Fishing Report Stark bay west end
Submitted by Meeuwissen on Sun, 2019-12-15 13:01
Report stark bay, west end Rottnest Island
My best mate and I have been really keen on cracking a metro yellowtail kingfish he had been the weekend before without and signs of kingies around.
My keenest rubbed of on him to try again so we setup a plan to have a crack midweek as the weather was looking to good to pass up so he put in his leave cor Wednesday and was approved relatively quickly.
My job was to arrange the burley so I went past shore catch to pick up a two 5kg blocks of mulie shred and picked up some 3way swivels for ballooning from bluewater tackle on the way to my mates place.
The plan was to put the pots in on the way to rottnest and then pull into stark bay to sleep and have some fun with tailor herring and squid.
We got to the ramp at 4.30 PM and the wind was alot stronger then predicted we had a mishap within the first minute of leaving the ramp as we were reversing out the rope got caught on the jetty and wedged between the bollard and so we almost took out someone else’s twin suzuki's.
We set the pots on the back edge of 5 fathom bank and made it into stark huts as the sun was going down.
I quickly tried on some rigs I had already pre tied and setup a couple of rods the rigs Is very basic but affective smelled 6/0 circles with scale mackeral and 1.3m of 50 lb flurocarbon to a 3 way swivel then a balloon looped through the swivel. The herring were thick and managed a small squid which I insisted on saving for the next day as Joe wanted to put it live on the balloon.
It took a while to get the first hit from a tailor but when the tide came over the reef it was on.
Its alot of fun watching your balloon get pulled under dragged sideways and then the tailor hook themselves.
The tailor ranged from 40-54cm and were very well conditioned.
We would have caught over 20 fish With troy probably on catching the most he kept 3 for his grandad to eat and kept a few for cray bait and the next day.
Around 9.30pm the bite had shut down so we went in closer.
It was so well protected thanks to the southerly.
When we were suppose to be sleeping I couldn't help myself to put out a whole tailor it didnt take long for a big run but it bite me of it did do a big jump whatever it was I assume a big sharks.
So I put on another hook and another tailor and went to sleep.
At around midnight I awoke to the sarogosa screaming and woke up the other 2 guys in the process
It went for big runs and big head shakes initially I called it for a sambo but after a 10 minute fight a very good looking bronze was boat side around 15 kilo.
We released it and went to sleep.
We went back to sleep and it felt like a blink of the eye before the alarm went off as much as I wanted to stay in bed I was determined To catch a kingfish and I wanted to be at the spot at as the sun came up.
I put out a little rod and burlied in some herring with bread and it didnt take long to put 10 in the makeshift live well.
We got to west end a bit later then I wanted but it didnt take long to setup the anchor and have the first 5kg block of shred in.
Things were slow but when the burley started doing its thing and the tide turned the action also started Joe had a live herring on and it started behaving like a predator was nearby and he called it then he was going to be on soon, his rod folded and the fish started pulling some drag he went hard knowing how dirty they can fight and it wasn't long till we had a nice kingfish boat side it managed to tangle a couple of lines along the way but when it was in the boat a few high 5s were thrown and we accomplished what we set out to do.
After a couple of snaps we bleed it and put it on ice.
Everyone put on a live herring after that including myself but it had been a while since our last water exchange and there went any live herring left.
I had a few hits on my herring but couldn't convert so I went to that trusty small squid I had caught yesterday it literally took seconds for myself to load up it fought dirty going straight for the reef I could feel my leader rubbing and Joe encouraged me to go harder if I wanted to see the fish so I did and 5 minutes later a nice kingfish at around 80cm came up.
As I put it into the boat the 2 rods went off at the exact same time with the live herring out I got snipped straight away but Joe stayed connected to his this fish was taking line at rapid rate and the call was to drop to anchor a tie of a float to the end of the rope .
By the time we started chasing he was almost spooled on his talica.
Initially the fish hit the surface then ran deep and started doing circles I called it for a big yellowfin as I’ve been there before where a 30kg yellowfin was landed and behaving very similar.
The fish did another blistering run and unfortunately the braid caught on itself and the fish was lost devastated.
We tried for kingys for a bit longer to no avail headed backed to Freo checked the pots for half a dozen crays and stopped in for lunch at little Creatures.
Catch was cleaned and split 3 ways and boat washed by 4pm.
Fantastic trip and there no better feeling then having a plan and it all falling into place.
Thanks for reading
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Faulkner Family
Posts: 18027
Date Joined: 11/03/08
well done. always good when
well done. always good when you get your target fish. and to get a few crays to finish it off would have been a bonus
RUSS and SANDY. A family that fishes together stays together
meglodon
Posts: 5981
Date Joined: 17/06/10
Thanks for the report and pics
Sounds like you had a great time with a good feed at the end of the trip. IMO kings of that size are not bad eating either.
Scotte
Posts: 1145
Date Joined: 07/12/06
Nice write up,What sort of
Nice write up,
What sort of depth did you find the kings?
davewillo
Posts: 2406
Date Joined: 08/09/16
I've had some fun on kings
I've had some fun on kings around West End and other spots around Rotto over the years. They go bloody hard and I've lost plenty but also bagged a couple of monsters!
PGFC member and lure tragic
Meeuwissen
Posts: 755
Date Joined: 29/03/13
There's a lump
Comes up to 10m. But we caught them in 20m got bricked by a few dhues on the light gear
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