A
very busy month with lots of fish, a welcome change!
The mackerel are back
with lots being caught on the 3 mile
As
well as the Sand Patch, but going slow now that there is a bit if swell around.
School holiday makers are getting a fair number
of fish with most reporting that they ware
happy with their catch, mainly snapper, mackerel and yellow-fin tuna.
http://www.facebook.com/MurchisonBoatHire?ref=hl
Slow Day, Big Fish
Brian holds his biggest snapper to date, an 86 cm specimen,
while Mike shows off his baldchin groper.
Shark Bay Turns it On
Craig Walker had a
good trip up to Shark Bay early this month, here is his story!
G’Day Guys,
Thank you again for the stress free hire of
your 6.5m All-rounder last week. Some awesome fish were landed and great fun
was had by all.
Saturday
6th April,
A quick call to Murchison Boat Hire to let
them know we were leaving Geraldton and we were on the road again to pick up
our boat from the Kalbarri turnoff.
We met Laurie about an hour later where we
went through the checklist and got the rundown on our hire boat.
All was good so we hit the road again with
nothing but fishing on the mind.
Sunday
7th April,
The first day of fishing saw us all up
before sunrise eager to get on the water. We headed across to Dirk Hartog
Island to try our luck.
Fishing in about 13 meters of water saw our
luck change and Trent showed fairly quickly that he was going to have the lucky
touch for the trip when he pulled in a few
nice black snapper and a great fight with a 4 foot shark.
Tuesday
9th April,
With the southerly still holding strong we
decided to head over the other side and launch from Monkey Mia. It turned out
to be the right
choice as we headed north into some
magnificent conditions. Clear flat water everywhere. With plenty of Tuna
schools visible
in
the area we tried our luck at some trolling again. We realised fairly quickly
that they didn’t want to play the game so we
went
in search of some reef again and after a quick drift saw 2 good Rankin Cod on
ice. We dropped anchor and fished the spot for the
next
few hours pulling in some great fish including Black Snapper, Rankin cod and
Estuary Cod.
Glassy conditions ensured a relaxing trip in was had by all.
Thursday
11th April,
Today was Marks last day of fishing and
there was some debate as to where we were going to head as it was glassy
conditions all round. After
some
discussion amongst the boys it was decided we would try our hand over off
Monkey Mia again. We searched for some good ground
Faure Island. Within 10 minutes of drifting Mark
had pulled in two great pinkies at around 65 and 68cms. We tried another drift
and they
just
kept coming, Brent pulled in a couple followed by Trent and Craig and before we
knew it we had our limit of pink snapper
on
board as well as some other great fish including a 68cm Black Snapper.
Friday12th
April,
Mark headed off before sunrise on the long
drive back to Perth. Trent Brent and Craig decided that they would again head
over to
Monkey Mia where they had most of their
luck during the week. We made a b-line for our pink snapper spot and fairly
quickly
had
a couple of good sized pinkies on ice. Craig had a big hit which at first
we thought was a shark due to the huge run until it buried itself into the
reef.
A little bit of slack on the line saw it
come out and then some hard winding brought up an awesome 8kg Estuary Cod. With
the 3 boys
in
good spirits we kept going pulling in plenty of undersize snapper.
We pulled anchor and headed for the Ramp
for the last time of the trip.
All the Luck?
Jay Martin, brother
Aaron, Tom Petll and Rolly Brown had a day out in perfect conditions.
Unfortunately only
one good fish was landed among the sambos, sharks and small nor’west snapper.
This was Jay’s first
dhufish, he was stoked!
Good day out! Good fish!
Vun Leiw sent me this pic of a big snapper
he got out of my 6.1m boat early this month.
This is his story!
It was good
sunny. The 6.1 metre we hired from Murchison Boat Hire of Kalbarri. This boat
riding smooth like in the giant
swimming pool on the way out with my brother
John and my mate Rodney. About one and the half hour we reached the spot
on the GPS fitted in the boat, water
temperature reading from the echo was 24 degree C. Not much effort at all after
a few
drifting along the reef we hooked up this over
80 cm monster Snapper! Also a fish I dream
about from time to time to catch one.
It pull so hard off my 40 lbs leader, it tooks
me some good tweety mins till we landed this monster with good team work.
I will never
forget this good day out fishing in Kalbarri fishing heaven.
5.3m Boat Magic
Paull Weber and Peter
Roach are frequent hirers of the 5.3m boat and it all came together for them.
Having never caught a mackerel on a lure,
He was a bit
sceptical of his chances. He did not have to worry as it just went off. 5
mackerel and a tuna, the first day!
Back for another Shot
Laurence Tunnacliffe
and Peter Jewell and mates Fred, Kim and Andy were back for another shot at
some fish.
They have had the 7.8m
boat a few times always catching good fish. This time it was a bit slow, but
On one of the days
they bagged out on big dhuies, big cod, good snapper and baldchin.
Kim holds the cod
and
shark.
Baby Blue Marlin
This baby blue marlin was one of 7 million
eggs released by its mother, and was only a few millimetres
long upon hatching. Blue marlin can grow to be
14 feet long, weighing up to 1985 pounds.
Monster Barracuda
Cam Nicolson shows
off a pending-record 102-pound Guinean barracuda, caught in mid-February off
Angola by Thomas Gibson (pictured below).
As we speak, the IGFA
is reviewing a new submission for a pending all-tackle, world-record barracuda
— but it’s not
the great barracuda (or the Pacific variety) you might be
familiar with.
Meet the Guinean
barracuda (Sphyraena afra), a ferocious species found along the Atlantic coast
of East Africa, from Mauritania to Namibia.
This particular
specimen was caught in mid-February by Thomas Gibson, of Houston, Texas. Gibson
was fishing for tarpon with Cam Nicolson
around Rio Cuanza in Angola, when the beast
hit a Rapala. It weighed a whopping 102 pounds on the scales and, if approved,
would just supplant
the current record of 101 pounds, 3 ounces,
caught in Gabon in 2002 by Dr. Cyril Fabre.
“I have never seen
anything like it,” Iain Nicolson, Cam’s brother, tells Sport Fishing of the
catch. “It was 210 cm long – that’s just under 6’11”!”
That’s about as big
as they get, according to the IGFA’s species page for the Guinean.
Similar to the very
popular great barracuda (Sphyraena barracuda), the Guinean is
generally found around continental shelves and inside lagoons
and estuaries. But interestingly, there are no
documented reports of ciguatera related to this species of barracuda – or any
Sphyraena
species from the eastern Central Atlantic, for
that matter.
One more interesting
fact about barracudas in general: Did you know there are 27 species of cudas
throughout the world? I honestly never
knew that before researching it a bit. Pretty
amazing, I thought.
Each month I award Bite of the
Month to someone who catches the best fish from one of my boats.
From this month
onwards together with Striketech
reels I am giving away a Striketech reel to the Bite of the Month winner.
Brian Mosley wins
this month with his biggest snapper to date, an 86cm specimen caught from the
7.8m boat.
Up Coming Events In Kalbarri
Only a few days until
this comp.
Swell is coming down
and the wind turning easterly, so it should be right!
Date is the 4th and
5th May 2013.
A Game Fishing Tournament
for lines 6kg, 4kg, 3kg, 2kg and 1kg.
Lines must be IGFA
factory pretest mono only.
Need a boat for up north?
Remember I will
deliver a boat out to the turn-off for free for those heading north.
Just ring me from
Geraldton and I will meet you there.
Popular Northern Destinations
Thevenard
Island
Island Manager: Ash
and partner Jade, 9184 6444.
There are a few cabins available, just ask and see if you
can get one. However Direction Island is
always open and
still a good option and bookings can be made.
Check out the website: www.mackerelislands.com.au
Ashburton
Resort
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
Steep Point
Steep Point Ranger for booking campsites.
Phone: Paul Dickson -
Steep Point 9948 3993
Email: Ranger@steeppoint.com.au
Dirk Hartog Island
Kieran
Wardle: 08
99481 211 Mob: 0407 383 449
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.
Archived
Newsletters
After a lot of
effort on my part, you can now view all my past newsletters in my Blogs.
I have made six
blogs; you can view all of my 2005 newsletters with photos @
And from January
2006 to December 2006 with photos @
And from January
2007 to December 2007 with photos @
And from January
2008 to December 2008 with photos @
And from January
2009 to December 2009 with photos @
And from January
2010 to December 2010 with photos @
And from January
2011 to December 2011 with photos @
And from January
2012 onwards with photos @
And from January
2013 onwards with photos@
They are quite long
URL’s so add them to your favourites.
Remember
if you rent our accommodation in Kalbarri
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, www.buoyweather.com go to virtual
buoys, pick the location you want.
This is the one I go by!