murchison boat hire fishing 2005

Christmas 2005

2006-03-16T03:42:00.000-08:00

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

MURCHISON BOAT HIRE CHRISTMAS 2005 ELETTER
A very merry Christmas to all!
The school holidays are in full swing now but town is still fairly quiet. Most people stay at home until after Christmas and then arrive in town en mass. The boats have booked up quite well during the Christmas/New Year period but still a few spaces after the New Year, but if you haven’t already booked accommodation there is no chance that you will get any. Nearly every room in town is booked out between Christmas and New Year!

Fish catches have improved remarkably with snapper and baldchin the main catches. The snapper are in close, sucking all the soft-shelled crays out of their holes in the reef. Anglers staying in my accommodation, “The Secret Waypoint” picked up loads of big snapper and a big baldies.

Ian Pilkington, son Matt, Phil Webster and Michael lush brought their own boat up and had a ball catching big snapper on light gear close in by the Sand Patch.

You can see they picked a few good days – getting fish each day

I am hoping for a mackerel for Christmas. They are usually about by the end of December but the water temp has to be at least 23 degrees. It’s not that yet.

With the slow start to the cray season, Bruno and my self spent a week or so pulling pots for little return. Getting 1’s, 2’s and 0’s and then it happened over night, just after the full moon. We got 10, 16, 11, 16, 16 and then 11 today 22nd Dec, all whites as shown below, what will tomorrow bring?

Easy to catch at this time of year, even the kids can do it! We got 22 size crays this morning, had to throw back 6 plus the 10 or so undersize ones!
Cray for Christmas lunch?

We have kept our pots in the same place and they continued to catch. Amateur cray licences are available at any post office or on line at http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/ or http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/, which is a mirror site. You may have 2 pots and catch 8 crays per day. We have two licences on my boat which is the max so we are permitted to pull 4 pots thus allowing us to catch 16 crays max. We share the crays, bait and fuel.

Ryan Jeffery booked the 6.1m boat waiting around for better weather mid December. When it came he went out with his mum Le-ann, Daniel Salmon and Bob Hattley. The day was quite good and after an early launch were soon at the Sand Patch. I told them that their best bet was to fish in close for pinkies and taking my advice were soon into a couple. A few drifts over the inshore reef in 18m of water secured the fish. The early sea breeze this time of year did not make it easy but they enjoyed the day.
Bob Hattley got the biggest while Daniel holds up his and Ryan’s

Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club, Wagoe weekend 5th December

Our weekend away comp this year was at Wagoe again and is a land based only comp. The big mulloway is the one reported in the Sunday Times at the beginning of the month, it went 19.5kgs. Caught by Cheryl Eley on Wagoe beach on the Friday night. We all thought she would win the day but Tristan Neumann came in with 7 fish - snapper, baldchin groper and sand snapper (sweetlip) to win.The weekend was rounded off with a BBQ and a rare sighting of the meteorite that lit up the sky before exploding in a green flash!

Theo Van Der Merve and a mate Richard Jarvis were up last month and caught some nice fish in the river from my dinghy. I asked him for some photos but none arrived, but he recently contacted me to say he had had a computer problem and that the photos were now available. He sent them on a CD, nice fish Theo! Caught in the river around Castle Rock they picked up mulloway and tailor on what was a bit of a rainy overcast day.
Richard Jarvis with small mulloway and Theo, feeling the cold, with a mulloway

We are coming into the best time of year. From now on there will be easy mackerel and tuna to be caught and the bottom fishing is at it’s best. The weather starts to fine up and the wind drop. It is also our busiest time with the boats. You will need to book if you want to be ensured a boat so plan ahead and don’t be disappointed.

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.

Check out http://www.oceanoutlook.com.au/ and go to the Geraldton weather for local weather conditions

5-day weather forecasts, or http://www.buoyweather.com/ and go to virtual buoys, is not a bad one!

If you would like to recieve my newsletter by email each month just send a blank email to lasue@wn.com.au with the subject "Add to newsletter group" and one will be sent to you each month.

Big bait – big fish
Laurie

November 2005

2006-03-16T02:13:00.000-08:00

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

MURCHISON BOAT HIRE NOVEMBER 2005 ELETTER
Cray season has started and in the first couple of weeks lots of crays were caught. Things usually go quiet the third week as the crays shed their shells and hide under the reef until the shells harden up. It gets easy to catch them when their shells have hardened and they start their migration out to deeper water. A cray pot dumped on sand west of a reef usually attracts the crays as they move out from one reef to the next on their western migration. It is called the “run of the whites” as their shells are usually quite pale and soft.
These “Reds” are before they moult
Fishing becomes a lot easier now that the cray season has started as there is a lot of cray bait in water acting as burley bringing fish in from out deep, the dhuies and snapper come in for the easy pickings of soft shelled crays! Also the cray floats mark the reef easily identifying the better ground.

The river has been fishing very well with lots of soapy mulloway in the river. Most anglers have been picking up more that their bag limit from around the Castle Rock area. Having to let mulloway go is hard but lots of fun on light line and river prawns set for bream.
Average size mulloway in the river this time of year

The 5.3m boat steering was getting a bit tight so thought it best to bite the bullet and install hydraulic steering now before the start of the busy season. It’s no good waiting until it breaks during a hire! It would ruin your day; I would have to refund your hire and pay for a repair, probably loosing a few booked days as well. It cost me $1000.00, I hope you appreciate it.

Preparations are well under way for this our big annual fishing comp in early March next year. We will be expecting around 45 boats and 35 river anglers competing for $10.000.00 worth of prizes in 29 categories. Game fishing, bottom fishing and river fishing, there is a category for every one. Entry forms have been sent to nearly every tackle shop and fishing club in WA so get one there or email me and I will send you one if you want to be in it. (Both the 6.1 and 5.3m boats are already booked for that comp)

Christmas is just around the corner now and the boats are booking up fast for the holidays. The mackerel should start to show up around Christmas time and early January is when a lot get caught, followed very closely by the tuna schools. I can’t wait!

Mark Payne and mate Spot had a superb day out this month. I know Mark from a trip to the Abrolhos Islands a couple of years ago. Waiting a couple of days for the weather to improve, they picked the best day of the week and headed south to the Natural Bridge area. The 6.1m & 5.3m boats have 15 or so waypoints plotted on the GPS around this area. Picking spots at random they picked up a few blue-lined emperors before anchoring on a spot that went off, right on the predicted bite time for the day! First up they were into a frenzy of blue-lined and then the little snapper were being grabbed and then let go on the way up by something big! Mark baited up with a full sergeant baker head and sent it down. Seconds from hitting the bottom he was on to this 24kg estuary cod, while Spot was complaining about getting his fish eaten and then let go as well. He rigged up with a whole blue-lined emperor, but things went quiet. Patience paid off when the hit came later with this fine 7.5kg cod.

Mark struggles to hold up his biggest fish ever,

while Spot also holds his biggest to date

There must have been another big cod down there, as Spot will testify, because the one that was stealing Spot’s fish was a lot heavier he said.

A mate of mine in South Africa went on his annual fishing trip to Angola and promised some photos of the trip. When I emailed him to find out what happened he told me that he caught lots of good fish but got rolled in the surf loosing his camera so no pics!
He did manage to get a copy of a pic taken by another group with this big mulloway. They call them cob in South Africa; they sure grow big there!

Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club, Local Competition November 19th

Only two boats in the under 7.5m section fished the comp. My 6.1m boat was booked and my 5.3m boat was in Geraldton having the hydraulic steering fitted and having a survey, so I was without a boat! Charlie Messina from Mullewa was up and being a member of the club asked me out. He has a big 7.2m Seaquest, so we went out wide to the 9 mile reefs. Charlie got this nice rankin cod and dhufish and a couple of red-throat emperor while I only got one dhufish some red-throats and a pink snapper. The other boat, “The Master Baiter” skippered by Paul Loffler with Mark Flanagan and Harry Rice fished south along the cliffs picking up some good fish. Mark’s bag of an 8.7kg dhuie and 4.3kg baldchin groper among his 7 fish was good enough to beat everyone.

Charlie Messina with his big rankin cod and dhuie.
Peter Dooley fished with Paul Maindok aboard Paul’s “Santa Barbara” in the over 7.5m section catching their bag limits of big pink snapper close inshore north of Bald Face.

Peter Dooley’s catch, 2 of his 4 snapper

Right at the end of the month there was a knock at the door. Three guys were at the door and they had a Perth based 5.7metre Hire Boat hitched up to their 4WD. Seems that they thought they would save a bit and hire a cheaper boat from Perth, tow it up here and fish. Well, the boat motor, a 2-stroke 115hp was over heating and they were having to stop every now and then and let it cool down before continuing, spoiling the day. There was nothing I could do to help and there is no one in town who services outboards. They found out when flushing the motor that it was all clogged up with sand and managed to clear it. A couple of days later at 5pm one of the guys knocks on the door, he had got this mobile phone call to say his two mates had run out of fuel, could I help! I radioed VMR and as there was no one else available got the authorisation to go and get them. It turned out that their radio in the boat did not work so had to communicate by mobile phone. I towed them in and they were grateful. The seriousness of the day was probably lost as if they had been out of mobile phone range (which is not very far) and their mate had been aboard and not at home suffering the effects of sea sickness, no one would have known they were out there and would have spent the night freezing their butts off praying that their anchor held.
In hindsight they agreed that had they hired my boat for 5 days (saving 2 days travel) combined with the 4-stroke economy and reliability of my Yamaha 115hp and 75 waypoints on my GPS they would have at least had a chance to get into some fish.
Safety is important - everything works on my boats!

A good weather map showing the surface pressure over 4 days can be found at http://www.travellingwa.com/ quite good to show what is really happening around Australia.

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. We have bought a new fridge to keep your beer ice cold.
Comfort is important – our fridge is cold.

Check out http://www.oceanoutlook.com.au/ and go to the Geraldton weather for local weather conditions

5-day weather forecasts, or http://www.buoyweather.com/ and go to virtual buoys, is not a bad one!

Big bait – big fish, just ask Mark Payne, Spot, Gary O’Brien, Daniel Kwek, Barry Crouch, Jason De Rosario, Tony De Abreu, and James Scovell.

Laurie

If you want to receive a monthly newsletter by email just send me a BLANK email to lasue@wn.com.au with the subject line “add to newsletter group” and you will get it each month.

October 2005

2006-03-16T00:02:00.000-08:00

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

MURCHISON BOAT HIRE OCTOBER 2005 ELETTER

No newsletter last month! Had a serious computer crash due to a virus. I was expecting a quote with some prices and when I opened an email with the subject “prices” things started to happen in a worrying way. Too late! A reformat of the hard disc sorted it out but we decided on an upgrade, which took another week to deliver and a fair bit of time sorting it all out and re entering 650 newsletter emails!
Besides, shocking weather last month meant few hires and few fish photos equals limited newsletter content!

Nick Carrol from NSW joined his mates from all over Australia for their bi-annual trip to Dirk Hartog Island. He organised my 6.1m boat from NSW and took it up with another boat to Denham where they launched both boats and drove them over to the Dirk Hartog Island Homestead, anchoring them in the Homestead Bay and stayed at the Homestead. Each day venturing out and about the island. I watched the weather map for the 10 days that they were away, it did not look the best but with the island they can shelter one side or the other. They ended up doing a fair bit of land based fishing and did well on a number of species such as baldies and snapper and tailor. I asked for pictures but sorry, none turned up!

The 4.3m dinghy was busy over the school holidays, going out nearly every day. The tides were very low so not much water under the boat but everyone enjoyed their day out. Anglers were mostly plagued by undersize bream further up river, but the bigger bream and lots to tailor came from around the moorings and jetties. Bait and small chrome slices did the damage.
John Millar went out in the 4.3m with wife Jacquie and son Jake and had a ball catching these 32 to 38cm tailor. Jake landed 4 of them, being very pleased with himself. You made “Bite of the Month” for September, Jake, check it out at “Biteofthemonth”

John Millar and son Jake with their catch

When size bream were caught they were thumpers. Chris Miller’s 1.5kg fish caught during our monthly fishing comp this month was the biggest for the year.

The land based guys and girls are doing well, Brad McGhie and girl friend Wendy Sullivan fished from the Oyster Reef across the river picking up some very nice snapper like shown below. Fishing with mulies as bait they picked them up mainly on the turn of the tide 9pm, 1am, and even during the day. That’s dedication for you! The big one weighing 8kg was caught by Daniel Tarasek but held by Wendy.

The river silted up very badly this year. Getting in and out has been quite hard as there has only been 300mm of water at low tide. Pushing and pulling to get through has been the norm as you can see from the pic below before dredging. The black dot in the river is in fact one of the rocks that is usually in the middle of the river and the channel was 50m to the north of it, which is dry land now! The dredge has been working since 10th October and the channel is now open and navigable.

Before dredging.

Dredging in progress, you can see the channel being cut through dry land.

The Kalbarri Sports Fishing Classic is on the agenda and the Kalbarri Offshore & Angling club is busy with organising it all. To be held next year on the 3rd, 4th and 5th March 2006. We are printing glossy flyers this year and encouraging pre-entry so that all the details can be on the computer before the comp starts, making it a lot easier. We will be giving away metal commemorative badges, as it is our 20th anniversary comp. Don’t ask, both bigger boats are booked for the comp! If you would like an entry form, let me know and I will post one out to you. There is an individual river section and 3 boat size sections in game and bottom as well.

Richard Hay was out with son Martin and Katherine Hay and friends Greg Goddard and Suraya Harharah. Waiting for the best day they went up north in the 6.1m boat catching a variety of fish including a big Red-throat emperor for Katherine and a shark for Martin.

They all caught fish such as pink snapper, red-throat emperor, baldchin groper, undersize dhuie, a sambo (released) and the shark but the really big ones eluded them!

Every October School Holidays, the Kalbarri Offshore and Angling Club, hosts a whiting competition for kids on each Thursday of the holidays. It has been very popular in the past and it proved to be so these holidays. With thanks to SunSmart as our major sponsor this year we were able to give out some great prizes. We had 114 excited kids registering on the first Thursday fishing around the Sand Spit, for any fish.
Some of the 114 kids and parents on the Sand Spit the first day

Rules of the comp allow any fish to be caught, kept in a bucket and brought to the weigh-in live, weighed and then released. The Volunteer Sea Search and Rescue and the Police 4WD quad bikes gave kids a lift to the weigh station saving them the long walk over the sand.
There where 18 prizes each day including 6 rods and reels each day for species, smallest, biggest, most, most unusual etc. Two sections were competed for, under 8s and 9 to 14 years. The quality and diversity of the species caught showed that the river is in good condition. Unlike last year when most of the fish were whiting, this year lots of blowies were weighed in. Alex Knight in the over 8s caught the biggest whiting of 106grams, which won him one of the 6 rods and reels for his efforts. While Sophie Ellis, under 8s, won a rod and reel for her whiting of 68grams. Each day we finished off with a lunchtime sausage sizzle and prize giving. Murchison Boat Hire offered a one-day free hire of their 4.3m dinghy as a raffle prize each day. Murchison River Cruises donated two river cruises and Kalbarri Surf Shop, Kalbarri Sports and Dive and Kalbarri Entertainment Centre also donated prizes.

The second Thursday saw a record 136 kids line up on the Sand Spit with the biggest whiting of 90g going to Andrew Grayson in the 8-14 age group while Jeb Duigan won a rod and reel for his 70g whiting in the under 8s. About 1200 fish were caught and released over the two days in four hours! Species recorded were as follows: blowies, whiting, trumpeter, tailor, black bream, silver bream, gobble guts, crabs, flathead, yellow-eye mullet and spangled perch, a total of 11 species.

Featured website this month is http://www.travellingwa.com/ quite a comprehensive site on travelling around Western Australia.

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.

Check out http://www.oceanoutlook.com.au/ and go to the Geraldton weather for local weather conditions

5-day weather forecasts, or http://www.buoyweather.com/ and go to virtual buoys, is not a bad one!

Big bait – big fish
Laurie

If you would like to be included in our email newsletter group and recieve a monthly newsletter just send a blank email to lasue@wn.com.au with the subject "include in newsletter group and you will be added.

August 2005

2006-03-15T22:14:00.000-08:00

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

MURCHISON BOAT HIRE AUGUST 2005 ELETTER

You are no doubt aware of the unfortunate accident recently in Kalbarri. For my Eastern States and overseas readers who would not have seen the newspaper reports, the facts are: A 4.3m pressed aluminium dinghy with four experienced 50-60 year old Perth guys were returning from fishing around the Sand Patch. The weather was good with a 2m dropping swell. It seems that about 2km north of the river mouth they tended to come in too close to the shore line and unfortunately picked up a wave that turned them over. They all had life jackets on but looked like cheap non Aust Standard ones. Two made it to shore, one drowned and they pulled him onto shore and at the time of writing a 10 days later still no trace of the fourth!
My 6.1m boat crewed my Mal Craig and Wayne was on the scene first and assisted in the initial search until sunset. I spent 2 hours in the plane spotting to no avail. The following day 15 or so boats including both of mine searched the area from Red Bluff to the Sand Patch. Since then the swell has come up and 20 – 40 knot westerlies have blown, so it has been down to searching the beach north of the river. Not a good result and the whole town has been devastated.

Some big dhuies were caught last month. This is the time they migrate into shallower water and school up to spawn. They are easy to catch if you get onto a spot where they are aggregating around and there are many places that they do this, usually around a quality lump in fairly shallow water. When you find a spot, double headers are quite common, which makes the 2 fish bag limit sensible as you could clean out a spot very easily.

At the beginning of August I went up north to fish some of the creek systems around Point Samson with mates Lou Parker, Scotty Grant and Zac Goninon. We got to some quite remote creeks and had a ball catching fish as shown below. Dinghies that were small enough to manhandle into the water were the go and fishing was restricted to a couple of hours on the incoming and out going tide. After that the fishing shut down but still gave us time to catch mud crabs and explore the area.
Soldier crabs were everywhere on the mud flats at low tide
Average size threadfin
The biggest for the trip, a 5kg 80cm threadie for Lou Parker,

and a javelin fish on soft plastics for me

Jason Lowe and mate, Kamal, fished down south of the river around the Natural Bridge area last month picking up lots of nor west snapper and this big sand snapper for Jason. The second day out in the 5.3m boat they headed north picking up some good fish as well.
Sand snapper for Jason, caught down by Natural Bridge

Mal Brown with mates Craig and Wayne hired the 6.1m at the end of August getting the boat hire discount of $50.00 off the first day and $25.00 off the next two days because they were staying in my accommodation. See my website http://www.murchisonboathire.com.au/ and go to the accommodation page to see the great deals there.
They fished north of the river striking good weather days but not really getting into the fish. They did all the right things, had the right bait, tackle and spots but sometimes the fish don’t bite! They also assisted in the search for the lost fisherman. Mal sent an email with the following pics, and this is what he had to say.

“Gidday Laurie and Sue,
Thanks heaps for hiring us your boat. Rest assured that even with the unfortunate events that transpired, we had a ball. We have been keeping an ear out to the news, and have heard sadly that the fourth fisherman has still not been found.
The efforts of the Kalbarri VMR, is phenomenal. Could you please send the lady whom I was speaking to, a big vote of thanks from me.
On the fishing side, we had great fun!! A couple of baldies, 5 pink snapper, a smallish 4kg dhuie, an assorted other reefies like norwest snapper. Whilst the fishing wasn’t fast and furious, both Craig and myself appreciate the efforts you went to, to put us on the right spots to catch a few.
Once again thanks heaps to yourselves and KVMR!!!
Some photos of the fish attached.
Best wishes
Mal Brown”

Mal’s snapper.

Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club, Local Competition August 20th

I was out fishing the comp the two kids, Rebecca and Jared and another junior Lee Ivey. The kids did not do very well, Jared was seasick, Rebecca couldn’t get a bite and Lee kept snapping off on big fish. I managed 2 baldies a small sambo and a snapper to win the comp! I also let go two undersize dhuies one of which had a tag in it, caught almost on the same spot just over a year before and only growing 2cm.
Cheryl Eley had a near 1kg bream from the river. (Tagged and released)
Simon’s 2.95kg bonefish.
The beach guys had a good time, fishing somewhere south of the river, Simon Tarasek brought this bonefish in, caught on bait, while his mate Steve Westropp released two bonefish. They also weighed in snapper and baldchin from the beach!

Lou Parker with a 14kg early August dhuie, caught from his dinghy just before the Sand Patch
in 17m of water.

It made his good-sized snapper seem tiny.

These pics emailed to me from a mate in South Africa shows a massive trevally caught by Barry Dodds. They were caught on bait from a beach island in Mozambique. They call them kingfish there but looking at the website photos of the island resort where it was caught it is probably what we call a brassy trevally or might even be a slightly different coloured giant trevally. The island resort website is http://www.linene-island.com/ There are also pics of some massive giant herring on the website!

Now on the opposite side of the continent, an Angolan Beach and the catch: white steenbass,
A cold current sweeps the coast and black volcanic rocks make up the beach. The background country looks worse than Western Australia’s northwest! Info: http://www.aasafaris.com/
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.

Check out http://www.oceanoutlook.com.au/ and go to the Geraldton weather for local

5-day weather forecasts, or http://www.buoyweather.com/ and go to virtual buoys, is not a bad one!

Laurie

July 2005

2006-03-15T21:43:00.000-08:00

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

MURCHISON BOAT HIRE JULY 2005 NEWS LETTER

I have just got back from a short fishing trip with 3 mates up north. We went to fish the small creeks around the Point Samson area. Between Karratha and Port Hedland.
The fishing was quite awesome after we figured it all out. We are not used to big tidal movements but got into some good threadfin salmon up to 5kg before the tides turned bad again. Full report on the trip in next month’s Eletter.

Chris Clare featured in last May’s newsletter catching mackerel and was up again for another shot. He phoned up just as I was looking for some muscles to pull my FAD in for the season. So I invited him and his family, son Kevin, daughter Kirsten and wife Jac out for a fish and “FAD pull”. We went for a fish first catching a lot of blue-lined emperor with Chris picking up the catch of the day, a 7kg dhuie. While Kevin was busy with double headers of blue-lined emperor Kirsten hooked up and dropped two very good fish, probably dhuies like Chris’s below. Before the wind kicked in we went to pull the FAD. Real hard job, glad Chris and Kevin were there. The FAD has been there since January in 47m of water and the rope was covered with slime, weed, barnacles etc and cute scallop shaped, multi coloured shells like shown below. I will be cleaning the FAD up renewing the worn shackles and redeploying it again in January ready for the game season. If you want the GPS coordination just ask when you hire a boat.
Chris Clare with his 7kg dhuie
Colourful scallops from the FAD rope, among seaweed, sponges, barnacles and squirts

Sandy Sanderson dropped in during the school holidays, wanting the 6.1m boat and luckily it was available. Heading out with his family and friends fished spots north of the river mouth. After trying several of my GPS logged spots with no luck went on to another that I had recommended. It then went off for the group, landing skippy, snapper, cods, baldies etc and this huge estuary cod for Sandy. It was not weighed but would have been around the 18-20kg mark. They ended up with 22 odd fish for the day, and called it one of their best ever!
Sandy Sanderson very pleased with his biggest fish to date – estuary cod

Second time hirer James Scovell brought his usual group of 5 guys up, booked our cottage and got $75.00 off the two day hire of the 6.1m. You get this discount if you stay in our accommodation. Garry again got into a huge baldie the first day while James got stuck into a sambo. They ended up with a good bag of reef fish. The second day venturing a bit further they all got stuck into fish of all sorts and it only got better as the day progressed. Someone was lagging behind in the fish tally so took the initiative and loaded up with a big bait. Half a sergeant baker went to the bottom and within a minute pulled up a dhuie. James followed with a big bait also and within minutes was on to a fish of a lifetime. They called it for a sambo, a big cod, then a shark but eventually it came up, this big 12kg dhuie, the biggest from my boats to date!

The group with some of their 2nd days catch

James with his 12kg dhuie
James’s tailor pictured above came from a late evening session at Black Rock, casting poppers over the reef. The only fish to hit that evening! Went 3.9kgs.

John Barry phoned me one evening during the school holidays saying that the fishing charter he was booked on had cancelled and the reason he was in Kalbarri was to fish so needed a boat to get out. Luckily we had the 5.3m boat free and the following days weather was to die for. After a late start John and son Sean got down to the Natural Bridge area south of the river mouth. They got onto a spot catching a couple of nice sized pink snapper and 6 thumping hard fighting sweetlip from another spot. Better than a charter they agreed!
John & Sean with some of the 8 fish they caught

Why does the big fish always take the lightest rod?

Andrew Chan up from Perth for the school holidays hired our 4.3m boat and Locklan Bailey the 5.3m. I was going out in the 6.1m to take my daughter and son for a fish and they both followed me out. We dropped Andrew at the Sand Patch and Locklan and myself headed up beyond Baldface. We drifted in close for snapper picking up 6 nice pinkies while Locklan and crew though doing exactly the same as us in the 5.3m failed to get a fish? As the day glassed off we went deeper to try for dhuies but only picked up a few skippy, baldchin and nor’ west snapper as did Locklan. I would have expected better but some days it just does not happen. On the way back late in the afternoon Andrew was still at the Sand Patch! He was hooked up to a fish that had been on for ½ an hour. Hooked on the lightest rod on the boat Andrew eventually broke the rod in his efforts to lift it, and the fish broke off. He said he had a great day and was happy with the few fish that he did land.

I am sure most of you are aware that it is bad luck to bring bananas aboard a boat. It has been proven time and time again, catches are reduced to near on 0 when bananas are on board, and that includes lolly bananas, banana cakes, muffins etc. Don’t even try to smuggle one aboard in your stomach, don’t even eat one the day before to be safe!

Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club, Local Competition July 23rd

My sambo, one of a pair, 14.9kgs. Lee Ivey’s four fish for the day

Our local comp this month fell on quite a nice day and went searching for new ground out wide looking for those red emperor spots to no avail. We ended up fishing our normal spots after wasting the whole morning searching, picking up a few fish to save the day. I boated a 14.9kg sambo and on the very next drop picked up its twin, which had to be released as only one sambo can be weighed in. Wife, Sue, had a great day picking up her 8 fish one being a nice dhuie. Junior Lee Ivey landed 4 fish and broke off two very good fish (get that drag serviced, Lee!) but still ended up winning his division. My youngest son Jared must have eaten something bad because he spent the day throwing up over the side!

Last year in August we caught some of the biggest and most dhuies of the year and by the way catches are going it should repeat itself. You don’t have to go far as most are picking up dhuies within 10km of the river mouth. They should be around until the middle of September when they finish spawning and disperse into deeper water.
Snapper are always around and can be caught in shallow water on the edge of the reef.
We are now coming into the time when the big tailor start to show up. From now to December big greenbacks savage the reef holes for any unsuspecting bait or reef fish. Poppers and large gardies cast into the white water on a rising tide and moon just on dusk almost guarantees a fish.

Have a look at http://www.earth.google.com/ you will need at least Windows XP and have to download some software. It gives you a satellite image of anywhere in the world and you can zoom into the area. I don’t have XP but have been told it is really good. Gives me a reason to upgrade!

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.

Laurie

June 2005

2006-03-14T00:49:00.000-08:00

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

MURCHISON BOAT HIRE JUNE 2005 NEWSLETTER
Rain, rain and more rain has been the feature this month. The Murchison River has been flowing brown for two months now. Seven years ago we had this same weather pattern and the fishing was outstanding for a few years after that. Lets hope it repeats itself! Mind you, offshore is still good now but we haven’t had the quantity of big tailor lately as 5 or 6 years ago, but the mulloway boys are doing very well at the river mouth with all the dirty water coming down. The annual schooling up of the dhuies has started; we got 6 off one spot last week (3 undersize). They come in from out deep to spawn and are quite easy to catch at this time of year. So if it’s dhuies you want now is the time!

Start of the whale season now and a few have already been spotted. They are humpback whales and are increasing by 10% each year. In a month or so there will be so many around that they become a shipping hazard. The last thing you want to do is run into one in the boat at full speed!

Andy Hall was mentioned in last April’s newsletter when he and his group were struck with some bad weather. He was up again but for the long weekend at the beginning of the month and brought some gear up for me. To show my appreciation I invited him out for a fish on the Sunday. Forecasted to be a calm day but with a rising swell, we felt confident of a good day. We went out in the 5.3m boat as the 6.1 was still up at Gnaraloo Station. We left the boat ramp at 7.00am and by 7.10am were hooked up to mackerel 2 kms north of the river mouth. The mackerel were going ballistic, it was just one of those dream days when it all comes together. I had a mackerel and two yellow-fin tuna and Andy was on his second mackerel within the hour. As soon as the lures went out, we got a strike within a minute or so! We went on to release another 4 mackerel each before getting tired of it and went for a bottom fish!

Andy Hall with his first boat caught mackerel 16kgs

My 13kg yellow-fin tuna on 6kg line

Andy Hall with his dhuie pair

and the shark we released.
A couple of big snapper first up for me and then two dhuies in a row for Andy. We then got onto a skippy spot that were so thick with them we could not touch bottom without getting a bite! After getting tired of playing with skippy I put a whole sergeant baker on as bait trying to get through them to the dhuies that I new were there. I too did not touch bottom, but no dhuie, just a big shark! Like I said “One of those dream days!”

Gary Veenvliet from Bluewater Tackle Morley was up this month with his dad, Peter, and mates Norman Maschhaupt and Neil Haseldine. They spent a week here waiting for the weather to get better (It was in the middle of all those storms that went through Perth at the beginning of June.) They were down from Exmouth having been washed out up there. Taking the best day of the week they got out to as far as Baldface in the 6.1m boat. Water temp was down so no mackerel around but they bottom fished some of the waypoints around Baldface. They found new spots and picked up fish as shown below including red-throat emperor, pink snapper and skippy. Gary added 3 new waypoints where these fish came from, so are there for anyone to use.

Peter Veenvliet’s snapper.

Neil Haseldine’s baldie.

Dutch visitor Norman Maschhaupt’s sand snapper
Thanks for the pics Gary.

Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club, Local Competition June 25th

Our local comp this month fell on a day with easterlies blowing all day. Perfect for going a long way north. I had two juniors and my wife Sue aboard and fished in close around 12m picking up 10 pink snapper before the wind calmed down enough to venture further out. Finding a line of cray pots in 23 metres of water we searched the line until we found a likely spot and set the anchor. 3 size dhuies and 3 undersize came up within 15 minutes with red-throat emperor, skippy, cod and baldchin in between! We then fished a couple of other spots making up our bag limit before heading home. A pretty good Day!

Boat Driving Licences:
Most of you will be aware that legislation is now in place that will require all boat skippers to have compulsory training before being permitted to operate a boat. This new licence and testing will start towards the end of this year and anyone who wants to operate a boat must have this licence. There will be a 3-year catch up period but after that it will be illegal to operate a boat with out a licence. The licence testing will involve a theory test that will include buoyage, collision regulations, safety equipment, and basic navigation and also a practical where you will have to demonstrate your proficiency. Those who have owned a boat for more than 5 years will only have to complete the theory part.
The good news is that the licence will be a once only test, be recognised in the Eastern States and that the National Powerboat Competency Certificate (TL3), BoatSmart or Small Craft Competency Certificate will exempt you from further testing. It will also be in your own interest safety wise.
At this stage you don’t have to have a licence to operate one of my boats and the Dept. of Transport has not told me when the cut off point will be. It will be in your interest to get tested soon and avoid the final rush or problems if I get an earlier cut off time than recreational boats.
The good thing is I will be a lot more confident giving you a boat if you have done the course and am sure the benefits will outweigh the hassles.

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.

Check out http://www.oceanoutlook.com.au/ and go to the Geraldton weather for local 5-day weather forecasts, or http://www.buoyweather.com/ and go to virtual buoys, is not a bad one!

Another website worth looking at for sea surface temperatures is http://www.aodc.gov.au/ and go to “online data”, and pick “Near real-time SST” that takes you to a zoom in screen of the area you need. Some times that does not work so try this link www.aodc.gov.au/products/IDG00073.shtml

Laurie

May 2005

2006-03-13T23:01:00.000-08:00

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

MURCHISON BOAT HIRE MAY 2005 NEWSLETTER
Big dumping of rain this month and it went along way inland, causing the Murchison to flood. The ocean at low tide has a big plumb of brown water in the bay. Boats have been trolling around the dirty water expecting mackerel but it just hasn’t happened in the dirty water this year? Most of the macs this month have come just out from Red Bluff and just before the Sand Patch. They are all big this year (and lots of them) with the average size around 13-16kgs. Mulloway have as usual been caught in numbers from the Chinaman’s Beach during the incoming tide. Tailor are quite good on the edge of the dirty water and clean water right in the mouth.
A second dumping of rain inland has kept the river flowing and it came down hard enough to threaten to silt up and block the entrance. With that and a big swell there were a few scares and quite a few crew members checking their seats after entering and exiting the river mouth this month!

Chris Clare with his first ever mackerel.
Chris Clare knocked on the door this month wanting a boat to go game fishing. With the 6.1m and the 5.3m boat already hired, I could only offer the 4.3m dinghy. That was OK with him; Red Bluff is not far away! The mackerel had been getting more and more plentiful from the beginning of the month so he was in for a good chance. Heading straight to Red Bluff in the morning this 11kg fish was soon over the side. After that it went quiet so he tried out the front of the river mouth on the edge of the dirty water. With no action there and knowing that the bite time was at 12pm shot back to Red Bluff where he lost two more macs but managed to land another which pulled the scales down to 14kgs.

The bite times can be found in the Angler’s Almanac, a little yellow booklet that gives you all the predicted best times to go fishing every day of the year. Get one from your tackle shop they work!

Ritchie Kirk and his gang of 12 or so mates come to Kalbarri every year around this time and have been coming for the last 25 years or so. Each year they book up the 6.1m and 5.3m boats for 2 weeks and fish almost exclusively for mackerel.
The mackerel were there, but with a bit of bad luck, seemed to miss the bite time, correct location, had the wrong lures out, or the weather was a bit off. Other boats were catching their bag limits while they came in with nothing! The 5.3m boat’s luck changed and John Kirk, Bill McAtee and Jim Lawrence ended up with 8 mackerel and a tuna by the end of the week while Ian Freeman, Rob Slattery, John Slattery (present 6.1m boat biggest mackerel holder 23kgs) and Richard Cottingham on the 6.1m could only manage 1 tuna! The second week was almost a non event due to the huge swells caused by the storms in Perth and only managed to get out a couple of times landing 3 yellow fin tuna.
We discussed the trip in length and were only able to nail down one thing they were doing wrong, that is probably trolling a bit slow. They trolled at about 1400 revs in the 6.1m boat about 3-4 knots. I find that 2000 revs about 6-8 knots more productive. However there were enough macs out there that even a slow speed should have caught macs?
They also brought a dinghy up with them and spent the big swell days catching multitudes of blue swimmer crabs in the river. The crab feast continues as the river continues to wash them all down to the marina area.

The 6.1m boat then went off to Gnaraloo Station with Roger Simm for the rest of the month, so not much more to report from that boat. Roger and his group did get a 15kg chinaman cod and a very big red emperor among other fish. I haven’t got the photos yet but hope to bring them to you in next month’s newsletter.

Our local fishing comp on the last Sat of the month was well attended. My 6.1 was still up at Gnaraloo Station so I went out in the 5.3m with a couple of local juniors, Lee Ivey and Steven Eley, mentioned above, and I fished 3kg line hoping for a mac or two. The two juniors had their 6kg outfits out when we bumped into a school of yellow-fin tuna just off Red Bluff. I took the first hit landing one around 5kgs and then Lee and Steven then landed ones the same size but being under 6kgs could not weigh them in. I took a second fish about the same size so having my bag limit, handed over my 3 and 4kg outfits to the juniors. Lee then landed one on 4kg line but Steven missed about 5 in a row unable to remain hooked up!
I then picked up a 9kg mac returning to the river mouth. I had to be back by lunch as my wife, Sue, and daughter, Rebecca, wanted to go out as well. We headed back to Red Bluff and the two girls picked up a striped tuna each on 3kg line, and we were back in by 2.30pm!
Lee Ivey with his two small yft

WARNING
If you ever go up river for a fish even a 4WD may not get you to the spot you want to fish! No names mentioned of the local who had to call a crane get to out of this tight spot!

Laurie

April 2005

2006-03-13T22:27:00.000-08:00

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

MURCHISON BOAT HIRE APRIL 2005 NEWSLETTER
The school holidays in the middle of this month were very busy for all the boats. The second week was a bit slower boat wise but the weather was awesome. Calm days for the whole week and good bottom fishing but a disappointing lack of mackerel. The swell came up a bit and turned the water a bit cloudy sending the macs away.

But prior to the school holidays it was full on. Local, Peter Dooley, had his brother Paul visiting from England this month and both being keen anglers took the 6.1m out midweek and luckily picked the best day of the week. The mackerel were going ballistic, hitting anything presented to them. Paul took the first hit and dropped it at the boat! A bit of disappointment but that did not last long as within 5 minutes they had another hook-up and Paul got his first mac. A bit bigger than the lake carp he is used to catching! They ended up with 2 macs each and then released 3 more before returning to the boat ramp at 10.30am!

Peter and Paul Dooley, had their bag limit by 10.30am!

The hot new Halco lure colour, “King Brown” has proven itself. Over Easter we were fishing Halco 190 Laser Pro DDs in 4 different lure colours plus a gardie way out the back, and it was the “King Brown” colour that took all the hits, and I mean, all the hits! The only time other lures caught was when we had a double hook-up after the “King Brown had been snapped up! Consider it when buying lures for a mackerel-fishing trip.
The damage that the new colour “King Brown” did over Easter (bag limits of mackerel)
The lure that is making an impact! Halco Laser Pro 190DD colour no. 70 King Brown

Derek, wife Bertrix, and kids were up this month but with his own boat! He had hired one of our dinghies a couple of years back and had a great time. Since then has bought his own boat and popped in for some advice. The bow rider he bought is fine for the Swan River and estuaries but a bit wet for Kalbarri. He could not get out often and very far and was not doing very well. He did however break his mackerel drought, getting a small one in the river mouth and some nice sized mulloway not far from the entrance!
He was here for 2 weeks and during one of the rare days when the weather was good and the 6.1 was not booked I invited him out to try some spots I had marked during the “Classic”.
We got a dhuie each and bag limits of red-throat emperor and Derek a nice baldie as well. Derek is now considering the expensive changeover to a bigger boat!

Derek’s dhuie and baldie

Colin Willis, Andrew Hall, Jeff Bradbury and Gil Carter, spent three days in the blue on the 6.1m. They arrived just after the swell had picked up; water turned cold with seaweed everywhere. Not too good for fishing. They did catch a few fish but not as many and as big as last year with the boat but sure made up for it catching 7 big mulloway up to 20kgs at Frustration after the 3-day hire. The shark pic below was one of the fish Jeff got into.
The +-5 foot sandbar or northern whaler shark took a bottom rig and fought like a sambo, with long and (Unusual for a shark) fast runs. An extremely hard fighter and after a few pics released itself.

The following email received from Paull Webber explains his experience over a 3-day hire in the middle of April. I have copied the following straight from his email!

From: "Paull Weber"
To: Laurie Malton
Subject: Re: fish pics
Date: 26 April, 2005 12:11 AM

Yes Laurie
First I would like to start with a testimonial of sorts...please indulge me. Print what you like, I just did want to do more than simply email you some pics, we enjoyed the hire far more than that.
I have spent 40 years since I was two years old enjoying fishing in various forms and have had reasonable success after spending the normal periods of apprenticeship in any new fishing style or location, we have owned big boats in the past but never got a good return on our investment of time or money and sold up many years ago, opting instead to get back into car toppers and go off-road in search of good fish in more isolated locations. We do well at this type of fishing, but places like Kalbarri were just too hard for a small dinghy fisho to get out onto the water, we have done it but the river mouth does get hairy in an 11foot car topper! So, as much as we love Kalbarri as a family holiday destination we tended to head further north to Coral Bay or the Peron Peninsula where better dinghy fishing is available...we catch some great fish...but oh what a long drive!. Instead of fuel in the boat we put fuel in the Patrol!

For a while we thought charter boats might offer the solution, but, apart from an excellent operator in Coral Bay (Simon) I have become quite disillusioned with charter boat operators who are (in my experience) on the whole more intent on getting back on time and keeping the boat clean than ensuring their customers get into good fish.
The number of times I have cast an eye over a colour sounder that is on sand bottom and been told that we were over "good country" because they botched up the anchoring and can't be bothered shifting, assuming I know nothing about the art of sounder reading is beyond reproach. Head charters are definitely not for previous boat owners with any ability, you find yourself wanting to grab the wheel too often!

So...we re-evaluated our holiday fishing plans and decided to hire one of your larger boats to get back in control of the decision making so that we could not blame others for a lack of fish, returning to Kalbarri for a much more relaxed week of fishing and I must say it feels like I should have figured it out years ago! Save on the nasty capital and maintenance costs of owning a big boat, the fuel and time costs of towing a boat and the aggravation cost of skippers of charter "fishing" ventures. Well it sounds so obvious now...we are converts!

From what I have seen on the sounder in three short days Kalbarri has heaps of fishable water close to shore (I think it's nice when you are new to an area to keep in sight of land) for a fair distance either side of the river mouth that it will always turn up some good fish for the patient angler who gets half decent weather, and in your excellent 6.1 metre boat even average conditions are no obstacle.

The first day saw me punching the bow into a 15-20 knot southerly and heading only 6 miles or so south, being a bit concerned about my 69 year old novice (to boat fishing) father-in-law's ability to handle the anchor in such conditions...but it was a breeze (pardon the pun). Lucky for us we bagged out on the first spot we tried (and the anchor held), catching a small pinkie and a heap of sand snapper between 4 and 8 kg that were great fun and not bad on the chew for fishos used to a feed of Rockingham herring either! We were quickly into "catch and release" mode and headed back in through the river mouth by 1pm happy as pigs in mud (probably smelled similar) and only worried about how day two could get any better!
The first big bonus...your 6.1 is more economical than my Patrol! I could not believe the fuel economy we got from that Yamaha 115...I topped up the tanks that first night and it cost $24 at country fuel prices!...are you sure it's not nuclear powered? Maybe I should tow the Patrol on a barge behind a 4 stroke outboard up the coast when I next go away?

Day two saw a strong easterly at daybreak keeping us close to the cliffs around Shell House and once again the same area as day one turned up trumps with two nice Baldchins of about 4kg that were great fun on my light flick stick. The light braid I had on this reel certainly made the difference, as Peter remained virtually fishless on a day when everything bit very softly and the bites were largely not felt on mono. The rest of the day was a case of one or two fish from each spot and we slowly learned that the boats GPS marks were great for getting new anglers to an area onto good ground but then it was best to sound around the general area and look for something new rather than hammer the same old marks. We found one spot in about 25 metres late in the day where we both took fish in quick order, it was full of nice bar-cheeked emperor schooling up, they were legal size fish, not big but fun and good eating too. We left the waypoint (somewhere between 115 & 119 from memory) in the sounder so that we too could add to the collective knowledge of the boat…I think that the more spots on the plotter the less likely any one is going to get overfished, so I hope others who hire the boat share this view.
Paull with his baldies, note Red Bluff in the background!
Day three, the biggest problem was my crew of one who had run out of arm strength for anchoring and fish pulling! So we took it easy and the weather glassed off to help us out for an hour and then a nice gentle southerly of 10 knots all afternoon obliged to again allow us to get a nice mixed bag –including another baldie- geeze those fish can fight! Just to prove we are relative newbies to fishing this coast, on the way home I decided to fish a massive fish “lump” out from Red Bluff that I had noticed on the way out…getting so excited by the size of the schools on this “lump” that I pinged the spot, about 200 metres long and rising 4 metres from the sea bed, perhaps it was a wreck? As it turned out the “lump” was a fish school so big, dense and bottom hugging that I mistook the fish for bottom structure at first. Even better, maybe it was the mother load of pink snapper…. drop down wait…nothing…. wind up nothing… IE NO HOOKS…. bloody great humongous school of northwest blowies…definitely time to go home and pray that that school never moves closer into the cliffs or we can all take up golf!

Cleaned the boat out on the way back and finished off the hire by taking my daughter for a cruise up the river for 15 minutes, something that would be far less impressive for a 10 year old Emma in our dingy. Now… three days left to spend with my family a good feed of fish in the freezer and Laurie gets the boat back to sort out any problems while I play putt-putt and soak up the sun, yep this is the way to go, some of the best holiday dollars I have ever spent! Just like Arnie …I will be back.

One final important point…our hire boat owners Laurie and Sue understand what is important for fishos, an honest appraisal of the weather, an honest discussion of the fishing potential of the area for the time of year and water conditions (too cold for mackerel the week we were there) and a genuine desire to help connect you to a fish.

No doubt Laurie would consider our Sand Snapper as catch and release or “neighbour fish” if he was on the water, I could see the glint in his eye when he was congratulating us…one mans poison is another’s pleasure! But he was also obviously pleased as punch to see that we enjoyed the experience and I got the real impression that for once a fishing host really did want us to catch fish. He even made the effort at the end of day one to drop round at our holiday lodgings to give us an updated 4 day weather forecast, something that made our wives feel much better about letting us go out… as in most things in life it is the small things that matter…thanks Laurie for the first of many enjoyable trips I am sure.

Thanks for the great time!

Paull Weber & Peter Roach

Paull Weber (Mcom)
Doctoral Researcher
and Unit Controller Small Business 200
Curtin University of Technology
Bentley, Western Australia
Postal: GPO BOX U1987
Western Australia, Postcode 6845
Mobile 0427593687
Fax +61 8 92667694
email paull.weber@cbs.curtin.edu.au

Laurie

March 2005

2006-03-13T01:03:00.000-08:00

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

MURCHISON BOAT HIRE MARCH 2005 NEWSLETTER
The best time of year is here now. The weather is at it’s best and the mackerel and tuna are out there to be caught. After a good start with the mackerel around Christmas they went quiet for a while but the mackerel sure have come back in their multitudes! Everyone has been getting them and Kalbarri is still the easiest place to do it.

Dave Van Oossanen, Dennis Taylor, Beau Taylor, Lance Taylor were up again this year and stayed at Wagoe. The easterlies were not blowing for them and they had little luck catching anything! Booking the 6.1m boat as they did last year was their chance of catching some fish. The day out this year in the 6.1m was quite good and they managed to drift fish most spots. It was hard for them to catch a fish at first but later in the day it started to go off and Lance pictured here was happy with his 7.5kg dhuie. Dennis got a smaller one while everyone else picked up red throats, cods, snapper, skippy and the like.
Lance’s biggest dhuie to date

Now look at this guys, if Sue Craig and friend Linda can catch mackerel like this, any of you guys can do it as well! Early morning start and they had the first mac within the first 15 minutes, dropped a second, landed a third, went for a bottom fish, released two sambos and released another mac on the troll home! Well-done girls!

These macs were the biggest fish they had ever caught, Sue (left) & Linda

Daniel Kwek and his extended group of friends come up each year at Easter and spend 4 days out having a bit of fun. They have been coming up here for 5 years now and know the waters well. They always strike it lucky with the weather and the fish. A 17kg samson fish for Kenneth the first day among some other good fish, a 15kg mac for Daniel on the second day. Good bottom fish mixed with a blinder of a mackerel day on the last with everyone on the boat getting their bag limit rounded off another very successful trip for the group. New species for the boat was Kenneth’s unicorn leatherjacket!
Daniel’s 15kg mac,

Kenneth with his 17kg samson

and a thumper of a sand snapper.

Daniel with a very nice surf paroty (female blue-barred parrotfish)

and Kenneth’s weirdo unicorn leatherjacket

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.
Check out http://www.oceanoutlook.com.au/ and go to the Geraldton weather for local 5-day weather forecasts, or http://www.buoyweather.com/ and go to virtual buoys, is not a bad one!

Big bait = big fish

Laurie

February 2005

2006-03-12T23:48:00.000-08:00

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

MURCHISON BOAT HIRE FEBRUARY 2005 NEWSLETTER
The weather is improving, the wind has dropped off, the swell has gone down and the best time of year is nigh.
Ashley Waite and Jeremy Watson come up every year around this time and have extraordinary luck! Last year they got into some big yellow-fin tuna and this year they brought along a mate Chris Firns to show him how it is done. The first day of a 2-day hire with our 5.3m boat was not the best and they returned with only a couple of fish. A baldchin and small skippy made up the catch. With better weather the next day the mackerel and tuna came out to play. They got stuck into a mackerel each; with Jeremy landing the biggest around 11kgs and Chris’s was around 8kgs. Ashley dropped down in tackle size and played around with a light spin reel and 8kg line landing one mac, a small yellow-fin tuna and dropping a second mac. All hooked around the Sand Patch in 22m of water. They then found some cray pots in 18m of water and had a slow drift, picking up 7 snapper. Chris was happy with his first double header of pinkies. A nice baldchin groper and yellow-fin tuna completed Jeremy’s catch.

Snapper and mackerel in one day
Jeremy’s biggest mac

Matt Rafferty and his group of six, Sean Rasmussen, Mark Nicholson, Steve Haydock, James Knight and Kim Taylor had the 6.1m boat for 3 days mid Feb and were lucky to put 3 good days weather wise together. 12kg and 10kg macs was a welcome sight combined with a snapper and some reef fish the first day Followed by a blinder of a second day when the macs went ballistic. Every boat out that day caught mackerel. Of the group only Sean missed a mac as he elected to go bream fishing in the river the second and best day!! While Steve’s hangover limited his chance and he remained static in a corner of the boat for the day! The third day with fine weather resulted in every boat out that day, coming home empty! Funny how it goes??

They caught 6 mackerel over the three days. Looks like redheads were the lure of choice

Our local comp this month on the 19th ended up a really good weather day. Sue myself and no. 2 son Jared started the day with a troll trying to pick up a mac on 3kg line to no avail. The water temp was 22.2 degrees – far too cold so decided to try game snapper on 2kg line. I know a spot that I try to keep secret in shallow water, 8 metres deep. Anything deeper and the difficulty with 2kg line increases dramatically. Anchoring on the spot I was the first down and got hammered before touching bottom but the fish went under a ledge and stayed put. Sue hooked up as soon as she was down and 10 minutes later had a 2.65kg snapper on deck. I kept getting ledged and bust off and Sue landed 4 snapper winning her the game section! I eventually got one up but it was less than 2kgs so did not count as a game capture. Son Jared caught one and a couple of cod before retiring seasick.
Sue’s snapper both 2.65kgs on 2kg line

I noticed on the sea surface temperature chart that a warm current had flowed into Kalbarri and shot out the next available fair weather day. Well, when I got out there the water was cold, only 22.2 degrees. It should have been 23/24 according to the chart, must have by-passed Gantheume Bay again! We had a go for a mac all the same but I was not very confident. I did all the right things, had a spread of different lures and two teasers out but nothing. Just as we were about to pull in Paul got a hit, which turned out to be a spotted mackerel. Also his first lure caught fish he said. We get them occasionally, not very big here and usually around Jan/Feb.

Paul with his first lure caught fish, a spotted mackerel

We are getting into the time of year when there are lots of mud crabs in the river. As the water temp increases, out they come, where from who knows?
Muddies have been in the Murchison of as long as I can remember but the size of them has lately has continued to surprise me. They are getting bigger and in more numbers than ever and from now on until about May it is quite easy to go out in the dinghy and get a feed of big muddies, bring them home, cook them up in your favourite chilli mud crab recipe. My mouth waters at the thought of it!
Drop netting for them is the way to go. Half a dozen nets and some oily fish heads seem to do the trick. I just drop the nets in the deeper holes along the river and then go for a fish while those big fisted stalk-eyes sidewalk into the centre of the net to rip the bait apart. Give it twenty minutes or so and pull the nets up fast. Try and contain it in a bucket, as it will terrorise your crew if it escapes and scuttles about the boat! How the Fisheries Department then expects you to measure the thing beats me. There is no way that I am going to put my hand into a bucket with an angry unpredictable hydraulic bolt cutter, hold it up and try to measure it! To me it’s either well over or well under, make the decision, keep it or turf it. They’re green mud crabs up here, have to be 15cm to be legal, most make it quite easily and the bag limit of 10 is heaps for a feast.
Best time seems to be the run-out tide. Sometimes when fishing on anchor on a run-out tide you can see them swimming in mid water heading down river with the tide. They are usually small ones; probably looking for new feeding areas, but probably proves that they are most active on the run-out. They can be caught at any time offcourse and sometimes they can be a menace by grabbing your bait set for bream or mulloway, and letting go just as you try to lift them from the water. But as always, late evening and into the night are prime times.
Drop netting from the service jetty at night has to be one of the most popular activities equally among locals as tourists. It’s where some of the biggest ones come from but as I said, the jetty is fished a lot so you have to strike it lucky that no one has been there before you. The recreational jetty near Bird Sit Island has a deep hole at the end and is always good at night both for good muddies and thumper bream.

One of the good things is the by catch of blue manna’s that enter the nets as well. Half of the catch will be these very tasty creatures, they don’t even have to be as big as a muddie to be size, 127mm does it and they have a lot of meat in their body that the muddies don’t have. A lot less aggressive, most of them have difficulty holding their claws up for very long so measuring them is a bit easier. At the bottom of the tide blue mannas can be scooped up anywhere where there are shallow sand or mud flats. Most of the good sand flats are across the other side but up river and on a good day the blue mannas are everywhere but you have to be quick!
So if you’re not catching fish there are always alternatives that taste as good if not better, it’s just a matter of getting out there and doing it.

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.

Check out http://www.oceanoutlook.com.au/ and go to the Geraldton weather for local 5-day weather forecasts, or http://www.buoyweather.com/ is not a bad one!

Laurie

January 2005

2006-03-12T22:35:00.000-08:00

PO Box 63 KALBARRI WA 6536 PH/FAX (08) 9937 2043
MURCHISON BOAT HIRE JANUARY 2005 NEWSLETTER

It sure has been hot this month, but so has the fishing.
Gary Veenvlet who works at Bluewater Tackle in Morley and Mate Nick Singh were up in the middle of January dead keen on some mackerel.
Both these guys have enough tackle to stock a good tackle store between them. They came armed with the complete set of Tiagras on custom rods, Saltigas and TLD’s and a tackle box the size of a 44-gallon drum. They took the 6.1m boat out and to be fair, the weather was not as kind as hoped. I only found out afterwards but Nick was a mackerel virgin (never caught a mac before). He says that while everyone around him is catching them he misses out, or catches a different species. (Sounds like a Jonah to me!) Well this time his luck changed and the hit, when it came was on the lightest and oldest gear, the Shimano TLD 15 with 6kg line! It always happens like that, biggest fish takes the lightest rod.

The Barlo Firearms, Tackleworld and Camping Ultra-light was on over the Australia Day long weekend, and while we entered I did not win again. My wife Sue did however, (must be the skill of the skipper) she picked up the 3kg line class with this 8.35kg mac and the winner was Lou Parker who caught these two macs on 4kg line, winning 4kg class and over all. My mackerel on 4kg line was mentioned briefly!

Pete and Kate Brodie with Kids Seb, Jordan and my cousin Brendan Mitchell all from Zimbabwe were up for a visit. The weather was not too kind but a small window before a week of wind opened up so we shot out. All of their fishing has been on sheltered freshwater lakes and rivers so this trip out into the salt was a big shock. They adapted well after falling all over the boat and, surprisingly, did not get seasick! Kate was the lucky one taking a hit on her rod and using her experience of catching tiger fish on the Zambezi River fought this small mac to the boat. She also picked up this red-throat emperor among many other fish. Son Jordan aged 8 struggled with the unfamiliar heavy gear but caught his fair share of fish.

Kate’s mackerel

Late January Tony Thwin, Marc Orifici both from Anglers Fishing World 221 Albany Hwy and mate John Castiglione were up again and picked one ordinary day and one really good day. It was on the good day when it all went off. Water temp had come up over night and baitfish were everywhere. (See the sea surface water temp website detailed below, a warm current slick came into the bay) The baitfish were so thick that some anglers reported the mackerel spewing up bait as they came along side the boat and all over the boat when landed. Their guts extended with food but still having room for a Halco Laser Pro190! Tony and crew really know their tackle and tactics so call in and see them for info and tackle. They jigged up some of the baitfish on baitfish jigs and returned them to the water with hooks in. It was not long till their 4kg braid outfits took a hammering with the likes of a half dozen snapper that Marco and Tony are holding up. Just drifting through freshly laid cray pots in 21m of water off the Sand Patch, these snapper came up and hit the bait mid water. Great fun and entertainment on light gear guys!

Great fish for Tony Thwin

Marco Orifici

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.

Check out http://www.oceanoutlook.com.au/ and go to the Geraldton weather for local 5-day weather forecasts, or http://www.buoyweather.com/ is not a bad one!

Another website worth looking at for sea surface temperatures is http://www.aodc.gov.au/ and go to “online data”, and pick “Near real-time SST” that takes you to a zoom in screen of the area you need. Some times that does not work so try this link www.aodc.gov.au/products/IDG00073.shtml
Laurie