Recfishwest's State-wide Fishing Report 19 May 2023 🎣

As soon as you land a fish on the boat or land, it’s important to treat the fish with care and minimise the duration of stress resulting from direct handling.

If you’re wanting to take a snap of your catch, it’s also important to have the camera ready to go as soon as possible, especially if you intend on releasing the fish, to help minimise the risk of damage to the fish.

We all love showing off our catch, but you can do it by being more respectful to the fish as well as making your fish photos look much better to those who view them if you decide to share them across social media.

Check out some of the tips for taking great photos of your fish!

Good-sized pink snapper have been caught in the coral grounds’ 60-80m depths with queen snapper, nannygai, dhufish and breaksea cod also coming over the side. Around the islands there have been plenty of salmon plus a few bonito. King George Sound has fished pretty well for squid and King George whiting in a range of depths with finding weed beds and broken ground the key to good catches. Good numbers of sand whiting and herring have also been caught in the sound.

Salmon have been sketchy but Little Beach and Nanarup Beach have been pretty reliable, with Taylor Inlet near Nanarup also holding a few bream. Bread and butter species such as yellowtail and herring have been caught at the Town Jetty and out at Emu Point, where whiting have also been around. The better land-based squid locations this week were the Town Jetty, Emu Point and the rocks at Frenchman Bay. In the King River black bream and a few juvenile snapper have been caught. Big thanks to the crew from Trailblazers in Albany for their tips!

Things have slowed on the demersal front but good-sized pink snapper are still about in reasonable numbers in Cockburn Sound and the at Three-Mile Reef, and they have been often brought on the bite with a bit of burley. Anglers chasing dhufish have fared best at the back of Garden Island in 60-80m depths while for King George whiting, Five-Fathom Bank and the Windmills have been producing. There are reports of dolphinfish and tuna species around the FADS. Mulloway have been caught in the shipping channels and a few salmon have been about Cockburn Sound but the salmon seem spooked by lures and best result have come from using live baits. The white water at Mewstones is holding chunky tailor which have been hitting unweighted mulies and lures such as Halco Slidogs. Closer in, the waters out from Fremantle have been good for sand whiting, herring and squid, while a few skippy have been caught on micro-jigs on the broken ground. Squid catches off Mindarie have improved this week. In the lower reaches of Swan River boaties are working harder to find chopper tailor schools but once found they are in decent sizes and numbers, while around Mosman Bay reports of big mulloway have been filtering in.  

Mulloway are a chance at North Mole which is also holding lots of herring and a few skippy. The end of North Mole has produced the odd salmon, usually on a live bait, while at night anglers using glow sticks above their baits have done well on tailor. Salmon schools have also been spotted well out of casting range along the City Beach to Brighton stretch of coast. South Mole has held plenty of herring and good numbers of squid. North of Fremantle, beaches holding structure have been producing herring, skippy and the odd flathead. In the Swan River, reports of big mulloway have come from North Fremantle, while soapie mulloway have been active at Canning Bridge. A few soapies have been caught further up river around Belmont and Maylands, along with small to medium-sized bream. In the middle to lower reaches of the river, tailor can still be caught from the drop-offs and jetties. Their numbers seem to be on the wane, but the Claremont area has been fairly reliable for them while a 50cm tailor was landed off the Como flats in the past week. Flathead have been hanging around the deeper drop-offs throughout the river, although they have mostly been a bycatch.