Email: lasue@wn.com.au http://www.murchisonboathire.com.au/
Things are slowing up now that the end of the season approaches. The mackerel and tuna have left Kalbarri waters
for warmer northern climes. The demersals have done their spawning aggregations and dispersed to their territorial areas.
Early sea breezes are starting to waft in making boating uncomfortable, so it is just a matter of waiting it out
over the demersal ban which comes into force from the 15th October to 15th December.
Next big thing is the opening of the cray season and if it is anything like last year, it will be extraordinary again
with big catches in the pots each day. If you are after crayfish be here after the full moon in December, that’s when it all starts!
Kalbarri Still Firing
Matt Hyland and mate Chris Hall arrived in Kalbarri on a very stormy and windy Friday early this month and
enquired about a trip out. I didn’t hold much hope for them and told them to forget it as I did not think it would
clear up over the weekend. Strangely, Saturday dawned fine and calm so they rang back querying my judgement.
Sure enough the Sunday forecast looked good so we went out. Good thing we did, look at the fish they caught!
First up after a few snapper just north of Bald Face,
we anchored over the spot and Matt hooked up on this 6.5kg coral trout that gave him
a lot of curry trying to get it up from the bottom.
Chris Hall was up next with a chunky little samsonfish that was released and then a move to a spot just north of the Sand Patch he
hooked up on this 8kg mulloway. Notice he is wearing his wedding ring with the sambo and not with the mulloway?
Well unfortunately, while he was washing his hands after releasing the sambo, the ring slipped off into the blue depths.
Losing stuff overboard is quite common. Mobile phones lost from top pockets, and sodden from wading at the boat ramp, wet cameras etc.
Expect the unexpected!
They ended up with their bag limit of demersals each as well as skippy and other stuff.
Nice fish guys.
Exmouth Gulf Trip
After a cancellation of my much anticipated trip to the East side of the Exmouth Gulf a couple of months ago,
we managed to reinstate the trip and eventually got there. Paul Youngman, John Hoye, Dan Jenks and my self took
the 7.8m and towed two dinghies over to the East side of the Exmouth Gulf. We camped on an island for 4 days.
We did have a shot at getting a big GT out from Onslow. We found the spot however the weather and tide was not at its best so failed in that department.
We were lucky to be able to trial out two of the Fishing WA Series rods. We used the 24kg 7’2 Popping Stick.
I was casting one of those giant poppers a long way into 25 knots wind which the rod handled with ease.
They are very nice rods, with good quality guides and very reasonably priced.
Available from most tackle stores and you can see the full
range on this link http://www.fishingwa.com/content.php?firsttierid=446&id=446§ion=FWA%20%20RODS
It was a long tow: with the two dinghies and all our gear we managed to travel at around 8-9 knots.
John Hoye “planking” on the bait board
to kill time and the dinghies towing in the background.
Our camp site was good and we just had the bare minimum due to space on the boat.
Unfortunately our only window was during the full moon, which I am sure did not help the fishing,
but the nights were calm
& without sand flies and mozzies.
We fished the mangroves without much luck, but I think we were there at the wrong times, and should have been
fishing them during the run-out and near bottom tide. Tide times did not permit us to fish the creeks at the right time as low tide was late afternoon and getting stuck
up a mangrove creek over night would not be pleasant!
Most of the action was around the bommies and reef areas and again only
during the run-out tide. Nothing happened until the tide turned!
There were plagues of small GTs, (We had to cast to different spots to get away from them),
and cods of all kinds:
John holds an average size cod that were very prolific.
It was a fish a cast at some spots at the right time. We caught cods, GTs, small mackerel, small barracuda, spanish flag, golden trevally, spangled emperor, long toms,
bream, blue salmon, queenfish, tarpon, and a wolf herring. We also got bust up by big unknowns!
We only used lures and soft plastics. By far the soft plastics caught most of the fish but the lures were more
successful hooking but not necessarily landing bigger fish.
It did not matter the colour or what soft plastics were used, if they were soft and plastic they got munched!
John got a nice GT on a trolled lure
and I landed a very nice golden trevally on soft plastics with my bream gear.
A close up of the golden’s blubber lips with the soft plastic that was the most successful.
A nice queenfish
and small golden trevally both on soft plastics made my day.
On the return trip we loaded the boat and waited for the tide to give us enough water for the 7.8m boat.
I am standing knee deep among the rays, bull sharks, flounder and starfish that litter the bottom.
Harry Tucker’s Billfish Bash
Here is Harry’s story.
Last year in September, Michael Wells and I had some fantastic luck, while fishing off Tandabidi at Exmouth, to land our first marlin andsailfish. Coming from a landlocked country and not doing a heck of lot of blue water fishing this was something both of us had never dreamed about. Over the last year we've bragged and boasted to all of our mates, and told them all of the incredible feeling you get when you heara reel scream and a fish dancing away from the boat. Then we heard about the "Billfish Bash" a fun little competition being organised between mates with 6 boats and knew we had to go. Shane "Sheep" Kelly our token Kiwi and Greg "George" Gardiner another Zimbabwean quicklyjoined the crew and we booked a boat through Laurie and Sue at Murchison Boat Hire. He kindly gave us the suitably named "Bulawayo Buoy" and dropped it off at the Kalbarri turn off; saving us a couple of hours on our long haul drive to Exmouth.
We slept in the boat on the roadside on the way up before checking in at Yardie Creek Homestead Caravan Park,and gearing up. Here we were met by Arnie Slabber who also joined our crew.
The tournament ran for 4 days after a practice day,
and over thistime we boated an incredible 7 Marlin in tournament time, as 
well as plenty tuna, bonito, mackerel and mahi-mahi. The boat worked perfectly
and let us stay out a bit longer than everyone else once the winds picked up in the afternoons, 
and having the 200 litre fuel tank meant we hadmore fuel to play with which gave us the edge over most of the competition.
Unfortunately we lost out on first place to another boatwith 8 Marlin once time was up on the final day, but claimed biggest fish with Greg's beast. It took him an hour and half to fight the fishin and after 4 attempts we wired him, tagged him took some photos and successfully released him. Over the whole week of fishing we boated 10marlin, 2 more than everyone else and had the magic of both a double hook up of sailfish and of marlin, but struggled with the sails.
All of our fish were tagged and released successfully. The trip was an absolute pleasure, and I know there are 3 new sufferers from "BillfishFever" and we will most certainly be back next year.
Bite of the month
This big blue marlin gets “Bite of the Month” on my website for Greg Gardiner, caught out from Tandabidi on the West side of the
Exmouth peninsular. Taking him an hour and a half on stand-up tackle; a great fish from a small boat.
Well done Greg!
See all the previous Bite of the Month winners on my website.
Popular Northern Destinations
Thevenard Island
Island Manager: 9184 6444, Drew Norrish & Traci Nathan
This year the 6.5m and 7.8m boats are already booked for Thevenard Island but there are still spaces available for adventures in this great place.
bookings@mackerelislands.com.au
Check out the website: http://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: http://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.
Triple tuna hook-up
Dhuie and snapper
Beach mulloway
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
