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The cessation of dredging in Fremantle Harbour has made a marked difference to the water quality in both the Swan River and metro waters closer to the coast. As a result of this local anglers have noticed an increase in activity for the majority of local species. Herring and small tailor have been extremely plentiful at the North and South Moles, Coogee Marina rock walls and inner harbour, Cottesloe, Swanbourne and north around Club Capricorn/ Two Rocks area with the chance of a decent mulloway at the latter spot. Salmon have been everywhere in the last few weeks with Ross Italiano from the Saltwater Flyrodders of W.A. getting in on the action with a nice capture on fly pictured below.
The marina at Mindarie continues to fish well for a variety of species.herring and skippy have been consistent and there have been reports of three good mulloway between 15-22kg.Gummy sharks have also been an option with a few caught over the full moon.
Whilst a lot of the herring have been of quite a reasonable size, the majority of the tailor have been barely pushing legal size(300mm) so keep an eye on measurements if you intend keeping any for the table – remember, if you do happen to hit a gold patch you are now only permitted to keep 2 tailor over 50cm. Mixed in among the herring and tailor are numbers of reasonable sized snook, the odd salmon, plenty of small sand whiting off the beaches along with tarwhine and a definite increase in the numbers and sizes of squid. Almost any location around town where you catch your fish will hold a population of squid, so it’s always a good idea to have at least one squid jig in your bag or box – hard to beat a fresh feed of calamari!
Bluewater Melville's Matt Garwood with a beautiful pink snapper caught on a soft plastic.
In the Swan, water clarity has significantly improved and along with it the variety of species reappearing has risen, however, some of the species like skippy have been noticeable by their absence. There is a multitude of smaller bread and butter fish in abundance, inclusive of herring, chopper tailor, squire (or to the younger generation, juvenile pink snapper), black and silver bream and on top of all these, there have been reasonable hauls of king prawns out of the lower reaches on an outgoing tide. The bream have not really been forced to move downstream yet as catches are widespread from Caversham to Canning Bridge.
Baitfish activity in the river is very high, so there should in all likelihood be predators in there amongst them – saying this, there where quite a number of Mulloway to 15kgs and Pink Snapper to 8kgs caught from North Mole approximately 2 weeks ago, both during and after the bit of rough weather we had.
Crab activity has been almost non-existent in the lower reaches, and with the crabbing ban in place again in Cockburn Sound there have been few reports of any, slightly colder water temperatures of late the likely explanation.
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If you havn't checked out the latest trip report from Bluewater Melville's Laith Rickman on his Coral Bay adventure click here for some great pics.
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Offshore a number of game fishing tournaments recently have given us a good picture of what is happening out wider. The 2 main comps recently were the MTU Bluewater Marlin Classic, hosted by Fremantle Sailing Club and the W.A. Open, hosted by Perth Game Fishing Club. Although there were no marlin landed, there were a number hooked and lost during the Marlin Classic, most from the northern FADs where water temperatures were up near 27 degrees! Jim Ireland had 2 epic tussles with some quite large fish but unfortunately both were lost after some time hooked up on 37kg gear. More recently however, there has been a marked drop in water temp which does have a big effect on most pelagic species – during the WA Open (17-18 April) there were no marlin even sighted or raised, but multitudes of tuna were in abundance, with both striped or skip-jack tuna and southern bluefin being the main species encountered.
A Richter Tornado proved too much for this striped tuna.
A couple of mahi-mahi were landed, none approaching ‘Bull’ size although in the last week we’ve had a report of a near 10kg one caught near the southern FADs, more specifically the All Marine Services FAD. Whilst the tuna were in abundance, the salmon finally arrived in metro waters Easter Monday, with around 15 boats getting stuck into a substantial sized school off Rottnest’s West End – the session lasted near on 6 hours! Fish were all very healthy and of good size, some giving the 8kg mark a good nudge.
Steve Bradbury and Tony Ong mixing it up with some Rottnest salmon on fly
During the WA Open, a number of new pending Australian records where caught, with Michael Smalley – fishing aboard ‘Rampage’ – landing a 5.79kg salmon on 2kg line – not a bad effort for his first ever salmon! Michael was part of the team comprising of Alex Scholz, Glen Rattigan and Matt Garwood (Bluewater Melville) -and obviously Michael himself - who eventually were runner up Champion Boat for the comp, with the difference between first and second place being literally one fish ….bugger!! Couple of surprises reared their heads with the capture of a number of Shark Mackerel to 8-9kg, which were mixed in with the salmon schools, along with a 16kg Spaniard landed 23 April by Dave Gray aboard ‘Black Jack II’.
A Black Magic jig was the downfall of this amberjack taken off the Derwent.
Southern bluefin tuna to 6 kilo’s are still hanging around and there have been some nice dolphinfish around the same size at the fads.Other reports have had whispers of 50+kg Yellowfin Tuna busting up bait schools in the vicinity of Rottnest, so it is a good time of the year to be having a crack out there.
Closer in, there have been good numbers of Pink Snapper being caught in a number of locations, none very far from Fremantle and more often than not in less than 20m of water. These fish have been very well conditioned and most are in the 8-10kg range – bloody good fun on light gear and soft plastics!! Reasonable numbers of Dhufish have also been reported although the majority of these have been around 10kg and less.
The 3 Mile reef has still had its moments for the odd Spaniard or surprise tuna and those prepared to berley up are doing okay on smallish snapper in the 2kg range. King george whiting have been in small numbers in the shallows, while skippy have bolstered catches there also.
Jason Rushton from the Mindarie store had a great day out recently testing his new Certate 2500r – boating a lovely pink snapper and Samson on 8lb out from Ocean reef.
Bluewater Mindarie's Jason Rushton with a pearler of a pinkie.
King George have popped up here and there, and there have been some whopper jumbo tailor caught in the vicinity of shallow offshore reefs – some of these fish are approaching 80cms! Shallow diving minnows and plastics have accounted for most of these fish, however, be aware there are some VERY large Samson Fish inhabiting the same locations and a hooked tailor becomes a very appealing target for these monsters – this has lead to some quite hectic and destructive situations, to say the least!
Bluewater Melville's Jeremy Telfer with a shallow water sambo taken near Stragglers.
Further south and Bluewater Morley’s resident “salmon guru” Karl, has been doing well on salmon, catching and releasing 15 salmon to 7kg on Snapbacks in one session at Eagle Bay on Tuesday. His general feeling is that the salmon are heading back on the return journey south based on the general direction and speed of travel of the schools.
Karl from Bluewater Morley with a blinder of an Eagle Bay salmon
With the arrival of Autumn we should hopefully get a lot more days with boating friendly weather, and we hope to hear more reports of quality fish being found, landed and released – so keep an ear open and you’ll hopefully be able to get stuck into the action! Don’t forget, if you need any questions answered on anything from basic bread and butter set-ups or rigs, up to heavy tackle game fishing, we here are more than happy to help out so just drop by anytime!
The Bluewater Crew.
Text and pics © 2010 Bluewater Tackle World
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