Kalbarri Offshore Angling Club Fishing Comp

 

DCIM100GOPROThe Kalbarri Offshore Angling Club held a monthly fishing comp on the 28/5/16. The weather wasn’t looking that good but it was good enough to go out in. It was Dad, Laurie and I, Laurie owns the Murchison boat hire in Kalbarri, he has a range of boats that you can hire. So Dad and I met Laurie at the boat ramp ready to put the boat in and get out onto the water. After about a 45min steam we reached our destination that was about 18miles offshore and about 50meters deep. On the first drop there wasn’t much on offer other than a few little bites so we decided to move spots , as we started to wind up Lauri got smashed by something big, after a few laps around the 7.85meter walk around and a 10 minute fight, Laurie got the fish up and on the boat ,it was a good sized amber-jack that went around 10-15kg.

Once we moved to the new spot and dropped the anchor we were instantly getting good hits, straight away Laurie hooked up to something solid, after a short struggle he got it up, it was a good sized mulloway. We got that on the boat and in the ice box, and when I looked up I saw that Dad was hooked up to something solid as well, he landed another good sized mulloway for the boat.Being a competition, we decided to put down some line class gear to try and get a game mulloway, so Dad and I put down 4kg line and Laurie put down 6kg line. Again it didn’t take long to hook up; Laurie and I were both hooked up, it didn’t take Laurie too long to get another mulloway to the boat. But unfortunately my double bimini twist snapped, which wasn’t a good feeling but that happens when you fish with light line. Dad also got a mulloway on line class. As the day went on the fishing went quiet but we were still getting some reasonable bites so we persisted.Dad hooked up again and it didn’t take him long to get a good sized red emperor to the side of the boat. This was a real good catch. Soon after that Laurie hooked up again and it ended up being another good sized red emperor… things were starting to happen! And finally my rod went off and a real good  fish was putting up a good fight. To my surprise it was my biggest and first Rankin cod which I was pretty stoked with. Following that Dad landed  a solid pink snapper.

DCIM100GOPROThe fishing went even more quiet where we were only getting small fish when a bigger fish came though and smashed my bait but this fish didn’t fight very hard we I got it up it was a solid red throat emperor. After the bite was pretty much non-existent we had a long bumpy triDCIM100GOPROp home. We came home with a good bag of 4 mulloway, 2 red emperors, 1 Rankin cod, and 1 red throat.

It was a really enjoyable day out.

 

Gear I used:

I used a shimano stradic FJ 4000 with 40lbs depth braid on a shimano bushy bait king 15-24kg rod.

And a shimano charter special 1000 with 4kg mono filament on a custom rod.DCIM100GOPRO

Fishing The Kalbarri Pens

After living in Kalbarri my whole life I have come to the conclusion that the commercial boat pens in Kalbarri (locally known as the pens) is one of the best fishing spots in town…………. In my eyes at least.

The great thing about the pens is the variety of fish that you can catch there, ranging from Black Bream, Cod, Mangrove Jack and pretty much any fish you can think of. I also doesn’t really matter what the tide is doing or what time of day it is, you can still catch fish. You can use just about any technique that you like .You can try fish with soft plastic, hard bodies, dead baits, live baits and any think else you can think of.

One of the best nights fishing down at the pens I have witnessed is during a fishing comp called the mulloway marathon, which fellow Next Gen team mate Robbie Leck, another mate of ours Bailey and his younger brother and I were fishing in. On this night Robbie and our mate Bailey caught 7 sized mulloway ranging from 55cm all the way up to about 90cm, all within a few hours of fishing.

Some of the best and most productive times to fish the pens are at night when the tide is highest or at its lowest. During the middle of the day around lunch time can be a good time to catch good sized bream, mangrove jack and a few other species and dawn is also a good time to catch fish like mulloway, bream, tailor and so on.

The gear I use to fish at the Pens is a Shimano Stradic 2500 loaded with 10lbs platypus platinum braided fishing line on a flueger trion 2-4kg rod. I use this outfit to catch bream, mulloway, mullet and other fish. If I need to put a bit of hurt on the fish I use a Shimano Stradic 4000 with 40lbs depth braid on a flueger trion 3-6kg rod. This outfit works for cod, jacks, and any other bigger fish that live down there.

The bait I use at the pens: I tend to use cut up pilchards, prawns, and sometimes squid. The pilchards work well for bream, jacks, mulloway, cod and pretty much everything else that lives down there. The prawns work well on bream, jacks, small tailor, mullet and the odd cod.13342156_482088442001150_74795994_n

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