Australian endings!

After an Epic year of fishing and cycling around the Western half of Australia it's finally time to leave and start preparing to the next big trip at the end of 2012. It was a memorable trip indeed; the people, landscape, nature and fishing were all above and beyond my expectations and will be sorely missed until I can return down under. A big thanks goes to all the people that helped me along the way, specially Lloyd and Elise for their kindness and Suzy and everyone at Dongara backpackers where I was made to feel very welcome for my stay. And of course everyone I fished with along the way including Graz and Graham for having me to stay in Kunnunura and Darwin and Jamie for helping me out in Darwin with the fishing. I posted my trip on Fishwrecked.com so thanks to all the guys that followed my progress and commented on there. Mitch and Dion were an inspiration with their filming and stories of crocodile catching and thanks to my good mate Nick for coming to fish back down the coast with me on the return to Perth.

Unfortuntanely a few weeks before I left  a low life scumbag stole my laptop and camera taking with him most of my photos and videos from the trip. It was a valuable lesson in backing up data and now regrettably I won't be able to add some very exciting video footage to these pages.

In a few months time I'll be setting out on another big adventure but until then there could be some updates from the fishing in the UK so keep an eye out. But for now some photos from the last month or so in Australia.

While jigging with Lloyd and Elise o the west coast of Australia at the Kalbarri classic fishing competition a solid fish  grabbed hold of my 55 gram shimano jig and a memorable fight ensued. Hopeful of a very large cod we were surprised when this good sized sandbar shark surfaced near the boat, the jig neatly tucked into the corner of a toothy set of jaws. Although not a fish that could be entered into the competition it was a good result on 20lb line and a 30lb flourocarbon leader.

Keen for a photo of the sandbar, with the help of Lloyd and after a fair bit of antics and  fast movement  around the boat  a couple of photos were recorded before the fish was released.

Some good cod made an appearance while we fished with the Kalbarri cliffs  in the background. Small areas of coral that took time to find threw up a few decent fish including some big sand snapper.

After Lloyd started the cod ball rolling Elise landed this beauty which looked like a competition winner  but was outdone by a fish slighty larger.

While searching out some good ground to jig a solid bite mid-water had us wondering what was chasing the lures mid-water. The answer came when Lloyd coaxed this beautiful cobia from the depths. It was the first big one I had seen and so wished that my bite had resulted in a decent hook up. To make matters worse ten minutes later I watched  good cobia follow my jig to the side of the boat before turning to vanish into the deep blue sea.

The sand snapper in all its glory! Apparently not the best eating fish but great fun to catch and a new species for me.   It was a great shame that to participate in the Kalbarri classic competition all fish had to be killed for the weigh in meaning samson fish and sand snapper that would undoubtedly usually be released were brought in to boost the teams points.  It reeked of fishing 20 years ago when no one knew any better and was a great dissapointment for me. With so much media attention and younger anglers seeing and learning from the competitors actions it would make so much sense to introduce  a catch and release measuring system to record each boat's catches. At least then there would be the option to release fish that probably won't end up on someone's table. Seeing photos of dead fish spread across the newspaper made me cringe. The organisers of the kalbarri classic seem to be stuck in a time warp and I know I won't be competing in another competition like it again.

Back down in Dongara Elise once again hooked into a solid fish on a soft plastic that proceeded to give her a good run around first thing in the morning.  The best samson fish of the day was the result and not a bad start to a very good day of fishing.

They say your eyes can be bigger than your stomach which  seemed to be the case with this little  specimen  who  managed to become hooked on a jig weighing ore than him! This result shows the effectiveness of vertical jigs.

After Elise caught her big sambo a jig didn't have  good chance making it out of the strike zone which suited  me fine and this was the fist one to win it's prize.  On pe2 tackle it was touch and go fishing and certainly started to wake me from my morning trance brought on by staring at the sea on the 30km trip out. 

The day kept getting better and better as more big fish slammed into our jigs and soft plastics. One minute  all was relaxed and there was time to admire one of the large brown auks that would follow the boat about all day and the next minute the rod would be straining as line emptied from the reel at a dizzy rate. The question always was whether the fish would make it to structure and cut the line. luckily most fish were coaxed fast enough to see them landed and released.

I was itching to get a good coral trout on the jig and finally my reward came with this solid hard fighting fish on the 55 gram shimano jig. From the word go the situation looked decidedly dodgy as the powerful fish held ground, not budging an inch from the coral sanctuary below the boat, but slowly it was overcome by the fully bent Daiwa demon blood that slowly brought it away from the jagged outcrops. When I saw it surface I was one happy angler indeed!

Not a target fish but surely one of the most beautiful to hit one of my jigs. A sergeant baker!

With a very similar body form to a barramundi but occurring in more southerly waters the sand bass was  a nice surprise on the jig.

Lloyd and Elise aboard Lloyds trusty boat holding two good samson fish

The scourge of the sea; a northwest blowie much to the dismay of  Lloyd . I though it was a pretty decent capture but  understood that novelty wears off very very quickly indeed. When a shoal of these are below the boat there is only one course of action and that's to move  a long long way away.

The dhu master himself; Lloyd and a solid west Australian Dhufish taken on a  jig

A good Dhu fish that hit a vertical jig

Elise has good reason to smile with this solid dhu fish taken on a soft plastic.

Lloyd does it again, this time on a squidgys wriggler soft plastic.

An evening session in the boat after mulloway produced this good estuary cod that was quickly tamed with Lloyds Shimano Terez. The real test for the rod came later on when not a mulloway but a big ray picked up my tailor fillet bait and played hard but nothing the rod couldn't deal with. We ended up getting a good soaking when the ray woke up by the side of the boat while we tried to retrieve the hook.

A greedy soap fish that must have been hungry or possible not impressed by my jig bouncing around in it's  face!

Dongara kite stock festival 2012

Geraldton Guardian newspaper

Geraldton Guardian; 50 dollar prize winner! whohoo!!!

The mangrove jacks were growing fast while I was in Dongara and a session on the river would always produce a bunch of these aggressive hard fighting little fish 

A juvenile mangrove jack that might one day move out to the offshore reefs to join the coral trout and other  demersals found off the west coast

Beautiful and peaceful surroundings for a session while the sea is having it's gut blown out!  Mangrove jacks, mulloway, bream, bony herring and the odd tailor are the main targets, all small but very enjoyable to catch on light enough tackle.

Lloyd with one of the better mulloway that came to small sardine chunks freelined on jig heads.  These soapies and the jacks aren't shy when it come to biting compared to the bream which have a habit of moving the bait  a long distance before finally taking it.  On the other hand, the bony herring don't mess about; they are high speed hit and run merchants. A tight line suddenly scooting off up the river means a little pack of these slender fish have moved in and are nail any bait falling or moving through the water; the problem comes when the hook is set, which usually it isn't because of the hard mouth doubled with instant aerial acrobatics of  this fish that is known as a springer in South Africa.

Another Dongaran mangrove jack that gobbled up a sardine section.

On the return trip to Blighty I once again had the chance to visit Nick in singapore where a spot of peacock bass fishing was slotted into the weekend. It was as usually humid and very hot and the fishing not easy but Nick came through and landed the second bass he hooked, using a little sebile hard shad. Not one of the monsters but a truly good looking fish that made the day.

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Land-based leviathans

For years, a large Shovel Nose Ray has evaded me. I hooked what I thought were a couple of big ones in Mozambique a few years ago and then caught small brown shovelies in India, but never a big one. The smaller species are great fun on light tackle; seen cruising in the shallows, a small bait can be sight cast in their direction and, when the line pulls tight, a solid scrap ensues as long as the tackle is balanced. Here on the west coast of Australia the White Spotted Shovel Nose Ray patrols the waters of the long, deserted beaches, picking off crabs and other tasty morsels churned up by the waves. 

A solid White Spotted Shovel Nose Ray that took a liking to a a Tailor head

The interesting thing about fishing the Western Australian beaches is that there is a good chance that some particularly large fish might snaffle the bait. Tiger Sharks, huge Stingrays and other big shark species can be encountered, particularly when the sun dips below the horizon.  The last big Stingray that took the bait fought hard for over an hour and was undoubtedly a monster. Probabably a big, black Bull Ray. Using my heavy Shimano beastmaster, 80lb power pro braid and Saragosa 18000, I leaned hard on the fish and eventually had it close to the beach. Repeatedly, it came into the surf zone only to become stuck in the deep gutter where extraction was virtually impossible. It would, perhaps, have been a few more minutes before a wave would help the fish up onto the beach, but, after an hour and ten minutes, the line parted.

Fantastic sunset on the west coast 

The first large Shovel Nose Ray that I had a good look at was cruising the clear, shallow water up in Exmouth. It was a beautiful fish around two metres long with vivid white spots against a light brown skin. Lit up by the bright Australian sun it, of course, had no desire to feed. Maybe night would be the time to catch them and we fished hard up there, but never came across another Shovel Nose. That only happened down here in Dongara after putting in a quite a  few hours on the local beaches. Milton had lost one the previous week after fighting the big fish for 45 minutes, so I was keen to fish the same water.

After being bust off by the big Ray on the previous session, it seemed sensible to stick to using Tailor fillets and heads for bait. On the beach we fish, the near gutter is deep and close, so only a short cast is needed to get the bait into the prime feeding zone. After half an hour of sending the Tailor head out, the rod arched over in its tube and the fight was on.

White Spotted Shovel Nose Ray, Dongara, Western Australia

It was a spirited tussle, some good solid runs and dogged head shaking before the large fins could be seen breaking through the white, frothy waves. With some help from James a very lively Shovel Nose was landed just above the breakers for a couple of photos. Many locals swear by the eating quality of these fish, but to kill such a beautiful creature seems a great shame.

James with a decent Lemon Shark

James, who is a keen fly fisher, was keen to get stuck into a few of the Australian fish while working over here on the west coast. Things had been pretty quiet for him, with the better specimens avoiding capture, until one evening a very solid fish picked up his bait. To start with we were baffled as to what it might be - sharks were ruled out since there was no wire trace - but from the fight it was putting up we guessed it might be a big Mulloway or even a Shovel Nose. However, after the fight had continued for a while, the croaker option was ruled out and we started to wonder whether it might be a big shark conveniently hooked in the scissors. Some twenty minutes later a Lemon Shark of around 110kg lay beached on the sand with the hook only just wedged in the side of its mouth!

Good Spinner Shark for James

James continued his shark success a couple of nights later with a lovely Spinner Shark that, for its size, went pretty well. It was on one of those evenings when the fish are really playing the game and every cast seemed to rouse some interest. Before James hooked the Spinner Shark my bait had been well and truly nailed by a very large fish which had run for the horizon. The 80lb braid sped off the reel as the drag on my Saragosa 18000 was cranked higher and higher, with what seemed like little effect. After thirty or forty seconds at least 200 metres of line had been emptied from the spool and, unluckily for me, the hook popped from the fish's mouth. I was left wondering whether a spooling might have occured or whether I could have somehow stopped the big shark before it took the remainder of my line.

Shovel Nose Ray that took a squid bait

It didn't take long until, once again, my rod curved over as another big fish ate the Tailor head bait. And, again, just like the previous run, line vanished at a dizzy rate and I started to fear the worst when the fish was showing no sight of letting up after 250 metres. But, suddenly, I was able to stop wondering about the outcome when the line went slack as a sharp reef cut the braid - and that was that. It was still early and we fished on. James caught the Spinner and I went on to get a decent Shovel Nose Ray, so we went home fairly happy. Since that night, we haven't hooked into anything nearly as big as the two fish that escaped, apart from two more giant Stingrays. Like the last time, I fought the Ray carefully for over an hour and it felt larger than the previous one, but the gutter once again stopped me landing it. The steep ledge of sand that runs the length of the beach makes it almost impossible to bring a big Ray through the waves, but I'll keep trying!

Since the last Stingray busted me off, James and I met with success and finally landed one of these monsters after another, epic hour-long battle. This time it was James' turn to fight the fish after it took a fresh Mullet head from just behind the breakers. A slow first run without any head shakes indicated that the hooked fish was a Ray - and a big one at that - because James could do nothing to slow it down. An almost locked drag had no effect on the monster as it continued to plough out to the star-spangled horizon where the sun had set an hour before.

Unlike the last few big Rays we have hooked, this one didn't kite to the left and head north, but kept on a course straight out to sea. This meant James didn't need to the leave the comfort of his esky and could play the fish from his makeshift 'fighting chair'. Twenty minutes into the fight and the ray had calmed a little: the runs had become shorter and James was starting to tire. It seemed both angler and fish had a long battle ahead. But, with a considerable bend in the rod, neither of us was surprised when we heard a sharp crack as James' prediction that it would be the rod's last outing, came true.

The rod hadn't broken in two just yet, but it was perilously close to doing so. For the remainder of the fight some careful rod work was needed if the big fish was going to see the beach. Patiently, James fought the Ray for another 40 minutes, often an inch at a time, until it finally reached the surf zone. With the aid of the waves, we managed to beach a spectacularly huge, black Smooth Ray. Unfortunately, we had no tape to measure the disc width of the fish so its weight is anyone's guess. But, whatever that Ray weighed, it was an amazing capture, particularly on relatively light tackle.

Another giant stingray estimated at around 250lb + which took an hour and forty five minutes to subdue!

A break from fishing bait threw up a couple of solid Tailor to the surface lures. This time the Maria pop queen was the lure of choice.

An early morning Tailor popped up from around the beach reefs

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Another fishy West coast report

Over the last few weeks the weather has been kind to us on a few occasions. Winds have dropped and the seas flattened out enough for some great days out on the boat. And, with the warm waters have come Tuna and Spanish Mackerel. Not far offshore, the Longtail Tuna and stripeys have been busting up the bait shoals and, to any switched-on fisher are fair game for some great, light tackle sport. Terns, gulls and auks have been the give away. The birds closely follow the fast moving pelagics around the ocean's surface and, with Lloyd's sharp eye, we have had numerous chances to get close enough to cast lures into the surface mayhem.

Lloyd with a great looking Striped Tuna that fought all the way to the boat on  light tackle

We started with small, sub-surface lures such as the maria duplex, which cast far and matches the size of the bait on which the Tuna were feeding. First cast and Lloyd expertly landed the lure in amongst the boiling fish. And the result, of course, as he started the fast retrieve, was a solid hit followed by a singing Shimano reel.  A little later, when we again managed to get close to the Tuna shoal, the fish moved off pretty fast and, soon, any sign of surface action vanished. Lloyd cast a Shimano Ocea stick bait out and worked it back towards the boat. With little hope of a strike we were surprised to see a good Tuna suddenly surface and smash into the lure. It missed the hooks, but, second time around, it was more determined and a hook up resulted. Exciting fishing indeed!!

A good lure-munching Longtail Tuna for Lloyd

The Longtail I hooked next decided that it wouldn't hang around, but instead head for the horizon. The light hooks on the Maria lure meant I had to keep the drag pretty soft, so after only 30 seconds of screaming reel, the braid was nearly finished. Lloyd and I both saw the backing appear at the same moment and I thought it was all over. But Lloyd was on the throttle and in a second we were after the fast-moving fish, which eventually came to the net after a hard fight.

Longtail Tuna that nearly emptied the small reel in thirty seconds flat.  

In between the high speed Tuna action a spot of jigging was in order to see if any Dhufish might be hanging around in the inshore water despite the continuing high temperatures. Macca didn't waste too much time and soon hooked into a solid fish on a soft plastic lure. It was a dogged fight, but, after a few minutes, a good Dhufish of nearly 10kg came to the boat. Amazingly, people claim these great fish don't fight; use the correct tackle and the experience will be one to remember!

Macca with a good Dhufish that hit a soft plastic hard

A little later Lloyd's rod bent over in an alarming curve as a big fish made off with his butterfly jig. Screaming reels again as he battled the fish off the bottom and towards the boat. Another big Dhufish was a the result. A real result considering that we weren't too hopeful of landing any so close to shore.

Lloyd and a solid jigged Dhu fish

After jigging, a troll was in order to try for a few maccies and it didn't take long for the swimming lures to get well and truly nailed. Thanks, again, to Lloyd, location was the easy bit.  Trying to keep the hooks in proved a bit more tricky.The first two made it to the boat then one was dropped. The day after I fished, Macca was going, finally, to settle his score with Spanish Mackerel. Having lost them before, he had the chance to get even and ,as it happened, hooked into a very good fish that fought deep and hard. Yet again though the fish got the upper hand and made a fast escape as the hooks bent. Better luck next time mate!

Trolled up Spanish Mackerel

Lloyd with a decent Spanish Mackerel

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Mulloway, Dhus, Sambos and Snappers!

13kg Mulloway from the west coast of Australia.  It took a while, but will hopefully be the first  of many!

After dreaming of it for a while, I finally landed a big Mulloway a few days ago. This great looking fish, that pulled the scales down to 13kg, had put up an incredible fight despite the heavy tackle for which I had opted. The previous sessions had been fairly eventful, but  luck hadn't been on my side whenever I'd hooked into big fish. Either the line parted on the sharp rocks or, for some reason, the hooks pulled, which on every occasion, left me a little unhappy to say the least.  

Waiting for a big fish to take the bait.  luckily, on this occasion the wait was only thirty seconds!

Using fish fillets as bait I was fairly surprised when the rod pulled around hard just a minute after the bait had settled. The fight was on as the big fish tore off, even though the drag was set pretty tight. Ten seconds later the hook popped and I felt that sinking feeling again. I knew a big Mulloway had just given me the slip! Next cast and another quick bite resulted in a 'soapie' that had gobbled down the huge bait. Then, with the third cast, my luck was in as another solid fish picked the bait up after 30 seconds and also tore off towards the horizon. Using my Shimano beastmaster, some serious pressure was exerted on the fish and, after a solid scrap, the big silver Mulloway rolled on the surface close to the rocks. Without any assistance the next couple of minutes were pure mayhem and, somehow, the fish, me and my rod ended up reaching the safe spot where I could take some photos. Luckily for me, Lloyd came to my rescue and clicked off a few good shots and helped me carry the fish home because, unfortunately, after ten minutes of trying for a release it, I found that it wasn't to be.

The Jig strikes again! 13kg West Australian Dhufish that inhaled a 55g  vertical jig dropped 45 metres. Happy days indeed!

Like the Mulloway for inshore fishing, the Dhufish is the number one target for offshore anglers. And, also like the Mulloway, a few big ones had previously given me the slip. Last time I was in Dongara, fishing with Lloyd, I  hooked and lost a big Dhufish. And lately, with the weather conditions being unfavourable, fishing out in the boat has been hard, to say the least, and a few trips have been relatively unproductive. But, finally, a perfect day arrived and we were able to get far enough out to find cooler water where Lloyd expected the fish to be shoaling up. And he wasn't wrong because as the jigs and soft plastics started touching the sea bed over 40 metres below the surface, fish started hitting the lures.

Lloyd with a great looking Pink Snapper that also nailed a vertical jig

Elise fished soft plastics, while Lloyd and I dropped Shimano jigs and both baits were eagerly accepted by the many fish below. Dhufish, Pink Snapper and, after a while, Samson fish got in on the action, at which point it became hard to hook another species.

A big Dhu for the Dhu master himself! Amazingly, people around  this area still doubt the effectiveness of jigs and soft plastics even when they see photos like these!

And another quality Dhufish, this time for Elise!

From the word go, the Dhus hit the lures and we soon all had a superb specimen. Lloyd lost a big fish, but then made up for it by landing one of around 12kg, after a strong fight. Elise landed a beauty too - finally, after five or six session, things had come right! After landing three good Dhu fish in a row, Elise hooked up to another big fish which seemed to be the same species and, even when it rolled onto the surface, it looked like a Dhu. However, it was a monster Pink Snapper, the biggest so far to grace Lloyd's boat. It seemed the day couldn't get much better, but it soon did!

Elise's massive Pink Snapper that nailed a Macarthy soft plastic!  Nice!!!

Strangely, the Samson Fish that Lloyd almost always hooks while out on the boat had also been absent on previous sessions. Rising summer water temperatures had either put the fish off feeding or sent them into deeper, cooler water. And, it seemed that we had found a shoal at last;  small fish at first, but increasing in size as the day went on until, eventually, fish of up to 12 kg were nailing the lures every drop.  It was frantic fishing that left our arms burning and wrists aching, but it was still impossible to resist just one more drop!

WA Samson Fish taken on the vertical jig!

A good fish for Lloyd on a Shimano vertical jig

As the fish shoaled below the boat, it seemed that more were joining the group as the action picked up and the size of fish increased throughout the day, eventually peaking at 10 to 12kg.

Two good Samson Fish

Double hook-ups happened most drops and, when Elise dropped her lure between filming, it was usually triple hook-up mayhem!

A bigger Sambo for Elise, taken on a soft plastic lure

Pink Snapper

While the Samson Fish were on the bite, it was hard for other species to get a look in, but occasionally, if the jig was bounced on the sea bed, a quality Pink Snapper would bite.

As soon as the wind picked up, the fish decided to shut down and that was it for the day.  The next day we were back out, but things were very different and the fish didn't want to play ball. It was still worth it because, on a long drift, Lloyd's jig got absolutely hammered by a large fish that turned out to be a big Malabar Rock Cod.

Malabar rock cod taken on the jig

Next trip out and the weather had changed hugely; temperatures were up to 45 degrees and water temperatures were also soaring.  Lloyd declared that Tuna would be on the cards, with a chance of Spanish Mackerel as well. A huge bush fire was burning south of Dongara and, as we cruised out to sea, the size of the blaze became clearer as a massive mushroom cloud of black smoke crept skywards. A troll was in order to see what was about, so we chucked a couple of lures over the back and drove around for a while. And it wasn't long before Lloyd's deep diving x rap got smashed.  The culprit was a big Samson Fish that came to the boat with a few of his mates in tow. Seeing four large fish swim around the boat made good viewing, but none of them would touch the lures we frantically threw their way.

Big, trolled up Samson Fish for lloyd

After the Samson Fish, a double hook-up resulted in two, small, but strong and fighting Bonito and then things went quiet. So we went jigging over some good looking ground and, while we jigged, some Tuna started to show on the surface around us. A horizontal vertical jig got nailed pretty fast and a Tuna of around 5-6kg came to the boat a little too fast. Lloyd was right that the Tuna would be feeding! And he would also have been right to let the fish tire a little more, because when I was about to pull it aboard, the gears seemed to engage and the fish took off at super high speed like it suddenly realised what was happening. 

Hard-fighting Tuna that nailed a jig cast in its direction

For the next hour we chased the flighty shoal of Tuna around without any more success. They were feeding, but not hard, and it seemed there were not too many fish in the shoal. A large group of Dolphins also fed close by over the rough ground. Soon, through frustration, we went back to jigging and a couple of small fish, including a Silver Trevally and a Sand Bass, graced the boat. After a while, something solid nailed my lure and a strong fight ensued for the next five minutes with the first 30 seconds feeling as though the big fish might gain cover of the rough sea bed. Lloyd called it for a good Dhu Fish and, sure enough, a beautiful big Dhuie was soon beaten.

Dhu fish that hit my jig hard, but note the almost non existent hook-up ... LUCKY ... very lucky!

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Tailor fishing

The Tailor (Pomatomus saltatrix) is a widely sought after sport fish over much of the Australian coastline. Known as shad or elf in South Africa and bluefish in America, it's a fish with a wide geographical distribution and an equally wide following among anglers. An aggressive predator, the tailor can be caught with a number of different techniques, but the most exciting must undoubtedly be surface lures. Find the baitfish, structure and water movement and the tailor will seldom be far away. 

A Stunning 82 cm tailor that took a Halco Roosta popper just on sunset. Although not the best-rated tailor lure, the Roosta popper definitely comes up with the goods. Fished in the right place at the right time, most top water lures will work, but some more effectively than others. Rapala skitter pops, and Maria bull chops and pop queens are popular among tailor fisherman. Subsurface stickbaits can be devastating when fished in the right area, particularly if the fish aren't confident enough to hit the poppers.

Tailor frequent the washes around shallow reef, which Lloyd knows only too well. Casting Maria stickbaits and Shimano waxwings produced a number of quality fish including this 60cm beauty.  The closer the lure gets to the wash, the higher the chances of hooking good fish. The swirling waters provide ideal ambush habitat for this high speed predator.

Another good fish that came out of the white water on a Shimano waxwing

A tailor fisherman works a stick bait over the reef breaks. 

Tailor like this are an absolute delight to catch on surface lures. If the fish are in the mood, multiple strikes from two or three fish aren't uncommon . One thing's for certain and that is the lure will be getting nailed.

Nick casting a Roosta popper for tailor, Western Australia

And the result!  A fine tailor that fought hard all the way to the rocks. In some areas where the underwater terrain is rough, some serious pressure must be put on to keep the fish from reaching the oysters and barnacle. Although tailor are a fairly clean fighting fish in the shallow water where they like to live, the structure is often too close for comfort

A good fish on a Rapala Skitter Pop that was worked fast back to shore. When the fish are a little shy blooping the popper with short stops may help induce a bite.

Many outstanding fishing spots on the West coast of Australia are tucked away behind the sand dunes. A good 4wd vehicle can open up hundreds of superb fishing spots.

A specialist collection of tailor lures

Lloyd flicking lures to a reef break

A typical beach, Western Australia;  lots of fish and very few fisherman. Pretty spoilt over here really!

Soaking a big bait for mulloway. Unfortunately, none was to show apart from a couple of small soapies as they are known.  I'm planning to meet with a few bigger fish over the next weeks - so fingers crossed.

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