N _ _ th Mo_e Morning mission

I had a few customers come in last week with some photos of Bonito they had been catching last week around Perth. I have never caught an oriental bonito before and really wanted to cross it off the list so a quick plan with  Guido at work and a compromise with the boss man saw me with a 4am wakeup. I really do get some awkward looks carrying rods on a train at 5am.

Armed with my new Lox yoshi 1-3kg bream stick with new stradic 1000 as well as my heavier samurai/certate combo I headed down to north mole with Guido and met our mate Johno down there. We were there by six am, with six or eight people there already casting old school nilsmasters really confirmed my whole 'bonito at north mole' hunch. As the sun rose our anticipations started to thin out when we heard one of the other guys shout, followed by the next, then the next. The fish made it all the way up the wall until it was our turn. I came up solid on a Yo-Zuri crystal minnow 90mm in pilchard, but they really were taking anything in front of them. Short tussle on 0.8pe gear and I landed my first metro bonito, the only problem is that it was infact a watsons leaping bonito which I had previously caught several times up north. I wasn't going to not cast though! 

SHARK BAITS

I hooked several before losing my crystal minnow to the stupid kelp that wraps around the base of the rocks. Johno landed a few also with guido frantically trying to get one on a top-water stickbait to no avail. Once I nabbed a couple I decided to opt for my 4lb outfit which was the dumbest idea in retrospect. While these bonito were small, they really do put up a fight on 4lb and the rod didn't have the backbone to lift them up the rocks without making me cringe. We found that they were not coming all the way to the tip of the mole and hung back maybe 3/4 of the way down. As soon as the sun was well above they buggered off. Honourable mentions - Johno's flathead on metal slice, and Johno's YAKKA on metal slice. 

I'll be back there when they grow a little bigger, or the orientals start showing up. 

Point Peron Pirates

The plan was to leave the boat ramp at 5am and get out somewhere near the southwest bank on sunrise, then bottom bash for demersals and have a light troll in-between. I am a big fan of fresh bait so the pretty lady Sam, Liam and I headed to Eshed the night before for a bit of a mulloway bash and a bait gather. Holy crap that place is packed on a saturday night, we couldn't even find a spot up the whole wharf. When we eventually got a spot the scaleys werent far behind. No mulloway (if the fish even exists, or is that another money making ploy developed in the 60's by tackle stores but thats another story) however we got a bunch of baitfish and called it a night. Home at 1am, and up at 4:30. Great.

Was nice to meet Tony and Frank from the West Coast Fishing Crew on facebook and they were top lads, Tony was our skipper for the day and put us right on a spot which usally produces for them, and he didn't disappoint. First drop I used a lightly weighted scaley on a snelled rig. Everyone else was getting bites but I wasn't getting a sniff, but then I felt the tap-tap-tap of a pinky and I came up solid. I knew it was a solid fish as it was giving my rod a real workout ($50 Cheapy pflueger freebee I got from work). With a bit of a tussle we boated a nice pinky, not a monster by anyones standards but it was still a solid fish. 

High fives all around and it was released (into the esky MUHUHHAHHAAHA).

It wasn't long after that Jeff brought up a 57cm dhuie which was his personal best, it was a very solid fish and we knew we were onto some good ground by that stage. 

Big smile for Jeff as he lands his personal best dhuie. I was really happy with how the photo came out. 

Note to self - Don't drink 750ml of up&go vanilla and have a can of coke on a rocking boat on no sleep. 

The fish just kept rolling in after that, no monster fish but plenty of undersized dhuies and a few decent Blackass coming onboard. 

Frank with a just sized dhuie that he decided to release to grow a little bigger ,what we need more of.

Things got quiet after that with most drifts only finding the pickers. We changed spots a couple of times but no joy. By that stage I was feeling pretty exhausted anyway. The call was made to try a KG spot, trolling along the way. Not a sniff. Back at the ramp by 4 and I've never seen it so busy before, however we were the only ones at the filleting bench. Plenty of fresh fish for all our families and nothing went in the bin, Tony keeps all his frames and heads for his crab nets so nothing goes to waste. Was nice to meet you guys and look forward to fishing again sometime. 

Crap photo I know, I just wanted a photo to send to Liam to make him jealous. What are mates for?

Hey guys its been a while. I went down to my skippy spot the other day with John for a flick, had no luck whatsoever so we went down to the Jolly Frog jetty and got a couple of herring and John lost a tailor to a shag.  We decided to go back to the spot and give the skippy another crack but when I was walking down the beach I noticed a crab close to shore, within 3 seconds I was stripped down and ready to grab this blue manna and I got him pretty easily... however he got me too.

By the time I got to shore with the crab in my hand I noticed another crab in the water about 20 meters away, and another just a little bit further than him. Covered with lots of cuts, blood and peeling skin I ended up with around 10 decent males all grabbed by hand. The biggest was around 145mm carapace.

Not bad considering I didn't even have a clue they were going to be around. Went to a mates house and cooked them up for dinner. Twelve minutes seems to be the go for cooking them, they came out perfect. 

I'll be back there pretty soon

Jurien Bay Madness

We had been planning a shoot out in the boat for quite a while, but with work commitments and crappy weather the trip kept dodging us. Finally the boss gave me a day off, the weather was mint and the feeling of anticipation was high. With all this talk about the Spaniards lately and Jeff having never caught one, we made the call to shoot up to Jurien Bay early in the morning to troll for the day. With a bit of outside help and a lot of research we narrowed down our target area and packed the gear. The plan was to meet up at Jeff's house at 2:30am, which meant an early night the night before. Unfortunately, The Last Samurai was on TV and it didn't end up being an early night at all. Bloody good movie though.

We made it to the boat ramp by around 5:15 and the place was packed, but we eventually got to launch and away we went, dodging weed as we headed out. We kept all our bases covered with a Tyrnos 20, Charter special and big boy Tiagra 30W for if the billies came to play, as well as some light gear for fun with tuna. It wasn't long before birds doing anxious laps of the trolling grounds and not just a couple of birds, there were hundreds of them. The lures went out and Glenn opted for an Xrap Mag-20 in ever faithful green mack colour while I opted for white and Jeff decided to troll a garfish rigged with a keel. We did a few laps around various bait schools but nothing would even touch our lures, not even a tuna feather I had in the spread. After passing a bait school and starting to make another turn, a big splash erupted from behind the boat and Jeff's rod went berserk. After a short tussle and some close calls when the fish saw the boat, we landed Jeff's first ever spaniard and it was a beauty!

The action really hotted up after than with doubles and triple hookups happening out of a 3.8m Tinnie. It got pretty hectic at one stage with a three way hookup, a spinning boat, tangles, tripping over gear and a fish flopping on the deck but we managed to land all three, which meant bagging out before 8am.

We trolled around for a little longer before the action died down around 9am and we decided to go for a bottom bash to no avail. Pulled the pin and headed in, smiles all around and a hefty boat. I must add, the fisheries chick in jurien bay is a solid 9/10 and is definately in the wrong kind of profession.

Got some awkward stares at the filleting table.

Not bad out of a small boat! Thanks Jeff and Glenn for a wicked day out.

Hey guys thanks for checking me out.
I am just in the process of setting up the Blog layout and adding some recent adventures so please bear with me. My goal is to update local fishing reports (not bullshit) that are experienced by either myself, colleagues or mates who fish the Perth area, I will also stick up my fishing escapades of up north, down south and everywhere in between.
I would like to add some product reviews, but also keep them casual.
To honour the new blog, I will go fishing tonight and see what I can foul hook around rockingham.