Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Wooohooo...... Finally got a salmon here in Perth..

I've caught plenty on the south coast before but never any in the metro area. Well lately I've been putting in some hours buying bait and throwing it in the water, going down 2-3 times a week, generally in the mornings. Today I was up early and down there again, got nothing for a couple of hours and I was running out of bait as my big mulies were being picked apart by little fish, so decided to stick on a small metal slice and throw that around.

Anyway, must have been the second cast and BANG, line started disappearing out into the ocean. I generally only use fairly light gear, I had a new 7 foot rod not much thicker than a pencil and 12 pound line, and this fish really put the new rod through a bit of a test. There were many good long runs and I spent a fair bit of time trying to keep the fish away from the rocks which were everywhere. I'd seen people fishing here before, get broken off on the rocks many times. Finally after a good 5-10 minute fight I had him in close and the fish was tiring. A guy fishing close by came over and offered to gaff it for me, did a bloody good job too, right in the gills..

This got the 3 or 4 other people near by rather excited, suddenly everyone was stripping of their mulie gang rigs and swapping to metal lures and casting them over in my direction. It was a beautiful day to be near the water, nice and sunny, really calm with hardly any wind, I could see really well into the water and watched a school of 15-20 salmon swim past a couple of times. Other started to hook up after I'd caught mine, I saw 3 more fish get landed and another get away...

What a great way to start the day... The fish was about 4kg, not the biggest salmon, but bloody good fun on the light gear, man they can fight...

Nice fish Joel!
Hmmm smoked Salmon then??

Very nice fish. I hope you weren't late for work then.

congrat Joel, very rewarding when you have put in the effort, nice fish for the metro area.

i am tempted to have a crack at them but will see how i feel once i get back from 2 weeks in Exmouth?

well don Joel, i have put many hours in to get a fish like that in years gone past so i know how you feel.

Yesterday my my say off, today is work day though.

Here's a picture of the spot where I caught it, for those who know the Perth foreshore, you might even be able to work out where this is by the background, beautiful water yesterday...

Oh yeah, looks like the salmon have really landed here. For those in Perth who want to catch a big fish, get down to your favourite spot with a bag of mulies or some lures.

In about 2-2.5 hours I caught 2 and lost another 4 or 5, some after quite a long struggle. This is fun shore based fishing on light gear...



The biggest one was over 4.5 kg, both had a bit of damage, one to it's tail, and the big one had a bit of a bite out of it's back. Faye made a salmon bake out of the last fish, they taste alright when mixed in a white sauce with corn, bit of mashed potato on top then some cheese, baked in an oven.. But then most things taste ok like that. I'll be testing some of these in the smoker, see how they go.

And I thought you were working your arse off
Only a 30% land rate, WTF is going on

Yeah light gear and rocky area. the buggers can be tricky.... I am working my arse off, on the other days.. I'm even taking a couple of hours off tomorrow morning to take my mate down for a fish, should get back here in time to have the standard friday bbq lunch, then smoke up some of the fillets in the arvo, finish up those in time for friday drinks.... Yep, flat out.....

Great to see you have your priorities right I think your last fish for a coupla days, big rain coming

Just to make you feel good EB, I felt like salmon after all the talk, bought a piece to smoke and it was $29.90 a kg on special but it smoked up a treat

Yeah, different salmon though mate... The stuff you bought is the good stuff, I know I eat it at least twice a week, love it... The Salmon I caught are a different fish entirely, and not very nice to eat.... Man I wish I was living somewhere where I could catch the real salmon.

Went for a fish after work yesterday and had a great afternoon.. After motoring up and down for a while trolling with some metal slices, getting the odd herring, suddenly we got some bigger strikes and pulled in a salmon over 30cm, nice fun on the light gear. We kept trolling up and down about 30m off the beach where people were fishing, but catching nothing, yet 30 m offshore we got fish after fish, with the biggest being about 42cm.

Salmon are such a great fighting fish, there was lots of tail-walking and jumping out of the water, and people from the beach looking on in disgust as we had many dual hookups. Being salmon we could only keep 5 each, so we had to throw some back. They stopped biting as soon as the sun had sunk below the horizon. Still we were happy, some of the best fishing I can remember, a really frantic hour or so where we couldn't stop laughing at how ridiculously easy it was to catch them

Lucky bugger.....oh and nice "Double toe" shot

Great fish joel,over here in vic we do a lot of surf fishing and i have caught them up to 5 kg, we love them fresh,fantastic smoked and great as cutlets on the barby .
Jim.