Keep your eyes peeled for Recfishwest’s Tip of the week, see below!
Your Fishing Photos
Picture: We are pleased to announce that the 50th Angel Ring has been installed, thanks to all of our partners that help make fishing safer in WA.
If you want to see yourself or your kids feature in our weekly state-wide Fishing Reports, send your best fishing photos and a description to bronte@recfishwest.org.au
Tip of the week banner images courtesy of Shutterstock RuggieroScardigno,Smiltena & Garry L.
Esperance Catches
Picture: Fishers heading out to the west of town have been rewarded with some decent pink snapper catches.
Boats
Crews who ventured to the islands and beyond scored nannygai to 65cm, samson fish between 20kg and 30kg and breaksea cod. Better catches of pink snapper have been coming from the waters west of town. Dinghy and small boat fishers have been doing well on a variety of bread and butter species including garfish, snook, whiting and squid.
Shore based
Surf fishers at Alexander Bay have been catching skippy to an impressive 4.5kg. Thomas River has been fishing well for gummy sharks, skippy and salmon. More salmon, mulloway and skippy can be caught at Dunns while Stockyards has herring, flathead and skippy. Early mornings have proven to be the best time to target salmon along the local beaches including Salmon Beach, Fourth Beach and Eleven Mile. Mulloway have been turning up at Fourth Beach in the evenings. The Taylor Street Jetty has plenty of herring, garfish and squid on offer. Pink snapper to 50cm, black bream, skippy and herring can be picked up at the Bandy Creek Boat Harbour.
Albany Catches
Picture: Bait is the preferred method of catching King George whiting. Try bloodworms, occy and squid strips.
Boats
King George whiting enthusiasts, who have been prepared to put in the effort and find the fish, have been doing better than their counterparts who have persisted with familiar inshore areas. Reasonable catches of red, queen and pink snapper as well as dhufish and breaksea cod were picked up along the depths leading up to 90m. A couple of hapuka were scored out deeper, but there were seldom reports of other deeper-dwelling fish caught. Juvenile salmon, black bream, herring and mulloway were among the species caught in the King and Kalgan rivers.
Shore based
An estimated 60-tonne school of salmon that appeared at Bremer Bay last week suggests some of the migratory schools might have engaged in their back run. Bigger schools have been appearing along the Bluff Creek, Cheyne Beach and Nanarup beaches and there have been more fish caught at Cables, Lowlands and Shelley Beach during the past fortnight. Herring remain in good numbers right along the beaches and inshore waters with the more remote areas producing better numbers and bigger fish.
Surf fishers reported catching skippy to a kilo and the odd bigger fish at Sand Patch, Cables, Lowlands and Bluff Creek. Tourist Rock and the other platforms near Cheynes Beach have been fishing well for southern bluefin tuna to 12kg, bonito and salmon. Yellowtail kingfish and samson fish have been landed at West Cape Howe. Unfortunately, the squid fishery through King George Sound, the harbours and other inshore waters has not returned to the state the fishery was in during previous years.
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Photo courtesy of Shutterstock_AleksKey
Top Water Lures: Poppers
Technical Rating: Intermediate
Top water fishing is at the forefront of exciting salt water sport fishing action. Top water lures particularly are varied in their size, weight, form and function, from poppers to stickbaits. There are basically two types of popper, blooping and pencil poppers, with other styles loosely falling into one of these two types or stickbaits. The most basic principal with poppers is they float, with a somewhat concave, cupped face and no diving bib.
Those with wide, round bodies and large concave faces are for “blooping” where a stroke of the rod causes a spray of water from the cupped face. They are designed for maximum splash and commotion on the surface, drawing predatory fish from deeper water to attack the surface.
Various forms of pencil popper retain a cupped face but in a much slimmer profile. Although there are some sinking models they are more of a stickbait than a popper in performance. Pencil poppers are designed to be either skipped along the surface in a high speed retrieve or in a slower “walk the dog” retrieve where winding in sync with a side to side rod action causes a constant zig-zag lure action on the surface.
