July 2006

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

MURCHISON BOAT HIRE JULY 2006 ELETTER
The mackerel run continues to the end of July!
I managed to get out at the beginning of the school holidays and went out with my son Ben, back from Uni, and Gavin Penn, from the Kalbarri Palm Resort. As the weather was looking particularly good a couple of local guys hired the 5.3m boat and we went north together to have a crack at some mackerel. It turned out very well catching 7 mackerel between the two boats. We then went to a spot I suspected might have some dhuies on it as I had caught them there same time last year and was right! 3 dhuies from one spot together with a few snapper and odds and ends. Made for a great day out.

Paul in the 5.3m shows off one of the three mackerel they caught.

Gavin and Ben display the huge chunk of coral encrusted limestone that came up with the anchor. The anchor pull was so hard it took 2 of us in shifts with the help of the swell to get it up. Then we had to gaff and rope it off to get it up enough to get the anchor off. I was so exhausted I nearly threw up! Proof that we were on good ground!

One of the seven macs was a good one, 16kgs, equalling my personnel best.

Gavin holds his first mac and first dhufish ever caught. Last time he was out with me he caught his first ever yellow fin tuna!

My son’s girlfriend Rhea was up from Geraldton with parents, Mike and Siobhan. They have never been fishing before and done very little boating so when a whale-watching trip was organised I felt a bit apprehensive. It all went very well and luckily it was a very nice day but no whales showed themselves and a troll for mackerel failed to get a sniff so we went to a nearby spot that I knew produced a lot of fun-to-catch skippy. Well, on the bite time as predicted it was snapper after snapper (most undersize) and then the skippy came on so thick that every drop was hammered. It all went quiet and I realised that the wind had changed direction and we had swung slightly off the spot. It is that critical to be on the spot. We reset the anchor and it was mulloway one after the other! They all caught one and then started to release the rest! You made “Bite of the Month” Rhea!
Mike with his mulloway

& skippy.
Rhea got the biggest mulloway.
Rhea ‘s second mulloway and a skippy for Siobhan.
Siobhan’s mulloway.
This is the first time that we have caught mulloway from this spot and first time that I have caught mulloway from the boat other than in the river mouth. Hirers have quite frequently got them and I have wondered how, but it seems to be just luck and at the right spot at the right time.
Max, Rob Tenaglia and Frank Tenaglia. The bigger mac went 13kgs.
Now these are very happy guys. They took a 2-day hire and the fishing gods smiled on them. two great weather days combined with the fish going off resulted in them catching 6 nor’ west snapper, 12 pink snapper, a dhuie and a mackerel the first day and 4 mackerel, 2 tuna, 1 dhuie and 8 pinkies the second day! I doesn’t get much better than that! Where did they go? I don’t know either but it was up past Baldface somewhere!
Knowing that the snapper were going sick in the clear water north of Baldface I shot up the next day with my son Ben, mate Lou Parker and his mate Nathan Pearce from Kalamunda. Now Nathan gets seasick but he dosed himself up with dangerous amounts of Quell and luckily stayed right all day.Lou Parker’s mac and Ben Malton holds his yellow-fin and dhuie.
We trolled up 2 macs in short order followed by a couple of yellow-fin tuna and then went to have a go at the snapper. But as fishing goes, we could not get a bite; we weren’t even loosing our bait! We struggled on all day but luckily the weather held and just on the 4.00pm bite time it all happened.
Some of you might recognise the landmarks behind Nathan!
A couple of dhuies came aboard, then this good one for Nathan. Just as I was taking this photo of Nathan's dhuie my rod took a big bend, I reluctantly let Lou grab it while I put my camera away, and grabbed it back when he said he thought it was a dhuie! After a while it felt like a sambo, then a shark, then a dead weight as I found out when I reeled in the head of a big dhuie.
This big blue mako shark followed the dhuie head back in and we had a chance to take these photos and a video while it munched on the head beside the boat.
We recon that the dhuie must have been 10-15kgs! What a waste!

Rob Tenaglia phoned the next day, he wanted to do it all again! He had had so much fun catching all those snapper that he, Max, and Frank took the 5.3m boat out and shot up to his spots up north. Now they must have better spots than me because they bagged out (four each) on good-sized snapper again!

Have a look at these fish. This is only half of them!

Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club, Local comp 22nd July
Pretty average weather meant we didn’t go too far, and not many boats went out but still got into some nice fish.

My son Jared won the junior section with this little sambo,

while Di Stewart landed this beautiful 1.46kg bream in the river to win the river section. (The bream was kept alive then tagged and released, so it is still out there guys!)

I picked up the senior under 7.5m boat with a few skippy and a small sambo.

Dave Hugill won the senior over 7.5m section with this 3.3kg pink snapper.

Lou Parker and I went up the river last Wednesday, turned out to be a nice day with very little wind. There was an incoming tide up until lunchtime which gave us time to get up river, have a fish and get back down without too much trouble bumping rocks and shallow sand bars that plague the river at low tide. We fished the snaggy areas that we could find catching and releasing 6 bream and of course dropping a few!
As soon as the tide turned they shut down and we never got another bite despite being on a spot where we could see at least 6 just size and a couple of thumpers just holding out in the snags. We dropped our best-presented river prawn baits on their noses but they would not take!

Lou Parker with an average one

and one of mine that must have been close to a kilo.
You can see the snaggy country we are fishing in and we even had to park the boat and walk the bank to get to this spot.

7.5kg Niloticas Bream
Here is an interesting photo, sent to me by a mate in Zimbabwe. The fish is a species of Tilapia that is common in Africa and is now fish farmed in cages in Lake Kariba on the Zambezi River. The fish escape from the aquaculture cages and become feral in the lake. The world record for this fish is 6.5kgs. This one though 7.5kg was not recorded, but a big fish for a freshwater species.

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.


5-day weather forecasts, http://www.buoyweather.com/ go to virtual buoys, pick the location you want. This is the one I go by!


Big bait – big fish
Laurie

If you want to be included in these newsletters just send a blank email to lasue@wn.com.au with the subject line “Subscribe” and you will receive one each month.

June 2006

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

MURCHISON BOAT HIRE JUNE 2006 ELETTER

The mackerel run continues into June with everyone getting their bag limit when conditions are right. What are the right conditions? Well, it seems to be when the swell has been down a couple of days and the water clarity has picked up. If the water is green with flecks in it you won’t catch mackerel but green and clear there is a chance, better if the water is clear and blue! It seems that the swell stirs up the bottom and lifts particles into the water column. Also water temp should be over 22.5 degrees but can be lower if conditions are really good.
A lot of big snapper about as well, if you are at the right spot at the right time they will really turn it on for you.

The seasons have changed now and the whales are back. Today there were whales in the bay near the mouth of the Murchison and a baby whale (born already!) breaching half way to the Sand Patch. The whale population is increasing by 10% a year and now there is an almost guarantee of seeing whales every day from now until late October.
Soon the fantastic wildflowers will be out and the bush will be transformed.

James Scovell picked it right with a 2-day hire with the 6.1m boat over the long weekend at the beginning of the month. With an easterly all day flattening the swell, it all happened at the Sand Patch on the first day with the group catching 7 mackerel and releasing another 2.
James and crew of Andrew Woolley, Alison Robertson, Steve Tomsic all caught their first mackerel ever.

Alison’s bigger of the two she caught. James shows off one of his.

Andrew picked up 2 big ones to 12kgs

and the group with all the macs.

They then went out a bit deeper to the 35m mark to try for a tuna but to no avail, so headed a bit further north for a bottom fish. It was a bit slow at first but picked up towards the end of the day when James and Andrew each got a dhuie and Allison picked up this beautiful big pink snapper.
Alison’s big pink snapper

and the dhuie pair.
Second day out the swell was rising but the fish had turned the lights out and gone home! 3 missed strikes from mackerel and one skippy from the bottom, funny how it goes! It would have been a big ask to have bettered or even equalled their first day!

On the same day, 4th June, the 5.3 went out with 4 fairly inexperienced anglers, Adam Fowler had experience with a boat but Jake and Marc Harrington and Chad Swan were pretty new to the game. They also headed to the Sand Patch on my instruction and I expected them to catch quite a few mackerel. They had the right gear; a couple of hired rods and two lures the right type and colour from me, but only managed one mackerel. It was not their fault, the fish had shut down as they had for the other boat! After trolling for quite a long time they tried a bit of bottom bouncing just off Red Bluff with Adam getting the bite of his life and landing this monster 7kg snapper!

Adam Fowler with his 7kg snapper and Jake Harrington very happy with his mackerel.
You also made bite of the month Adam!

Kalbarri boat ramp now has a very nice Finger Jetty down the middle of the ramp. It only took 2 days to install and makes launching and retrieving a lot easier. Loading the boat up with gear and getting aboard is a breeze now!

35m long by a couple wide.

The 6.1m boat at the Finger Jetty.

Also early June a couple from Queensland dropped in wanting a boat. The 5.3m was available and just what they needed. They followed me out as I was also going out for a look-see, and headed south. They had a great day, as the following email from Niki will testify.

Dear Laurie and Sue,

Doug & I, (Niki), hired your 5.3m boat on 6th June 2006. This was our last day, on a 3-week holiday, to enjoy some fishing before driving to
Perth & flying home to Brisbane the next night.

Firstly thanks for spending time with us explaining everything, making
you late for your fishing, and setting us up for a great day out on the
water it was much appreciated.

After getting over that bar - 1st time over any bar for me, which wasn't
as bad as I thought it was going to be - we headed south did a bit of
trolling before anchoring up. A bit of chop and swell made it a bit rocky, I hoped fishing would take my mind off it. Quite a few bites but
nothing to get excited about to start with. So as Doug kept fishing, I
tried to stop thinking about feeling crook when we noticed some
Humpbacks passing by about 200m away. They decided to stick around and
put a show on for us for about 45mins before moving on. Fantastic to
watch!
Back to fishing. We decided to drift; as usual we found the best spot
about 2 hours before we we're due back in. Doug caught a nice Pink
Snapper, Black Snapper and a 16kg Samson Fish, which he tried for 30 mins
to re-swim but the fish had had it. I caught a nice Blue Morwong and
Rankin Cod.
All in all a great day out that wouldn't have been possible without all
of your help.

We both can't wait to come back, but this time we're staying for at
least a week not 2 nights!

Kind Regards
Niki & Doug


Niki’s rankin cod

and Doug’s 16kg samsonfish

There was a bit of a gap in the bookings of the 6.1 this month so took the opportunity to put the 6.1m boat on a mooring in the river and take the 6.1m trailer in to Geraldton. I stripped it down into many pieces, got all the rust sand blasted off, re primed and painted, new bolts throughout, new LED lights and wiring, new wheel bearings and mudguards. It is a good as new and will last a few more years yet. So those of you taking it up north to Gnaraloo, Exmouth and Thevenard etc can have confidence that it is going to get you there and back!

Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club, Local comp 17th June
Some nice fish this month, big baldies, mulloway and sharks were caught from the beach and rocks. A hirer, Matt Aldridge and mates caught good fish around the Sand Patch from the 5.3m and weighed in for the comp only to be knocked off by unexpected very big snapper by Koot Myburgh. My wife sue picked up a little coral trout among her bag of skippy.

Simon Tarasek’s monster 4.85kg baldy from the rocks

and Matt Aldridge with his 2.6kg coral trout

Sue’s little coral trout from Wagoe

while Koot Myburgh holds his 8.25kg snapper, the biggest one of a bag of four!

Featured website this month is http://www.koac.fishingaustralia.com.au/ the all-new Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club’s website. Contains all info about the club, comp reports, committee, comp info, photo gallery, events calendar and lots more. It is hosted by the associated website http://www.fishingaustralia.com.au/.

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

If you would like to be included in these newsletters just send a blank email to lasue@wn.com.au with the subject line “subscribe” and you will receive one each month.