Lancelin

Spectacular spring sessions

LANCELIN Peter Fullarton

As September progresses, professional lobster fishers follow crayfish inside the white bank. Some dhufish will be attracted by activities of the crays and of the boat for sand edges.

Habitat to look for is ledges, or lumps with overhanging caves or defined reef to sand edge drop offs. A dhufish, or several, will show up quite clearly on the fish finder if they are in the open. Do not discount a spot if you can see a good ledge resistance. In the shallows it is a different story – where you can get a nice fish to the surface, but at the sight of the boat it can charge all the way back down to the bottom!

The inshore lumps will also produce some decent breaksea cod and pink snapper. This time of year, big skippy

There have been good numbers of pan size pink snapper along the near shore reefs.

baited pots as they move to the nearshore reefs. This is a great opportunity to target West Australian dhufish from small boats or even kayaks and drones from the relatively shallow nearshore waters.

Blind drifting baits for shallow water dhufish, as you would in deeper waters, can but no fish, they like to sit in the shadows of overhangs and may not show up on the sounder until coaxed out by an offering. When you do find fish, be sure to mark up the spot for future reference. Building up a library of proven spots makes the job far easier next time you are fishing.

Weighted baits can be

Alex Carter with a slab of silver beach ghost.

and does work. Although problematic in that you can also lose a lot of gear and wasted time to snagging the reefs. The near shore reefs are typically a lot more aggressive in shape and covered with high snaggy kelp.

In the shallows, it can be far more effective to accurately target spots likely to be where the fish are holding up, delivering the bait or lure aided by a sounder and GPS, while visually looking over the side dropped to the ‘spot’ and set while you drift off a little and then hold the boat in position with the motor, testing each spot until a fish is found. Soft plastics work very effectively on these shallow grounds and can be fished under the boat watching the fish finder, often you will see fish chase the lure, monitoring the take on the screen. Deeper waters once the fish is off the bottom and swim bladder expands, dhus do not offer up much further although starting to fire up again now. Fishing will only continue to improve the next few months as the tailor become active and a great average size. The bad news is floating sargassum weed is likely to start and can be a big pain when the onshore winds blow. It is usually a good policy to avoid fishing strong westerly winds if you can when the floating weed is around.

Mornings when the offshore winds are blowing, avoid the floating weed, it is a great opportunity to find a few fish on artificial lures with wind-assisted casting. The best areas to prospect would be the back edge of a reef break or beach gutters. There are likely to be smaller school mulloway and big greenback tailor, so cover both the topwater, midwater and bottom with a range of lures at A Lancelin fishing report is not complete without another fine mulloway specimen landed by Graeme Doodson!

school on inshore lumps and the odd samsonfish tests the anglers skills around the shallow reefs.

Larger boats have been doing very well out at direction bank, regularly anglers have been scoring metre-plus dhufish 15kg or more. The bags are usually a mix of breaksea cod, pink snapper and baldchin groper, lately there been a few queen snapper hitting the deck as well. This month bluefin tuna start to appear in better numbers, look out for the birds that will indicate where they are feeding.

For anglers who like to keep sand between their toes, beaches have started to widen making it easier to drive along them accessing the deep gutters that have formed in the regular spots, both north and south of town. Tailor have been quiet the last few months, the frequent winter storms keeping them offshore, Dhufish are within range of kayak anglers during September. tide, dawn or dusk at the near shore structure. Then perhaps sending a few baits out wide on a rod when the action slows to see if I can find a nice table size slab of pink to take home. If you do not have a drone there are usually some sand whiting, herring or tarwhine within casting range if you throw out some smaller hooks after session casting big baits and chumming.

If the weather is making beach fishing difficult, a good back up plan can be to hit up the Lancelin jetty. The rougher the weather, generally the better the fishing at the jetty! There has been plenty of squid caught here of late and stacks of herring at night, although the size can be a bit small

each spot before moving on.

Soaking baits later in the evening is more likely to find the larger mulloway, pink snapper and school sharks.

Drone fishing for pink snapper has really taken off in the last 18 months or so, to

You can look forward to some good times casting lures over the next few months, catching fish like this chunky tailor landed by Tyler Herbert.

the point where there can be as many drones as beach casters, at times even more along the popular surf beaches. I have been mixing it up myself casting some lures or baits at the prime bite times of high this time of year. Tailor have been coming in chasing the bait that shelters under the jetty and early mornings have seen samsonfish doing some spectacular aerial bust ups on the bait.