Murchison boat hire fishing 2006

December 2006

2006-12-26T16:55:00.000-08:00

PO Box 63 KALBARRI WA 6536 PH/FAX (08) 9937 2043
MURCHISON BOAT HIRE CHRISTMAS 2006 ELETTER
A merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone
The cray season opened on the 15th of November but I did not put my pots in until the Monday 4th December (After the full moon) with the first pull on the Wednesday. The run of the whites started early this year and we were into the crays straight away. 2 crays the first day and then, 8, 9, 15, 10,16,16,8,12,10,10,16,12,10,13,7,6. We have done better this year than last mainly as the season started earlier we had longer before the boats get booked solid for Christmas and I don’t have a boat to go out in. Our last pull was the Friday 22nd and the tally was 180 crays over the 17 days. That should be enough to see me well into the New Year.

Bruno and my son Jared pull the pots.

A pot comes up full of crays

At least 8 crays in this pot, they won’t be all legal size but with 4 pots we usually get a fair haul!

Some of the 12 crays we got that day, we were off to Red Bluff for a troll for a mackerel before returning to the boat ramp by 9am ready for work!

Amateur cray licences are available at any post office or on line at http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/. You may have 2 pots and catch 8 crays per day. We have two licences on my boat which is the max so we are permitted to pull 4 pots thus allowing us to catch 16 crays max. We share the crays, bait and fuel.
Some times the days are just too good to go back in so we have a short troll.

As far as I know this is the first game fish of the season out from Kalbarri. 11kgs of hard fighting yellow-fin tuna. I caught it on the Saturday 16th December. Quite unusual for a yellow-fin tuna this early but we did get hits on our lures (without hook-ups) on the Monday and Wednesday before.
The water has been over 22.5 degrees all month so it is not surprising that the mackerel and tuna are here already.

The next day was a good day as well and Stefan DeLucia was out with us helping his dad, Bruno, pull the pots and we went for another troll. Stefan’s best fish until now was a small tailor from Witacarra beach, but soon that all changed with this big hook-up.

Stefan’s first mackerel, an 8kg early season speedster that really gave him a work out!

Luckily I hooked up and got one as well!
Top lure colour for this year? So far when the macs have a choice the king brown coloured lures have been taken. Stefan’s incidentally was taken on a redhead. Halco laser pro 190DD’s are the way to go. You can buy them at the right price, from my Shed Shop when you hire my boats. I got loads of them!

We have accepted an offer on the house, the “Secret Waypoint” and it should settle next year. We are just about fully booked until settlement. But our other accommodation will come on line as from the 9th Feb and is better that “The Secret Waypoint”. The same deal will continue with discounts on boat hire when staying in any of our accommodation units.
Sold already! The new owners say they will be listing it with our accommodation agents so will still be available, but for how long and how much I cannot say.

I have been going out in my 5.3m boat a fair bit to pull the pots when the 6.1m has been booked and am very impressed with the performance of the new 100 4-stroke Yamaha that powers it. It fair jumps out of the water and on the plane quickly. It hits max speed at around 4500 revs so pushing it to 6000 revs makes little difference, thus cruising at 4500 is a real fuel saver. When I collected my pots on the 22nd we had 3 adults and 2 kids aboard plus 4 cray pots and it still jumped up on the plane on the way home. I know that the 6.1m boat would have struggled a bit with that load, as it only has a 115hp 4-stroke Yamaha but the comfort of a big boat is what counts!

Here are a couple of pics of a very lucky Rob Jacobs and mate Ian Brunette. I say lucky because Rob phoned up earlier in the year to book a boat and had a lot of trouble getting accommodation during this very busy time. We hunted around for him eventually coming up with some at the Palm Resort. He then phoned up and cancelled the boat saying that he had bought his own boat! Thanks Rob! Unfortunately when he went to get the trailer registered there was a mix up with the VIN number and ended up having to leave the boat back in Perth. He then came round to me on the 23rd Dec. grovelling for a boat! I say lucky, as the only boat available was the 5.3m on Christmas day. Lucky they also had brownie points stored up and the wives let them go fishing! Lucky they hit the mackerel out from the ever-faithful Sand Patch.

Ian with his Sand Patch caught mac.

Rob with his. Note the Sand Patch in the background. Rob also released a shark mackerel.

Ian got 2 fish as well

A how to catch mackerel and tuna by pictures.

Pick a nice day and get up early, be on the water by first light
Select the right lure and colour. This year the colour is king brown. Halco Laser Pro 190DD is my choice of lure type.
Troll where the fish are, around the cray pots 22m deep from 1km north of the Murchison River Mouth to a couple of kms past the Sand Patch. There is another patch from Red Bluff to Pot Alley.

Drag the lures around at about 4-6knots, (fast walking pace). Wait patiently for a strike. It helps to drag teasers behind in the prop wash as well.

Find the bait schools and working birds and troll around them, not too close as you will scare them away. A tuna or mac will find your lure sooner or later.

When the strike comes, stop the boat, bring in all other lines and teasers and take control of the fish, no need to have a tight drag! Jared is fishing 6kg line.
Be patient, this took 1 hour on the morning of the 28th Dec, before we saw the fish. It was a yellow-fin tuna about 15-20kgs.
Have the best tackle you can afford. We fish Shimano TLD15’s and
Shimano Charter Special 2000’s for 6kg line class. 1000’s for 3kg line. We change the drag washers to carbon fibre washers and get the reel serviced from new and remove the level wind.
Unfortunately the fish bust off after an hour, close to the boat, almost within a gaff shot! I nearly cried, Jared did not feel too good either!

The Kalbarri Sports Fishing Classic preparations are well advanced and ready for another successful event on the 2nd 3rd and 4th March next year. I have had a cancellation for the 5.3m boat as well as the house so both are available that weekend. It is the Labour Day long weekend and in the middle of the best fishing months here in Kalbarri. The Classic will be on so it will be very busy and if you are thinking of fishing a tournament this would be a great start. You can download an entry form from the Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club website. Just go to the Kalbarri Classic Sports Fishing page.

Last month I reported on the sinking of the iconic Kalbarri River Queen. Well it's back up and floating again and all fixed up. The skipper is keeping quiet about it but it seems that when he had it out of the water, he replaced the Hamilton Jets Screws and inadvertantly replaced the seals the wrong way round so it was letting water in and not letting it out!

Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club, Local comp.

No comp this month, just too busy for everyone!

The caravan park at Port Gregory is under new management and a booking agent for my boats. You can now book a boat and pick it up in Port Gregory.

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 me a return BLANK email with the subject line “subscribe” and you will receive one each month.

November 2006

2006-12-02T01:02:00.000-08:00

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

This month is the start of the improving weather, the swell drops, the water warms up and the mornings are usually calm so we have more chance to get out and play. We still get a lot of wind at this time of year but that usually kicks in around lunch. With the low swells the abalone picking gets easier and I have been out with some mates getting a feed.
Picking a low swell and a low tide at the same time is the secret. Roe’s Abalone the kind we get up here can be found in abundance but you need to get out of the easier reached places like north of the river mouth. Rock pools like above hide over size abs.
They are there for the picking, lined up like on a supermarket shelf along the ledges and cracks in the reef.
Some are easy to find but others are hidden away under ledges and are inaccessible. If you turn them upside down they will just about climb out of their shells feeling for something to help them turn over with. Makes them easy to shuck when they do this. There is a fair bit of preparation but real tasty when measured, collected, shucked, cleaned, beaten and pan-fried.

Exmouth Billfish Bonanza
Our trip to Exmouth was disappointing to say the least. A very long drive up, 10 and a half hours from Kalbarri towing my 6.1m boat. We crossed the 26th parallel and the Tropic of Capricorn. Seems to be a big thing as lots of tourists stop and take a picture of the tropic line!

I snapped this pic of the tourists as we went by

We past the multitudes of termite mounds
The whole aim of going to Exmouth was to enter the Betta Electrical Billfish Tournament and catch a sailfish. We have never caught one before and the guys up there showed us where to go, how to do it and generally offered as much info as asked for.

We were given tags, which looked quite big and difficult to stick into a billfish

so we tried sticking one in a rock melon to try to see what it felt like. The tags went in OK.

We stayed at the Pot Shot Resort, $123.00 a night, about as reasonable as you can get in Exmouth and they have emus walking about the grounds and also all over Exmouth town site.

The way we were told and saw other boats doing the same is to head out into the Gulf about 25k north east of the Exmouth Marina to near the “Macky Lumps” or Exmouth Reef and troll around dragging teasers behind the boat. When a sailfish comes up to have a look at the teasers, you free spool a gardie rigged on a circle hook to it. Sometimes they are a little fussy and will only take a live bait,

so we jigged up some baits beforehand and had them rigged ready to go. Well we never got to raise a sailfish so never fed back a bait over the two days! Of the 17 boats in the comp only 7 boats caught fish so I don’t feel too bad but I sure am disappointed. We saw sailfish being caught by other boats so we were in the right area, doing the right thing, just unlucky I guess. So a bit of soul searching, teaser modification and enthusiasm needed next time. I have a waypoint for the sailfish grounds, Dayne, and for anyone else who hires one of my boats and is taking it up there.

The afternoons glassed off. This is us powering back at 45km/h at 5.30pm from the centre of the Gulf. No swell, no wind, no sailfish!
For the record we travelled 265km over the two days and used up 1 litre of fuel per 1.6km travelled.

The cray season has started but I have not had a chance to get my pots in yet and will now wait until the “whites”. That is, after they have shed their shells and hardened up and start to move out to deeper water. It is easy to catch them then. They tend to stay under cover, not moving around or feeding while their shells are soft, so will not move into your pots, hence it is hardly worth having your pots out. It is however when the fishing greatly improves as the snapper and dhuie all move inshore to suck the jelly crays out of their holes. They should start after the full moon so I will be putting my pots in around 5th December.

New Accommodation
As per last newsletter the new accommodation comes on line from the first week in February. It is the “Deluxe Duplex” and both units on the block have an enclosed courtyard at the back with a BBQ. Only one street back from the foreshore right behind the IGA.
Both duplexes have an enclosed back courtyard, carport, aircon, washer, microwave, TV etc, are fully self-contained and each sleeps 6.
Rates have not been finalised yet but will remain much the same as they were and we will still offer the same discounts with the boats for these units as usual. They each sleep 6 but being a duplex can take larger groups, as they are right together. I will be posting it all up on my website soon on the accommodation page .We will repaint inside and out and fix it up a bit and make it more comfortable.

Sad News
This morning, Saturday 2nd December, we awoke to find the “Icon” of Kalbarri, The River Queen sunk to the bottom of the river with just the bow above water! A real tragedy for Tim & Julia Woodcock, the operators of the River Queen that have been plying the river for the past 20 or so years.

With the help of the Shire loaders, grader, and a thick rope that broke a few times, they pulled the boat to the edge of the beach where it stuck fast as by this time the bow had filled with water and it settled on the bottom.

They managed to get it out of the water and onto the davit but we don’t know what the problem was as yet!

Boat Hire Price Rise
The price rise has come and gone and my new brochures are out and about with the new prices on them. The price rise was not very much so it is not going to hurt too bad but on the up side, all my boats now have 4-stroke Yamahas saving you a fair packet on your fuel bill. The new prices are on my website at www.murchisonboathire.com.au/hire_rates2.htm

Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club, Local comp 18th November.
I was away in Exmouth for this comp, but some good fish were caught as usual.

Lui with his shark and baldchin,

fine mulloway from the beach and Di with a river caught estuary cod.
We also had our once a year away day at Wagoe last week. We stayed in the chalets and fished the Friday night and Saturday and had the weigh-in and party on the Saturday night.
This 22.8kg mulloway was caught by Karen Palamara on the Sat evening, as were other fish.

The caravan park at Port Gregory is under new management and a booking agent for my boats. You can now book a boat and pick it up in Port Gregory.

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 me a BLANK email to lasue@wn.com.au with the subject line “subscribe” and you will recieve one each month.

October 2006

2006-11-01T17:23:00.000-08:00

PO Box 63 KALBARRI WA 6536 PH/FAX (08) 9937 2043 http://www.murchisonboathire.com.au/
The school holidays at the beginning of the month were full on with the boats with the 5.3m boat going up to Coral Bay for 2 weeks. I met Dale Fowler at the Ajana turn off at 10am on the morning of the 1st October. He had prepaid the boat hire and was on his way to Coral Bay after a quick rundown on the boat.

The 5.3m at the Ajana turn off at 10am Sunday 1st October, waiting for Dale Fowler

Dale told me he had a great time catching tuna, spangled emperor and the kids had a ball catching and releasing multitudes of trevally.

The 6.1m at the Ajana turn off at 2.00pm Sunday 1st October with Simon Dutton on his way to Karratha.
I had only just got back to Kalbarri and as pre arranged Simon Dutton phoned to say he was leaving Geraldton and would be at the turn off within the hour. I met him there with the 6.1m boat and he was on his way to Karratha for a week. He told me it was a bit of a struggle towing the boat with a station wagon, but got to Karratha in the end. They utilised their Karratha mate’s 4WD to launch and retrieve the boat and travelled far and wide picking up 20 or so big fish and kindly leaving a couple of marks in the GPS.
If you are travelling to spots north of here and want a boat, remember I will take it out to the turn off free of charge, saving you the drive into Kalbarri. You only have to pay the deposit and the hire prior to departure and ring me when you are leaving Geraldton and we should both reach the turn off at the same time. You will however have to bring it back into Kalbarri on the return.

New Accommodation
Latest development is that I have been lucky to purchase one of the Av-er-rest duplexes that were up for auction late October. It is the “Deluxe Duplex” and both units on the block have an enclosed courtyard at the back with a BBQ. Only one street back from the foreshore right behind the IGA.
Both duplexes have an enclosed back courtyard, carport, aircon, washer, microwave, TV etc, are fully self-contained and each sleeps 6.
There is a long settlement so cannot get access until February 9th but will take bookings now for after that date. Rates have not been finalised yet but will remain much the same as they were and we will still offer the same discounts with the boats for these units as usual. They each sleep 6 but being a duplex can take larger groups, as they are right together. I will be posting it all up on my website soon on the accommodation page We will repaint inside and out and fix it up a bit and make it more comfortable.

Boat Hire Price Rise
Sorry to announce but the dreaded price rise has come. This has been prompted by the new 100hp 4-stroke Yamaha that is now on the 5.3m boat and also we have not had a price rise for 3 years. As from the 1st of November the prices went up. Those of you who paid your deposit will be locked into the old price so you don’t have to worry. The price rise was not very much so it is not going to hurt too bad. All my boats now have 4-stroke Yamahas. The new prices are on my website at www.murchisonboathire.com.au/hire_rates2.htm

Kids Whiting Comp
During the October school holidays the angling club hosts a Kids Whiting Comp each Thursday of the holidays. We had 174 excited kids signing up the first Thursday, 58 more kids than last year, all ready to fish the beach from the Chinamans to the first jetty. Rules of the comp allow any fish to be caught, kept in a bucket and brought to the weigh-in live, weighed and then released. The Volunteer Sea Search and Rescue, Police, and Ashley Van Viersen loaned their 4WD bikes and gave kids a lift to the weigh station saving them the long walk over the sand.
The crowd at the weigh-in

Some of the kids with their fish

We did a sausage sizzle each day and awarded 16 rods & reels as prizes as well as loads of stuff from our sponsors for things like biggest whiting, most fish, biggest blowie, smallest blowie etc. 156 kids the second day, it sure is a fun day for the kids and some of the fish were quite good for middle of the day and the location!
We also gave away a free one-day boat hire as a raffle prize on both days.

Exmouth Billfish Bonanza
Later this month my wife, Sue, and I are going up to Exmouth to fish the “Betta Electrical Billfish Bonanza”. It is a 2-day comp and we are going to try to catch our first sailfish. The guys up there recon they will help out by telling us where the fish are and tips on how to do it! It’s not going to be easy but will be fun trying. Will write about it next month and hopefully have some pics.

Cray Season Starts
The cray season is close to starting again. It will be all go from the 15th November, but I won’t get my pots in until I get back from the billfish comp on the 20th. It will be a couple of weeks after that until the “run of the whites” when it is real easy to get crays. The “run of the whites” is when they shed their shells, wait up in reef holes until their shells harden (still light coloured until properly hardened) and then move en mass out to deeper water. Any pot placed on sand between the reefs is obvious shelter as they move from reef to reef. The fishing really picks when the crays shed their shells as the dhuies and snapper come in and suck the jelly crays out of the reef holes and then hang around to pick up the whites.

For those of you who are planning a trip and want to catch more. Here are a few of my tips for the Midwest area that might change you into being one of the 10% who catch 90% of the fish.

1/ Plan your trip around the Almanac: It is best to plan your trip around the tides & moon phases for the species you would like to catch. Rising moon in the evening for tailor from the beach at night. Incoming tide and dark night for mulloway. Half moon for mackerel & tuna. New moon to three quarter moon with a rising tide in the morning for bottom fishing.

2/ Tackle preparation: Have all your rigs made up and stored where you know where they are and are easy to get at. If you bust off it is no good using up good fishing time tying rigs. Tie a new pre made rig on and get back to fishing fast. Make sure your reel is in good condition and spooled with new line and that the drag is smooth and set correctly. If not get it serviced.

3/ Use the correct knots: I can’t stress this point enough. If your knots are not up to scratch you will loose fish and it is usually the best fish of the day that breaks off! Of all the styles of fishing I do I only use 5 knots, a Bimini Double, Uniknot, Double Uniknot, Triline Knot and Dropper Loop. If you don’t know them get a knot book or have some one show you and practice, practice, practice. The Bimini double is a 100% knot, use it with a Double Uniknot to your leader and then a Uniknot to your terminal tackle, goes for just about all styles. For lighter lines like bream fishing a Trilene Knot to the swivel will do. The following websites have diagrams and drawings.
http://www.fish4fun.com/
http://www.netknots.com/
www.peterfaustdam.com/bimini.asp
www.fishnet.com.au/knotsrigs/knotsrigs.html

4/ Keep it simple: Use the minimum amount of clips, swivels, cross clips, wire and gangs. Too much jewellery and some thing has to give. One swivel is all you need.

5/ Fish where the fish are: If there are no fish where you are fishing you will not catch, so fish on reef structure for bottom fish, over reef or amongst the bait fish for mackerel & tuna, in the snags for bream and generally at the known hot spots, because that is where the fish are.

6/ Use the right bait or lure: Fish are not clever, they are purely instinctive. If they are not biting (and you are in the right spot) it is because they are not feeding. (Check the almanac for the predicted bite time) However changing baits to either a different type, fresher or live often brings results. (To give an example of instinctive behaviour, I was fishing with my wife for snapper on light line when I had a hook up and was about 10 minutes into the fight when my wife hooked up. We both landed a snapper at the same time; it was my snapper that had taken her bait as well during the fight on my line!)

7/ Fish the change of light: Fish keep antisocial hours feeding mainly during the early morning and late evening just as the sun is going down or rising. So often I meet anglers packing up towards evening to get home for tea, just as I am arriving. They say “No fish here mate!” and walk off gloomily. Sometimes I’m into a fish first cast!

Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club, Local comp 21st October.
Fairly quiet comp this month, with few boats going out mainly due the offish weather.

Some of the notable catches was junior Jack Fernie’s .96 kg bream from the jetty

and Koot Myburg’s 19.8kg amberjack

Daughter Rebecca picked up a snapper, baldchin and shark,

Sue a snapper and I got 3 snapper and a fair size shark that I released.

Not a great catch but the weather fined up later on but not good enough to get to the spots I would have liked but a good day was had by all.

The caravan park at Port Gregory is under new management and a booking agent for my boats. You can now book a boat and pick it up in Port Gregory.

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 me a blank email to mailto:lasue@wn.com.au with the subject line “subscribe” and you will receive one each month.

September 2006

2006-10-10T06:04:00.000-07:00

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

The month started very well for me! A mate of mine, Paul Youngman, from Perth was up for a weeks rest and had to wait around a few days for a big blow to end but managed to get out with me towards the end of his break. The blow was not quite over and when we got out wide, the easterlies picked up Paul threw up over the side and I had trouble holding bottom even with my new very effective drift anchor out and extra lead! It wasn’t until around lunchtime when the wind calmed a few knots that we started to pick up a few fish. Then on one spot all hell broke loose with a double hook-up. Paul got his in but I could not lift mine from the bottom even with my 80lb braid! It would come up a few metres and then pull drag all the way down again, eventually getting off!

A second drift and Paul was into his second and I landed a very respectable 10kg dhuie.
Paul with his two dhuies.
Third drift and this 13.5kg dhuie came to the surface; I wonder how big the first one was? My personal best dhuie 13.5kgs

Well it has finally happened! The 2-stroke motor on the 5.3m boat called it a day, the pistons were scoured and a rebuild would cost as much as the motor was worth. So we have bitten the bullet and extended a loan and bought a new 100hp 4-stroke for the 5.3m boat.

The good news now is that all my boats have 4-stroke motors giving you extraordinary fuel savings. The bad news part is that the price rise we were thinking of having is now going to happen. We haven’t had a price rise since September 2003, so I don’t feel that guilty. The price rise will come into effect as soon as the brochures are printed which will be about the end of this month (October). Those of you who have already booked and paid your deposit, you are safe and we will hold the old price for you.

Peter Thompson was up with Derek early in the month having booked the 6.1m boat for 2 days a couple of months before. He split the days giving himself the best chance of striking a good day and with luck picked 2 fine days. The fist day out was a bit of a disappointment only picking up a few undersize snapper and a couple of breaksea cods, (I blame the full moon) but they made up for it the second day landing a dhuie on the first drop, snapper and this huge cod that was released all down south of the river mouth out from Natural Bridge. You made “Bite of the Month” Peter!
Derek with his honky snapper,

the big cod and Peter’s dhuie.

They also landed a couple of these, big black stingrays. Boy do they put up a fight!
And who was the bunny who had to lean over and release them???

Early morning on the Murchison River and the result.

Number 2 son was back from boarding school with a mate Matt Baker and we had a fish up river in my dinghy. The “low high tide” did not help but there were plenty of baby 200mm mulloway around to keep them busy and the odd black bream. Again this must be another hatching as the last swarm of mulloway were around 300mm 4 weeks ago. There sure is going to be a few good mulloway years to come!

During the school holidays my brother-in-law, Kim Burnell, from Melbourne came for a visit with his wife Jo (My wife’s sister) and two kids Patrick and Sarah. Itching for a fish I took Kim and son Patrick out for a shot at a tailor. First up Kim lost two fish on two casts, (not sure what to expect I think) and then Patrick hooked up on a nice one. Quite a long fish but a bit skinny but would have pulled the scales down to about 3.5kgs. Quick photo and release. Kim then made up for his early misses with a small fish as shown and it was also released.

The next (Grand Final Day, go the Eagles!) we made a quick trip out in the 6.1m boat between a couple of fronts. The swell was up and the southerly was early and the fishing very quiet. It happens sometimes, but a small samson and shark made an appearance to make his day. (They don’t catch much in Victoria, or win grand finals). And back for the final at lunchtime.

A couple of days later another shot at a tailor and this very respectable fish hammered his gardie bait at Black Rock. Estimated at 4.5kgs, it was also released.

A trip up river resulted in a few mulloway and bream for Sarah and Kim

Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club, Local comp 23rd September.
Such crappy weather, we cancelled the offshore section so Sue and I went for a fish up river. A total of 19 bream were brought to the weigh-in all alive and were released. I had 3 bream but not big enough to beat Gary Ivey who had 3 as well with one a weighing 938grams.
Gary Ivey with his 938g fish

“The caravan park at Port Gregory is under new management and a booking agent for my boats. You can now book a boat and pick it up in Port Gregory.

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 would like to recieve these newsletters each month just send a blank email with the subject line "Subscribe" to lasue@wn.com.au and you will recieve one each month

August 2006

2006-08-26T04:25:00.000-07:00

www.murchisonboathire.com.au

MURCHISON BOAT HIRE AUGUST 2006 ELETTER

Just coming to the end of the best of the dhuies. Between June and August they school up close in and are easy to catch. The Murchison River is alive with undersize mulloway at the moment. They are all about 200mm – 300mm long. One local, Jamie Waite, tagged 27 undersize mulloway on Wednesday night 23rd August from the wooden service jetty, while the Monday before Steve Wiseman and Steve Guilders tagged 18 fish in an hour, fishing by the dredge outlet where the Sand Spit use to be. Hirers have been reporting catching and releasing 10 – 20 fish each evening with the kids from the jetties. There has also been a lot of people keeping and killing them as well, what a waste when you know what they grow up to be. We think that there has been an unusually high amount of spawning in the river or high survival rate this year because of the flood. The mulloway are all the way up the river as well

Lou Parker is a local here in Kalbarri and when his brother Matt and mate Bevan dropped in for a visit he couldn’t resist the temptation to take them out and show them how to catch fish. Lou has been fishing these waters for many years now and often comes out with me so you would expect him to catch some decent fish. With time pressing as the crew had to be back in Perth that day they slipped out early in my 6.1m and were back with fish like this by lunchtime.

Lou and Matt Parker show off their catch.
Lou fished his spots, which are close in, and only just past the Sand Patch picking up this very nice baldchin and a double header of dhuies for Matt amongst their bag of skippy, breaksea and snapper.

Big baldchin were the flavour of this month. Darren Lamont was up with 4 mates, Wes Godridge, Rooboy, Mala and Scotty. They hired the 5.3m boat as I had the 6.1 for the day and followed me up north just past Baldface.

Rooboy’s double-header

and the gang with their fish.
It must have been a bit crowded on the 5.3m boat with 5 on board but they did well landing snapper, skippy, baldchin rankin cod, red-throat emperor and a dhuie.
Bite of the day was Rooboy’s double-header of this 6kg baldchin and 4kg rankin cod. You made “Bite of the Month” Rooboy! On the way back to the boat ramp they came across some dolphins and birds crashing a big ball of baitfish. They decided to put a couple of lures out even though there was little chance of any pelagics around as it is now late in the season. However the lures got smashed by something that destroyed them on their 80lb braid and Penn Internationals. They got one of the fish to the boat but still could not sight it and ended up busting them off??? Could only have been very big tuna!?

The big one went 8.5kgs
They couldn’t wait to get out again but had to wait 4 days for the swell and wind to go down again before heading out for a 2 day fish in the 6.1m boat. Blanking out on the first day with only a couple of snapper they made up for it the second day landing three dhuies and a good baldchin. They trolled for a bit but could not replicate the first day’s bust-offs.

Some of you may get the TV channel Access 31. We don’t get it up here so have not seen the fishing show filmed by Cam Munro, Peter Ryan, Artie, Paws and crew, but they were in Kalbarri having a look see as to what the fishing was about.

Artie with a 4.2kg skippy, the biggest from the boat to date.

Cam and Artie show off their dhuies. Cam’s fish was caught on soft plastics.
I took them to a couple of spots just north of Baldface in about 25m of water, as they wanted to use soft plastics. Well from the moment we held anchor it went off. As soon as the soft plastic got near the bottom it was snatched by a skippy, and the soft plastics were out fishing bait! There was no real difference as to the colour or type, as everything presented got munched. For the record, paddle tail shapes took a lot longer to get down than the straight tails, other than that there was not much difference. The first day was nearly all skippy and we struggled to find other species, but on the second day

Artie with a beautiful spangled emperor caught on soft plastics

and Cam with his biggest dhuie, a 9kg specimen taken on bait.
fishing the same spots we struggled to get anything other than dhuies! It was mainly undersized dhuies on soft plastics and bait to start and then later in the day the bigger ones turned it on. We ended up with 5 good dhuies and an assortment of other fish.

The days catch of dhuies and one mulloway.

Peter Ryan’s soft plastic caught Murchison River bream.
The last day was a bitch of a weather day so we explored up the Murchison River fishing the snags on a rising tide. We did not have much time and the tide was dropping by 8am, but we had an early start and managed to land a few respectable bream before they turned off with the dropping tide. It is quite critical to fish the rising tide in the Murchison for two reasons. One the fish only seem to bite during the incoming and the river is so shallow that any boat will be left stranded at low tide.

One of the soft plastics caught dhuies, the softy well down its throat.
These guys were using Rapala Squidgy Braid, Shamano Twin Power 4000FBs on “T” Curve rods. Very nice outfits, and I had a bit of a fish with the gear myself. I have to admit I was very impressed with the feel and performance of the Rapala Squidgy Braid and especially the “T” Curve rods. They had the rods in different line classes and the feel and performance was spectacular! Expensive gear but, hey, if you fish a lot, enjoy it!

You might have heard that the river is silting up again. This is true and the usual route out is no longer possible, however you can still get out by going around the Three Sisters (The three rocks in the middle or the channel) There are some orange markers on the rocks showing a safe passage through. The dredge is here now and currently cutting a channel through the sand and reclaiming the beaches and the Sand Spit. By the end of August it will have cut through and access will be easy again.

These pics were sent to my by Geoff Bradbury who hires my boats each year around April. He was holidaying in England and snapped these pics of a fishing trip poster in Plymouth where they brag about catching rare “Spanish mackerel” I know it is probably a different species but makes you laugh considering some of the “prize fish” shown in the photos!

Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club, Local comp 19th August
Our local comp this month fell on pretty ordinary day weather wise but with a NNE wind and low swell early in the morning it was not too bad until about midday. As we got to Baldface we encountered baitfish and birds so we dragged a couple of lures but nothing happened! A bit further north on a spot I know to be pretty reliable as a mackerel spot we found more birds and bait, again the lures went out only to hook up immediately on nor west blowies! But the second sweep of the area resulted in a solid hook-up for Sue on her 3kg outfit landing an 8.2kg mackerel. We dropped a few more and bust off something big and later on I picked up this 8.5kg yellow-fin from a mulie under a balloon out the back of the boat.

My yellow-fin on 6kg line

and Sue’s very late season game section winning mackerel
This is very late in the season for game fish. Mostly the macs and tuna are gone by mid July at the latest, but it has been a very strange year, very little rain and a very big river flood.

Daniel Tarasek won the land based section with this 19.9kg amberjack from the cliffs

Ian Lecke’s about 12kgs (released)

Lou Parker’s about 9-10kgs (released)
Look at these fish, not the sort you would associate with Kalbarri! Lou Parker and mate Ian Lecke went north in just past the Sand Patch to one of Lou’s spots mid August, in Lou’s dinghy, on what looks like a good day. These two species of trevally made their day for them and big ones of the species also. We recon the one Ian is holding a brassy trevally and would be as big as the species goes, while Lou holds up a very respectable golden trevally. It has been a very strange year!

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 and you will receive one each month.

July 2006

2006-07-26T02:59:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-04T06:17:00.000-07:00

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.

May 2006

2006-06-06T17:59:00.000-07:00

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

MURCHISON BOAT HIRE MAY 2006 ELETTER

The boats have been very busy this month, mainly due to the fact that it is the best time of the year for weather and fishing. Both the 6.1m boat and 5.3m boats have been up at Gnaraloo Station for 2 weeks. (Unfortunately no photos available)

Before that, regulars Ritchie Kirk and his group, John Kirk, Bill McAtee, Jim Laurenson, Ian Freeman, Rob Slattery, John Slattery, Des Hewitt, John Dimitroff, Lindsay Hughes and Richard Cottingham had the 6.1m boat for 2 weeks and the 5.3m for a week. Fishing was very slow the first week with them only scoring a few snapper and sambos but picked up the following week when a warm current came in and everyone was catching mackerel. They made up for it on the last two days when they got their bag limits each of mackerel both days. The mackerel were big to! All over 10kgs with some pushing the 20kg mark.

These are some of the pics I managed to get of the macs. Big macs aren’t they?

If you are wondering about bag limits, they had two boats with 5 guys in each boat!

When they handed the 6.1m boat back I had one day with it before it went to Gnaraloo. Time to get out, have a fish, and do a service on the motor when I got back!
We did just that and had a troll up just past Baldface where the macs were going off. My son Jared came along and a mate, Mark Flanagan, from Kalbarri. First up Jared picked up a mac on his 6kg outfit and unfortunately a bad gaff shot (not by me) resulted in a bust off! But he soon made up for it with two tuna, while Mark landed 2 macs around the 10kg mark, but I got my biggest yet a 16kg specimen!

Jared’s yellow-fin

and my personal best of 16kgs.

Pics emailed from Michael Milajlov of his Southern blue-fin tuna.
Michael Milajlov was over here from Victoria and hired my boat with his girlfriend a couple of years ago hence on my mailing list and he sent me these pics of big southern blue-fin tuna he caught from the rocks in Victoria. One went 25kgs caught with live bait on 8kg line while the other went 20kgs and took a raider metal lure on a 10kg spinning outfit. Very good fish from the rocks! He also says that the record for blue-fin from the rocks is over 200lbs!

Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club, Local comp 20th May

Daniel’s winning mulloway

My 7.25kg snapper on 2kg line

Have a look at the size of this snapper! With all my boats booked out I even had to borrow a dinghy (thanks Duigie) to fish the local Kalbarri comp this month! Sue came out with me and the plan was to troll for macs on light line and then go for a couple of snapper on 2kg line for game points. Well the easterly was howling and the water was green and no macs showed up so we edged in close to shore out from the Sand Patch in 16m of water and burleyed up. I don’t normally burley up as it draws nor west blowies but we had no choice with the conditions. I fished a 6kg outfit and a 2kg outfit at the same time and got blown away a few times on both outfits while Sue got blown away numerous times but also landed a few tarwhine, cod and size snapper on her 2kg outfit. My last hit for the day came on my 2kg outfit and peeled line like no tomorrow and I felt resigned to yet another bust off, when it stopped and I started to get some line back! Well 40 minutes later this pinky hit the surface weighing in at 7.25kg! A fish of a life time, and pending State record on 2kg line. (The national record is 12kgs from South Australia!). Daniel Tarasek won the land-based section with his mulloway from Frustration.

One of Sue’s snapper on 2kg line and an unusual fish for Kalbarri, I can’t find it in any of my books, does anyone know what it is and the Latin name? We have only caught 2 of these that I know of. It looks a lot like a red-throat emperor (lethrinus miniatus) but not nearly as red and did not have that red throat.

Right at the end of the month Jon McBride turned up on the doorstep to say Hi, I knew him from when I lived in Perth and employed his older brother, Brad. He was up with another brother Geoff and mate Rod Sully and dad Ed Sully. They had a nice big 6.4m boat and were fishing for some spots. I gave them some pointers which lead to them getting into a few nice sized mulloway out from the Sand Patch, but they also had some pretty good spots of their own. Generally the weather was not too kind to them but they picked up big cod, snapper, dhuies, baldies and nor west snapper out deep.

Some of the other fish they caught, big cod, mulloway and tuna. You can see the Sand Patch in the background of the pic with the mulloway. (Pics from Rod Sully)

On the Monday 29th the weather was good enough to get out for a short time and I needed to check the motor on the 6.1 for some flashing lights that had been reported from a previous hire. (This is work you know) I took Jon out while his mates went in their boat. We stopped at the Sand Patch and put the lures out. Within 10 minutes both boats had mackerel on! I landed mine and the other boat lost both of their double hook-up. We went on to land 3 more within half an hour and then decided to head out to deeper water and try for a tuna. The other boat continued to try to convert the hook-ups into fish by working the numerous bait schools. (They got 3 in the end) Before we got to the 35m mark we had to stop and release two more mackerel. As soon as we reached the 35m line I turned towards some baitfish and we were on! The 6kg yellow-fin was no match for the 15kg tackle I was using, but the second hit 15 minutes later saw John struggle for 30 minutes with this magnificent 17.5kg fin. John has never caught a mackerel before let alone a good tuna, he was wrapped!

A very happy John McBride with two mackerel

and his big 17.5kg yellow-fin tuna.
The lures? Halco 190 Laser Pro pink multi chrome and chrome pink. Redheads did it for the other boat.

The following day they went out again and picked up 7 mackerel and a couple of tuna in pretty ordinary conditions. A pretty good trip in anyone’s books!

Featured website this month is www.ansa.com.au/sportfishing.html an Australian fishing records site for national line class records. Junior and senior records in game fishing, sport fishing, hand lining, land based and fly-fishing. Lots of other info as well.

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 want to be included in these newsletters just send me a blank email with the subject line “subscribe to newsletter” and you will receive one each month.

April 2006

2006-05-08T06:05:00.000-07:00

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

MURCHISON BOAT HIRE MARCH 2006 ELETTER
It is best to open this in Outlook Express so that the photos will open.

With the river mouth only officially opening in the second week of April and a few big swells limiting access due to the sand bar, getting out for a fish has been limited to Port Gregory. As of now the river mouth has cleared up completely and all is back to normal. Big swells are still limiting some boats but that has always been the case. Most of the fish caught this month have been coming from Port Gregory.

Ed Olkowski was in Kalbarri and had been up in Shark Bay with another mate John Hoye, where he met up with cyclone Hubert that was all the rage up north in the first week of April. He didn’t get much fishing done (I’m not surprised) and stopped in to Kalbarri on his way back to Perth. He went out from Kalbarri a couple of times but got battered by the strong easterlies and failed to get a fish. His boat is a bit small and a centre console so not ideal for the conditions. I invited him out on the next good day (low swell) and went out to the edge of the dirty water intent on getting a yellow-fin tuna or mackerel but the water was cold only 21 degrees and no bird activity so we headed north for a bottom fish. We only fished 2 spots, picking up a nice pinky in close and then moved out a bit deeper. We were onto fish straight away with a stream of small fish, breaksea cod, skippy, Sargent bakers, and red-throat emperor until I hooked up on a nice 8kg dhuie. I left the other dhuie for Ed but he couldn’t catch it, only wobbegongs, wrasse etc, so I hooked up on the second, a fine 9kg fish.
My 8kg and 9kg dhuies

Ed made the front cover of the latest Western Angler but could only manage this yellowtail king when out with me. He said that it was because he was fishing on the wrong side of the boat!

Rob Zanon was up just before Easter and on the spur of the moment hired the 6.1m boat with 5 other mates. They got out a bit late but picked up some snapper and this sambo before returning around lunchtime. With a bit more experience they will do better next time.

Have a look at this fish? I caught it down at Port Gregory. I thought it was an undersize mulloway at first (it was 42cm) but the colouring was wrong and the shape was not quite right, too pointy in the mouth. Also it had a very glassy eye. I took this photo and returned it and it swam away no problems. Checking it in my fishes book it is easily identified as a Sand Bass, Psammoperca waigiensis and grows to 47 cm. Colour varies from silvery grey to dark brown. Never seen or heard of one before!
Regarding weird & unusual fish, these are a few that we have caught.

Scorpion Fish, it’s got poisonous spines.

Long-spined snapper.

Sargent baker, make great bait

Unicorn leather jacket

Surf paroty (Blue-barred parrotfish, this is a female)

Andy Woodley-Page was well pleased with the size of this snapper. He and his brother, Geoff, were out in the 6.1m boat on a pretty ordinary day but the best of the three days that they wanted. Unfortunately getting only one day in due to the rising swell making the river mouth a bit dodgy. They caught some other smaller snapper and Geoff was unlucky breaking off and dropping some good fish. One was a nice hammerhead shark that circled the boat a few times before taking a big bait set for a dhuie or big cod.

During Easter Daniel Kwek and is usual crew from Singapore, Tony, Kenneth, Simon and Tan were here again and they set off from Port Gregory due to the continuous problems at the river mouth. Fishing on my waypoints south of the tiny town they picked up very nice sized dhufish. Three dhuies on the first day ranging from 5kg, to 9kgs and 10kgs together with snapper and baldchin groper made up the catch.

Kenneth Sim with his 8.5kg dhuie

Tan Thuan Seng’s 9kg fish.
The second day was a bit slow. Chasing mackerel north of town with no luck they headed out deeper to find some ground, but could not find any. They then spent an hour or so chasing big yellow-fin tuna that were thrashing the surface but to no avail, eventually heading back and finding a spot west of town, picking up a trip saving bag of dhuies, coral trout and baldchin. Simon Wei also landed a 5kg dhuie.
The second day belonged to Tony Chee landing this nice 10kg dhuie,

baldchin and coral trout

On on of the days that it was just too rough to go out in the boats, Daniel Kwek asked about the landbased fishing. I told him to check the bite time for the day and fish Chinaman's for a mulloway. Now the fish usualy come on the bite on the forecasted bite time and bang on the forecast time this 21kg mulloway hit.

Daniel Kwek's mulloway caught at Chinaman's Beach on the 12.30 bite time.

Another regular group was up again this month, Andrew Hall, Jeff Bradbury and their families. They had the 6.1m boat for 6 days with a couple of days rest between. Due to the big swells they also fished out of Port Gregory. They took a couple of days to find the fish but with a little bit of patience and changing spots often they got into them with gusto. At one spot not far from Port Gregory they anchored and burleyed up catching and releasing 7 sambos, dhuies and baldchin during a great day out. Carolyn Bradbury’s baldchin went 5kgs while the dhuies were around 9 to 11kgs.

Andrew and Jeff with their pair of 9kg dhuies

and Carolyn’s baldy

Christopher Bradbury’s very nice 11kg dhuie

while 83 year old Gil here got pulled all over the boat by this sambo, one of seven that they caught on one spot! Loosen that drag Gil!

Graham Fraser also fished out from Port Gregory having a ball with wife Denise and daughter Anna and friends. Fish of the trip was his monster mackerel that savaged a mulie hanging under a balloon out the back of the boat. It gave is little Abu a real workout! When the sea breeze came in they anchored inside the Port Gregory lagoon where little Anna showed the crew how to catch skippy. Denise picked up a reasonable dhuie and Rob Stomp was kept on his toes with a black-tipped reef shark.

Denise Fraser with her dhuie while 5-year-old Anna caught skippy from inside the reef at Port Gregory.
Rob Stomp with his shark and

Graham Fraser’s big mackerel that took a mulie from under a balloon at the back of the boat.

Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club, Local comp 15th April

Simon and Steve with their chunky cliff caught snapper.

Paul’s deep-water snapper
Our local comp was a bit slow due to the river mouth problems, but Paul Loffler risked it slipping out between the swells to get a bag of 7 fish including this big snapper which was the biggest for the year, while the land based guys got into these big snapper from the cliffs early in the morning. The river fished well again despite the brown water but with only bream recorded.
*Unspoken truths for successful fishing*
1. Always be an optimist and try to look confident when you are fishing
2. Never fish in crowded areas. Lesser the competition, better the chances of getting a fish.
3.Never fish beside amateurs or beginners. If they are there they are in the wrong spot or at the wrong time so you are also at the wrong spot or wrong time.
4.Never fish beside kids. Kids spook fish. & sometimes they catch more than you.
5. Never fish beside disillusioned lure anglers who are luring next to you. Disillusioned lure anglers spook fish
6.Never take bananas aboard a boat. Bananas spook fish.
7.Bigger predatory fishes are cautious and usually hard to catch.
8.Always make sure your terminal rig is different from the guy next to you.
9. Use tried and proven rigs. If that innovative rig you designed worked, it would have been published a long time ago.
10.Nighttime is the best time for shore and jetty fishing as bigger fish venture nearer inshore.
11. Always use very fresh or live bait. See somewhere above for the reasons.
12.When fishing a featureless terrain, move every 20 minutes if you are not getting a bite. Or just wait forever for something to pass through. The choice is yours.
13. Big fish and baitfish schools prefer natural features. No prizes for guessing why the pros and regulars are also there.
14.Forget the notion of light tackle on a jetty. At times you may need to haul in heavy flotsam, seaweed, sunken drift nets, fish traps and crab nets against a strong current.
15. Never cast heavy rigs when there are windsurfers, swimmers and canoeists around. Always report windsurfers, swimmers and canoeists to the authorities.
16.When you can't find a suitable spot to fish go home and spend quality time with your loved ones. You won't regret it.
17.Never base your happiness on catching a fish. It’s a good idea to have an alternative pastime to avoid disappointment.
18. When you see dark clouds looming overhead and feel moisture in the air with flashes of lightning in the distance. Its time to pack it in and call it a day.

Featured website this month is http://www.fishwrecked.com/ an Australian community fishing site with movies, forums, articles, reports and photos.

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 forecasts.

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

Big bait – big fish
Laurie

If you want to be included in these newsletters just send me a BLANK email to lasue@wn.com.au and you will be sent one each month.

March 2006

2006-03-29T01:17:00.000-08:00

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

MURCHISON BOAT HIRE MARCH 2006 ELETTER
The big news this month is off course the flooding in the Murchison River. Last month I showed you pictures of the flood from cyclone Clair. Well that squirt of water really brought on the mulloway and filled all the dry pools in the river. Then we had cyclone Emma dump in the catchment area and with all the dry pools already filled up the water came down in record flood levels! It was 17.8m at Emu Springs Station, where monitoring has taken place for the last 100 years. 17.8m is the highest ever and Kalbarri was in panic mode. We were expecting to get flooded. The Shire and hundreds of volunteers spent two days and nights filling sandbags and building levees at the low lying marina area and at the Black Rock Cafe area.
It peaked on the Tuesday 14th March but it did not come up as far as expected but would have flooded the car park at the Marina Shopping Centre if the levees were not in place. Big sigh of relief and lots of spare sand to top-dress our lawns!
The latest news as at 29th March is that the river mouth is still officially closed but cray boats are coming in and out. A hydrographic vessel is due in town at the beginning of April to do soundings and most of us expect them to declare the river mouth safe to navigate. They will not open the mouth officially until the soundings have been done, but if cray boats are getting in and out it should be OK for smaller boats. There should be no problems for the Easter School holidays.

Those who really want to fish have been taking the boats down to Port Gregory and launching there and getting into some very good fish. The flood up river from Kalbarri

The Z Bend in flood

and an old pic as it is normally
The boat pens under water
The old wooden jetty, under water

The recreational boat ramp

Before the flood, we managed to get out on quite a nice day and the tuna were going ballistic. On this day I invited a couple of mates out who have never caught fish before! Totally green they were, I gave the first hit to Gavin, the new owner of the Palm Resort. He has been in town 6 months now and hasn’t had a day off until this one. 16kgs of thumping yellow-fin tuna on the deck within 20minutes of trolling right in front of town! Next up was Martin within 5 minutes on the troll again, 15kgs, a near matching pair. I took the next hit and found it to be unmovable on 15kg tackle. This was a big one! But after about half an hour the hooks pulled!!! Not to worry, we had another within 20 minutes, a smaller one and then a spotted mackerel before heading in to work around 9.00am.
Gavin’s 16kg fish

and Martin’s first ever fish, spoilt for life!

Since the flood the river mouth has been closed and all my hires have been going out of Port Gregory. Port Gregory is about 65km south of Kalbarri with an “over the sand” launch ramp. Sometimes the sand is quite soft but any serious 4WD can get the boats in and out. I thought it was a good time to do some research and development at Port Gregory. Tuesday 21st was a great day weather wise and Clinton, a mate from Pinjarra was up in Kalbarri with a long face not being able to get out to his usual spots, so I invited him out in the 5.3m boat to Port Gregory (the 6.1 was already hired and at Port Gregory).
He had been down there the day before and picked up a nice coral trout trolling in close to a reef that comes up from 16m to 8m over about 25 metres! First pass over this reef and my 8m Crazy Deep lure got snagged! We got it off and next pass nailed this coral trout. After picking up another for Clint and a big sambo (released), we went for a troll for a mackerel and to try to find some ground to fish the bottom.
Nice looking coral trout,

my dolphin fish (mahi mahi)

and pair of dhuies
The dolphin fish was a surprise! First one I have ever caught, taking a Halco Laser Pro 190 2m chrome pink, it leapt from the water about 10 times before showing off its magnificent colours alongside the boat. We found some ground about 8km south of Port Gregory in 23m of water and proceeded to catch a string of good fish, baldchin groper, snapper, and our bag limit each of good-sized dhufish. With close to our bag limit of 7 fish each we cruised the short distance back to the boat ramp and were back in Kalbarri by 2pm.

Those hiring my boats to Port Gregory can get the GPS points from this trip.
A happy Clinton with his sambo

and dhuiefish

Another group of guys wanted the same experience went down to Port Gregory with the 5.3m boat, also trolling the coral trout spot marked on the GPS. Within the first 10 minutes Keith Combe picked up this 68cm trout on an 8m Halco Crazy Deep lure. They picked up another soon after and then went a bit deeper for some bottom fish, catching snapper, sambos and other bottom fish but missing out on a dhuie.

Keith Combe's big coral trout

Paul's big snapper

and samson fish

KALBARRI SPORTS FISHING CLASSIC 20th ANNIVERSARY YEAR 2006
The Kalbarri Classic this year again hosted a record number of boats making it a very successful tournament. The final count of fifty boats (17 under 6m, 22 in the 6m–7m and 11 over 7m) spent 3 days fishing it out for $18,000.00 worth of prizes in 29 categories over the Labour Day long weekend, 3rd 4th and 5th March. 146 anglers fished the ocean and 19 fished the muddy and in flood Murchison River.
I know that you guys don’t read this newsletter much and mainly look at the photos only so here is a very abbreviated report with lots of photos.
The good news is that my boat “Bulawayo Buoy” skippered by myself and crewed by wife Sue, daughter Rebecca and John Hoye picked up Champion Boat Game 6-7metres again this year. Sue took out Highest Point Scoring Snapper, Highest Point Scoring Game Fish and Champion Angler Game overall. John Hoye also picked up Highest Point Scoring Tuna. My other boat the 5.3m “Mzilikazi Roller” Skippered by Lou Parker with Vern Godfrey and Geoff Higgott won Champion Boat Bottom under 6 metres and he only fished between the Sand Patch and Baldface between 18m and 30m!

Champion River Adult, Daryl Fishwick.

Top Gun River, Paul Allen.
Champion River Junior, Jeb Duigan.

Heaviest Bream, Chris Miller, 1.028kgs

There were a lot of contenders for the catch and release prize with Brett Bain, catching and releasing 10 of the 33 bream released over the weekend.

Kelly Westlund’s 14.5kg samson fish.

Peter Maindok’s impressive 12.1kg mulloway.
Heaviest WA Dhufish, Jason Pache, 9.8kgs.

Lisa Morgan, 4.3kg groper.

Darren Cooper’s winning 5.4kg fish.
Sue Malton, Champion Angler Game,
Highest Point Scoring Game Fish,
Highest Point Scoring Snapper.
“Top Gun “ day one Game.
John McCarthy.

Paul Maindok

Graham Cole heaviest snapper 6.8kg

Janice Olsen’s 5.25kg coral trout
Champion Boat Bottom under 6m, Lou Parker.

Champion Bottom Junior, Steven Eley.

Champion Boat Bottom over 7m, David Birrell & Dario Sorbello.
James Mather.

Tracy Mather.

Rebecca Malton.

Featured website this month is http://www.kalbarriwa.info/ The new official Kalbarri website where you can look at all the things to do see and stay and book direct.

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 want to be included in our email newsletter just send a blank email with the subject “Add to newsletter group” to lasue@wn.com.au and you will receive one monthly.

February 2006

2006-03-29T00:30:00.000-08:00

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

MURCHISON BOAT HIRE FEBRUARY 2006 ELETTER
The river continues to flow with chocolate coloured water and has coloured the ocean as far north as the eye can see. South of the river mouth it is still relatively clean and during the incoming tide pushes up against the dirty water. You can see the colour change in the pics below. Trolling along the colour change has resulted in a few mackerel catches, but no result on the day these pics were taken. (Water was a bit cold 22.5) The cold water is all along the coast from Perth up. The Leeuwin Current has just not pushed in very strongly this year!

Out the back with Blue Holes in the background

& heading west just off Blue Holes

Mulloway have been very active with the dirty water and a few boats have been sitting just out from Black Rock soaking mulies on the incoming tide. Most have been getting their bag limits, but there are a lot of undersize amongst them. I went out with my son Ben on a break before going to Uni and a mate Lou Parker. We checked out the bite time and anchored by Black Rock catching 8 mulloway and a few chopper tailor. (All released except one). They came on right on bite time and then the shutdown was like a light turning off.
Ben with the average size mulloway.

Regulars Jason Scouler and his group who call themselves the “City Slickers” were up again. Jason was on his 7th hire! There must be some sort of “Frequent Hirer” points there! This time Louie was missing, replaced by Greg, with the usual crew of James and Rob. They had a 3-day hire on the 6.1m boat and stayed in my accommodation picking up the discounts on boat hire. When they first came up they were very inexperienced but caught fish. They have had some good times and bad and as their experience increases so has their catch rate. Now they have no problems getting into the fish. Below is just one days catch, a real ripper, not to be forgotten easily. They landed 6 yellow-fin tuna and a mackerel from a swirling mass of birds and baitfish.
Greg with his best fish ever (samson fish from the bottom) before the yellow-fin tuna
This is what to look for: swirling mass of birds and baitfish
James and Rob (yellow-fin & mac)

Greg’s yellow-fin

Robs yellow-fin
A missed gaff shot: it will cost you another 10min on heavy gear,

Rob’s skippy

& Jason shows his tuna (the only bite he got all day)
They got yellow-fin tuna on both preceding days as well. Redhead Halco 190DDs and Rapala 180 Red-heads were the only lures used to catch these game fish.

Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club local comp.
The weather was quite blowie on the 18th so the comp was changed to the following Saturday. Again it was windy but we had the comp anyway! We went out trying for a mac or tuna on light line but the seas were white capping by 7.30am and pretty rough out wide as we were trying to find clean water away from the dirty river water. We got bashed around and decided that the only thing we could do was to tuck in behind Black Rock and try for a mulloway. Bite time was for 8.30 but on a low tide so thought our chances a bit slim. Within 10 minutes of anchoring, my 3kg outfit started to peel line on a very loose drag. The result after a protracted battle was this 7.2kg mulloway, which won me the game section. It was the only bite we had all day! The land-based guys did well with snapper and a big shark
My mulloway

and Daniel Tarasek did well fishing land based

RECREATIONAL SKIPPER’S TICKET
Yes it is coming in and you will have to have one to hire one of my boats. The facts are as follows:
You won’t need one if you have:
Commercial Marine Qualifications
BoatSmart Certificate
Small Craft Proficiency Certificate
TL3 or TL5 certificate issued before 10th Feb.
Inter State Boat Certificate

You still have to apply for one if you have the above qualifications.

If you are under 25 you have to have one by April 2007
Over 25 by April 2008

If you have had a boat registered continuously in your name for the past 5 years you will only have to sit the theory test not the practical, but by 1st April 2007.

Think about getting one soon, you will need it.

The big Kalbarri Sports Fishing Classic is on this coming weekend. All preparations are going well and entries have flooded in. This Year we have my daughter Rebecca joining us aboard Bulawayo Buoy with the usuals, John Hoye and my wife Sue. We are aiming for our third “Champion Game Boat 6m – 7m” win this time. Wish us luck; it’s not that easy! I will be reporting on the comp next newsletter.

The river continues to flow and latest reports, today 28th Feb, the river has risen another half metre at the Murchison House Station Homestead. A cyclone has formed over Exmouth and dumping more rain in the catchment area so the “mulloway fiesta” seems as though it will continue for another month or so, and the dirty water will be here for a while. A warm current has started to flow again, at last, and a 13kg yellow-fin tuna was caught off Pot Alley yesterday and there were birds working out the front of Black Rock this morning. Things are looking up! The cyclone has now developed into a tropical low so we might be into some very nice weather for the Classic.

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 want to be included in these newsletters send an email with the subject "add to newsletter group" to lasue@wn.com.au and you will get one each month.

January 2006

2006-03-28T22:47:00.000-08:00

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

If you would like to receive a my monthly newsletter via email, just send me a blank email to lasue@wn.com.au with the subject line “add to newsletter group” and you will receive one each month.