March 2007

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

Idyllic evening on the Murchison.
It has been a very hot month; we had a couple of days when the mercury
hit 46 degrees and one day it went as high as 47 degrees! Couldn’t do

much work outdoors but the fishing was red hot! It has been the best

yellow-fin tuna year ever! They have been around in great numbers

and big too!

The following will testify to the tuna as told to me by Braden Grylls via email.

G'day Laurie cheers for your boat the other day it was great. Got a

couple of photos here for you. Five blokes Steven, Ashly, Kyle,

Beau and my self (Braden) headed off at 6.30 for the sand patch

for hopefully a good day of fishing. We trolled at the sand patch

for a good half an hour hoping for the best but nothing, until we hear

over the two way “Braden ya there” it was Laurie the bloke I
hired the boat from. His crew was on to a nice big Mackie. All us boys

couldn’t believe it we were only 30m from him and still no hits.

So after a while we packed up and headed 8km north of the sand

patch to only see birds going off at the water like crazy. Finally

some action Bang! Bang! Bang! 4 yellow-fin tuna on at once, it was

a mission getting them in but did succeed in the end. Once they were

in the boat away we went again, but this time my brother Ashly was

on to a beauty. He fought it for a good 25mins and finally it was
aboard. As we started trolling again my mate Kyle got onto something

huge there was no way he was gonna stop what was on the

end of his line, it was off then bang another lure gone.

At this stage we were down to one lure so
we decided to call it a day. We were back in by 12.30. At the pub by 12.40.
if it to long cut bits out if you like.. cheers....mate
Braden Grylls

Another email from Dan Marsh, telling his story.

Hi Laurie and Sue,
Thanks again for a great day.
Here is the story.
Wez, my girlfriend Shihomi and I set out for a days fishing on the beautiful 5.3m boat supplied by Murchison Boat Hire. We were greeted with choppy conditions, which was challenging our optimism and sea legs. Once we got to our fishing grounds we starting trolling a couple of deep diving lasers out the back. We had never tolled before so we were putting into practise everything the guy at the fishing shop and Laurie had told us.
After about half an hour of eagerly staring at the rods, bang!!!
I was on. Wez quickly pulled in the other line and I set about wrestling with this fish.
It came to the boat within minutes but I knew it had plenty left in it.
Suddenly it took off in a blistering run directly out the back of the boat.
For the next 20 minutes we went back and forth with the spanish mackeral finally succumbing to my persistence.
It is certainly the best fish I have ever caught and my adrenalin was pumping.
Then came the terrible feeling of what if Wez doesn't catch one, he'll feel pretty ripped off.
I took the steering wheel and within 15 minutes I heard "I'm on".
Wez pulled this fish in with gusto. He had the upper hand at every moment.
The glistening fish matched the ear-to-ear smile on Wez's face.
We then gave the bottom fishing a go. We didn't have much luck probably
because the choppy conditions were turning us green. I thought my luck had changed when I hooked into a heavy fish. It had a bit of fight so I was calling a pink snapper. I was embarrassed when I pulled a catfish into the boat. I give you the scoop, they stink!
Time for some more trolling.
After an hour of chasing around schools of jumping baitfish we decided to use our tried and trued method. Boom! Another nice spanish mackeral. This one took a huge run under the boat making for anxious moments. Then Wez caught a nice stripey tuna. His enthusiasm turned out to be his downfall as the fish fell off the hook when he tried to pull into the boat without the gaff. We were later told that stripeys are no good to eat anyway so it was accidental catch and release. unfortunately our time was up and we had to go back in but we could have stayed out there much longer.
What an awesome day.
I know the story is long so cut it down however you want
Dan.

During the month we also had a film crew from Melbourne. They do a TV Series called Adventure Bound
But unfortunately not screened in WA yet. They came up last year for a look see and returned with a film crew
and spent 3 days on my 6.1m boat, a couple trying to get a mulloway and some time up the river.
They fished the beach and spent a night up the coast eventually getting this mulloway.
Local mulloway guru, Ashley Van Versen, Neil Tedesco, Cam Munro, Peter.
They got it all on film early morning, which was great light for the cameraman.
Neil Tedesco with the +- 20kg mulloway
They got a nice dhuie on soft plastics from the 6.1m boat.
An 8kg shallow water snapper for the cameraman/presenter Andrew Clark
and a few tuna around the 15kg mark.
I saw the incredible footage from this treble hook up (one got off). They had 2 cameras,
One filming from the roof and the other from the cab. Put together it should be a spectacular
bit of filming as when one of the tuna came to the boat, it took fright and screamed off
across the surface and the tight drag on the braid loaded Saltiga just screamed in pain
and just went on and on and on! Close up of the reel with sound coupled with the tuna taking
fright with Cam’s rod wrapped around the motor should be awesome.
Cam Munro with the tuna that moulded his Saltiga rod into the shape of the motor.

They will be sending me a cut of the show and hopefully be able to put a video link on my
website to show some of the action.
Check them out on their website http://www.adventurebound.com.au/
The TV shows are on TVS Sydney Thursday 5th April 8pm and repeated on Sat 7th at 4.30pm and Thursday 12th April 8pm repeated Sat 14th 4.30pm
Melbourne and Adelaide Channel 31 5th April 8pm and 7.30, repeated Sat 7th and
Thursday 12th April 8pm & 7.30pm repeated Sat 14th.
Both shows are about their trip to Kalbarri.

If you have ever wondered what you should take out in the boat with you,

here is a tip about what not to take!
Bananas, they are just plain bad luck, you won’t catch fish! Don’t take them leave them behind. Do not even have one for breakfast and then get on the boat! No banana lollies, banana muffins or the like!
Bags of crisps, Cheezels etc. You might feel in control but when you have a triple hook-up on mackerel you will just throw them up in the air and grab your rod. It has taken a week to get
the soggy ground in crisps out of my carpet!
Peanuts, the same goes, I am still finding nuts and shells under the carpet, side pockets and transom weeks after a hire!
Fried rice, and don’t try to eat it with chopsticks in a 30 knot southerly!
Scales, please do not scale fish in the boat. It is a fisheries law that you cannot fillet fish at sea, so bring them back and fillet and skin them like normal people!

My Sister in Law, Robyn, her husband Martin and kids Luke and Joe arrived from England this month and stayed a few days. The were here during the film crew so I did not have much time to take them out but a small window presented itself when the easterlies calmed off around 10am one morning and we shot out in the 5.3m boat. We tried off Red Bluff, down the cliffs, the 3-mile then gave up but trolled all the way back to the entrance. This 17kg yellow-fin grabbed a lure 500m from Black Rock giving 10-year-old Luke the fight of his life. He did need a hand getting it in as he struggled with the 15kg gear he had to use, but did very well considering the power of these fish!

A fish of a lifetime Luke, you made “Bite of the month” on my website for March!

My cousin Brendan Mitchell from Zimbabwe was over for a short holiday with partner Feral, (Yes that is her name) and stopped in for a couple of days during their campervan trip around the Midwest and South West. The easterlies were a bit strong so elected to drive to Port Gregory to drop off my 4.3m dinghy. On the way back we stopped in to Lucky Bay to have a look at the dunes, do some 4 wheel driving, have a snorkel in the lagoon and collect some abalone. When we got back around lunch the easterlies had stopped and all was calm so we hitched the boat and dashed out to the 3 mile where I thought something might happen. Just as we were about to turn home the birds started to work and the tuna came up to feed. We picked up these two small yellow-fin and headed in. First fish Feral has ever caught and biggest for Brendan

KALBARRI SPORTS FISHING CLASSIC
21st ANNIVERSARY YEAR 2007
The Kalbarri Classic was again a great success with 48 boats and 37 river anglers converging
in Kalbarri for the annual Kalbarri Sports Fishing Classic, A 3 day game fishing,
bottom fishing and river fishing tournament, one of the biggest tournaments in the Midwest.

The river competition was a close fought battle between a number of the Kalbarri locals and ex-locals.
Cheryl Eley managed to be the most consistent, weighing every day producing the goods
to become Champion River Adult. Cheryl finished only about three points ahead of her nearest rival,
Lui Palamara, who released seven bream including 2 “horses” to win the Tag and
Release prize presented by fisheries WA. Lui Palamara also won the biggest bream of 1.07kg.
Lui ‘s efforts in the river were seen to be outstanding and he was awarded the Men’s
Meritorious Award in its inaugural year with a custom built rod. Rod Mitchell, founding
President of the Club donated the award. Lui was most gracious in his acceptance of the
award and recognised it for the great honour it was. Some big estuary cod were caught with
Steve Westrop releasing a fine specimen while Aaron Kenzler picked up Meritorious River with his 2.1kg cod.

Lui Palamara’s heaviest bream 1.07kg, and Steve Westrop’s cod from the river.

Aaron Kenzer with his Meritorious River cod and Heaviest Whiting went to Peter Dooley

Jeb Duigan with one of his fish.
Of the 37 river anglers 18 were juniors. They all fished well catching some great fish.
Martin Stewart, Jeb Duigan and Rylee Eley all had very good points but not good enough to beat Lee Ivey who picked up the very prized Champion River Junior prize.
The boat section was hampered by the less than perfect weather, which turned pretty
ugly on the Saturday forcing a lot of boats to stay ashore or come in early.
Those that stayed out found it very difficult and hard to find the fish.
The first day was the best for the game anglers and some very good yellow-fin tuna were landed and a few very sad stories were also told as the tough fish out-gunned the light line anglers.
Jamie Waite with crew, Fay Sutherland and Val Carter found the schools and landed good fish.
Jamie showed a 13.8kg fish caught on 6kg line scoring well in the 6-7m boat category.

Jamie Waite with his big yellow-fin tuna.
In the under 6m boats, Fishwrecked.com team, Rob Tenaglia and Ron Neumann did extremely
well with mackerel and tuna jumping to the lead in their section. Ross Olsen aboard “Phantom III”
(over 7m) with son Matt and Chris Geraghty also had tuna and mackerel giving them the lead in their section.
Matt had the Highest Point Scoring Mackerel, an 8.2kg fish on 4kg line.
They went on to catch more mackerel and tuna on the third day to give them the honour of
Champion Boat Game over 7m. With such good catches, including 3 great point scorers on
Day 3, Matt Olsen went on to win Champion Angler Game as well.
Mark Tankard won the Meritorious Game with a very difficult catch of a 5.85kg tuna on 2kg line.
An outstanding catch on Day 1 by Darren Harris aboard “U For Reel”, skippered by dad
Peter Harris put the boat into the lead in the 6-7m category with big yellow-fin tuna of 15kg caught on
4kg line, worth 375 points! Darren told us that it took him 2 hours to subdue the beast,
but it was the only fish they managed to get over the 3 days.
Darren with his 15kg tuna caught on 4kg line. It won him the Highest Point Scoring
Tuna and the Highest Point Scoring Game Fish and Skywest Top Gun.

The third day was the make or break for Laurie Malton aboard “Bulawayo Buoy” in the
6-7m category crewed by Sue Malton, daughter Rebecca, son Jared and regular John Hoye.
Trailing by 300 odd points, they took the gamble of fishing for line class snapper. Sue and
John got the fish and managed to just slip in ahead of Jamie Waite’s team and Darren and
Peter Harris to win Champion Boat Game 6-7m. John Hoye’s 3.95kg snapper on
2kg line won him the Highest Point Scoring Snapper.
The Fishwrecked.com team of Rob and Ron had motor trouble on the second day and
did not score for the next two days but still had enough points from the
first day to win the Champion Boat Game under 6m.

The much-coveted Heaviest WA Dhufish was strongly contested with Mick Reynolds bringing in the goods, a 10.2 kg fish. Pink snapper were plentiful and a few thumpers took the bait.
Caron Stewart won the Ladies Meritorious for her very good 7.1kg fish and was in the lead all the
way from the first day until Nik Bramwell weighed in a 7.75kg snapper at the end, picking up
Heaviest Not Game Snapper. Nik was fishing with Guy Henderson aboard their little
dinghy “Hurricane” braving some atrocious weather on the Saturday going a long way south
to do extremely well winning Champion Boat Bottom under 6m with some very good snapper.

Mick Reynolds with his 10.2kg dhufish

Nik Bramwell, Heaviest Not Game Snapper and Caron Stewart,
Ladies Meritorious. (She won it last year as well with a big snapper)

Heaviest Groper went to a junior this year; Tom Rolfe fishing aboard “Jack Shitt” who did the
hard miles and came home with a big 4.8kg baldchin groper. With quite a few other fish
including a nice gold spot trevally, Tom came to the lead to win Champion Junior Bottom as well. The big baldchin grouper won Tom Rolfe the heaviest groper prize and Champion Junior Bottom.
An outstanding catch on the first day by Lou Parker won him the Meritorious Bottom.
Fishing north of the river mouth close to shore he managed to land this great coral trout of
4.4kgs. His catch helped the rest of the crew aboard “Lauren Rose” skippered by
Norm Godfrey and Vern Godfrey to win the Champion Boat Bottom over 7m.
Well known locals Paul Loffler aboard his boat “The Master Baiter” and Mark Flannigan
fished consistently bringing in good bags of snapper each day to win the Champion Boat
Bottom 6-7m and Paul Loffler won Champion Angler Bottom picking up good prizes.

Peter Maindok aboard “Santa Barbara” skippered by Paul Maindok and Marty Maindok had a lot of fun but only managed a few fish. But Peter’s second day estuary cod was the biggest at 11.75kgs, winning him that prize.
Heaviest Samson fish was caught by Joe Gaucci, though
a small fish for the species at 3.7kgs it is still a winner.

2005 blogs
http://www.murchisonboathirefishing2005.blogspot.com/

And 2006 with photos at

http://www.murchisonboathirefishing2006.blogspot.com/

And from January 2007 to present with photos at

http://www.murchisonboathirefishing2007.blogspot.com/

They are quite long URL’s so add them to your favourites for later.

Featured website this month is http://www.adventurebound.com.au/
The film crew’s website with articles, news, gear.

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 be added to my mailing list.

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

If you want to be included in these newsletters just send me a return BLANK email with the subject line “subscribe” and you will recieve one each month