Northern Fishing Adventure

[Daniel W]

This was actually a two week working trip for my brother Allen and me, with some fishing at the end of each day. That was our plan anyway. We started work at Newman, (no fishing there) then went to Port Hedland, Wickham, Karratha, Carnarvon and Geraldton.

We arrived in Port Hedland with the weather gods against us, very high humidity and stinking hot weather. The humidity was so high even my 60L Engel fridge-freezer wouldn’t work properly. Not impressed with it at all. My brother had told me before that they wouldn’t work so good in the humidity, but I thought there was something wrong with his and mine would work better. He’s had two different brands of fridge-freezers before and has experienced the same thing. The Engel wouldn’t even keep drinks at room temperature when it was on freeze.

The tide was so far out I wondered where the water was, so we parked the caravan on the side of the road and decided not to worry about fishing that night. Ten minutes after parking up we got hit by a thunder storm which rocked the caravan from side to side, and we found that the pop top leaked which it doesn’t normally. The storm was so severe it ripped two rubbish bins along side of us out of the ground even though they had been cemented in. Definitely no fishing for us that night.

[Daniel W]

Light Tackle Action in the Mangroves

After our day’s work in Port Hedland we headed off towards Wickham to start another job the following day. We decided to try and find a spot where we could park the van and fish for a few hours. We found a creek-river with lots of mangroves (Samson Causeway), half way between Wickham and Point Samson. It was a great little spot where we could pull up with the caravan and fish right along side. At last we were in heaven. We cracked open a beer, the fishing rods came out and we finally started to relax.

It wasn’t long before we started getting into a few fish, not big but there were a few species new to us so it was an enjoyable experience. The river bed was gravel and there were plenty of underwater rocks and ledges for the fish to snag us on, and once in closer the mangroves were there to help the fish escape. We fished with both heavy and light gear but most of the action was on the four kilo gear. I’m sure we hooked a few better size mangrove jacks and cod because we would get a good hit and it would go straight under a ledge or snag. We caught juvenile cat fish one after the other, small mangrove jacks, break sea cods, estuary cods and giant herring. All fish were released to fight another day.

It was a nursery for small fish. The giant herring jumped all over the place once hooked and it was hard to stay connected to them. We had a couple of bigger runs but it was only from stingrays. We caught and released so many fish we had a ball, or so we thought. The next day we realized we’d been bitten by thousands of sand flies and had bite marks all over us.

[Daniel W]

A couple more pics. All small fish so far but still relaxing and good fun. The "Small" giant herring still put up a good fight on the light gear and were all released to grow bigger. Even the catties were good value.

[Daniel W]

Carnarvon One Mile Jetty Action

We didn’t fish in Karratha so the next stop was Carnarvon which was a lot cooler and less humid. Even my 60L engel started working properly again. It started to freeze again, even when only turned on about half. We still copped lots of wind as there was another cyclone bearing down further north again, but it would be fishable on the jetty. We loaded up the trolley and carted way too much gear out with us, but we couldn’t leave anything behind. We took out a large tackle box, an esky, bucket, food, beer, power pack to run some fluro lights plus about four different rods each, a chair each and a few other bits and pieces. We caught a lift out on the train that goes out, but it was the last one for the week so we had to carry all that gear on the way back minus the beer, food and bait. The action started pretty much straight away on the light gear with nice snook and tailor being pulled in which by Perth standards were huge, but we didn’t take any photos as we thought we would catch bigger and better fish. We fished with 30lb line and wire trace using large tailor, snook, bream, mulies, and a variety of other big baits. It wasn’t long before we started to get run after run from mulloway but couldn’t stop them from cutting us off on the pylons. Every one that we hooked was a big one with heaps of initial power. They were straight down underneath and when hooked just went flat out for the nearest pylons.

Not one of the mulloway ran out or away from the jetty, so we didn’t have a chance. A few were landed by locals using 150lb-200lb handlines and gloves but we missed out. We did manage a few small soapies but that was all. We tried two nights in a row all night and never managed to land one. I did gaff a couple for another fisherman though. On the second night I got a screamer of a run which was more powerful than a mulloway run, and it did go away from the jetty. It took at least thirty five minutes to bring back to the jetty and see what it was. It was a nice big shark of about six or seven feet. I was going to try and land it but after trying for about ten more minutes at close quarters it too rubbed on a pylon and was gone. I could hardly stand from the fatigue, but what a good fight. It was very frustrating, but we will be going back again to give it another go sometime. Might try the 50lb line on the game reel and if that doesn’t work maybe we might have to just use a handline.

[Daniel W]

Geraldton off the rocks

We arrived at our favourite whiting fishing spot off the rocks at Geraldton. It didn’t let us down, with whiting after whiting being landed. They were varying in sizes with some good eating sizes and some good bait sized. .We could have kept on catching them all night but only kept a few for dinner that night and a few for bait. If we could catch them as consistent in Perth we’d be rapt. I also caught another small estuary cod on my flick rod here as well. We set the big line out again and Allen’s rod started jerking all about. He was using a full herring for bait and he hauled back on his rod and landed a nice size tailor after a short but spirited struggle. A bit later he had another run which was very powerful and just a few slow headshakes every now and then. It took a while to bring in and we were taking guesses to what it was. It was a huge shovelnose shark which we finally landed just to get the hooks out and get a quick photo, and also to stop him from being eaten by a big seal which had followed him in. So hopefully the seal wasn’t still around when we let him go, we couldn’t see it anymore.

[Daniel W]

That was the end of that particular trip But my brother decided to go back to Monkey Mia and Carnarvon with his wife and a mate,to have another crack at the mulloway just recently and did real well. Eight smallish sharks and one Mulloway for his mate and a couple of Shovelnose between them. Then they went back to the one mile jetty at Carnarvon and got three more good Mulloway and a couple more sharks.
The End
Danny.

[Nath86]

Great read there Danny, and some nice pics to match.

It looks like the next Egrell comp has started in flying form.

Cheers Nath

[adidaspeteman]

Hey there Danny me old mate, a real nice post. Some nice big shark and mulla photo's. I'd be real happy with a Northern trip like that so don't forget to pack me next time.... I'm gonna do a Northern trip with my girlfriend next year, the thought of it keeps me sane.

[ActiveAngler]

That is a brilliant read mate and you have scored some incredible fish there.

Thumbs up here - nice work!!!

[jimbo78aus]

Excellent trip from the looks of it! High on my list to do is something similar, packing up the forbie and heading off with the boat up north for a blokes getaway.

James