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Perth Snapper

Ben Derecki

By Ben Derecki
in Saltwater

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Ben Derecki Newbie

Ben Derecki

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Decided to head out late Saturday afternoon, thought I might do a sunset / evening session and hopefully get onto some pink snapper (squire? not sure what you call them on in Bris?) and skippy (trevally).

Started by anchoring in 9-10m of water and got the burley flowing straight away. It didn't take long for some good sized herring to come in so we quickly flicked out some light lines and pulled in a bit of fresh bait (now tea for tomorrow night because we had a few left over!). They went off the bite pretty quickly so we dropped some bigger baits down and began to settle in.

About 1/2 hour later Jamin's rod went off and after a short fight he brought up his ever first Port Jackson (he doesn't fish much).

HighVizPJ.jpg

Shortly after that he was on again but this one was what we came for, except it wasn't size - a 400mm pinkie.

We stayed there for another hour and a half with an intermitant burley stream going and in that time I managed to pull in the largest, and most boring fighting, PJ that I've ever caught. As well as that was a 600mm pinkie, a 450mm pinkie, two smoking runs that we didn't manage to set the hooks on, another PJ and got bitten off as well. All in all there was plenty of entertainment anyway.

PBPJLol.jpg

450mmPinkie.jpg

600mmPinkie.jpg

We decided to go a bit deeper and did a few drifts this time but there wasn't anything going on so at about 10.00pm we decided to head in as things obviously weren't going to get any better.

When were coming through the passage between Carnac and Garden Islands I noticed a boat about 250m away flashing us with a torch so went over there to see what was going on. We ended up towing some poor dude and his (approx) 10 and 13yo daughters in whose motor wouldn't start. He'd called out Sea Rescue but by the time they arrived we had them connected up and had been towing them for 10 mins, after a brief chat we told them we'd take them back to the ramp.

All in all it was quite an eventful night. Very nice out there on the water and not too cold either.

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Angus Rookie

Angus

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Love those blue fins. Awesome looking fish.

Those PJ's are pretty cool looking as well. We have similar sharks here in the bay by look very boring in comparisson.

Thanks for the report from the other side of the world :P

Angus

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Old Scaley Mentor

Old Scaley

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Nice fish, Ben. In Queensland we used to call them pinkies if they were small (say, under 25cm), then squire if they were legal but not too big, then snapper if they were good sized fish and finally knobbies if they were trophy fish. Then all of a sudden they were all snapper. I think the charter skippers might have started that one so that everyone went home with snapper ;)

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dassa Newbie

dassa

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Nice fish ben and we used to get PJ on the south coast of NSW with simalar colors but sometime they were ever where and just be came a pain but good to catch.

What are the legal size for squire over i=on the other side of the planet :laugh: :laugh:

cheers dassa

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Ben Derecki Newbie

Ben Derecki

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Thanks guys, Old Scaley thanks for the heads up on the name changes too... few comments below:

Angus wrote:

Those PJ's are pretty cool looking as well. We have similar sharks here in the bay by look very boring in comparisson.

Yeah I like them, they're quite cool as far as a shark species goes. They're not much of a fight though, bit like pulling up a boot full of water... although every now and then you'll get one with a bit of sprite.

dassa wrote:

What are the legal size for squire over i=on the other side of the planet

The new(ish) government brought in a raft of new fishing regs and snapper were one of the species affected by that. They've been identified as one of five vulnerable species so the minimum size went up to 500mm and a maximum bag limit of 2. Pretty tough.

Do$tylz wrote:

do the snapper over that way get the blue tipped fins normally??

They've always got the bluish tinge there mate but certainly not that bright. I wonder if it was the dark surroundings and the flash that brought it out. Not sure. Definately does look beautiful though. Fantastic contrast with the pink and the blue spots on the body.

Re the trip Perth, let me know when you're getting close and I'll flick you some info. Be happy to take you out if you're free if we head off for a fish.

free2rome2 wrote:

Perhaps, we could meet up for a fish or a drink?

Yep Jonothan, definately be in for that. Flick me a PM when it's getting closer to the season or I'll grab a mobile number off you or something, would be good to hook up and share notes!

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Ben Derecki Newbie

Ben Derecki

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I guess we just don't have the number of targeted demersal species you've got over there... don't know. Thought we'd have plenty more than the Vics though.

I'm not up with the science behind the regulations, some crew dispute the claims, I just deal with it and move on.

Here's a couple of killer pics from a local forum of how the snapper can get over here during spawning time. September to December is the main time they come into the shallows (10-20m) of one of the local Sounds and spawn, and they're banned from being caught in October and November and this is the reason why... this is what they get like above and below the surface:

23fd78cc.jpg

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