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| Fremantle departing Leeuwin Barracks |
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| Northwest Blowfish |
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| From Top: Whiting, Butterfish & Western King Wrasse |
'With every drop of water that you drink,
every breath you take,
you're connected to the sea.
No matter where on earth you live'
Unknown
We docked off at Fremantle (Leuwin Barracks) at 7am in the morning for some serious fishing. The winds were blowing westly and conditions weren't the best as the water was a bit choppy, but we didn't care we just wanted to get out there and have a fish :). We had plichards as bait and I had my trusty, lucky, red fishing rod for the occasion. We journeyed out for 25 minutes until we arrived at a nice fishing spot which had some reefs so we decided to drop anchor and have a fish. I decided to rig up for herring I used size 1/0 hooks and did a running beam sinker. First cast in and we had many bites but the fish just weren't going for the bait after about 30 minutes into fishing I still seemed to have no luck and neither did my friend for that matter. So I decided to alter my rig set up and reduce the weight of the running beam in hopes of catching any fish. I changed the hooks to bloodworm hooks and did a double hook set up I recasted and bang this time I got Lucky. First fish for the day and I was pretty chuffed as I reeled up my fish in anticipation as to what it could be up popped a Western King Wrasse fish. These fish are mainly found in offshore reefs close to sands and seagrass spots. These fish are interestingly cheeky in my opinion because they travel in groups and the group consists of 1 male and a school of females.....Thats a lota work for 1 male fish! Like other reef fish they have the ability to change sex to female at any time. So if the male dies the bigger female of the group will change gender to become the new male of the group. This condition is known as 'protogyny'. Wrasse fish are not what anglers normally would go for but they are edible. I personally don't like the flavour of the fish but some people love eating them. The best way to eat these fish are pan fried with skin on. Two wrasse fish to nil later my friend decided we should travel further inshore and try our luck there. We found a nice sand patchy spot and not even 8 minutes into our fishing and I had hooked something huge I didn't know what it was but while I was battling to reel up my line the fish completely severed my line and I had lost my entire rig set up. I was spewing. As I quickly tried to re rig my line my friend spotted a Northwest blowfish also known as a pufferfish. These buggars have horse like teeth and can cause some serious bites. They are pretty aggressive fish and will pretty much go for any food on offer. We encountered 3 Northwest blowfish on our fishing trip and they are definately not shy. The blowy circled our boat for a period of time in the hopes of getting a free feed. It would flick it's fins out of the water as if to say 'Hello, I'm here, feed me'. The northwest blowy that circled the boat would have been about 60cm long but they can get as big as 88cm. We didn't stick around to fish when these buggars popped their ugly heads up. :) And I think that was what cut my line. We journeyed a good 10 minutes away from the location and sourced a better spot. This time I managed to land a whiting, as I went to soak the bag to put the fish in it. The fish slipped through the clenches of my hand and threw itself off the boat. My friend was indeed spewing our only whiting, one minute on the boat and the next minute....gone! But it wasn't all bad my friend finally caught a whiting which we managed to contain in the boat. :) All up after catching many butterfish and one baby snapper which we had to throw back because it was well undersized, we finished the fishing trip with 2 Western King Wrasse, 1 whiting and a butterfish.
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