North Mole, Fremantle, Perth

People: Me

Duration: A few 2-3 hour sessions in the evenings

Tide: Don't know

Weather: Cold by their standards but still mild and sunny

Bait: 2-3" Whitebait

Rigs: ganged hook running ledger

Results: Lots of new species but unfortunately no big ones - Australian Herring, Silver Trevally (Skippy), Pink Snapper, Tarwine (Silver Bream), Black Bream and Blowfish (Puffers).

Report:
Just back from my holidays in Perth needless to say fishing wasn't the reason for going but I managed to squeeze in a few short sneaky sessions all the same. I had my trusty travel rod with me and a Shimano Stradic I picked up in Singapore on the way over, all I needed was a quick trip to the local tackle shop for some bait and some advice to get me fishing. After a bit of a chat to the guy in the tackle shop I had a few marks and techniques to try. All I was really after was to wet a line and hopefully catch a few fish so I decided to head to the [url=http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=fremantle&ie=UTF8&ll=-32.053208,115.726751&spn=0.003856,0.006652&t=h&z=17]North Mole[/url] in Fremantle, it seems to be a bit of a local hotspot with easy access to deep water but more importantly it was a five minute drive from where we were staying. I rigged up the ganged hook running ledger with a small whitebait and cast out, as soon as it hit the water I was getting bites and it didn't take long before I had my first Aussie fish. The fish were mostly small and could clear a hook in seconds. As I quickly found out the problem here wasn't getting bites it was trying to hook the fish before your hook was cleaned. Although I didn't catch any monsters I caught plenty of fish and lots of different species at that with the biggest fish being around the 2lb mark. Skilled fishing it may not have been but it certainly was fun, I think I'll be bringing the travel rod in the suitcase from now on.

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A few photos of sunset on the North Mole.

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you must be quick with a camera to catcth sunset in Perth. there is no twilight just straight in to darkness. Nice fish had the same sort when i was over there just did not know what they were. All the fish you catch over there have monster teeth and feirce looking(remind me of the mother in law)

Nice fish, nice photos.

What was the advantages/disadvantages of the ganged hook set up? I must admit, it's one I rarely think of.

Nice fishing Dave. Love to see those predators with the big eyes. Always reminds me of the tropics.

Kev

Nice fish, nice photos.

What was the advantages/disadvantages of the ganged hook set up? I must admit, it's one I rarely think of.

To be honest I'm not really too sure of the advantages or disadvantages of ganged hooks, the guy in the tackle shop suggested them so I just went with that. They seem to be quite quite commonly used in Australia, I guess they increase the rate of hook ups but that said I'd imagine that a pennell rig or stinger rig would do much the same job. I noticed that I caught fish on all three hooks and none were deeply hooked however that said I missed so many bites it wasn't even funny, so I don't really know what conclusion to draw from that. Despite the fact that there was three hooks on the bait the fish consistently cleaned the hooks and managed to avoid getting caught. Although I found a slow retrieve as opposed to leaving the bait static increased hookups, also it meant that I was constantly in contact with the bait and with the braid could feel everything and try to induce better takes by altering the speed of retrieve.

nice one mate. fished over there myself quite a bit as you know. they use the ganged hooks with pilchards quite a lot - very soft fish bait so the extra hooks help keep em on. also act as a trace for some of the bigger toothier critters like the Aussie salmon or tailors. was out for an hour or so for macks in wexford - not a sign of anything but plenty of baitfish around

Gees the blowies!! Must be the biggest scourge around the coast here :twisted: , they sure know how to clean a hook, some people say they make a good football! :roll:

If tailor or other bities are around you'll need the ganged hooks or you'll get bitten of easily! bar using a short wire trace. Need them anyway for using the pilchard and other small fish baits as it helps support them along the full length of the bait and reduced the chance of it falling of on the cast plus they are bloody soft!
When i first got here thought i'd do the same as Dave suggested and use a pennell rig.
40lb snood, hook up on a 2lb tailor just got it on the rocks and it dropped of thought thats ok won't need to put my fingers close to its mouth grabbed the snood and no hooks! it had bitten through the 40lb mono! :shock: :lol:

The North Mole is a pretty good spot and has produced some pink snapper over 15lb in May/June this year and is well known for producing big fish.