly greatful to have a job where I can do what I love .