There were plenty of spanish mackerel reports from around Perth this week, and we kicked off with a report from Peter Dohnt last Friday: 

Thought you may like some shots and an update to what action is about Rottnest at the minute .These shots were taken on Friday...

There were plenty of spanish mackerel reports from around Perth this week, and we kicked off with a report from Peter Dohnt last Friday:

Thought you may like some shots and an update to what action is about Rottnest at the minute. These shots were taken on Friday, and the weather was very windy that day with strong easterlies.

We ventured out the Gabriel Gomez’s immaculate thirty five Bertram, Game Time with the live bait tank full of yellowtail and the thought of getting into some mahis on the FADs.

The weather did not allow this and we continued to troll the chook run on Rottnest's West End with Halco Laser Pros and landed several good spanish mackerel, all about the same size. 

The pictured fish weighed in at 8.5 kg on three kilo line. After some small striped tuna chasing we headed to the sambo grounds. The wind was still getting up so the FADs looked two hours away at least.

After getting the live baits down and some jigs we finally started to get some results, most of the fish including some amberjacks with the samson fish were all under the 16 kilo mark. The fish pictured, that I captured is 15.5 kg on six kilo line. All the other fish were tagged and released. 

The PGFC fad had some good sized dolphin fish around it, but getting to them was difficult with all the sea birds keen for a fresh mulie or live bait. After hooking and dropping several fish it was time to head home, that’s fishing.

***

Those of you who deal with us primarily online have probably encountered Dave over the years, moreso than those who venture in to the Scarborough store, as he's usually out the back; but just to confirm that he isn't always at the keyboard, here's a pic of a spaniard that he picked up last Saturday, trolling off our northern suburbs...

Dave also caught a few samsons on the day, good fun on light tackle. It's a bit hard to say how long the spaniards will stick around; the water coming down from up north was very warm, but just today a strong lick of cooler water came in from the west. So we're either going to have a good mackerel season, or a good salmon season, but we don't know which yet.

Dave was fishing with Grant Morgan, and the pair reported heaps of pilchards not far offshore, good tucker for both spaniards and salmon. This mackerel was full of them.

***

We don't actually know anything about this story, except that it was a few days ago at Busselton jetty; and that's a big shark in very shallow water...

***

Robbie Riches sent us in this pic of a rock lobster he caught freediving down south. Now we'll put it in because Robbie used to work for us and he's a nice guy, but please keep your appraisals of his photography skills to yourself. See, we are. He said it weighed about two kilos. It probably did too.

***

Here's a preview of this weekend's Sunday Times fishing report:

METROPOLITAN

Tailor are annoyingly patchy, turning up one day, not the next, better size fish coming from northern beaches. Inside the Mindarie Marina, herring fishing was best in the morning. Pinnaroo Point has been okay for sand whiting, Sorrento Groynes and Grant Street among the tailor hot spots. Yanchep Lagoon has produced some whopper herring. Peter Riley caught three excellent tailor to 1.5kg from a Scarborough beach, in addition to five mid-sized salmon.

Boat fishers working out of Ocean Reef seem to being doing better for some reason, jewfish common not far out, plenty of baldchin about and a large number of breaksea cod caught. Samson fish were also plentiful in water from 20 to 40m. Heaps of bait at the back of the Three Mile Reef will keep mackerel about. Other mackerel catches have come from the south side of Rottnest, yellowtail king fish still a major drawcard for the back of Rottnest. Chris White and friends enjoyed an enormous day catching red and pink snapper and samson fish from 85m of water when they spotted a school of small tuna feeding nearby, so they cruised over and picked up a small spanish mackerel even in that depth. Neil Grant brought a nice jewfish home from the back of Garden Island.

Joff Weston and his mates Graeme and Duncan found a number of jewfish, nearly all undersize, fishing 32-36m of water off Mindarie. They brought back a catch of quality king george whiting instead. There are worthwhile dolphin fish at the FADs, Hillary’s FAD holding many big dollies.     

Bull sharks from between a metre and 1.5m have caused quite a fuss from near the Causeway in South Perth. Other river hot spots include the Old Traffic Bridge for large tarwhine and juvenile samson fish, yellowfin whiting coming from the nearby flats, Jo Jos good for flathead. Heirisson Island is yielding bream, and good size bream came from Fish Market Reserve.

MANDURAH

Given reasonable sea conditions boat groups have enjoyed excellent jewfish catches, Bouvard Reef terrific for queen snapper. There are lots and lots of tailor around, especially at the Cut, the whole stretch from White Hills to San Remo yielding many tailor, some good sized herring in the same country.

Beaches from Preston to White Hills have given whiting anglers the opportunity for bag limit hauls. There are heaps of crab in the estuaries too.

EXMOUTH

 There's last week's Exmouth-only newsletter on the site here, and there'll be a new newsletter up on Friday 27th as well. Matt's down fishing the Blue Marlin Classic off Fremantle this weekend.

***