Over the years we have received significant help from a fish market monger, and have long talked about going out for a fish together.  We have been limited to a Sunday due to work commitments, and last Sunday showed some promise with the forecast easterly around 10-15kn.  We made the plan, and Dean really wanted to bring one of his employees (Spring) as a reward for doing an excellent job.

Given the forecast temperatures, the afternoon looked a lot more comfortable than the morning so the plan was to leave around midday and fish until dark.  We decided to play it by ear as to how far we ventured out based on the wind conditions when on the water and unfortunately it was blowing closer to 15kn so we had to stay inshore, much to Spring’s disappointment as he really wanted to catch a big fish.  Our “on the water” plan was to burley up a weed bank close to the marina, head to a spot that can hold big sand whiting and then settle at an inshore pinkie haunt that has produced the goods previously at dusk.

10 minutes from launch and we had the lines and burley in.  I keep the offcuts from our commercial burley manufacturing process, and use them myself so we had a lot.  We had herring and garfish all around our boat, and some large predators that smashed the schools every now and again – saw a big pike launch itself out of the water right on top of us.  We checked licence status, kept the big herring and released all of the southern garfish, small herring and other undesirables.  Unfortunately we couldn’t tempt the bigger things and the live baits went untouched.

A short move down the coast and we fished for sand whiting as the order from home was to get some fillets.  As usual in this location, they occasionally school through but you do get some bigger models.  The burley had fish all around us again, and we got some nice whiting in amongst other various species.  The highlight was Spring’s XL sandie, and this was a big fish in its class at probably near 300g.  Another highlight was Dean landing a small eagle ray on the 4lb whiting gear after a long and entertaining fight.

As the sun started to drop it was time to move and set up for the late afternoon.  Again, burley in the water and we generated an aquarium.  Skippy were the main species this time although there were plenty of smaller pinkies, and the herring again.  Spring managed to hook up to a nice tarwhine amongst the smaller pinkies, but it was a job to get a bait through the skippy although the bite fluctuated quite a bit. 

As the sun hit the water my baitrunner started to sing as something sizeable hit the floating mulie.  It is always a relief when you engage the reel and the hook up is solid, as was the case here.  I had the drag set reasonably tight but it still pulled a lot of line in the initial runs.  The head shakes were unmistakably those of a pink and when we finally saw colour, that’s what it was.  A skilful net job and we had a good fish in the boat – Spring was over the moon to see it.  We stuck it out for a little while longer but the school had moved on, it was quite dark, and time to come in.

My family is fussy about the fish we keep so it didn’t take much convincing to let the visitors take them home.  It was a nice mixed bag and was good to hear the skippy and whiting were consumed raw that evening by family and friends (and settled the anger about getting home so late), the herring were given to relations and the pinkie weighed in at 6kg with a 2.5kg fillet return plus the wings – it helps being a professional fish filleter.  I have arranged to pick up the frozen frame so I can donate it to the Fisheries skeletons program.

It was a nice afternoon on the water, testament to the fact you don’t have to go very far in Perth metro to get a reasonable return, and there is value of using various burley types and techniques for targeting different species.  We have already talked about doing it again. 

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