January 2006

PO Box 63 KALBARRI WA 6536 PH/FAX (08) 9937 2043 http://www.murchisonboathire.com.au/

MURCHISON BOAT HIRE JANUARY 2006 ELETTER

First mackerel for the season that I know about was caught by Neil Van Niekerk who comes up every year and hires the 6.1 m boat. He had it for 3 days this Christmas period and got into some nice fish down by Natural Bridge. He had a mulie hanging out the back while on anchor and this mac had a go at it. Quite a surprise catch as the water temp was only 21.1 degrees, usually a bit cold for macs! The rest of the crew Peter Du Preez and brothers Ross and Conrad Posthimus all caught fish but had some monster bust-offs that they recon were very big snapper! On the third day out Neil had a big hit on his live skippy that he had out the back resulting in this monster mac, not weighed but around 20kgs!

Yes you made “Bite of the Month”, for December Neil!

First mac of the season 28/12/05

and Neil’s thumper 20kg odd mac

Michael Davey and Craig Sharp were out in the 5.3m boat, and hearing of the fishing south also went down to the Natural Bridge area. They fished around the usual spots on my GPS and landed a few blue-lined emperor. When the fishing hotted up, they experienced the usual hook-up that then turned suddenly into a massive hook-up! This we know is usually big cod taking the smaller hooked up fish. Craig was the lucky one to eventually set hooks into the fish, landing a very nice estuary cod. They were unsure of the legalities of keeping a fish this size and elected to let it go. It however did not go down and floated away! Just by coincidence my 6.1m boat skippered by Zoran Grubic with the Grubic family of Goran, Dragon, Igor, Bojan and Slavko was also in the area near by and were catching an assortment of emperors when this cod, still alive, floated past, so they picked it up!

The floating cod from the 5.3m boat landed by the 6.1m boat.
They enjoyed the day but Slavko was a lot happier as in the picture because this was taken when he knew they were heading home! He had spent the whole day throwing up over the side! Slavko with a smile on his face because they were heading home

They were lucky enough to have dolphins surf under the boat on a nice day

Another happy angler was skipper Bishoy Paul centred who’s group picked up these baldchins and 5.7kg digitally weighed dhuie tucked under the Southern cliffs from the 6.1m the first day of a 2-day hire. Second day they only recorded a baldchin groper but they had a great two days and will be talking about it for a while.

Andrew Noel, Bishoy Paul and Aaron Baird show off their catch.

Aaron also caught this pretty fish.
Identified as a coral cod Cephalopholis miniata. It grows to about 1.5kg.

First one I have seen caught around these parts.

Clae Pike from Gingin and Adam Shields were on their annual fishing trip to Shark Bay and swung into Kalbarri and picked up the 5.3m boat, taking it up to steep point. Finding Steep point a bit difficult, (I am not surprised) they moved onto Denham and spent time fishing up at the tip of Peron Peninsula. They caught lots of snapper and had a ball. They reckon the place to go is the camp ground at the tip of Peron Peninsular in the Peron National Park, launch the boat over the hard sand and get into the snapper, tuna and mackerel.

Clae Pike and Adam Shields with average size Shark Bay pink snapper.

A mate of mine, John Hoye was up for a week of R&R staying in my accommodation and had to wait around a few days for a boat to be available and a nice day to coincide. We had a troll first up around the Sand Patch with no luck so pushed on to a nearby snapper spot where we picked up a couple. Moving out a bit deeper we landed a dhuie and an estuary cod. On the way home we bumped into a pod of dolphins that were crashing the surface in feeding mode. Now this usually means that there could be tuna amongst them. We had a good look for them and saw no sigh of tuna. On the off chance we put the lures out (dolphins won’t take lures, they’re too smart) and within a minute we had a double hook-up! John’s Saltiga outfit screamed but the hooks pulled. I was left loosing 8kg line fast until John turned the boat and gave chase. After an hour we got our first look at a big yellow-fin, Another half hour and the fish was coming up to the boat but still not ready for the gaff when the hooks pulled and the tuna just glided away! A very disappointing result on a very good fish. Estimates in the 20-30kg range.

The cod, from the trip

The river mouth before the flood

The river mouth a couple of days later with the chocolate coloured water from cyclone Clair

Up river at Gregory Rocks.

I went up river in the 4.3m boat. (Only possible in the flood conditions) There is still a lot of water to come down yet! With the river spewing chocolate water out into the ocean, sometimes the fishing for mackerel along the colour change is truly awesome. The first available day weather wise and the 6.1 not booked I shot out to have a look see. Dale, a friend of my brother in law was visiting from Kununurra and was telling me all about the Ord River barra fishing! Well I thought I would show him some Murchison River Mackerel! He has never caught a mackerel, baldchin or dhuies so after failing to get him a mackerel we tried a couple of spots past Baldface north of the river mouth.

Well it took most of the morning, but Dale picked up a very nice baldie and then went on to pick up a dhuie as well.

I have put you up as “bite of the month” for January Dale!

Dale shows off his dhuie

and my PB baldie 6.4kgs

Luckily I showed him up by landing my personal best baldie of 6.4kgs.

You can see the colour change in this pic taken at the Chinamans point. This is when the tailor go ballistic. The incoming tide pushes under the fresh water and we cast poppers into the dirt and dragged them into the clear. Just as the poppers hit the clear, fish after fish climbed all over the poppers. In a 45-minute session this week I lost four tailor, (and my Halco Rooster popper to an unstoppable fish), released 3 and kept this 3.9kg average sized fish.

It was a memorable session (It is not always like this)

Jason Lowe and mate Kamal were back again this year taking out the 5.3m boat for 2 days landing snapper, skippy and silver bream from spots around the Sand Patch both days. They had a great time, stayed in my accommodation and picked up the discounts on boat hire.

Kamal also managed this small mulloway at the Chinaman’s in the evening.

Jason & Kamal show off their snapper.

Kalbarri Offshore Angling Club, Ultra Light Comp 28th & 29th January

Really crap weather was the forecast for our annual Ultra Light comp this month. We went out on the Saturday and got blown away by the wind and huge seas. We hit a big patch of wheeling birds that gave us hope but nothing happened. Battered and bruised we came inshore and made a plan. Knowing the bite time was around 10am and that there should be mulloway just out of the entrance near Black Rock, we anchored and dropped mulies down into the chocolate coloured water on light lines. My daughter Rebecca got hit first by something big on her 3kg outfit but the hooks pulled, I got into something big and my hooks pulled. Trying again, another hit almost immediately and this time the hooks held for 45 minutes till this 12.15kg mulloway surfaced. A pending National record on 3kg line class!

My 12.15kg fish

The following day was even windier so we checked the bite time in the almanac again and found it to be around 11am. We slept in and went out to Black Rock around 10am to meet a couple of other boats that had got the goss on the fishing. First up, son Jared, hooked up but the hooks pulled after about 10 minutes, but was soon onto his second on 4 kg line. The mulloway went 5kg and is also a pending Junior National ANSA record.

Jared’s 5kg fish, check out the dirty water!

Our fish were the only game fish weighed in so won the 3kg and 4kg line classes. We also hooked up on a few unstopables, probably sharks and shovelnose rays

Featured website this month is http://www.earth.google.com/ extraordinary site where you can zoom into anywhere on the planet and see quite clear satellite photos. I recently had a look at Coral Bay as my son was going up there for a fish and you can actually pick out the bigger coral bommies and plan where to fish! You have to down load the free software and you need XP minimum and a fair bit of memory. Remember if you rent our accommodation you get big discounts on our boats.

Have a look on my website for the details, and check out the savings.

Check out http://www.oceanoutlook.com.au/ and go to the Geraldton weather for local weather conditions 5-day weather forecasts,

or http://www.buoyweather.com/ and go to virtual buoys, is not a bad one!

Big bait – big fish

Laurie

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