We are right in the middle of the best time of the year:
The fishing has been very very good with all boat
hirers getting good fish. The weather has been outstanding and the
Murchison River flow has just about stopped.
The dirty water out the front has been has attracted the mackerel and the tuna have been going off!
Those bottom fishing have been picking up all sorts of stuff like cobia, dolphinfish, coral trout, snapper, cods, dhufish and so on.
The great weather continues with lots of boat hires which is usual for this time of year. The mackerel and tuna have been a bit patchy towards the end of the month and as an example the guys who hired my 6.1m boat for the last 13 days had only caught about 10 mackerel up until the third last day and then between 3 boats caught 25 mackerel between 10kg and 15kgs at Wagoe that day.
We are getting out and chartering quite a bit
now that the season is in full swing.
Joseph Kiss and his group got into some nice yellow-fin tuna and a
surprise big mac tuna. We don’t get them often, but this one would have been
around 8kgs.
I made a short video showing the action.
Two
Boats To Gnaraloo!
Hi Laurie, just
thought I would send some photos through for your newsletter.
Winds up to 190kmh
lashed the Gnaraloo/ Carnarvon area 3 days before we were due to arrive.
Extensive damage, heavy rainfall and road closures,
meant we had to put the trip back for about 5
days until Paul from Gnaraloo was able to assess what damage was done and how
quickly he could
repair it to cater for fisherman to start arriving again.
Fortunately for us
the Fisherman’s Lodge escaped with only minor damage and
his crew were able to
clean it up quickly
to accommodate us.
We headed off on
Thursday with a crew of 7 collected the 2 hire boats and completed the
necessary paperwork at the T/O with
Laurie and
Sue. As we were going to be the first ones in after the cyclone and not
knowing the condition of the track, we decided to
bunk down at the
blowholes and travel on in to Gnaraloo in daylight Friday morning.
Reggie with some of
the two boats catch. Peter with a nice Red
Apart from lots of
sand blown onto the track which caused our 3 tonner to get bogged a couple of
times, there were no other dramas and we
scooted in to
Gnaraloo pretty quickly. We weren't planning on fishing on that day but
the wind forecast for the next 2 days was average so
we dropped the boats
in about lunch time and thought we would try a couple of spots close in
north and were rewarded with 7-8 Pinkies and
a couple of
Reds, so it wasn't a bad 1/2 days fishing. The next 2 days were blown out as
forecast but then it
flattened right off
for the remainder of the week.
Daryl with his Coral Trout
Peter, Dad and Daryl
with some nice cod.
Highlight of the trip
had to have been 45 minutes of mayhem in 60 m of water. Still don't know what
happened, but we had been anchored on flat seas
in an area that had
been good to us in past years for about an hour and had nothing to show for it,
when all hell broke loose. First the floating
mulie took off and
then Daryl locked up on something good. I dropped my bottom bouncing rod in the
rod holder and grabbed the floater
out of the rocket
launchers and after a brief struggle boated a 4-5 kg Saddletail! Can you
believe it? On a floating mulie in 60m of water!!
Daryl was still
arguing with his fish and now Reggie was on as well. I grabbed my
bottom rig rod and started cranking it up and half way up it
suddenly went tight
and I was on as well. Mine was a 12-14 kg mac on a bottom rig which cut off
Daryl's fish while it was
circling the boat and
Reggie dragged in a 4-5kg Mulloway!
Peter’s
crew with their last days catch.
Meanwhile the floater was off again with another thumping 15kg+ Spaniard. As fast as we could get the floater out it was off again. Then as
Meanwhile the floater was off again with another thumping 15kg+ Spaniard. As fast as we could get the floater out it was off again. Then as
quickly as it turned
on it stopped and we didn't get another fish. We had dragged lures for about 50
km for not a touch and now we
had 4 thumpers in 45
feet on floaters on an eggbeater with 7kg braid!
Caught a great
assortment of fish this year including Coral Trout, Baldchin, Estuary and
Rankin cod, and numerous Pinkies and Reds.
Sharks were again a
big problem with all the crew having those un-winnable tugs-of -war at some
stage over the week.
Laurie the pictures
are in order 4- my crew with our last days catch. 5- Reggie with some
of the 2 boats catch for the day.
7- and then
again but with Rob and his cod and then last. 8- Me with the biggest Red
of the trip caught on the last day 1/2 an
hour before we packed up to head home.
Peter Holtfreter
Shark Bay over Easter
Eric Prichard and family had a lightning trip
up to Shark Bay over the Easter break.
Hiring the 6.5m boat for 5 days- meant 2 days
travel leaving only 3 days of fun. He struck it lucky
with superb weather & all got onto some
great fish.
There were cobia and mackerel among the good times.
Mulloway, a sandwich, red emperor and trevally
were among the catch.
I don’t know how the flats fishing went but it
looks idyllic.
Peter Hardie, Jacqui
Young and family went out on our Charter, Tuesday 14th landing lots of fish.
They said it was full on with fish
almost every drop after landing 3 spotted mackerel and a small tuna on the
troll earlier on.
They ended up landing 4 dhuies,
(releasing 2), a cobia, rankin cod and releasing countless red-throat emperor
and sand snapper.
They spent 45 minutes on a shark, which
by the underwater photos looked like it was probably a grey nurse shark.
It was released of course.
A two day charter last week with David
Masters and his mates, Mark, Paul and Fergus had a
couple of good days on bottom fish.
Paul landed some nice fish including
this baldchin groper and 70cm pink snapper.
David got the biggest baldchin of the
trip as well as a very nice coral trout.
These chunky sand snapper, big pinky and
yellow-tail kingfish stretched his arms.
16th &
17th April 2015
Local comp this month incorporated the
annual LeisureCat Ultralight.
The Ultralight is a game fishing comp
for lines 1kg, 2kg, 3kg, 4kg and 6kg.
winning the 4kg line class section.
while Sue got a mac on 6kg line.
Donny Sutherland got this 10.7kg
mulloway on 6kg line to win the 6kg line class section.
Young Harry Waite did very well with
this 9.31kg mulloway on 3kg line to win
the 3kg line class section.
Harry’s fish is also a pending ANSA
National Record which he is claiming at the moment.
Harry won the junior overall and I got
the senior overall.
Bite of the Month
David Masters’ big
coral trout was an outstanding fish this month,
Nice one david!
Each month I award Bite of the
Month to someone who catches the best fish
from one of my boats.
