Long Weekend in Lake Tyres

So I have officially moved to Victoria. We had a few days off so we asked my parents what their plans were. They were camping at Lake Tyres for several nights, so we decided to head down. I even managed to get my sister and her partner down as well, it was sort of an impromptu family camping trip.

We got down there Saturday and set up. Quite an amusing moment when we realised that we had never set up the outer on our tent before! You don’t really need it when camping in the dry season of Kakadu. Summer in Victoria is a bit different, you never know when it might rain. I have to say the tent looked rather new.

Had some fun on the beach the first day. It has been a long time since I have swum in the surf, something I really love. It was great to be among the waves again.

The next day Dad and I decided to do some land based fishing in the hopes of getting a flathead or two. He used bait, I tried my smaller soft plastics. He got a few bites, but we didn’t get anything. It was a shame we didn’t have more time, as we mostly spent it driving around and finding a few really cool locations.

Joining that Elusive Club

Went to Melville Island to visit some friends for a long weekend of fishing

Except after launching on Friday it was discovered that the boat wouldn’t start… so no fishing for the friday, and the trip was looking less than ideal.

But land based fishing is still fun, so that was Saturday’s plan. Tom had heard of a place that had big barra at this time of year. But doesn’t everyone say that. If I was to describe it I would say that it looked a lot like buffalo creek.

We got there at first light, but we expected the fishing to heat up each side of the 10.30am low. A little bit of action here and there in the morning showed there was a fish around, so that was good. With no fish after an hour, Tom decided to live bait. It wasn’t long before he caught a monster black tipped reef shark. He went back to live baiting and soon hooked and dropped a barra, estimated at 60cm. So that was a good sign. Not too long afterwards he hooked another barra around 70cm and got it the bank before he lost it in the worst way possible – his knot undid.

He was pretty annoyed, but finally the third bit of livebait hooked up and he got our first barra of the day, 61cm, and we had dinner for everyone. A funny moment in that fight was when the barra hooked up, it instantly ran across my line, we crossed back right away and I was going to wind up but, I could feel his fishing fighting, even though they appear uncrossed. I didn’t wind it up not wanting to cost him a barra… It took us a while to figure out that were NOT tangled, actually, I had a 35cm Jack on!

 

Meanwhile I had been swapping my lures with regularity with one or two strikes, but overall not doing well. Soon my blue barra classic was called for, and around an hour before the low, BANG.

What followed was one of the worst performances in angling history.

My drag was way too loose, WAY too loose, so it took my line and bolted against the current and away from the snags. I couldn’t tell at first what it was, I said to Tom “It might be a shark”, Tom said “No, way it’s a barra”. Actually I thought so, I just didn’t want to jinx it.

It came back and went again and it was obvious it was a barra and my drag was too loose. Tom told me to tighten it, I hate doing it on the run, but he was right, so I did. As it charged around upstream, I was dumbfounded at how big it was and how lucky I was it didn’t go charging for the snags. Predictably enough, it came towards me, then decided to head straight for the snags. I tightened the drag again on the run, but it wasn’t enough, it went straight under one dead tree so I could see the line against it, through some more branches and onwards.

I held him firm for a bit, and Tom said he could see it in a far off drain. I thought about for a bit and decided to freespool him to see if he would sort himself out. When I tightened it again, the lure was stuck on something, but there was no action with the fish. I freespool again for a while in hope… but when I tightened it again, it was the same. It seemed the lure was caught on a snag and the fish was gone. Not wanting to lose my lure, I tightened up the drag and slowly pulled… yay! I was lucky enough to break the branch off, but it was fairly big. ‘At least I get the lure’ I thought. So I slowly heaved my stick-fish in. It got past the branches, but got caught on the second snag. It was then I could see it was a metre by a metre of tangled branches… and the giant barra still there, being dragged sideways!

“He’s still on!” yelled Tom. Yes he was.

 


 

Soon the snag was hooked on another snag, so I had to go slack again, and luckily the current sorted everything out, and I was able to slowly pull both of them in.

We measured her at 96cm before putting her in the esky, my first legal saltwater barra since March. I was utterly stoked. Tom asked me if I wished it was a metre, yeah I guess, but who can complain with 96cm and also, my performance meant I really didn’t deserve it anyway.

 


It was only 20 minutes after that that Tom hooked another barra on a lure, this one loved jumping, he got it in, and it measured 83cm. When it came up the bank it really rolled itself in mud and Tom walked across to the ocean to clean it for the photo. (Interestingly we later found the barra was absolutely full of parasites and had to be thrown out)

I also caught a small cod, because that’s what I do. It was actually hard to release. There was a well known large croc who lived there, and the banks had about a metre of mud. I tried to throw him back but he landed in the mud with a plop. I had to fetch a stick from the trees behind us to poke him back in the water, and he swam away.

I had been cycling my lures regularly as I wasn’t getting any action, and Tom was getting some bites. We saw some large threadies swim by, but they were uninterested in our lures.

About 30 minutes after the water came pouring in, I was back on the same blue barra classic and bam! I was on again. This time I didn’t make any mistakes. My drag was exactly as it should be. As she came from the snag and hit the lure she followed the water away from the snags, as I expected. I held on for grim death, even with a tight drag she was peeling it off. But I also started walking up the bank, knowing if she charged back towards them, she it would be extra distance she’d have to make up against against the rod. Walking in sand and not allowing slack required two hands on the rod! At one point she jumped in the air, and got her whole body a foot out, and you had to marvel at such a sight. Tom wanted to know if it was a big as last time, it was hard to tell because the spool was so different, though I did think she was bigger, but I denied it… I didn’t want to jinx it. In the interest of honesty I will confess to thinking “4cm bigger, please please just 4cm bigger”.

She made two runs away from me, when I got her to the bank she made one last charge for the snags, but couldn’t get there, I had added an extra 15 metres that she had to swim. And so we dragged her up the bank, put the tape measure and 100cm! It was an easy decision to release her given we had a feed and then some. Tom ran to get the camera, and I thought she was actually 101cm. I called to him to witness and he said “are you really worried about the extra cm?” which was a good point so I lugged her up with great care and posed for the photo.

 


After that was was done I was ready to release her, but suddenly I remembered the cod and realised how difficult that was going to be. No way I was wading in knee deep mud in that river. Tom’s previous idea of washing the barra in the ocean suddenly came to me, so cuddling her gently I sprinted off to towards the sea. The visibility was really good and it was only a foot or two for a while, so I felt safe and able to revive her there. She tried to play dead but with a single slight squeeze of the tail she roared to life, and powered away.

From there we had a few more red hot goes on our lures, but nothing hooked up. Things died off as the water continued to come in, so we decided to call it and head home.

 

Got:
Me: 96cm & 100cm barra… and a mangrove jack, cod
Tom: 61cm, 83cm barra… and a large shark

On the Edge to Whitehaven

On the Friday it was decided we would take a trip on the catamaran “On the Edge” to Whitehaven beach. We had sent out this in the letters we wrote to everyone as part of the wedding invite, so we made up nearly half of the crew. It was an amazing trip. You don’t need a lot to make a great day of Whitehaven, it looks like every single photo of every beach after it has been photoshopped. I don’t even know how to use photoshop, so these photos are just on my small Canon camera.

Before we got there we had a snorkel around Chalkies beach. Pretty good, although I was off to the outer reef tomorrow.

Then we headed over to Whitehaven. I guess not a lot to write about apart from it was really fun, water was amazing, wind was down, everything was great.

Story of the trip is that another crew had found a large turtle on the beach. A shark had eaten its fin off, it was breathing badly. They tried to keep it cool until it decided it wanted to leave. It swam off leaving a trail of blood behind it. Hopefully he made it.

Bucks day!!

The wife and I are very different in some ways. Whereas she had 3(!) hens nights with various friends in various locations, I did not want one. Strippers? Might as well drink non-alcoholic beer. But she was insistent on me doing something… hey no worries what about a chartered fishing trip?

We set off in glorious weather, having been assured the tides were not ideal. First place we hit a few of the boys pulled up some thumper trevally. The guide was dissapointed and we moved on.

At this point I was thinking of forming a mutiny. Firstly I hadnt caught one yet. What if that was it? Secondly they cook okay if they arent refridgerated. Thirdly nummas/cerviche is awesome. Fourthly how sure he could be we could get others? But no, he wanted it for bait…. so me and Chops (a fellow Trevally lover) waited.

Second place we got, nothing.

Third place we went to, a few of the boys hooked Nannygai. Success!! And a few more… soon we were smashing them! But not poor old me….

Eventually I got onto a 42cm one. Can’t complain. I took a break as I was hogging the rods. I found out later the rod that I had was ordinary, but in 60m of water I couldn’t tell.

Soon my mate tired and I grabbed my rod again… got a slight nibble and I increased the pressure and hooked the fish. Suddenly my whole body was clenching trying to hang on… he pulled off some line, which was funny as the drag was so tight I broke it easily on a snag. I wound and winded. Over and over. We were fighting sharks, and I was doing such and ordinary job of getting him up quickly I didn’t think I had a chance. Wound and wind. Over and over. Soon my whole body ached. The skipper was shouting to me to stop being a princess and ignore that lactic acid. Easy to say… this might seem dramatic but
a) I like a good story
b) It was a really ordinary rod and reel
As I wound that bad boy up inch by inch I was hoping it was something decent otherwise I would look the fool. Part of me wondered if I had a small shark as it kept taking line, and that drag was DAMN tight.

When I got it to the surface…. far out… an impressive (68cm) Coral Trout!!! When I got it in the boat, I mean, wow, what a rush. I remembered why I love fishing, why I love the Whitsundays, and that bait fishing / bottom bashing isn’t all bad!

From then on I hit the beer (my first, stop judging me, fishing comes first on these things) and let everyone have a fish for a while. My cousin pulled up a mammoth Nannygai, otherwise everyone was pretty much hitting one after the other. The trick was getting them past the sharks. I spent a bit of time teaching the newbies what to do, one particular highlight was pulling a fish past two sharks who were charging it.

Soon a few people got tried so I hit the end of the day, managed another 2 keepers and a 50cm sweetlip, which was pretty damn cool.

What a trip!!!

Got:
Me: 68cm coral trout, 50cm sweetlip, 3 40-55cm nannygai
Everyone: Lots of nannygai! And some Trevally. One more sweetlip.

Story of the trip:
Clearly my coral trout. I was so stoked with it. The wind was dead, the ocean was blue, just a great trip all around.

Snaps

Trevelly!


Me with my Coral Trout!


The old man looking happy


Cousin Gareth with the biggest Nannygai of the day, think around 80 to 90

El Questro – Part 1 of the Kimberley

We arrived in El Questo for the first part of our trip. We managed to get a private campsite. It was $174 for two days, though about half of that was the “park pass” that gave you access to the gorges. A bit pricey… but wow! It was worth it. It was the best campsite that I have seen. Right on a river, under some great trees, with no one around. It is a cattle station and we were a bit suprised to see a herd of cows sitting around the camp site. Most left but one was a bit bold and kept trying to come over. We shooed her away, but she would always come back. Eventually we managed to chase her off in the car.


Campsite

Moonrise by the River

The next morning we woke up early and headed straight to the thermal spring. It was a great spot to swim, with only a couple of people there we timed it really well.


Then we went to Emma Gorge. Claire nearly walked over a black snake. Usually snakes are quite scared of humans but this one was quite happy taking the path, not interested in leaving on account of us.


Emma Gorge

The Emma Gorge walk was amazing, when we got there it was far too cold to swim, but we had some bikkies and dip before heading back.

On the way back we went to El Questro gorge. It was really Jurassic Park like. Walking at the bottom of some massive escarpments all the way through. Had a good swim in the half way pool too, then headed back. The water crossing there was a bit scary, all of them are very easy but this one started easy at about 300mm on rocks then suddenly changed to 500mm on mud. But we got through without a problem.

That night we had some more fun with a swim a few drinks by our river, once again had a great moon in the blue sky. One of the neighbours was pumping music, and I went over to ask them to turn it down… turns out it wasn’t them, but the homestead. What was even funnier was, thanks to WA time, it was actually 7.30pm at night. I’ve clearly turned into a grumpy old man.

The next morning we packed up and checked the stockmans waterhole out. We had a bit of driving to do to get to the King Edward river camp site, so we didn’t go for a swim.