i was out at mindarie yesterday from about 9 o'clock am to about 6 o'clock pm and we caught a 35cm leatherjacket and a 30cm skippy . there was a girl there that also caught a leatherjacket slightly bigger but it snapped the hook just as she was putting it into her bucket
a guy and his wife came around 2 o'clock and they were catching skippy after skippy around 30cm each and there was also some biggggg ones in the mix.
Dad had his alvey in the water and we were just fishing with our spinning combos and then his alvy screamed off and we decided there wouldve been a tailor approximately 5kg's but it pinged him the same thing happened about 3 hours later but with a smaller fish and he brought it in close but it pinged him b4 we could see what it was but altogether it was a great day
ps. we got annoyed with you guys zippin into the harbour so fast!!!! and so close to the point

Went down a had a play with a new bream combo down at hillarys just flicking a few 25gm raiders and sp's around when i hooked into something a little bit bigger than what i expected! Almost got spooled twice and was giving me the upmost hert at one stage. Turned out to be a sambo around the 10 to 12kg mark! The bluddy thing finally busted me off near the edge of the rocks.Not bad for a 10lb fluro leader and 8lb line. Would have been one of my best shore based captures by a long way.......nevermind i was just happy to get my new line back.

It was on the 3/4 mark of the south rock wall near that reefy system there, there must of been a few because i got a few big hits when i let the lure sink down before i hooked up. 25gm raider youd think wouldnt hold up to the task but it was clean in the jaw but starting to get alitle straight on the old trebble side of things. Going to try with something alittle heavier next time and take the camera out ready to go. Wish me luck....ill need it. hhehehehehe

June 30th COMPETITION RESULTS

After a deferment from the 23rd due to really crappy weather the comp went ahead on the 30th despite the really crappy weather! No boats went out offcourse but the river and beach section still fished.

Not a lot was caught but 5 juniors and 8 adults had a go in the river.

A big thanks to our sponsor this month, Wayne at the Kalbarri IGA who donated five $20.00 vouchers.

John Stewart had a good catch from the river landing a nice soapy mulloway and 2 tailor. Brett Bain had 5 fish mostly chopper tailor and Leah Skinner had one live bream gaining her double points. But Di Stewart topped it all with her bag of 4 big live bream to win the river section.

John with his river mulloway.

Carly’s winning bream.

Carly Dyer just snatched the junior river section from Martin Stewart with a bream just bigger by 100grams.

Daniel Tarasek again had no competition winning outright with these two mulloway the biggest at 12.15kg the biggest this season and a tailor of 1.15kgs that is so far the biggest to be weighed in this season as well.

Daniel won the RSL Meritorious award of a $50.00 voucher for his mulloway. Leah Skinner won the restaurant draw, while Cheryl Eley scratched up the lucky ticket to win the scratchies raffle.

Mug of the Day went to Di Stewart, details are scratchy but it seems she had a couple of near misses sinking her ute into the river.

Next comp is on the 21st July.

Hi all, just a quick note to tell all that i was at hillaries for a look on the weekend (sunday) and when it started to piss down there was a couple of brave anglers casting small metals off the north wall. They got into some great fish including some skippy to nearlly 1kg id reacon and there was plenty of smallist bontio around as well which dont frequent the area as much as one would like.

Only seen one 1 nice tailor come up but im sure there was many more out there. plenty of small bait schools were the damage for bringing them all in id say. 20 to 30gram raiders and twisties seem to be the best.
Shame i didnt take a rod down.

Its about time I decided to take sometime to tell the story of my Exmouth trip. Spent 8 days there and everyday was blasting easterlies. No problemo, just fish the west side til the wind drop and hire the dinghies to get out. No can do, everyday was blowing til atleast 2pm. Last couple of days was completely blown out the whole day. Despite the wind we still managed our fair share of Charlies and the odd little Golden Trevs and Queenies. Highlight was my brother, Gordon's 6.5kg Golden on Roost 80 popper. Fished the marina a fair bit as that seems to be the only place with baitfish, needless to say we got into a heap of queenies on light gear. One of the guys managed an undersize coral trout from the wharf. The late arvo was spent at Naval Pier chasing GTs and boy was it "expensive". 3 of us did the walk arvo and donated atleast 10 poppers and stickbaits to the fish gods. Following are some of the G's we manage to land, as well as a large cod which decided after snaring an occy, wanted the popper as well!!. Total score of G's landed were 11 and just as much were dropped or lost completely.
For those that wants to chase the big G's.....change all your popper's hardware. There's no such thing as overkill. 290lb split rings, 5/0 trebles or bigger if possible and crush all barbs if you dont have barbless.

hi all was driving the cray boat we had all the gear on the back of the bank and there was every where ,small lumps,big lumps and out on the weed the fish wear every where from yanchip to 5 mile north of two rock ,hope it helps for the comp :}

Hi has any tried the 210m jetty in the swan river its near como and im wondering how far out i have to go out on the jetty and if its a good spot to fish . it is opposite preston st near the kwinnana fwy.

Has anyone else noticed that the old tailor population has slowed down? I know its really not the right time but last year at this time my usall spots still where fireing for good fish. Even the winter thumpers from yanchep arent around at the moment. Someone was telling me that there catching them comercially of shore and theres been lots of people walking into tackle stores saying the same thing.

Has any one got any good spots in the Mindarie Marina.

Well we wen't out yesterday for a bit of a fish and test the repaired motor out.

Left oceanreef at 7.20 am and headed to 3mile reef testing the motor for about 1 and a half hours around there. Plenty of wrasse, but not much else.

So we headed out to the 40M mark to a couple of spots searching for dhuies. When heading out we ran over a bit of good ground so turned around for another look. The ground looked real good and at one stage had about 15 fish on the sounder. So down went the dhuie lure did a drift - nothing.

Second drift the lure hit the bottom and BANG it was off heading west and not slowing, had the fish on for about 20 seconds and snapped me, end of the dhuie lure!

So we did another 5 or so drifts over this spot each drift showing huge numbers of fish. Though we didn't hook up again.

Then we moved we moved out to a lump and this spot had 2 cray pots, in 40M of water and the pots had approx 100M of line out, so I hooked up to a fish and within a couple of seconds I was around the line and lost it!

Try number 2 the boat was left running and we stopped right over the the top of the lump, after about 30 seconds I hooked up, again the fish was heading straight for the the ropes but, I managed to turn it, so after 20 or so minutes of fighting we begun to see some colour but the fish didn't like that so back down it went to the bottom. Another 10 minutes later I got the fish up enough to see what it was a bloody stingray 6ft wide, so again it started to run as it didn't like the look of the boat, at this stage 30mins had passed so I clamped down and broke the line.

In the end we ended up with a couple of breaksea and a few wrasse.

I among other anglers would like to thank Tim,Andy and Adam for organising the first leg of the South vrs North today was a great day with nice conditions got to put a few faces to a few names,some of us caught some didnt ,everyone came back in safe overall top day

Way to go guys

Went out Friday talk about a perfect day it was mill pond conditions,fished shallow to stat off to pick up some wrasse for bait then headed out to the 30mt mark first drop dhuie 1 which was undersize,second drop another drop another undersize this went on and on till I had caught 5 undersize which were released to fight another day when larger using a release weight.Dropped down again and caught a nice 6kg dhuie,then a 9kg,my mate Feral was busy catching some decent Skippy to a kilo or 2,he then landed a nice dhuie that went 8kg,followed by a nice sized wobblie gong that gave him a workout on a threadline outfit.By the end of the day we caught
7 dhuies only kept two
10 Skippy
1 Wobblie gong
1 large Banjo shark released
1 black ray released
2 Fox fish 1 released
5 pink snapper all released
2 Nannagi released
4 Small blackass released
3 scorpion cod released

Well its been over a week since Deefa and I have got back from Exmouth so here’s a report. We fished 100% off the shore hence our trip name ShorEX and about 95% of the fishing was done with bream gear on soft plastics except one night chasing spangos where we geared up.

We got into Exxy on Thursday at 2pm after blasting up in 11 ½ hrs and the first stop was the marina for a lazy arvo flick. Started off slow but we got into Queenies ~2kg, Diamond Trevally and Deef got a nice flatty which went hard for its size (unlike the others caught later). Here’s a couple of pics of the diamonds.

Unfortunately the swell was up (the same time as those massive surges at Shark Bay) which made fishing the west side very difficult the next morning, nevertheless we bashed Bundegi up towards the Pier for a few hours. Caught a nice mixed bag comprise of Dart, mini Gs, a Flutemouth and a Grinner.. all on SP.. the Flutemouth was the weird capture for the week how it managed to pick up a plastic I don’t know…

That night we hit the marina again with some stinky mulies chasing Jacks and Gribbo’s girlfriend Bel was lucky enough to get one. Deefa met his match with the rocks and ended up worst for wear.. thanks to the ladies at the servo who helped us find some Dettol and gave us a bag of a dozen pies for free (really fixed the munchies)

Day 2 we hit the west side again to be plagued with big swells this time we wet a line but had no luck. Back down to Bundegi were we found a bait school but nothing wanted to play.. had a couple of follows but no hookups. Due to Deefa’s leg we decided to camp and berley up and see if we could find some bities that night but we were plagued with small bream and fingermark. Deefa got a slightly bigger mini G that night which kept him happy.

Day 3 we pushed right round the cape and well into the national park and tried a couple of spots. The first spot we tried looked very fishy with some nice structure close to shore and a sandflat.. I managed to pull two big lizards both close to 60cm from the sandflat but we didn’t get anything else despite deef throwing the tacklebox at the reef. We pushed onto spot #2 which we had planned to hit just before the high and fished a sandspit and channel… first cast and out comes flatty #3 for me, another 60cm monster. Out went a bit of berley and in came a nice 3kg golden for me on 2kg… Just when deef thought he was having a slow trip he managed to hook up to number 8932174892374109 charlie court which was then swallowed by what he called a very large golden… out flew the line into the backing and then close to being spooled on 4lb and his tiny heartland z. he managed to get the line back and the fish close to the sandbar we were fishing when the golden decided he wasn’t hungry anymore and the Charlie was kindly returned to deefa.. he wasn’t happy. He plugged the same spot where he hooked up to be reefed pretty quickly… there were some decent fish there. We finished off that day with one more fish for me … ANOTHER 60cm flatty from that spot. Surprisingly all of them caught that day fought like a dead sock… lucky they’re very tasty!

That night was spent chasing spangos out on the tip of the cape with Gribbo… we 4wd-d a track which took us past where we wanted to go and after a mammoth hike we found water… I took the GT gear out that night and churned up the water for no result then switched to bait. Gribbo showed us in true local style how to catch spangos and pantsed Deef and I 4 to 1 undersize to 0.

Day 4 we fished the west side at one of the closer accesses as the swell was down a bit where we found a baitschool and several large turtles… deef managed to hookup to two of the bohemiath turtles … accidentally… well they fell for what the locals told us was “the plastic of choice” chartreuse atomics they seemed to only catch Charlie courts and turtles! (to all the greenies out there… he busted the line off as soon as he knew what he’d hooked) There were a few queenies around but it was mightly hard to set the hooks on the SP jigs we were using and so we only managed few trevs. Lesson learnt when catching queenies on plastic really set the hook hard!

Last stop was a quick trip down to Learmonth after sampling some of the best gold band fish n chips I’ve ever hard.. yummo!... we fished the flats near the jetty for another couple more mini Gs then decided to see what was happening on the jetty only to find a heap of squid hanging around the pylons! And there was my dinner!!! Key to catching squid.. small pink jigs… sorry to the poor girl with the huge blue jig that I showed up handlining squid in off my loomis.. one of the guys on the jetty lost a huge queenie on a live hardyhead close to the jetty.. only shows you shouldn’t rush things when you’re close to landing the fish of a lifetime!

That was pretty much all the fishing we did.. we were spent and hit the hay early on the last night rather than trying to fish again… There’s a few pics we didn’t take many concentrated more on the fishing. 4 days in exxy shore based was hard work but still great fun!

[img_assist|fid=184404|thumb=0|alt=Mini G|caption=one of many mini Gs we got on plastic]

[img_assist|fid=184383|thumb=0|alt=Deefa in action|caption=hooked up to a little diamond]

[img_assist|fid=184387|thumb=0|alt=deefa's diamond|caption=deefa's diamond.. aint it pretty]

[img_assist|fid=184412|thumb=0|alt=Hooked up|caption=hooked up to a nice golden on 2kg]

[img_assist|fid=184407|thumb=0|alt=jack lives here|caption=Gribbo's girlfriend Bel's Jack]

[img_assist|fid=184425|thumb=0|alt=the chaser|caption=Deefa chasing down the bohemiath that took all his 4lb line! i wont post up the pic of his face when the bait got thrown back :P]

[img_assist|fid=184419|thumb=0|alt=the golden|caption=pretty little 3kg golden.. sorry photo is a bit over exposed!]

went out fishing out of rockingham yesterday,stayed in close most of the day and fished near the cray pots on the other side of the 5 fathom bank,picked up 4 dhuies,returned 3 (undersize),the keeper was 55cm.also caught a xl large king george,1 black ass and a skippy and released 2 pinkies.took the camera on board but no batterie in it,and to top the day of went to leave at 3pm and the boat would not start,i think a starter motor prob ,will take to mechanic this morning.had to call sea rescue for a tow,got home at 7pm,wot a day.
how did anyone else go ,i heard the boats out deeper did very well.
cheers ray

its been 6 days since the pirates got back from our annual may camping fishing trip and as none of the other boys have reported i thought ide better share a bit of trip with the rest of the fishwrecked readers.

it might not be in order of events but ya get that after at least a million brain cells have been burnt from my memory bank in just a 12 day trip.glug glug
in all there was 4 boats involve and 9 drunken fisherman
first day its anearly start for jack and his 3 crew Ab Rod and heath.they leave tomporice at 3 in the morning as theyve got the biggest boat and its a 5 hour trip to onslow.myself pete frizza and spurrie get away at 4 and on the last bend into onslow we catch up with jack .
we all meet at the boat ramp and load the boats with all the gear.and of we go .hours later we are all at CANT TELL YA bay unloading all the stuff .the weather is tops.needless to say all of us are half cut already.and buy the time we all go to bed three blocks of cans are gone
the first morning we hit the water all three boats are in sight of each other cruising aroun looking for some ground to bait fish .its not long before the call on the radio is BLUE DOTS in the boat.cool the first good fish is landed.after that its a fish fest with blue bone. chinamen cod, sharks and what we are all after coral trout being landed
that night is much the same as the first .and pretty much every night pans out the same .i think i can actually remember going to bed 2 nights out of 11 .
next day its time to find somwhere new.an hour or so on the plane and the sounder stars to light up with good ground .we do a bit of trolling a bit of bottom bouncing and all 3 boats land good fish .
myself and my deckie spurrie are starting to get into a good routine spurrie catches all the fish i let him know he sucks as thats the same fish i just dropped im sure.
well spurrie with out dout was best on ground for fish . i saw it with my own eyes this bloke was a fish magnet.for the trip he had bought out 2 overhead combos one to troll with the other baits .the bait combo was a tica gemmini.on a solid rod loaded with 50 lb braid .the thing had barely been used.buy the end of the trip it well was farrrrrkkked.he got that many unstopable fish that we didnt even see im surprised the rig held together .for example buy day four the anti reveres was gone .when casting 50 persent of the time the spool would lock and thered be a hook and a sinker sailing around ya ears. on one occasion less than a minute after toseing a 5 foot shark one side filleted of for bait over the side .spurrie does the usual flick and bang the whole lot goes over with spurrie nano seconds behind.im pretty sure that the rig is gone ,nup spurrie pops up and like JC is back in the back holding his trusty combo.i sweaer to ya theres not a shits chance in hell i would of gone in as we had already been sharked about 3 times in five minutes ,bloodied the crap out of the surounding area .another fish was a 15.6kg china man this fish made the man piss blood for a good ten minutes absolutly bruitilizing spurrie ,only doing short runs but hell power..we were fishing in real dirty soupy water of about 5 metres deep .and when we could finaly get colour i picked it for a monster coral trout.it took me 3 attempts to gaff the fish as it was coated in scales that were like thick finger nails BULLET PROOF a few photos and the fish was released .buy this stage of the trip i called the other boats telling them what we had landed .and the return call was "let me guess spurrie caught it "."bloody spurrie who invited you".he was loving it burnt drag thumb an all.

[img_assist|fid=180346|thumb=0|alt=my deckie spurrie|caption=spurrie was bye far best on ground for the trip .hauling in over sized everything]

day 5 saw jack and his crew head home .leaving 4 of us out there to continue enjoying our selves .a freind of ours Dan, back in TP had called saying he might come over for the weekend .cool .jack and the lads caught up with him at the onslow boat ramp with a list of suplies to pick up for us and a mud map on how to find us .he made it night with more grog a pie an sausage roll each .next day we had a shore based fish flicking lures of a rock ledge with frizza landing a nice 54 cm mangrove jack and the rest of us pulling trevaly evewry second cast of about 50 cm.next day dan was gone
somwhere in all this spurrie and i had found some new ground which looked real good.i let frizza and pete know i was gonna give it a crack .faarrrkk was it real good.5 drops later myself and spurrie had landed 2 trout 2 spangled emperor and i had dropped a horse at the boat ,we just stood there laughing at each other as the boat got tossed around in some hell chop created buy 10 knots of run and a bit of wind
it was getting a bit uncomfortable so out went the lures to troll home.bang double hook up on trevaly not huge but fun a couple more double hook ups and we decied to head home only problem was winding in the lures without hooking up as the trevs were schooling around tthe back of the boat .wind real slow i said as to hopfully not get a hit WRONG another double hook up but this time it was no average trev

[img_assist|fid=180350|thumb=0|alt=trevonski|caption=this fish was the first bigger trev for the trip and how we found "hurtsville" shoal]
back at camp spurrie an myself told the other lads about what would later be knicknamed hurtville shoal as the last few days concisted of a bottom bounce then hit hurts ville for the arvo troll and basicaly get hurt .buy trevs a tuna or two some good size queenies,oversized barracuda, mackies like sharkies doggies spanish with the odd coral trout,all sorts of cod just to keep it interesting we left behind a lot of lures a lot of busted owner swivels hooks an split rings to unstopable trevonskis that i would estermate be up there with any trev WORLD WIDE,and next year im gonna pin one of these beasts get a pic and give a good old war cry then send him home

geeze it looks a bit rough
[img_assist|fid=182733|thumb=0|alt=petes tuna]

mister fish magnet

[img_assist|fid=182738|thumb=0|alt=spanishspurrie]

this one was about 4 foot long
[img_assist|fid=182744|thumb=0|alt=jaws]

not the best way to handle a big cod but he did swimm away strongly

[img_assist|fid=182747|thumb=0|alt=twin brothers]

[img_assist|fid=182762|thumb=0|alt=nice queenie]

[img_assist|fid=182753|thumb=0|alt=another trout]

[img_assist|fid=182765|thumb=0|alt=hangoverheavan]

so ya:s get the idea .it was bye far my best camping trip with a few PB,s added to my personal list and a few more PB,s added to my boats list and could ramble on and on about what we caught and what our days and nights consisted of .hopefully frizza will get online with a few more quality pics and a bit of bullshit to go with it.
thanks to everyone that came out and made the trip great .only another 11 months and ill get to wake up looking out at the sunrise from my tent

[img_assist|fid=182759|thumb=0|alt=sunrise]

friz has got some great pics and footage that hopfully youll all get to see soon.and im betting hes gonna be right up there for photo of the month with some great fish and alltime back drops

[img_assist|fid=182781|thumb=0|alt=jollyroger]

if any of you want to know where this adventure was
it

was

CANT TELL YA BAY and thats all i can tell ya

MAY 19th COMPETITION RESULTS

A strong river section again this month with 14 anglers catching 13 fish, all of them bream kept live to be returned to the river.

The beach section and boats were down again, but some outstanding fish were weighed in.

A big thanks to our sponsor this month, Rob from Jakes Bistro who donated five $20.00 vouchers.

Cheryl Eley won the river section with a thumper bluenose among her 3 bream weighing in at 1.368. This will probably be the biggest for the year, but we will have to watch the weigh-ins this year.

Di Stewart had 4 bream, Gary Ivey 3, while John Stewart and Leah Skinner 1 each.

Junior river winner went to Beau Ivey, the only junior to weigh-in, so is off to a good start.

Daniel Tarasek again romped it in for the land based section with 4 big pink snapper and a spangled emperor, easily beating Karen Hartig and Lui Palamara who had 4 garfish each.

Charlie Messina with Tony Smith were out around Baldface but failed to put any fish on board. Same with Bulawayo Buoy with Sue and Laurie Malton and Junior Steven Eley, they tried game fishing but the water was cold and dirty and came home fishless.

New member Nic Bramwell went south of the river mouth fishing from his 4.5m tinny & recorded an outstanding catch of 4 big pink snapper & a big samson. His 6.4kg snapper and 15.25kg sambo are the biggest for the year and will be hard to beat.

Nic made a big splash by winning the RSL Meritorious award of a $50.00 voucher for his snapper and went on to pick up the $20.00 mystery fish voucher as well! The restaurant draw was won by John Stewart and Bill Tolson won the $50.00 worth of scratchies to celebrate his 50th comp fished! Of note to date Di Stewart has fished her 56th comp and juniors, Amy Stewart 43rd and Steven Eley 38th. Daniel Tarasek has fished 44th, and Laurie Malton 78th.

Gary Ivey was the mug of the month after nagging his kids to get out the mud, don’t fall in & stay away from the mud, promptly fell in himself!

Next comp will be on Sat June 23rd.

hey just came back from palm beach jetty and caught a bag limit of herring few squid around and during the week a few mulloway were caugt off yacht club jetty on live yellow tail from 9.30pm to about midnight cheers jettyboy

Went for a flick at the "stones" this morning and yesterday. Got drenched wet!

Caught about 4 Bonito :)
The one 2nd pic below was a very good sized one!

Took 2 home and just whacked em on the BBQ! Very nice!

Out of everyone on the mole i was the only person catching them :oops:

Here is some pics......

We had glorious weather yesterday with it peaking at only 11 knots. Made for a nice calm day. Worked hard all day for only one estuary cod, a small rankin and two blue-lined emperor. Bit of a dissapointing day but we've never done well with minimal tide movement. How did everyone else go?

anyone want to hook up for a fish on the swan friday pm me or give me a call 0433999064

Went out with a mate today as the weather looked like it was gonna be great. Bit breezy early on, which was uncomfortable at anchor. Burleyed up inshore,we got some nice skippy on baits and softies, along with a nice blackarse. Headed a bit further out for not much.. Fished a by a marker and saw an abudance of baby sambos swimming below, nailed two on softies before they buggered off and they herring came in.

Headed out deeper near rotto as the wind had dropped, found some ground(gps wasnt working ) and began to soak some baits. Nailed about 4 undersize pinks, a few more size black arse, massive bluespot flatty and the usual reef fish. No dhu's or kgs unfortunately.

After losing one of my outfits overboard thanks to some freak swell whilest driving,i used my lighter outfit and jigged up 1 or 2 bakers and then got hit by what i think was a small tunny/decent bonito which i dropped just by the boat. Using raider 40g rigged with Gamakatsu G-stingers, worked a treat!

On way back in saw some bait schools getting harrased for a good half hour , trolled and casted at them tirelessly for zilch.

Overall numbers wise we had a ball, fish werent that big but good fun on the light gear. Looks like ill be shopping for a new combo now :p

On the piss Thursday night at a mates house when they mentioned that all they were doing friday is cleaning the truck.I made mention of the up and coming comp and how i didnt have any spots out that way so ,i really need to find new ground out there.They are keen to join the comp too ,(will put there names up for it tommorrow) any way lets just say i didnt even have to twist their arms a bit,the only thing was they had to be at my house at 5am ,that should get rid of a couple of people ,nup it didnt work.Steve had some work but manage to some how get his boys to do the work for him.We sort through the freezer find some bait and all is set for tomorrow,My phone rings at 4.30 am with a voice that says meat pie and ice coffee for breakfast i say yep.Any way after pulling myself out of bed and having a morning crap (hehe),every one is starting to rock up,i get a jerry can out the shed for extra fuel as we are planning to head out wide.

We are on the road by about 5am with just one fuel stop just to fill the jerry we get to the ramp at about 5.45 and head out in search .We head out about 10nm and spot some nice looking fishy ground
http://fishwrecked.com/img_assist/add?textarea=edit[body]
Click to add image.
(this adding photo has me stumped.)

we did a few drifts then kept heading out wider ,we then got a few more on board then called it a day trolled for a bit had one hook up ,but hooks pulled ,all in all a good day out.
Ps can some one tell me the easiest way to post pics as a picture tells a thousand words.

Gave the call out late Friday arvo to Shamu who is becoming a bit of a regular deckie for me and also Ox who I had promised I would get a trip out back in January. Ox was due to go on night shift and would finish at 6-00am Saturday morning. That didn't deter him and sure enough at 6-15 as we launched there was Ox rigged and ready to go after pulling an all nighter. The man has the constitution of an ox let alone the size and strength.

We headed out at first light and did teh customary troll behind staggies for zilch. We then decided it would be kind on Ox to catch a few whiting first so he could get his released fish to the fish gods squared away before we hit and big fish. So we pulled up on one of my whiting lumps and I pulled out a ready made rig and proceeded to fish, well 10 minutes later after I had pulled in a dozen fish Ox has finally tied his rig (poor fella must have had his eyes hanging out of his head after a big night at work) so with the bait in the water Ox had his baitcaster loaded up and on the way to the surface only to pull the hooks with 1 meter to go. "that doesn't count mate" was the reply and down he went again. Meantime I've caught 15 whiting by now and Shamu is having trouble with 30lb braid on his jig rod. I tossed him another pre-made rig with the right size hooks and next drop he is pulling up double headers like me.

Ox in the meantime is still struggling and finally lands a nice big fat juicy whiting and duly released it to satisfy the fish gods. We went on to claim about 30 whiting over 30 minutes and when we had enough for a "trip saver" plus bait for dhuies we decided to head out wide to the spot we found a few weeks ago when we went out with Alfred.

The water was glassy all day and made the trip out a pretty quick event. The sounder was reading pretty well at 26 knots and I was doing my usual one eye on ythe sounder one on the water trick, when I noticed a small rise accompanied by a thickening of the bottom sounding. A swing around and slow pass confirmed a nice coral lump with some fish sitting on the northern side.

The first pass gave us nothing to work with so a subsequent one was lined up. We past the lump and nothing again, but I let the drift continue a little and "whack" something monstered my bait and came up solid. A pretty weird fight ensued and whilst it had no significant weight it fought pretty well. A slow retreive saw a very very healthy flounder hit the surface. Unbelievably it had hit the "super snell" and engulfed a whole calamari. To say I was stoked is an understatement as this was clearly a PB.

[img_assist|fid=158865|thumb=1|alt=Hows this for a Flounder!!!!]

We gave this lump a few more passes and I nailed a smallish dhuie of 57cm this time on the single hook with a SW Labs pink squid skirt as added attraction.

One more drift and nothing so we continued on our way to the chosen start point for the day. We stopped at a couple of other marks on the way out and Ox claimed a small blackarse which went back and Shamu got a nice fox fish.

Disappointingly when we arrived at the spot I wanted to fish there were pots all over it. I sounded around to see if I could pick a safe drift line but it meant only touching the north western edge of the lump and there weren't too many fish on there that I could see. We gave it a couple of drifts but only managed a couple of hits. We decided to move again and hit a spot I found with one of my mates about 4 years ago. Given that it is out a bit further I rarely fish it but we decided to give it a go. What do you know....more pots. I was a bit cranky that we didn't have the room to get right over the lump but we gave it a drift anyway. After a couple of passes I picked up another dhuie about the same size and Ox picked up a nice little pinky.

As we were dipatching the pinky a cray boat came flying up to us and stopped and pulled the pots. Woo Hoo now we could hit the spot properly. We set up a few more drifts over the lump and I think on the second pass I came up tight on a big fish. This fish took line at will and shook its head violently to try and get rid of the hooks. After a great fight on the penn 320i (LH) and Ugly Stick combo (old faithful) a beautifully coloured pink snapper surfaced. This was shaping up to be a great day for me but my crew were looking like they were about to commit mutiny.

[img_assist|fid=158877|thumb=1|alt=Pinky-Dhu]

One more pass on that lump and we high tailed it in to some of my prime ground. I hit several spots on the way back in towards the dropzone and on one of those spots Shamu nailed a very tasty kidneyslapper size KG. His first for the species and a pretty good benchmark PB at the same time.

[img_assist|fid=158871|thumb=1|alt=Shamu's PB KG]

We accounted for a few more fish that went back and a nice Blackarse for me plus a 18 - 20kg sambo for me. One more lump had us getting busted off on something, before on a final drift I called lines up only for my bait to get smashed half way up. A little fight and a few minutes later a nice Bonito surfaced. I asked the guys if they wanted sashimi but they opted for using it as strip bait instead so it was dispatched along with a Sgt Baker Shamu has caught earlier. We finally worked our way back to the dropzone and sure enough on the third pass both me and shamu got connected in a big way, within the first couple of minutes we had both been taken to the reef and busted off. The fourth pass had Shamu hooked up again and this fish was a brute. He was pretty well locked up on this thing and it was going hard. Then after raising the fish 15 meters the fight took on the usual big kick and rest cycle of a big dhuie. We weer all getting very excited about what might come up until we saw that Shamu had caught a big sambo but had tail wrapped it at the same time. That's why the fight was a bit weird. After releasing the fish with a dozen sinkers as a release weight we decided enough was enough and headed home.

[img_assist|fid=158874|thumb=1|alt=One of our unstoppables]

Now I may have got a few of those spots mixed up in order of capture but I am pretty sure thats how it unfurled. A great day on the water and a couple of great blokes to share it with, thanks guys we had a laugh. Ox will be glad to know I didn't mention the attempted "half flex" rod at all in this report.

It was also great that when we got back to the ramp the fisheries guys were there to check our catch and safety equipment. They thought our bag was one of the best of the day and mentioned that they had seen a few flounder of that size being caught lately, so perhaps that should be a target species on the North Versus South comp. I know just the spot to try now (hehehe).

Went fishing for salmon yesterday.
While fishing i took the time to think of the diggers who put there lives on the line and gave there lives so we have a free country to fish and relax like i did today :)
Went wih a few mates.
I lost 2 Salmon.
One was average size and the other was a HORSE!!!! My guess would of been 9kg!!!! It had a float haing from its mouth that someone else had lost before.
It now has a set of gang hooks to the list because i lost it :twisted:
VERY rough swell today! In the pics it looks calm but there were some monster waves coming through!

I was soaked most of the day.
Here are some pics below....

Mate Scano landed the salmon in the pic

Hi Guys just returned from Kalbarri,sadly not much happening fish wise up there (for me anyway). I put about 2 to 3 hours a day of good solid trawling for mac's and tuna over the 3 days I was there and only one tuna landed with about 2 good strikes what i thought could have been a mac.
There were no signs of tuna on the surface feeding either. Each day I must have seen 15 to 20 boats trawling up and down nobody seemed to have much luck.
I did try for tailor at whitekara creek for one night but no luck, a local told me he did well tuesday and wednesday night but since then nothing.
It was still good to get away and give it a go, now im really hanging out for Dirkhatog in a month.

Hi boys, just got off the phone to a mate that lives in City beach and he said thats theres schools of salmon running up between there and floreat drain! That report came in 2 mins ago so if your in the area stop and chuck out some raiders baby and hang on!

Section 1 - IGA Exmouth
HPS Gamefish other than Billfish or shark weighed in on 1 - 2kg line
3rd Jamie Snook 4.4kg Queenfish on 1kg 440 points
2nd Jan Prince 10.3kg Golden on 2kg 515 points
1st Andrew Snook 6.6kg Queenfish on 1kg 660 points

Section 2 - Sam's Cellar
HPS Gamefish other than Billfish or shark weighed in on 3 - 4kg line
3rd Robyn Fenech 7.9kg Mackerel on 3kg 263 points
2nd James Russell 14.5kg Mackerel on 4kg 362 points
1st Jan Prince 13.6kg Mackerel on 3kg 453 points

Section 3 - Exmouth Automotive and Boating
HPS Gamefish other than Billfish or shark weighed in on6 - 8kg line
3rd Jamie Snook 12.2kg Mackerel on 6kg 203points
2nd Chris Hanks 17.5kg Mackerel on 8kg 218 points
1st Jamie Snook 13.2kg Longtail Tuna on 6 220 points

Section 4 - Home Hardware
HPS Gamefish other than Billfish or shark weighed in on 10 - 60kg line
3rd
2nd Keith Evans 12.2kg Mackerel on 10kg 122 Points
1st Wayne Roberts 20.7kg Mackerel on 10kg 207points

Section 5 - Kailis / Exmouth Pearls
HPS Billfish weighed in on 1 - 15kg line
3rd VACANT
2nd
1st

Section 6 - Exmouth Smash Repairs
Heaviest Billfish weighed in on 24 - 60kg line
3rd
2nd Tracey Rushford 87kg Broadbill on 60kg 72 points
1st Milton Landon 173.9kg Blue Marlin on 37kg line 235 points

Section 7 - Budget Car Hire
Champion Boat Tag & Release Shark
3rd Reel Teaser 5 Tags Average Line Class 60
2nd Awesum 5 Tags Average Line Class 12
1st Catch It 6 Tags

Section 8 - Toll West / Toll Ipec
Champion Angler Junior
3rd
2nd Andrew Snook 1 Species 1 L/C 660 Points
1st Rhys Clatworthy 6 Species 7 L/C 3360 Points

Section 9 - Opal Strike
Champion Angler Female
3rd Tracey Rushford 4 Species 3 L/C 3072 Points
2nd Robyn Fenech 5 Species 4 L/C 3110 Points
1st Jan Prince 6 Species 9 L/C 5236 Points

Section 10 - Engel
Champion Angler Male
3rd Gordon Lyon 4 Species 3 L/C 2732 Points
2nd Matt Niikkula 3 Species 3 L/C 3100 Points
1st Gary O'Brien 6 Species 5 L/C 4343 Points

Section 11 - Hotbite
Champion Angler Tag & Release Billfish
3rd Gary Miles 8 Marlin 4800 points
2nd Peter Versteeg 4 Marlin 5 Sailfish 4500 points
1st James Rosic 9 Marlin 5400 Points

Section 12 - Taylor Marine
Champion Boat Tag & Release Sailfish
5th Stray Cat 3 Tags
4th Jamaica 3 Tags
3rd Bill Glass 3 Tags
2nd In Deep 5 Tags average L/C 60
1st Reel Teaser 5 Tags average L/C 48

Section 13 - Reel Teaser Charters
Champion Boat Tag & Release Marlin
6th Touch of Class 9
5th Indizara 11
4th Chuditch 11
3rd Blue Horizon 12 Average L/C 52.3
2nd Reel Teaser 12 Average L/C 50.5
1st My Vice II 12 Average L/C 30.5

Section 14 - Starmart Exmouth
Champion Boat Overall
3rd Catch It 6 Species 9 L/C 4887 Points
2nd Orange Peel 8 Species 7 L/C 6083 Points
1st Awesum 7 Species 11 L/C 6328 Points

TOTAL:
52 Boats
180ish anglers

169 Marlin tagged
1 Marlin weighed
1 Broadbill weighed
53 Sailfish tagged
36 sharks tagged
3 sharks weighed
16 other gamefish species captured

Just got off the phone to a mate in Marndurah and said the salmon are there already! Mandorah bay and white hills have both been sighted for salmon in the 6kg class. He couldnt land any because they were to far out but smallish schools of around 20 to 30 fish have deffently been seen. Im heading down tonight for a try as ive got a mates wedding on saturday night down there. Ill let you know how i go. That means metro catches are just around the corner. See ya monday, SPESS.

As a preamble to a report I will hopefully be writing early next week, here is a sneak peek at the prize list for the event along with the points scoring system.

Champion Boat: $100 gift vouchers courtesy of Joondalup Compleat Angler plus the perpetual Coipasa Classic trophy.

Champion Angler: 800mm size Aquarium valued at $995 from Unique Aquariums. Plus $50 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

Biggest Dhufish: Bob Slight Boating Course valued at $330 plus $50 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

Most Species: Voucher for two people for one nights accommodation including breakfast at the Duxton hotel in Perth, valid to the 30/06/07 valued at $200 plus a $50 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

Classic Catch: Deep Fryer courtesy of Retravision Joondalup valued at $145 plus a $20 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

Biggest Pink Snapper: Dinner for two at Oscars Restaurant Currambine valued at $50 and 7 days free hire of a 120-litre esky from Perth Esky Hire valued at $45 plus a $20 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

Biggest Sand Whiting: 7 days free hire of a 120-litre esky from Perth Esky Hire valued at $45 plus a $20 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

Biggest Blackarse/Harlequin: A voucher for $50 worth of Fruit & Veg from Garden Glow plus $20 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

Biggest Other Snapper: $50 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

Biggest Baldie: $50 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

Biggest KG: $50 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

Biggest Skippy: A $20 gift voucher from Compleat Angler Joondalup

The points are as follows:
Max weight listed first which carries 500pts above which 100 bonus points added irrespective of weight for anything exceeding that max weight, then points per kilogram listed second. So a 10kg dhuie will score 250 pts but a 501g Whiting or a 2.1kg Harlequin will score 600pts.

Dhufish 20kg + 25pts
Pinkie 9kg + 55pts
Whiting 500g+ 1000pts
KG 2.5kg + 200pts
Black Arse 2kg + 250pts
Harlequin 2kg + 250pts
Queenie 6.5kg + 75pts
Red Snapper 1kg + 500pts
Skippy 5kg + 100pts
Leatherjacket 4kg + 125pts
Flathead 3kg + 175pts
Tuna Blue 10kg + 50pts
YF Tuna 30kg + 15pts
Spanish Mac 20kg + 25pts
Baldchin 5kg + 100pts

Hope that makes sense. Should be a lot of fun.