Wagoe beach

One of the biggest reasons i got into fishing really big is not the thrill of catching but the ability to be able to roll up the swag and head up to the beach for a night or two, camping under the stars with a roaring fire.

A really great place that I've been to that's not too far from Perth would have to be Wagoe Beach. Only being around 550km north of perth and about 20km south of kalbarri it can be driven easily in a morning. Not only does it produce some spectacular fishing at times but it also has some magnificent scenery to admire. 

A great thing about this place is if your not totally into your camping but still love fishing you can always stay at the chalets that are located on the farm. Although these are not a five start accomodation they are perfect for somewhere to stay while you are fishing.

Reef fishing

The beach and reef fishing here is something to really appreciate, with plenty of snapper, trevally, tailor being caught with the added possibility of landing a dhufish or baldchin groper with the latter two usually stitching you up in the first few seconds. 

My favorite fish here has to be the pinkies  as there's are a great fighter, and with them being so plentiful up there your always in with some fun. At times they are there in massive numbers but its usually the smaller ones they get to the bait first. The average sizes i have usually caught here would have to be round the 3-5kg mark but I have seen ones up to 8kg lying next to the cars of some lucky anglers.

As for the gear to use i run a shimano spheros 18000 loaded with good quality 50lb braid on my oz flex SU400 rod. For me personally I have found this to work the best up there, with the rod being stiff enough  to muscle the fish out but has just enough give to no pull the hooks. The only negative thing with using braid in these types of areas is if it touches the rocks 9/10 times it'll ping. A good way to overcome this is just run a few meters of wind-on leader just to give you some abrasive resistance.

With rigs for me it has to be the Simple ball sinker and hook rig. A big size 10 ball sinker running down to a 6/0 hook works well for me. The ball sinker hitting the rocks on retrieve for me stops it snagging  up and loosing a rig. I've used many others like paternosters but usually you get a few cast before its lost to the sea.

Balloon fishing

One thing that draws many fishos here is the ballooning, being able to send out a gardie under a balloon and be in with a good chance of a pelagic not too far from Perth is a big drawcard. As yet I'm still chasing my first wagoe mackie but I've seen plenty caught and landed so it keeps me in the game.

A good thing with here is that the range of pelagics are quite vast, with yellowfin and longtail tuna, mackies and even cobia being caught. At times tho it can be pretty hard to get past the nor west blowies, these can be a pain as they have the nasty habit of biting 10/0 hooks like butter.

Since the sharks are not as bad and prolific as places like steep point and quobba, there is no need to muscle the fish in you can let them tire and float them in. This is great as once you hook a fish you don't have to worry about it being bitten in half.

My gear is a trusty tyrnos 30 running 600yd of 65lb braid topshot with 250yd of mono, this is more than enough line as after a mackie makes its first run its usually beat. My rod is a shimano catana 10ft and for the price of these they are the best on the market, but coming past these rods are hard as these have been discontinued for a while now.

Weather

One major factor with this place is the weather, it can be your best friend or worst enemy. Care should always be taken when fishing, especially when off rocks or cliffs and this place is no exception. It's been a few times I have been knocked over by a wave coming from nowhere. 

A swell of round 1-1.5 meters will allow you to fish the reef very comfortably and be able to get close to the edge with not too much hassle. I have fished it as high as 3 meters and it can be done just very very safely and standing further back away from the waves. If the rocks do get too dangerous or your not too sure there are always the cut ins and beaches between the reef, just be careful here too as the waves can break close and big next to the edge.

Other than that this place can be a real pleasure to fish and I hope to see your out there sometime.

Tight lines

Reece

The cheaper alternative - DIY grip leads

Being an avid landbased fisherman one thing I find is the places I fish can be really snaggy and account for alot of lost gear. Using grip sinkers from local tackle shops allows me to hold my bait out there nicely but usually gets lost in the rocks or snagged in reef and when they can be as much as $7 AUD it can become a costly exercise.

So it got me thinking that these mustn't be hard to make. After a recent shark fishing trip and turning 20ounce snapper leads into grips for paddling out I started scouring over the net looking for ways to do them, with finding a few different ways on doing them I thought I'd give it a try at some smaller ones for beach casting. These were the best way I could find and after a bit if tweaking the design i think it's the easiest way to make them.

What you will need is the following:

• 3mm drill bit

• a roll of small diameter  galv wire 

• vice grips

• file

• snapper sinkers (6-8 ounce)

First thing to do it use the vice grips or a vice if you have one, holding the lead sinker drill a hole near the end of the sinker. Care should be taken to not break the drill a good way to tackle this is to have the drill on a low setting and constantly clean the drill bit of swarf.

Using the file clean up the holes drilled and use the edge of the file to put a groove in the edge in the sinker to allow the wire to sit neatly.

Grab a strip of wire cut around 20-30cm (depending on size if sinker used) and push it through two holes on one side until they go thought to the other.

Repeat on the other side and once you have you should have something that starts to resemble a grapnel.

 Using plies, grab the ends of the wire and pull it tight locking the wire into the groove on the sinker. Trim the ends to the length you desire.

These will work on most fishing trips where you'd use normal grip sinkers and being quite simple to make you can knock up a few in to time. If your after that bit of extra distance in your casts then just cut a small strip of wire, go through the eye of the sinker and wrap the end around it locking it down. Use the pliers and put a nice kink on the wire. 

With this you can clip it onto your end hook allowing you to get more distance in a cast. With these only being round 1/4 of the price of buying grip leads you'll be able to spend the coin on the much more needed fishing gear. Hope this helps you out and ill see you out there fishing.

Tight lines

Reece

Fish lollies- SRX14 lure review

With all the hardbodied lures and poppers put there I've always wondered what ones to use for what location. Doing numerous trips up north every year to places like steep point and quobba, spinning off the cliffs it's always hard to find the best lure that gives the best result.

I've used Yo-Zuri's, halcos, bombers and many of the others on the market and I'm quite impressed with the rapala. The swimming action and just watching it swim you can see that your in for a good fishing trip. It has a slash action kicking from side to side as it rips through the water on the retrieve, an action that is hard for large predatory fish to ignore. 

With the range of colours to choose from you should have most bases covered. The 3d holographic bodies with Internal holographic foils make these some of the best lures I've seen. Coupled with the rattle its no wonder they work well.

The Rapala SXR14 is an awesome lure to have ready for lagoon and reef exploring,  casting around the shallow bommies will be sure to produce Coral Trout, Mackerel, GT's and various other species that inhabit the shallower water in these areas.

These lures come rigged with quality trebles but the use the double slipt rings and single hook method works well with them, as the hooks seem to set and sit beter as well as being lighter giving the lure a better action.

After using these on my last few trips up north I'm now wondering why I haven't use these earlier. With one morning alone having Mac tuna, spanish mackeral, yellowfin and queenies follow and hook up I'm now hooked on these.

So if your ever heading up north or just wanting to go out for a flick I definately recommend having a few of these in your tackle box, money well spent.

Tight lines

Reece

Pelagic rigs made easy.

After being bitten by the balloon fishing bug big time, I've started experimenting with different rigs and setups, and this is the one I've found to work the best. Depending on where you buy the tackle from it can become quite an expensive hobby, with times loosing half a dozen rigs in a morning. 

Instead of buying the terminal gear from tackle shops I've gone to the online stores and have found I can get alot more for less, yet I have not had any of it fail or be faulty which is a Bonus. When you can buy 40 meters of 100lb wire for the same price as 10 from a store its really quite an easy decision. Here's the gear of choice for me:

•100lb multi strand wire

•50kg ball bearing swivels

•11/0 owner hooks

•8/0 octopus circles

•200mm squid skirts

•4/0 trebles

I cut a nice long piece of wire about 2 metres long and the first thing i do is a nice Flemish eye to tie on the treble with a crimp to hold it onto place. 

Then I snell a 11/0 owner hook on, about 10cm up from the treble, and repeating this with another 11/0 around 8-10cm above it depending on how big the baits are your using.

If you don't know how to snell there are plenty of videos on you tube that can explain it, and once you get the hang of them you'll be doing them in your sleep.

With me i use the 8/0 circle hook just to pin the head in place, saves using another 11/0 but its all up to your personal preference . With all the hooks snelled on slide a 200mm squid skirt along the wire. I use a nice pink one, but as before its up to personal preference as there are quite a few different colours out there to choose from and I've just found pink to work the best. At the end of the wire tie another Flemish eye to the ball bearing swivel and crimp it in place.

Once you've got the technique down they are really quite easy to make and normally take me around 5 minutes each. I've also found using these rigs rather than the gang sets of hooks you can buy from tackle shops that you get a far better hookup rate and they will also allow the bait your using to look alot more natural in the water.

 

Tight lines and hope to see you out there

Reece

All about patience

Well after a few pretty dismal attempts at trying for a landbased snapper after the storms (managed to net someone else's tho) I was invited out on my cousins boat for an after storm fish, how could a say no. After hitting the water around 6:30am we done a bit of drifting for some squid, brilliant four in the bag, perfect fresh bait.

A nice 20 minute motor out to the spot saw us anchoring up in around 14meters of water, with the mulie cubes going into the water it was only a matter if time for some action.

With burley the key I've found is having a nice constant stream going into the water, you don't want big chunks of fish in the trail just nice tiny cubes or the fish will scoff it down and have no room for your bait. One other thing is also try and match your bait to the burley being used, no use using gardie if the fish have a scent and been chewing on mulies.

It would have been around an hour and half before the burley started working with my cousing rod screaming off. The stradic 4000 ci4 and the gomoku storm rod doing a great job of knocking the fish over, if you've never seen these rods they are a bloody great light jigging rod that always loom like there going to snap and fold yet it managed to turn the fish quite easily. Bam first size fish of the morning landed.

With high fives all round, a bit of squealing in excitement and photos had it was back to fishing. The next few hours proved quite entertaining with many runs and hits. Two nice size eagle rays one around the 25kg mark boated, again on the gomoku. At one point even I was getting worries that the little noodle rod was gonna give, but as before it held its ground and turned the ray then quickly knocked it over.

With the bait all but gone and the burley drying up it was last drop for the day, with me yet to hook anything decent. Casting out the bait and letting it sink to the bottom i took in the slack to have the line start peeling off the reel like a bullet. First call was a sambo as the sustain 5000 just screamed in excitement, I can say for a little bit i felt i was gonna get spooled but slowly the fish began to tire. These sustain reels are absolutely awesome, with a reasonable pricing and a lovely smooth drag its a pleasure to use. After around 10 minutes of tug and war the fish slowly begun the float up, as we saw colour the next call was a nice mulloway, wrong again up floats a very nice pink snapper. 

Now as with most fish this is where's my are normally lost, first attempt at landing it proved quite difficult with it not fitting into the net, just my luck. A few more attempts sees us able to get the head of the fish In, just barely and lifting it into the boat. Now I can say that I was more than happy I was ecstatic, hand legs and knees were shaking just from the adrenaline of landing a monster pinky.

With a great day out it just proves that burleying up on anchor can produce some great fish, it may take a while for the scent to attract them but when it does its sure worth the effort.

Fishing, it's a passion...

Fishing for me involves anything from sitting on a sandy beach to spinning heavy lures atop a cliff, any of which can produce a trophy fish. Yet most times I'm seen sitting, waiting for that elusive fish to take the bait I find that to be the most exciting.

 What better way to feel walking down to the beach with the family in tow knowing that its going to be fun with or without a fish. There have been plenty of nights and days spent on the beach without a single bite. But when it happens its all worth it.

I cannot remember the  many many hours I have spent trying to catch certain fish like mulloway, pink snapper and such. Yet I can remember vividly landing these for the first time, the pain, sweat and adrenaline running through as it slides up the beach and that's what keeps me going out for more. It's that "what if" factor that always makes me go out weekend after weekend, what if my mates go and I stay home and they land that monster. 

More recently tho is the enjoyment of going along with my son and watching him land his first fish, being there when he lands many more and having the time to enjoy the awesome fish stocks and locations we so luckily have here along the west coast. So for me that's why I'm out there and I hope to be bringing many stories and photos onto this page.

Tight lines everyone

Reece