Finally smashed my mulloway PB by a huge amount.
I wrote the story below as a bit of a reminder to myself of how special this fish is to me and what it’s taken to achieve. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I could of beaten my old best from the middle of Perth after only 17 hours of effort put into fishing for a ghost of the river. Of all the far off remote places I’ve been all over WA it’s pretty special to have got it from within 30 minutes of my house.
Long story warning.
This fish has been a long time coming for me, 11 years ago after 2 years of effort I landed my first big mulloway then 2 weeks after that I landed my biggest that stood for a long time at 20kg. I fished for them hard for 3 more years catching heaps but never over the 20kg. I lost one about 25kg after seeing it at my feet before cutting me off on some rock, I pretty much gave up from that point for a few years. I’ve fished on and off for them since and other than the river fish in Albany on lures, I’ve never had much success.
With the restrictions in place that I can’t leave the Perth area I’ve been going crazy trying to find things to target in Perth. Snapper and mulloway where my main goals, Mitchell convinced me to come try for a swan river mulloway which I had only ever done at E Shed with a fish about 17kg being released years ago. First 2 nights with Mitch and nothing but 2 decent tailor landed. 3rd night I managed a small mulloway at 75cm. Total of 12 hours put in for one fish at that point! That’s pretty good odds I thought.
4th night chasing them I decided to go chase snapper on the northern beaches and after driving around trying to find clean water that wasn’t full of weed I gave up and decided to race back to the swan,drovefrom yanchep to the river to fish a bite time. Met Mitch and cast out my baits, pretty much on the bite time to the minute my rod went off and 15 minutes later I got to see the fish for the first time, I thought maybe 17-18kg when I got to first look at it. Took another 5 minutes before I had it in knee deep water that I jumped in and went to hold it and I got to see the true size of the fish! Well and truly smashed my old PB.
Got a length measurement on it at 142cm. We had scales but I didn’t want to hang the fish to weigh it as I thought it would kill it so I decided against getting a weight and we let it go back into the darkness that it came from.
New goal is to get a fish over 1m on a hard body lure from the swan, so far I’m 20 hours in of casting for one big bump.
I’m still buzzing while writing this and can’t thank those who helped enough. Hoping one day I get to see that fish again when it’s 1.7m long.
always looking for a new challenge!!
eziliving
Posts: 876
Date Joined: 30/12/09
Great fish. Going to be hard
Great fish. Going to be hard to beat that pb
Get busy living, or get busy dying!
jighead
Posts: 726
Date Joined: 03/02/12
Cracker mate
What a beast
Swompa
Posts: 3901
Date Joined: 14/10/12
What an awesome catch and
What an awesome catch and great write up. Well done!
Stevieboy
Posts: 58
Date Joined: 22/04/18
Effort =reward
Well done Chris, what a fish
Jrod1
Posts: 46
Date Joined: 09/01/17
monster
any guess on weight?
Tom M
Posts: 661
Date Joined: 22/09/15
what a beast, well done.
what a beast, well done.
Tom M
kirky79
Posts: 1354
Date Joined: 13/01/12
Awesome fish
Good on you for the release
Jim
Posts: 1336
Date Joined: 05/05/06
Good work as usual mate.
Good work as usual mate. I might of missed it but this landbased? Giddyup
Bend over
Chris fish
Posts: 847
Date Joined: 23/02/11
Yep
Sure is landbased. Still haven't gone down the dark path of boat fishing lots yet.
always looking for a new challenge!!
Brock O
Posts: 3251
Date Joined: 11/01/08
Awesome fish Chris...well
Awesome fish Chris...well done especially land based again, what baits you using for these ?
mw87
Posts: 123
Date Joined: 20/07/11
Cracker!I suspect you're all
Cracker!
I suspect you're all over hardbody options, but myself and many others have had huge success with Croaker lures over East. Might be worth an order if you don't have one in the arsenal already!
Chris fish
Posts: 847
Date Joined: 23/02/11
I've been looking into a lot
I've been looking into a lot of options and seems to be a common theme with what works and what people try that doesn't. Fingers crossed my theory works and I get to tick it off soon
always looking for a new challenge!!
Jim
Posts: 1336
Date Joined: 05/05/06
You'll buy a boat one day!
You'll buy a boat one day!
Bend over
Chris fish
Posts: 847
Date Joined: 23/02/11
Yeah
One day I'll get one to get to more landbased locations haha
always looking for a new challenge!!
Adam Gallash
Posts: 15652
Date Joined: 29/11/05
Yeeh
Yeeeh boi, horse
Site Admin - Just ask if you need assistance
rob90
Posts: 1528
Date Joined: 06/02/13
Thats an absolute brute!
Thats an absolute brute! Well done on the release. Cheers for sharing. You certainly work hard for your fish and you get the results. Live bait or slab bait? You've given me a bit of motivation to get out now
Hi my name is rob............. and I'm a........... fishaholic
timboon
Posts: 2961
Date Joined: 14/11/10
Nice one mate... Are you
Nice one mate...
Are you chucking black lures at night?
We used to get em on bibbed black lures trolling in a river...
Someone above mentioned guess the weight...
While i'm no expert the 140cm fish I got from the surf was in top condition and weighed 54lb, while its hard to compare the two fish I would guess in that range somewhere....
davewillo
Posts: 2445
Date Joined: 08/09/16
Awesome fish mate!
Awesome fish mate!
PGFC member and lure tragic