Hello to all MFN-ers, I’m Jonathan, and this is my first post here. Although my initial plan was to go to Perth to get Samson fish but I was told that it was the tail-end of the Samson season (was there during CNY from 16th till 24th Feb). Very disappointing but nevertheless, I still had a good time fishing in Perth, as we always say, fishing beats any day and time working in the office… [:D]
Here’s a short account of my trip:
Day 1
Booked with Apache charters (out of Freemantle) for Samson fishing but they were only going for Deep Sea fishing which is bottom fishing… sigh. Anyway, we had a friendly crew and fishing was quite fun. Had a few ‘hook-ups’ and lost them, even got a few undersized buggers but had to throw them back in without taking pictures… [V]
At the last minute, I got (amongst the group) the last pink snapper of the day… [:D] Had it cooked by my good friend Gino, of Spaghi’s restaurant in Mend Street. It tasted delicious! And the way he cooked it,… nice! [:p]
Day 2
Was supposed to go on board the Lady Grace with Apache again but the trip was cancelled because there were not enough fishers…. ****! [?] [}:)]
Anyway, I was with my friend Rodney and we decided at the last minute to go back to his place (amidst some noise from his lovely wife) and get his 6m boat out from Coogee beach. We had almost 2m swells and strong winds and only small fishes to account for like some sort of Wrasses. All in all, we still had good fun fishing and drinking of course!
We planed around Carnac island and did almost 50km off Perth.
Day 3 and 4
We booked with Saltwatercharters out of Hillary’s harbour this time for some real Samson jigging.
At the first spot (which was around 40m), while we were busy jigging, I saw a huge shark swimming around our boat and thought… ****! Don’t think the sambos will be biting… True enough, nothing. So, we planed to our next spot, and started jigging… then, bang I was on… fought for a few minutes (nice fight), and then all of a sudden it felt even heavier and poof! Lost my jig and all… ****! They said it could’ve been something else bigger that took my fish… possibly a shark, oh well, anyway…
On the 2nd day, we even got out to the FAD’s, which was almost 2hours away from Rottnest Island.
We got a Dolphinfish (small one and didn’t get a picture tho’) and some Amberjacks and a Skipjack Tuna.
In the end, I still didn’t get my Samson fish. Sigh… but you can be sure I’ll be back to Perth again to get those buggers.
Here are some pictures of my trip. Hope you’ll like them… I also hope in my next outing there, I won’t disappoint….
Cheers! [8D]
Day 1
This old uncle got the most fish…
Day 2
My friend Rodney and his lovely wife… as we were getting his boat ready…
On to something…
I got this funny wrasse, I think…
Finally, we got back and had to send his boat back and help him wash it down… I must say that it’s real hard work to reverse the boat with trailer back into this house…
Day 3 & 4
We started out at 6am…
My ever reliable TS rods…
Made some new friends,… Giuseppe (a very keen jigger) and Luigi…
The skipper, Craig, mentioned that recently his crayfish pods were ‘robbed’, some buggers stole his crayfish, and when we were picking one of the pods, we only found one legal-sized and another female with eggs… He threw the female one back into the water…sigh.
Here, we would keep it! yum yum! [:p]
Waiting to get to the next destination…
Getting ready for action…
Me and a ‘borrowed’ tuna… [:D]
We had lots of, what they called ‘Rats’ (bloody seagulls or something) that always dive deep into the water and try to get our baits or jigs… everyone on board got a few of them hooked up literally… bloody pests of the sea…
Got hooked onto something big… fought for awhile, then I felt something ‘heavier’ and then… poof! gone…
Some scenes of the trip before we got back to Hillary’s… Sad, I didn’t get my samson… must go back there again…
I hope to post more reports in future, and also with pictures of fish and places… Cheers!
“Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today” - JD
That’s the power of words and images.
[:)]