Busy as usual for April, especially with the school holidays and Easter thrown in. It would have been
a lot busier if the weather had been better, but you can’t have good weather all the time, that would
be boring. The mackerel and tuna have been noticeably absent since mid March, with just a few patchy days of good action.
There just hasn’t been a good Leeuwin current pushing in this year, and the water has been cold and dirty most of the time due to
regular rising swell patterns. It will have to change sooner of later. Good thing the bottom fishing
is better than normal with lots of good snapper around, mixed in with dhuies, baldchin groper and red emperor.
The regular Easter group
Every Easter Daniel Kwek comes up and hires at least one boat. He has been coming up for the last 8 or 9 years and
The group changes from year to year with a few regulars each year, but this time Daniel brought his own boat but hired the 6.5m as well.
This Easter we had probably the worst weather we have experienced to date. 20 knot southerlies each day limiting where we could go.
A tailor caught in 18m of water bottom fishing just north of the Sand Patch, and the group photo at the end of the trip.
On the last day the weather improved enough to get to some of my better spots and the proof shows.
Double header of dhuies for Leo
and a red emperor for Daniel, the best fish for the trip, came from Daniels boat
and another good fish
for Leo who seemed the have all the luck on the day.
Great day out for Chris and Nicky!
Picking a pearler of a day during the school holidays, Chris Crawford and Nicky Jackson took a punt that the
mackerel would be on the chomp at Wagoe. The day was so good no one could fail to get one.
Chris got one skipping a garfish, but was the only strike for the day. 
Later while searching for
a bottom spot a small tuna took Nicky’s lure and later she picked up a chunky blue-lined emperor.
New rod imports
I have been sent a couple of rods to trial out by Alan Koh. Alan is importing them and will be retailing them when
he has sufficient stock. He sent me a Eupro Exploder II PE 2-4 Jig rod, and a Eupro Baitcaster PE 0.8-2 rod.
Nice rods must say. They have Fuji Alconite guides and Fuji gimbles, Alconite being the best material you can get for guides
other than prohibitively expensive silicone. The Eupro Exploder was paired with my Stella 8000 making it a superb balanced outfit,
while I put my newly acquired Jigging Master P4 on the Eupro Baitcaster. Both rods have great action are very light with plenty
of grunt and lifting power when needed. There are not many rods you can buy off the shelf with Alconite guides.
Most Alconite equipped rods are custom made and quite expensive so these are well priced.
The Eupro Baitcaster PE 0.8-2.0 rod above retails for $159.00 (without the reel).
The Eupro Exploder II PE2-4 Jig rod retails for $329.00
If you would like a catalogue sent to you, just ask and I can email one through to you.
4 days in the 6.5m boat
Andrew Phillips and Matt Retallack and mates spent a tough 4 days out in the 6.5m boat with pretty ordinary weather,
but managed to score good fish.
First day they picked up a nice yellow-fin around the Red Bluff area with
Ryan Jenkins dropping another. The second day was a complete black but the third day there were tuna boiling
all over the place with the group picking up 3 and dropping a few more and one big snap-off on 80lb braid left them wondering?
25km north on the last day they experienced triple hook-us on 5-6kg tuna
and got this big bronze whaler
on a big bait set in the burley trail. They picked up tuna on the way back and a mac at the river mouth.
Quite an eventful trip for all especially, Andrew, whose speciality was to burley up!
First fish on a popper
I don’t get to go out in other people’s boats very often, so I readily agreed to go out for a troll with my mate, Derek,
who was up for 2 weeks during the holidays. He has a 6m ali boat. Quite a nice boat I have to say!
We trolled and trolled eventually landing a stripy tuna on the ever faithful 3 mile. (We would have done better in one of my boats ha ha.)
He was telling me that he had never caught a fish on a popper and never seen a fish take a lure. Well that
set the challenge! Luckily he had a spin outfit and a popper on board and I drove the boat while he cast around Black Rock
He must have had 10 or so casts before the tailor turned on.
Landing a couple of smaller ones,
he was well pleased with this 2.5kg fish seen taking and caught on a popper.
Southern Cliffs Magic
Steven Lenz has hired my 7.8m boat a few times, getting a few fish, but this time it was different
Steven sent the pics and this story.
Hi Laurie,
Here is a short story of our big catch.
We woke up at an embarrassingly late 9am, compelling me to concede to a day of no fish. The wind was blowing
s/e at 20 knots by 10 am, as we had five kids aged between 7 and 14 and a couple of chuckers in there,
I decided to head south to the cliffs for a sight seeing day. We proceeded south down the cliffs
where we encountered a school of tuna bubbling at the surface, the excitement on board grew
to a frenzy as we drifted towards our anticipated lunch unfortunately to no avail.
Again we proceeded further south to find a sheltered lunch spot where our few chuckers
could consume their sandwiches without chucking. We found a spot close to the cliffs in a
relatively sheltered area, the sandwiches came out and i got on to setting the hand lines up for
the kids as well as my partner. From there on the fish came hard and fast with the kids catching a smorgasbord of delicacies including Northwest Snapper and Breaksea Cod. My partner then
proceeded to amaze me with a magnificent catch of a beautiful 2kg Baldchin Grouper followed by a fantastic fighting Samson fish. Between baiting the kids and my partner, i floated an unweighted
mulie behind the boat and that’s when one of the most exciting fishing experiences of my life bit,
an 8.5kg snapper took the unweighted mulie on my 20lb line egg beater.
Wow, what an Easter to remember, another Bamba Zonkie II memory.
India’s big bite
Ian Davison, also a regular hirer was out in the 5.3m with wife and kids. They trolled the Sand Patch for a while
then dropped anchor on the first spot they came to on my GPS. A few breaksea cods and odds and sods appeared
when 10 year old India got a big bite!
With a little help from dad she got this 6.7kg cobia to the boat.
A great day was enjoyed by all. Well done India
Steven Lenz’s 8.5kg pink snapper caught along the cliffs is a worthy fish winning
“Bite of the Month” this month. Sitting on anchor half way to the end of the southern
cliffs Steven and partner Rhonda with the kids had a ball catching a procession of fish
before this big pinky took his unweighted mulie on his 10kg spin outfit.
See all the previous Bite of the Month winners on my website.
Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club Monthly Comp.
A few good fish were caught during the last comp.
Paul Parks with a 15kg mulloway from his boat 
and partner Thomasina with her snapper
Brett again got a 7.3kg snapper 
and a 1.45kg bream from the old jetty by junior angler Kane DeGrauw.
Popular Northern Destinations
Thevenard Island
There are new managers at the Onslow Mackerel Motel, Colin and Rosa will now look after you on the mainland.
Rosa will take your accommodation booking if you would like to visit. Phone her on 9184 6586
Colin will sort you out with a lock up storage area for trailers and your vehicle when you are at the island.
Drew is still the Island manager: 9184 6444.
This year the 6.1m and 7.8m boats are already booked for Thevenard Island but there are still spaces available for adventures in this great place.
bookings@mackerelislands.com.au
Check out the website: http://www.mackerelislands.com.au/
Gnaraloo Station
Gnaraloo contacts for accommodation:
Barbara: 9315 4809
Email: bookings@gnaraloo.com.au
Website: Gnaraloo.com.au
Game, Bottom and Beach Fishing Action
These links will take you to Youtube showing some great action video clips taken from
my boats and also a very good mulloway from the beach.
Triple tuna hook-up
Dhuie and snapper
Beach mulloway
