August 2007

http://www.murchisonboathire.com.au/

You always have the last word if you talk to yourself!
Another near full month without the 6.1m boat. It has been up at Onslow, anchored out at
Thevenard Island for 3 weeks. I’m glad the bungs were in tight!
More on those hires below.
Big news is that Adventure Bound, a fishing & adventure TV show, screened a segment
fishing out of my boats at the beginning of the August. I hope you all got to see it.
Due to the great interest they are screening a repeat!
Catch it on Access 31 at 7.30 on Saturday 15th September.

I came across this vast raft of floating weed. If this was sometime between
January and June I’d bet my bottom dollar that it would be crawling with dolphin fish!
Unfortunately it was late August and not a pelagic in sight!

Steve Fowler has been up to Kalbarri many times and has fish two Kalbarri Sports Fishing
Classics, so is beginning to find his way around. Drifting close in for snapper with Ian and
Evelyn Kelly in the 5.3m boat, he took a huge hit eventually landing this samson fish. The biggest
fish he has ever caught, and released, good on you Steve!

Ian picked up a small one; a bit disappointing as he thought he had a good snapper.

Evelyn however kept catching undersize dhuies. (Look how calm it was!)


Bruce Lee brought his wife, Sue and kids Jay and Venissa up to Kalbarri for a week and searched me out for the
6.1m boat. He hired the 6.1m boat a couple of years ago doing very well catching dhuies and snapper.

This time heading south, daughter, Venissa hooked up first drop to this beautifully marked estuary cod.
You made “Bite of the Month” for August Venissa.
The wind dropped right off and so did the fishing. (It does that sometimes) but they went on to pick up a variety of smaller fish
such as cods, tarwhine, lots of undersize snapper

and this respectable flathead for Bruce.

Look at these great shots of dolphins that Venissa took when they cruised up to have a look!
It is surprisingly difficult to take pics of dolphins. These are quite good.

The 6.1m boat was up at Thevenard Island for 3 weeks with 3 different hirers.
They handed the boat over to each other thus saving the towing and a days hire!
The only photos I managed to get were from Martin Bull. He tells the story from here.

Hi Laurie, please feel free to change this around in any way you want. I have 2 other photos that I will send as separate emails as they are quite big. Regards.............Martin

Eric Smith and I visited the Mackerel Islands for a week inthe middle of August. The party included four boats but only two fished on the "Murchison", which of course made it sheer luxury. Despite the fishing being a little disappointing because of strong Easterlies every morning until around lunchtime, which meant that we couldn't catch the best tides, two of the four boats caught their limits.

We managed to catch a variety of fish including yellow-fin tuna, spanish mackerel and various bottom fish (including a double header of reds! - see photo). There appears to be an abundance of cod at the Mackerel Islands including many of good eating size and many that don't even know you have hooked them.

The highlight was a very nice Sailfish that Eric caught trolling a lure on a very old Ugly Stick, eggbeater reel and 20lb line. We estimated it at 80+lb. The photos were unfortunately not too flash as we decided not to lift it into the boat, as it was pretty tired.

The Mackerel Islands are extremely well set-up for fishing folk and they look after you very well, and the "Murchison" handled the conditions beautifully. Martin.
Well-done Martin, that is the first sailfish from the 6.1m boat to date!

Murray Johnson is all the way from Cohuna in northern Victoria. He knows my brother-in-law who put
him onto me. Picking a very nice day he was out with mate Ross Cooke also from Cohuna in the 6.1m boat.
Fishing was exceptionally quiet with only a couple of wrasse, goatfish, and pigfish coming up.
The fish could be seen on the sounder but would not bite. 4 undersize dhuies did bite and were released.
But big surprise was this massive yellow-fin tuna. All was very quiet on the 3 mile when all of a sudden there was a
boil up of dolphins, sharks and what I thought was tuna. We hastily tied on a lure and the hit came as
soon as we passed the frenzy. It looked like a bunch of sharks had got a baby dolphin, tuna or one of their own
and were tearing it apart. Dolphins, tuna and sharks were also cutting up baitfish, it was a mess!
Murray grabbed the 15kg outfit and I turned the boat and gave chase to the quickly emptying reel.
Chasing it down we found that it had rejoined the bait school and was continuing to feed while still hooked up!
This has happened to me before but when we got close we had a glimpse of it before it burst away and
went deep for 40 minutes. We were debating whether it was a shark or not but the early tuna shaped sighting gave
me confidence. In the end it surfaced with the lure front hooks snagged in the gills and the rear hook totally
ripped from the lure in the corner of the mouth!

Ross and Murray hold up the fish, Ross also had a session with it and both were exhausted in the end.

Weighing in at 26kg, this is a fish of a lifetime.
As this fish was caught early September, it does not qualify for August “Bite of the Month” but I am sure it will make September’s.
Well-done Ross & Murray!

Never ever fart in your wetsuit!!!!!!

Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club, Local comp 18th August.

I was in Perth for this comp, so missed out and the weather was perfect after so many bad ones. Damn!

They caught some nice fish from the beach and river. (Photos, taken by Cheryl Eley)

http://www.youtube.com/v/USYbtyXxhvY
Short video clip of a double hook-up of big yellow-fin tuna from my boat in Kalbarri.

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.

Adventure Bound fishing shows are on Access 31, 7.30pm Saturdays.

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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