Dhu fish at the Abrolhos Islands- Fishing Charter 2016

This week was another great week of fishing at the Abrolhos Islands. We had a great group of guys from Perth who hired the whole boat for a 5 day charter. Darren was our decky for the week. He was tagging Dhu Fish for West Tag as we are interested to see if any get re-captured. We tagged 5 Dhu Fish just on the first day.

On day 1 Glen was fighting a fish so I asked him what he thought it was and he responded the world’s biggest dhu fish. Well he was right about one thing it was definitely a dhu fish and a good size one but not the worlds biggest J.

After a night at Middle Island we had Dolphins riding the bow wave mum, dad and calf. It does not matter how many times we see dolphins we never get bored of them.

Unfortunately Darrell was sick the first day but he started the 2nd day with his first catch, a red emperor.

The shallow fishing this week produced some nice size baldchin grouper.

On one of the drifts out deep the guys were all hooked up, even Decky Darren landed himself a coronation trout on a jig. The others got a mix bag of pink snapper, and baldchin grouper.

I decided to drop a line in 1st drop I hooked a spotted mackerel, and a nice pink snapper on a jig and light gear, the pink snapper decided to take me for a bit of a run to the front of the boat, I definitely was not expecting a pink snapper the way it was running.

Each day we dropped our decky Darren off to get some crayfish for dinner. One afternoon while we were watching him diving, we saw a manta ray jump high out of the waves. We managed to have crays for dinner every night.

The weather was amazing in the afternoons for day 2, we went for a bit of a marlin fish but unfortunately there were no marlin around. As the weather was so amazing we decided to stay out wide and try our luck for some broad bill. Unfortunately we did not see any, but being out there for the night with no wind, amazing weather and the serenity you just cant beat it.

We did a few drops of reef fishing throughout the week. Ralph got a nice size Baldchin Grouper, he also managed to score himself the angler of the day title a couple of times. I had some more fun on light gear using jig and caught a samson fish. Meanwhile Jim caught a double header of spangled emperor.

We came into Pigeon Island the night before ANZAC day and it was just like being at Rottnest on New Years. There were so many boats, it was crazy to see so many boats out there but good to see so many come together for ANZAC day. We finished the day off with a cold drink at the local pub.

For ANZAC day we were up bright and early to attend the Dawn Service at Pigeon Island. The turn out was impressive and what a special place to attend the Dawn Service. Thank you to the cray fishing community for holding a beautiful service and letting others to attend. They have been doing the Dawn Service at Pigeon Island for 12 years. They also honoured another Aussie tradition with two up at West Side.

The weather was nice for the morning but by lunch time the swell picked up to 3.5 meters.

At one point we had 3 nice size bronze whalers around the boat, which scared the fish off so we moved. We stopped and dropped at a completely different spot and managed to hook up on a dhu fish but the sharks decided to follow us. We were lucky enough to be able to land the dhu fish with out it getting eaten by the shark. It certainly got the blood pumping though.

Over the week we tagged and released quite few dhu fish of varying sizes which was good to see.

Until next time.

Leah

For more information on one of our Abrolhos Islands fishing charters check out our Abrolhos Islands Destination page. We are now taking bookings for the 2017 Abrolhos Islands fishing season.

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