Tailor fishing has been reasonable from the northern beaches, with one customer picking up two bigger than average fish of around 65cm from the Two Rocks groyne. Tailor are to be found at all the usual local haunts and now is the time of the year to consider the breaking water around the Three Mile, Marmion Reef, Stragglers area etc for the really big winter tailor. Casting poppers and slices into the white water can yield a smorgasbord of species including tailor, salmon, samson fish and small tuna species.

Bluewater Mindarie's Jason Rushton with a superb pink snapper

There have been reports of good skippy catches from Hillarys Marina, some to around a kilo. Herring are picking up again with Hillarys, and Harding Rock in Cockburn Sound, being two of the main spots. Harding Rock seems to have the edge on size, as Tim from Bluewater Scarborough was catching them on 5” Snapbacks! The northern beaches have also seen plenty of herring and whiting.

 Hmmmm they don't come much tastier than fresh king george whiting. That's Tim Barlow from Bluewater Scarborough. 

King george whiting are around for those in the know around the offshore reefs. Tim from Bluewater Scarborough has had some success on Squidgy Flickbaits, scoring one of 54cm recently.

A bright pink Clicks 2.5 jig proved too much for this cephalopod. 

Offshore most people are commenting on the dirty water conditions this week, with the popular theory being that harbour dredging is the culprit. Squid are still thick as ever in the usual haunts with the brighter coloured jigs seeming to be performing better at the moment than the naturals. However the Moles and the river should be a lot quieter now that the dredging has re-started.

I don't think this is what the squid had in mind when he thought LUNCH! 

 The weekend's fine weather saw many people venture further offshore for good results. Tony Vine, Jason Rushton & AJ Kane were one such group who bagged out with two jewfish of six and ten kilo, two baldies, and two breaksea cod. One happy customer brought a nice jewfish into the Mindarie shop Sunday afternoon that pulled the shop scales to 18 kilos, and was captured on one of the local charter boats.

A cracker of a jewfish that one lucky customer caught whilst on a local charter.

Peter Birch from Bluewater Morley, and Tim from Bluewater Scarborough went out early one morning before work. Birchy opened his jewie account with a lovely 60cm fish on his second cast. Tim had to wait nearly a whole 20 minutes for his jewie, which he then successfully released for next time. No snapper were landed but several bust-offs indicated the presence of large snapper. There have been unconfirmed reports of divers seeing large schools of snapper in Cockburn Sound, so it is time to start checking it out snapper around the place before the seasonal demersal closure (15^th October – 15^th December). The Cockburn and Warnbro Sounds closure is October 1st to January 31st.

Bluewater Morley's Peter Birch with an early morning jewie caught on a soft plastic.

The amazing winter snapper run is still hot as ever, with widespread reports of good catches including from Cockburn Sound. The crew from Bluewater Scarborough went out again Sunday morning for another soft plastic session. The first spot yielded only a baby jewie of 22cm on a 7” Gulp which swam off strongly. After all the jokes and heavy berleying of the past few weeks, the boys finally did raise the “Kraken” with Tyson’s mate Ben hooking two monster cuttlefish on Gulps. They moved to a better spot after that, losing two good fish and Tim picking up a 67cm snapper on the usual 7” Nuclear Chicken.