February 2007

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

The Australia Day long weekend was the start to the most extraordinary 3 days fishing I have ever had!
The Kalbarri Ultra Light Competition was on the Saturday and Sunday that weekend but my son, up from Perth, on his way to Coral Bay stopped in on the Friday asking for a fish with his girlfriend Rhea. No problems, if the weather is good I don’t mind going even if I have to go out the next two days after that. I am glad I did as the fishing just turned on! It started out quiet with only a few birds looking around and not much action. We continued our troll up past the Sand Patch when I spotted a few birds gathering so headed to the action. As soon as we got there we got a triple hook-up. They turned out to be small yellow-fin tuna, not bad, kept and bleed for sashimi!

Triple hook-up of yellow-fin tuna!
By the time we had the fish in the boat and looked around again the whole ocean as far as the eye could see was boiling with yellow-fin tuna, bait schools, birds and gorging themselves in the bait schools were sharks. Now and again the birds and sharks would scatter and a bride’s whale would come up and engulf the whole bait school! As soon as we started to troll we hooked up again. In fact we only had to go 50m in any direction before the next strike.
We ended up catching and releasing 22 yellow-fin and that was not counting the ones that got away before we got them to the boat. We only counted them if they were landed in the boat! The tuna were so thick that while the kids were fighting their fish I cast out a lure using a boat rod and Penn 330gti overhead, getting about 20m and reeling in as fast as I could, and getting a hook-up next to the boat!
Bait schools and birds. The tuna, mackerel and sharks are beneath.
Rhea holds a baby yellow-fin one of the 22 we caught and released!

James Scovel, Alison Robertson and Andrew Wooley were up in the 5.3m boat to fish the Ultra Light and were into the fish from the start. They fished heavier line the first day nearly bagging out on game fish, i.e. 2 mackerel, 2 yellow-fin each and they also had a couple of mack tuna and a cobia that are in another fish category. But the sharks were getting more brazen by the hour and eventually they were taking all hooked fish.

Andrew with a small cobia and a very nice mac

Andrew’s tuna while James holds another mac and yellow-fin

One of the sharks made a mistake and got hooked up on a lure. This black-tipped shark
took Andrew about an hour on 50lb braid before a quick photo and release.

Mean while I was out with my wife Sue and son Jared trying to get a fish in on 3kg line! We easily got hook-ups at every patch of bait and birds but knowing when or if a shark had eaten it was quite difficult. We spent a lot of time fighting sharks on 3kg line before resigning to the fact it was a shark and busting off. We did get a few fish in and son Jared won the junior section landing 3 tuna on 3kg line over the two days.
I also landed 3 tuna, one of them on 2kg line giving me enough points to win overall.
Sue got 2 tuna but spent the most time on sharks.

Jared with one of his tuna on 3kg line and my 4.24kg yellow-fin caught on 2kg line.
Of note is this fish caught by Jamie Grieves. A 7.1kg mackerel on 2kg line.
Won him the 2kg line class section. A very good fish on such light line.

This is us in the 6.1m boat amongst it all. We are retying lines after being bust off after trolling
past the bait school shown below. Son Jared in the red T-shirt is actually dragging his lure through the water in a figure of eight trying to entice a strike from the tuna that he could see. They were tempted but they just wouldn’t come that close to the boat!
Steve is pointing to what looks like a lone trevally species with a black-tipped shark above it.
The tuna were deeper down and below them the macs.

Black-tipped shark gorging itself on the bait.

The above pics are from stills taken off a video, shot from the top of the tuna tower of another boat. Jamie Waite is the photographer, thanks Jamie! Jamie and Fay are the owners of Seafront Villas right on the foreshore. There were usually two black-tipped sharks per bait school, the other one from this bait ball was probably trying to shake my lure out of its mouth when this shot was taken!
Jamie did get a fish over the weekend, this mac caught on 6kg line to win him
the 6kg line class section.
Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club, Local comp.
The land based guys and girls did well with some superb fish. Look at this!

Second day, 22kg mulloway for Lui and Natalie with her 15kg fish.

First day mulloway for Lui and Karen, and Simon brought in a big bonefish!

These pics were taken one afternoon returning from Geraldton just before the National Park along a strip of farmland.
The total lack of rain last year prohibited the farmers even planting a crop and now the paddocks are bare, not even
a little bit of stubble to hold the topsoil from being blown away.

The dust was blowing across the road in curtains.
You got to feel for the farmers, just hope we get some rain this year!

Justin DeMello has been up a couple of times before catching some nice yellow-fin tuna. This time he came up with a few mates and got out early in the 6.1m. The weather was not too good so were limited to fishing around the good ground around Bald Face. The fishing was agonisingly slow with few bites.

The early start with crew, Brett, Luke, Marvin, Julia & Justin.
All the action happened within an hour and then it all went quiet again!

Justin landed a small black-tipped shark,

Brett caught a cod. (Brett is the one on the right)

Luke holds up the only tailor that has ever been caught on the bottom from any of my boats!

While Marvin holds a thumper sand snapper (painted sweetlip). Marvin also hooked up to a shark that took a lot of line and then leapt and rolled on the line busting him off! Their skin is like sandpaper. Unfortunately all the guys got quite seasick, with Justin throwing up the most. Julia was the only one who did not get sick but failed to catch a fish, she did however forget to put on sunscreen and got burnt bright red!
In the evening Justin went for a tailor fish and managed this little chopper.

He has been trying every time he has been up here and finally got one!
Hopefully you will get a greenback jumbo next time Justin.

Now, the following week the swell went down the water cleared up and some awesome fish turned up in the way of big yellow-fin tuna. Three guys from Sarawak, Borneo, over for a bit of a holiday in WA took the 5.3 for a spin up to the Sand Patch where

Paul Yong picked up this very nice mac before the sun had come up.

Shortly followed by a hard fighting yellow-fin for Stanley. Incidentally, Stanley has never caught a fish before other than a couple of very small red fish he caught on a charter out from Florida!
He then went on to land another, which took him about an hour on a 10kg Ugly Stick and Penn 8500 spinning reel. Once these tuna get a gut full of fish they get fuelled up and are real tough to land!
Following is a pic of some of the baitfish Stanley’s first tuna spat up when landed.

They look like tiny pipefish; a tiny seahorse was also amongst them. The tuna must feed on
the bottom sucking these things in during the night or when they are not feeding on the surface?
Paul also got one and they then went on to catch another three tuna bigger than these, which would Have gone 20kgs and released them. It took them 45 minutes each using 80lb braid on TLD25s. Very tough fit and well-fed tuna!
This series of pics were taken by Stuart Bird who is an opal miner in Cooper Pedy, and in Kalbarri for a holiday. I know him from his very interesting “Opal Mining Newsletter” that he sends out once a month. Subscribe to it if you want at www.internetopals.com/about/Subscribe.htm worth having a look at.
He arrived just as we had released a tuna from a double hook-up and were fighting the second one.

You can see the action here, birds everywhere and we could see the tuna crashing baitfish while we were fighting the second tuna.
It comes up to the boat, and I have the leader in my gloved hands, just got to grab the tail now! Missed! Had to let go. Took another ten minutes before we saw it again.

Got him!
Quick unhook, photos all round and back into the briny. You have to be quick as they die easily.
Guestimate at around 20kgs, took 45 minutes on 80lb braid and TLD25, tough fish!

Featured website this month is http://www.fishwrecked.com.au/
A good site with recent pics of outstanding fish, a forum and info.

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

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