Welcome to Recfishwest’s weekly fishing report, brought to you by Recfishwest’s fishing expert Joachim Azzopardi, Stewart King for the latest in freshwater fishing and thanks to John Curtis for his Mandurah & Surrounds report.

Keep your eyes peeled for Recfishwest’s Tip of the week, see below!

Your Fishing Photos

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

Esperance Catches

Picture: Solid yellowtail kingfish have been located at the edge of the shelf.

Boats

Dinghy and small boat fishers have been picking up nice bags of sand whiting and squid along the seagrass. Nannygai and breaksea cod were found in fair numbers in 50m to 60m of water. Bigger nannygai and solid yellowtail kingfish were located at the edge of the shelf.

Shore based

Roses has been producing gummy sharks while Salmon Beach, Fourth Beach and Stockyards has salmon turning up most days. The herring caught at Lucky Bay have been quite big recently. There are still a few King George whiting being caught from the sand areas along the foreshore. Squid are being caught at Rossiter Bay in numbers.

Albany Catches

Picture: Mulloway have been a little hard to come by in the King and Kalgan rivers but some fishers are having some luck (Photo courtesy of Scott Coghlan).

Boats

Heavy knife jigs have been working well on hapuka in waters beyond the continental shelf. The hapuka, which are believed to be forming spawning aggregations, have ranged from 10kg to 30kg. One deep-water enthusiast managed to land two hapuka on the same jig during a session in several hundred metres of water last week. The quality reef fish have required some effort to find along the coral between the 50m and 90m contours. Those who put the time in to locate the dhufish, snapper, breaksea and skippy picked up reasonable catches of these common reef species. It has been a similar story for the King George whiting, which are mostly being found in inshore areas by those putting in the time and effort and finding the clearer water. Squid catches have been steady along the seagrass areas while sand whiting are about in good quantities. The boats that worked the waters near Michaelmas and Breaksea islands as well as Gull Rock and Frenchmans picked up some nice size skippy and herring in addition to their King George catches.

Shore based

Smaller schools have been occasionally appearing at Bremer Bay while 3kg to 7kg fish have been caught in their ones and twos at Sand Patch, Cables, Shelleys and Nanarup throughout the week. Black bream fishers have been using a range of methods including baits, soft plastics and hard-bodied lures to catch fish to 40cm in both of the local systems as well as those out east and west. There were herring found in the Kalgan last week. Mulloway have been a little hard to come by.