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This time of the year we see herring and garfish being the most prolific species through inshore waters – the majority of local fishing spots, with the addition of a bit of berley or fish oil, will provide sufficient numbers of these plentiful two mainstays of the bread and butter community to provide more than enough fresh fish for dinner.
Ben Weston with a beautiful 'mid-week' samson.
Due to a lack of recent rains, bream still are being caught in the upper reaches with some reports of decent fish in the Guildford area. The Bamboos is thick with juvenile bream that make it hard to get past them to the larger ones, so a good sign for the future there.
Usually with the drop in water temperature we’d ideally see a decrease in the numbers of blowfish in local waters but there does still seem to be quite a number of them around still; probably the best way to get a fish in during the day – without having your hooks picked clean of bait – is to throw around small lures, especially little hard bodies or smaller metal slice type lures.
We have been using the Little Jack Seguroids’ in various colourations to great effect, on quite a variety of species – herring, Skippy, flathead, flounder and tailor to name a few.
Swan River flounder caught on a Little Jack Seguroid.
In the Swan River lower reaches, activity has picked up a fair bit, with some of the usually resident species such as skippy, herring, tailor and yellowfin whiting making their presence known once again. Along with these, there has been an unusually high number of flounder in the lower reaches of the river, with some very good sizes amongst them. Mixed in with these are the usual mid sized flathead, with a couple of larger ones to near 60cm being sighted and caught.
A couple of unexpected hook-ups on bull sharks has also made things quite interesting to say the least, with a number of near spoolings occurring over the last few nights in vicinity of East Fremantle.
Tailor are still around in reasonable size and numbers with the majority of catches coming from Cottesloe, Swanbourne and north around Club Capricorn/ Two Rocks area with the chance of a decent mulloway at the latter spot.
Al Hunton nailed a 38cm black bream from the moore river during a morning spin session and has also been doing well in the Canning River on slightly smaller fish.
Marco Piviali from Bluewater Melville with a nice salmon from the Straggler's area.
Several customers reported a large school of salmon was at the North Mole on Thursday providing fun for all, and some scares and excitement for the herring anglers. Some reports also mention small schools of salmon around Woodman Point, so it would appear that there is still a chance for those in the know. Salmon have also been popping up along the beaches north of Club Capricorn with some good tailor and numbers of herring with them.
The prawn run is still trickling along, with numerous boats making nightly hauls of 3-5 litres of good King Prawns. Grab a net and get amongst them!
Herring are always plentiful this time of year.
There are still very good catches of Pink Snapper being made, everywhere from the shallow inshore reefs to 80m and beyond, Dhufish have quietened off a bit – they are still around, with numerous diver reports stating good numbers of decent sized Dhuies being in evidence in the waters surrounding Rottnest and Garden Island. King george catches have been one to note and the sizes are certainly up there.
The weather this weekend should stir the snapper up with a bit of a north west blow on Saturday morning. North mole would defiantely be worth a look in for those willing to brave the winds at sunset for the chance to bag one of the tasty fish. Monday and Tuesday would be the best chance to get out and chase them in a small boat at this stage.
Bluewater Melville regular Ross Italiano with a lovely early morning pink snapper.
The 3 Mile reef has been thick with skippy and undersize snapper. Karl and Tim from Bluewater Morley had a hot a session there Thursday morning. Fishing soft plastics they had a blast catching and releasing skippy, snapper, pike and small Samson fish. With several big bustoffs on 7” gulps indicating the presence of even larger sambos. They reluctantly had to leave the hot bite due to work commitments.
Ben Weston got a trip out recently with Joff Weston from Bluewater Mindarie and managed a few nice dhufish and some solid samson fish. The pair also getting into some nice baldchin and king george.
For those willing to head well offshore the fishing has been far better in the 60-90m mark behind direction bank. Those prepared to go deep are reporting good catches of deep dwellers such as ruby snapper, blue eye and grey banded cod.
This flounder was one of several caught by Matt Garwood from Bluewater Melville during an idyllic mid-week session.
Jason Rushton and Anthony Kane also from Mindarie had a lightning trip to leeman where they enjoyed some great fishing for bottom fish – mainly jewfish on plastics.Fish to 75cm on the light spin gear were apparently a real blast.
With the cooler months ahead of us, we can expect to start seeing some bigger jumbo – or greenback – tailor being caught, utilising much the same techniques as used for catching salmon.
Tuna have also been noticeably quiet, with substantial drops in water temp out wide. The mackerel – both spanish and shark – which were mixing amongst the salmon schools have also been noticeably missing.
The Bluewater Crew.
Text and pics © 2010 Bluewater Tackle World
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