Released (twice).

There have been some good catches of Southern Bluefin Tuna recently off Portland Vic.  Yesterday a 103kg SBT was weighed and this is a pending World Record for 10kg line class.  The angler has been chasing this record for some time I understand and it finally all came together.  Well done that team.

https://www.facebook.com/wildblueportland/

During the latter part of February and early March we witnessed one of those rare occasions where we had decent weather over a weekend.  Good mate Xaview Dunn and I took advantage of the conditions and fished one of our favourite jaunts near Rotto.  During the February session, which coincided with the Rotto swim, we managed a few small edibles and were harassed by a number of sharks.  The highlight of the day is when a "friendly" GW came over and kept us company for about 20 minutes.  Our February trip was wet, but more successful and during this session we managed a number of larger edibles.  We were however humilated by a school of YTK that passed through our swim.

Videos of the trips can be viewed here:

https://youtu.be/S_TOWLWReWg

https://youtu.be/GuugwnU2Phg

https://youtu.be/HkQIIoT7lj0

More from from the usual haunts, down south rocks, but of jigging off Margaret River for sambos and some deep drop goodies from behind the abrohlos.  

The weather forecast for Friday was too good, so left work behind and headed out early.

Was very quiet early on. Tried trolling thru the 30’s (where the SBT’s had been a couple weeks back), but to no avail. No birds working at all and no bait showings.

got out to the mid 40’s and things stayed veerrrryyyyy quiet too. Tried many of my usual haunts with little activity other than a few smaller pinkies that we’re safely returned. 

11 o’clock things changed a nice 6 kg dhuie, followed by a nice double header of black arise and swallowtail snapper.

Changed tack again and tried an old marking that is only a 2m rise and the size of a garage, but that produced nicely and we bagged out. Best I thought was a great 56cm Baldie that weighed 3.3kg. Had great fun with a mid sized sambo on light gear. Another really nice bum rounded the day off, so trolled home again for no reward. No sign of any tuna all day until 1nm off the cut! With all the gear safely stowed by then they may as well have tail walked and blown raspberries at us!!

 Hi new to Perth. Keen Fisher. Looking for a fishing partner  to gain knowledge of some of the fishing spots . and tips and meet new ppl iv been chasing mulloway  of the surf. With no luck think I'm in the wrong  fishing spot never fished for them before cheers 

Been a long time since I’ve had a good fish, good way to get back into things. Big Johns jig heads doing the damage again, very strong 

 Tried a spot I did well on last year on the big tide get to access where you usually can get to. Salmon were going off. 52-87cm landed 15 dropped 2 which were the bigger ones good fun on the lighter gear. Cooked prawns doing the damage. Must of been the super moon. Fantastic solo session just kept 2 small ones released the rest. 

 Were to find blue manners in the swan river can any one give me a good location...cheers

 Recently upgraded the sounder on the Regulator from 1 kW to 3 kW. Went with a wet faced, keel mounted R509 with Garmin GSD26 black box, hooked up to 2 x 16 inch monitors. 

Had to cut a bloody massive hole in the keel of a new boat and semi recess the tranny to ensure it was sitting down a few inched into clean water...hard to do, but we wanted the best results so this is what it took based on my research. All Marine Services did the install, too big a job for me, they did a bloody nice job. 

Finally got the chance to test it out on the weekend, and results exceeded expectation. In shitty conditions well off shore, we did not hit a speed or depth that did not result in a pretty good image, all on FULL AUTO with no adjustment of any settings.  

41 knots in shallow. 

500m deep. Nice fish, two vertical lines are waypoints, will go back and have a crack at these.  

1000m deep. 

1600m was as deep as went, Still pinging away happily. 

 In Kalbarri, at least. it has been really quiet, just the odd one here and there. I got two on the Australia day weekend, and a few pinks, but worked hard for them. Sounds like a few turned up yesterday north of the river. We left on sunrise, tried a troll north a bit for zero,  and steamed a long way up. Picked up a couple of  pinkies, then started trolling again. One missed  strike on a brand new lure showed definite mackerel teeth, but it was another long stint until we finally picked up a stray. Didn't seem to have company, so we went off somewhere else. A monster double strike turned out to be YFT, dropped one released the other. Then bang bang bang , three Spaniards in quick succession, largest 13.5KG. So with four Spaniards and two pinks the fish bag was full, ( didn't have the big Madfish bag with me ) and we headed home. 

Tried my luck at crabbing (nets) in the Swan tonight. Just the one size! I usually free dive for them and typically get a feed, but it’s been so murky lately, I thought I’d give netting a go.

I thought I’d save some bucks and catch some herring for fresh bait, but the one time I actually want to catch them in the river, all I get is lots of small pink snapper (about 30cm). After about 2 hrs I finally managed to catch some herring for bait.

Most interesting part of the night was seeing a live crayfish wandering in about 3 ft of water. I’m 100% certain it was a crayfish as the water was glassy and I had my torch on it for a few seconds. I tried to do a circle and go over it again to get a photo, but it was heading for a drop off and dissappeared. I did about 5 circles in the area but no luck.

It was very lightly coloured (pink) like when the whites are running and would have gone very close to size. 

Has as anyone else ever seen a live cray in the Swan?

 Thinking of taking the boat down to Augusta next week after the brats go back. Any recent reports from down there? I know they had a crap load of rain a few weeks ago. Looking at bream and usual B&B stuff. Would it be worth throwing in the crab nets? Or rains have sent them packing!

Cheers 

On the 1st of January 2019, Harro, Kane and myself jumped in the car and headed up to Exmouh.

While the wind was coming in hard for the first few days, it eventually let up, letting us head out wide and get into some nice Ruby's.

It was an amazing trip with some great fish caught.

There's no doubt that we will be heading up again soon to do it all over again.

Below is a link which will probably give a better report then I can type haha. It includes everything from chasing Reds, Ruby's, Pelagics and even hunting crabs.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=NzU1aV87l7M

 Hey guys anyone been down to Walpole lately? Just wondering what the mouth to the inlet is looking like

Stolen while my mate was washing his boat, walked out to his shed to get his hose @ 18:15 last night. Came back 15 min later & it was gone @ 18:30. Corner house think it's Bahama dve.

 Up nice and early for a quick fish this morning. Headed out to James Service Reef for a look and fish were on the sounder. Got some burley in the water, but took a little while to fire. About 45 minutes after sunrise a got solid hook up on a soft plastic. Bit of to and fro, up comes a nice 68cm Dhu. They fight pretty good in 12 m of water. About 15 minutes later the brother in laws rod buckles over and he starts losing a bit of string. After another good fight we have a 76cm Pinkie in the net. Home by 7:30. Nice

 Hi Guys looking at heading out saturday morning early as conditions look very inviting. Looking at chasing some pinks around the 5 fathom. Anyone had any luck lately??

Hi Everyone,

hoping I can get some help keeping an eye out for a 54Lb Jarvis Walker SWTSB Watersnake (I think I have to accept battery is gone).
The low life took it at 5:33pm Saturday 12th Jan from Sixth Avenue in Maylands.

I use it with my kids to get the crab nets in and they learn to move the dingy around safely and slowly - so its a real disappointment.

The thief didn't take the foot control unit, so I'm not sure how much use the actual Watersnake unit is to them. which makes it worse in a way - like someone stealing your phone.
costs you a lot to replace and its of no use to them :( :(

Id appreciate it if people could please keep an eye out for it.

Cut wires would be 20-50cm long attached to the unit I guess

thank you

 Did a quick fire trip upto Denham with my 15 and 17 year old boys just after Christmas. As expected very windy so spent 4 days fishing Monkey Mia. Tides not really in our favour as high tide was pretty late but went out regardless.

Took the boat all the way upto Peron and fished a small coral outcrop that has performed well in the past, struggled to get a bait past the Spanish flag, kept a couple of good ones though and a couple of Blackies and then headed back towards Monkey Mia.

Ended up fishing out of Cape Rose and picked up some School Mack and got absolutely hammered by big Forktail catties, all the catties went back.

Fished Faure on the last day for zip and headed back to Cape Rose and sat on the pick for a few hours and picked up a couple of good size Golden Trevally and some more school Mack.

Ate the Trevally fresh and was reasonable, gave some to some tourists who were wrapped.

After travelling reasonable distances to Peron and Faure we ended up getting most of our keepers within 3kms of Monkey Mia!!!! Typical hey.

Kids had a blast, they've pretty much made the transition from berry pickers to hunters, both have got the fishing bug and a becoming great young men.

Hope this helps others making the trip up 

Cheers Marty

Well this is a very late report......

We had our first ever trip to Exmouth back in June 2018, and although the weather was unseasonably crap! We still managed to get out and about and land a few fish. 

Overall we did 10 nights up there, with 4 or 5 days just not workable due to weather or some maintenance requirements....so had a couple of (non-fishing) day trips down to Coral Bay as well. 

As we are currently living abroad, we flew back in to Perth, grabbed our car out of storage, grabbed the boat and spent a couple of days getting our fishing gear sorted out before doing the long drive north. Overnighting in the Billabong Roadhouse both ways. I had one of, if not the best, steaks i have ever eaten there! 

Anyway, this is a fishing forum, so lets talk about the fishing.

As mentioned, the weather was very out of the norm, with floods on our way up, and our way back! There was a fair amount of wind etc also, so it made some uncomfortable and long days on the water. But with a limited window, we made the best of it. Spending a small fortune in fishing gear at the ever helpful Tackleworld Exmouth... thanks to the man in the grey suit imparting substantial taxes on us!

We managed a few different species up there, and really had a ball, and am in the process of trying to get our next trip sorted (June 2019). We are trying to decide on whether to spend two full weeks in Exy or a week in CB and a Week + in Exy. 

A highlight was my son, landing a Sailfish, we tried to release boatside, but the Rapala single was completely through the bill, so had to drag it onboard to get it out. A couple of photos and then a short swim boatside before it swam off strongly. 

Another highlight was my Wife catching her first YFT, which was delicious! 

anyway, here are a few pics from our trip

 So November I had back surgery and haven’t moved hardly at all since except the physios exercises and swimming with my lovely wife acting as an exceptional guard to stop me being silly.

However I slipped the leash yesterday morning and was able to have a walk around and picked these up, nice to be back out and about.

 Got out to the islands last weekend for a couple of days, weather was looking good and turned out even better! Left perth Friday night and were out at the islands first thing, got stuck straight into the dhus they were in numbers out there! 

After we had our 2 off to fill the rest of the bag, came back in to some shallower ground got to the spot and found a few snapper feeding around a big school of bait was good fun on the light jigging gear!

Got in the water for a swim in the arvo grabbed a few crays then settled in for a few beers!

Got to test out the new sounder still getting used to all the settings but was impressed can't wait to test it out in the deep water!

Have been fishing Ocean Reef inshore over the last year and the time on the water is starting to pay off. Hit the water at 445 this morning solo for the first time (wife hung out in the car as not feeling well) headed out, full noise, good colours on the sounder around some craypots. Started a burley trail, floated some cubed baits down on 1 rod with paternoster on the other.

Only a ray on the paternoster, the floater scored a big snook at 730mm (released) and a few scorpion cod before nailing a breaksea cod at 380mm. Not an exciting catch by alot of standards but pretty happy with it myself as a great eating fish. Fished a little longer and back at the ramp by 730.

Ramp was chockers by now ppl parked all over the place, fisheries checking catches which is good to see. Flowed pretty good, heard a bit of agro but pretty mild.

Curious to hear how others went as there were plenty of boats out?

 (Sorry about the bad pic, deckie is the photographer!)

 hoping to get some during the break

Trev

 Braved the blustery conditions yesterday at White Hills to get a feed.

Weed wasn't to bad but not possible keeping any big baits out for any length of time.

Had a long term good mate come to Perth for a relatives wedding and we caught up on the weekend and planned a trip if the weather was ok. Today gave us a “reasonable” morning so met Mal and his boy Timmo at the ramp about 5am and headed out to hunt some greenbacks on the nearshore reefs.

5 minutes from the ramp and the bomber and popper went out in 3-5m deep waters. Just near a bommie and the bomber was away. This was a fair fish that headed straight for cover and there was some tense times trying to get it around the rocks. When it was in open water, it didn’t fight like a big tailor and as it got to the boat there was the pink. We landed it to safely remove the trebles, a quick photo for the visitor, measure (66cm) and a strong release.

The other highlight of the day was being in close to the one mile reefs baitcasting the wash, when a school of big (10-20kg tuna) came through. The first indication was birds dive bombing around the boat and then there were the baitfish fleeing and the beasts smashing the surface within 5m. Timmo reacted quickly and got a small commercially caught gar on 5/0 gang into the middle of them. Inhaled by a big fish, and I saw it swim away with the hooks in its gob. A drag set for 1.5kg tailor didn’t really cut it and although Timmo did well, the fish won given the cover it had.

Although the waters looked good we couldn’t find the tailor, but bagged out on herring when the easterly was too strong to fish the reef breaks and we had to hide close to shore. It was an enjoyable and memorable day for the things that happened – I guess you just need to be out there.

. any recent reports, are the Mackies about yet? Hows the track?

 Have been having some success on King George whiting lately. 

Any reports of anyone catching/netting crabs in the swan recently?