Great
weather this month set the trend for good catches. Those picking the right days
landed lots of mackerel
and
tuna. There has been big numbers of cobia being landed, they seem to be
associated with whales and whale sharks, so
never
miss the opportunity to cast a popper, stick bait or mulie to them. They will
hold good cobia.
Adventure Bound TV Show
Lee
Raynor and Ryan Thipthorp spent 3 days last month filming from my boats. The
episodes are showing in Sydney and Melboune
with
Perth and Brisbane following soon.
Brisbane: Fri 9:30pm.
Perth: Mon 9.30pm. Sydney: Fri 8:00pm. Melbourne: Sat 7.30pm. Adelaide: Thurs
7:30pm
They
sent me a copy of the three episodes, a big tailor session, demersal and a
pelagic episode. They are quite specy.
This week on CH31 is the final episode in Season
12 of Adventure Bound and it's a ripper! Lee completed his trip at Kalbarri and
along with Perth local Ryan Thipthorp,
the guys
fish some offshore areas using a mixture of surface lures, jigs and trolling to
catch everything from big
cobia on the surface, spanish mackerel trolling to
yellow fin tuna jigging.
Brisbane
and Perth will follow soon. Check out their facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/adventureboundtv.
TVS
44 Sydney times:
Friday, 8 June 8:00pm Saturday, 9 June 9:00am Sunday,
10 June 4:00pm Friday, 15 June 8:00pm Saturday,
16 June 9:00am
Don't
forget Adventure Bound starts on Foxtel Aurora channel Wednesday night at
7.30pm.
The
first six shows we will be running some of their hand picked favourites.
For
all of you who haven't been able to see Adventure Bound we hope you enjoy it!
They
are still also airing Season 12 on Channel 31 and TVS!
Mackerel Islands Trip
Jeff
Hitchins reports on his trip up to the Mackerel Islands early this month.
My
6.1m and 6.5m boats swing on anchor first thing in the morning at Thevenard
island.
Just to let you know, we had a great trip at
the Mackerel Islands. The boat went fantastic (but as I indicated,
one or two minor issues with the echo sounder,
didn’t stop us catching fish though).
On the trip we caught coral trout, spanish mackerel, blue bone, crimson perch,
red emperor,
red throat emperor, NW snapper, rankin cod, spotted cod, chinaman fish, cobia
and lots of sharks.
Nat
and Jeff Hitchins with a pair of good gold-spot trevally,
and some pelagic action.
Nat
encounters a shark or two during some very fine weather.
Jeff with a great chinaman
cod.
The crew on Thevenard are very helpful,
friendly and on a Sunday night they put on a free BBQ.
Facilities for filleting and cleaning fish
were excellent, there was even a small inflatable boat to take us out to our
mooring when you wanted.
The weather was great, with a bit of wind in
the morning and flattening out in the afternoon.
There was a lot of coral spawn in the water
and water temperature was 26 – 27 degrees so there were not a lot of spanish mackerel
around,
however we did catch 5 or 6 while we were
there.
With lots of sharks around, it was
recommended by a couple of guys who have fished there many times, to only use
one
baited line (sharks strike second bait
rather than your catch!)
Can highly recommend Thevenard as a fishing
destination and we are planning to rebook for next year.
Tight Lines
Jeff, Steve & Nat
Bit of
sad news: The Mackerel Islands fishing camp on Thevenard Island is closing from
end June until further notice.
Seems that the big Wheatstone Gas
development up there has more or less taken over the camp accommodation.
Accommodation is near impossible
to get in Onslow now, due to the influx of workers on the project.
However the lone shack on
Direction Island will still be open so you can still go there.
Kalbarri Delights
Michael Mac Shane was up last month hiring 3
boats, the two 6.5ms and the 7.8m for 2 days our from Kalbarri.
The group got onto quite a few fish and
Michael sent the following YouTube clips.
The weather was kind except for one of the
days when a severe squall came through which was not on the forecast.
They managed to get back safely, but were
asked to standby at the Sand Patch while the Kalbarri Sea Search and Rescue
tried to
determine where a mayday call was coming
from. Eventually it was located about 100km north west and that the boat had
sunk and the crew were in their sea kayaks!
They were very lucky to be rescued by another boat.
See the video of the 7.8m boat
coming through the river mouth in very ugly conditions!
Watch out, some bad language can be heard!
A good day out.
Peter
Robinson and Ian Hook were out in the 7.8m boat in a much anticipated trip.
Neither had done much fishing, but it
did
not take long for Ian to hook up to a nice mulloway just past the Sand Patch.
Not a bad fish for someone who rarely fishes, but
on
the second drift over the well lit up patch resulted in a second fish! Peter
just shook his head in disgust.
On
the way back lures were set and Peter redeemed himself with a small mackerel.
However 5 other mackerel were dropped over a half hour session.
Your
two mulloway make Bite of the
Month on my website Ian!
Borewors
Fishing Club – Kalbarri trip 2012
At 10.30pm on Thursday 24 May the BFC
members assembled at their usual meeting point on Wanneroo Road – 8 members
plus "Pops". 1 Cruiser,
2
Pajeros and 2 boats (with a third to be collected from Murchison Boat Hire in
the morning). The Plan – be on the water in Kalbarri at sunrise.
Into
the night went the convoy. All went smoothly until about an hour out of town the
chatter on the radio turned into a discussion between the
2 Pajero drivers as to why each of their
cars was flashing some warning light that nobody knew existed and had no idea
what it was.
Alas
following some deductive reasoning it was determined it was an icy road warning
as the outside temperature had hit 0 degrees Celsius
on
what turned out to be the coldest May night in WA for 98 years!. Too cold?
No!!! We kept going. Following a couple of driver rotations and a toasted
sanger in
Gero
the BFC arrived in Kalbarri over an hour before sunrise. The wind was Easterly
so everyone deduced the Arctic had moved to Central Australia as it was
freezing.
After a hop over to Murchison Boat Hire to
pick up Tokoloshe (aka the fish magnet) the crew blasted out in choppy
conditions covered from head to toe in whatever
waterproof clothing one could muster. When
finally the throttles were eased back to tie on the wooden fishies, everyone
agreed on one thing –
the
water was damn salty.........we were living the dream (as Andrew L kept
reminding us).
Friday was just a warm up – some Macky hook
ups and some successful bottom bouncing. First bag of Biltong gone!
Friday dinner was Dhufish and Boerewors –
job done!
Saturday brought far more pleasing
temperatures and flatter seas as the boats left the River just after daybreak.
After reaching the Boerewors secret location
the fun began – an 80lb trace was turned to fray as some
great sea monster attacked – 1 wooden fishy gone!!!! After that each boat
enjoyed some good fishing using a variety of
lures. The rigs were changed and the sinkers attached as the boats roared
off
to the secret bottom bouncing location. Second bag of Biltong gone! A
quick visit to the IGA on the way back to Camp Anchorage caused
Les significant emotional distress when the
smartly dressed cashier announced "My God you stink!!!". The rest of
us smiled and thought....Yes, living the dream.
That night after the fish clean up and some
long hot showers it was Baldy, Snapper and Cod ......with Boerewors entree and
a few beer chasers.....job done!
The final day delivered decent weather again
and another early start was had. Laurie's trailer was already at the ramp
having heard of the
good fortunes of the BFC on the previous
day. Leave the fun to Laurie...not a chance...so throttle forward....thank god
Tokoloshe is a 4 stroke!!!
The
final morning brought some good fun and some great photos (including a double
hook up), again on a variety of lures. Alas the fishing was over and time
to head back in before heading home – some mackerel
in the freezer for some good BBQ action in the coming weeks and some let go to
catch next time.
Until next year...tight lines!
Exploring WA
Lee
Kirkman from the Gold Coast was over in WA with a couple of mates, exploring
fishing spots, when he called into Kalbarri.
He
was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the fishing! All caught on jigs and
soft plastics!
Here
is his story and pics.
Chris
with a yellow-fin
+Snapper+90cm.jpg)
and Lee with his 90cm snapper
.jpg)
and Stu's snapper.
On
one of my stops on my exploring trip to the WA coast to plan future
fishing trips was Kalbarri. I must say the little town of
Kalbarri was definitely a small piece of
paradise. After seeing so many fish and so many fishing stories from
clients coming and going, so it's
good to see you keep up that friendly smile
and welcome feeling. I was so happy to see the quality of your boats and the
maintenance upkeep is excellent.
With
the rods going missing on the flight over from Gold Coast, thanks again for
lending me one of your fishing rods.
The
rod received a very good work out with 6 kg braid.
Normally it takes a couple of days in a new
fishing spot sort out where and what works in that region, before any
quality of fish or any type can be caught.
So
to have one day out and catch as many jelly bean yellow fin as you want, long
tail tuna to 20 kg and snapper to 4 - 8 kg on plastics and
jigs and a couple of critters that wanted to
keep my jigs for there personal collection was fantastic.
The
potential in that area must be great. All my fish where released and so happy
that W.A has in
place
rules & legislation to maintain the quality of your fishing for years
to come.
Here
is a couple of pics.
Thanks
Again
Lee
Kirkman
Gold
coast
N.S.W
Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club Local
Comp.
20th May
Some
of the fish caught during the last monthly local comp.
From
the boats
And
caught from the beaches.
Ian Hook, landed these two mulloway from a
spot not far from the Sand Patch.
Fishing out of the 7.8m boat he landed the
first one by 8.30am and the second came
up on the second drift. great fish Ian!
Popular Northern Destinations
Island
Manager: 9184 6444, Drew
Norrish & Traci Nathan
The main camp on Thevenard Island is
closing down as from 1st July until further notice. However Direction Island
will still
be open and bookings can be made.
Check out the website: www.mackerelislands.com.au
Ashburton Resort
Nikki
and Scott Dagan are the new managers of the new Ashburton Resort. Phone 9184 6586 email: admin@ashburtonresortonslow.com.au
Website: www.ashburtonresortonslow.com.au
Gnaraloo Station
Gnaraloo contacts for accommodation:
Barbara: 9315 4809
Email: bookings@gnaraloo.com.au
Website: Gnaraloo.com.au
Game,
Bottom and Beach Fishing Action
These
links will take you to Youtube showing some great action video clips taken from
my
boats and also a very good mulloway from the beach.
