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| TravGrundys Week Off | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 28 2015, 10:59 AM (251 Views) | |
| TravGrundy | Jun 28 2015, 10:59 AM Post #1 |
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Black Bass
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With winter setting in along the south coast I decided to take a week off work, hook on the tinny, chuck in the swag and shoot up to Port Gregory and Kalbarri for a serious fishing trip. I hit the road just after 630pm Friday night and started the uneventful drive north, with a quick fuel stop in Perth before continuing on past Eneabba before pulling over for a few hours sleep. The sound of the highway coming to life woke me and it was back on the road with another fuel stop at the 440 Roadhouse and the final short push to Port Gregory. Things looked promising pulling up to the beach there with little swell and a slight easterly blowing, (although I didn't think much of the no camping signs along the beach) so I found an ideal launching spot and was soon out past the reef. Pretty much as soon as I stopped for my first drop the weather took a turn for the worse, with the wind picking up and some dark clouds forming to the north. Knowing it was only a reasonably short trip back in I fished on and was hounded by schools of plastic destroying norwest blowies, damn things were everywhere. Not wanting to use all my plastics in one trip, I went back inside the reef and chucked a few lures around over some nice looking tailor ground and picked up a lone little cod before making the call to head in. On arrival at the beach a couple of guys on a Polaris buggy offered to help retrieve the tinny then made sure I got the hint of no camping anywhere along the beach there (might have been the caravan park owners) So I decided to head up to Kalbarri instead. Fished Chinaman point for a few hours with lures for bugger all as the wind and rain started to settle in, knowing I still had to find somewhere to camp I packed up and headed upstream until I found a nice spot on the river side. Scored a few little cod before retreating to the back of the pajero for a sleepless night where the wind gusted to 70kph and 30mm of rain fell. Next morning after a bit of serious 4x4ing to get back into town, I went back to Chinaman point for another lure session, inbetween wind gusts and showers I cast lure after lure over the reef there for completley nothing (ok well I jagged a 10mm baitfish) and with the weather forecast pretty average right through until Tuesday afternoon I was starting to question the whole trip. Over a lunch of two minute noodles in the car I checked the weather in Shark bay and while it was a little better it still wasn't very promising, then it hit me..... Exmouth is just up the road, sort of....... So I hit the road north again with a number of deep floodway crossings, another fuel stop in Carnarvon and arrived at a windy Exmouth late Sunday night, picked up a few oysters for dinner then hit the hay to see what the morning would bring. |
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| TravGrundy | Jun 28 2015, 11:28 AM Post #2 |
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Black Bass
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Woke Monday morning to a 25knot easterly and metre high waves in the marina, so I decided to head south out of town and explore the mangrove creeks in the gulf. Not really having a clue where I was going I turned off past the air port and eventually ended up at what could be Wapet creek or the Bay of Rest. Either way it was low tide and there wasnt a lot of water in the creek but I was surpised at the amount of fish life in it, pretty much every cast resulted in small bream, cod, mangrove jacks, grunter and I even spotted a big shovel nose shark cruising around. Had an explore in the mangroves after crabs and while I found a number of holes I just couldn't find any crabs, also found a number of tiny metre wide metre deep streams that were full of bream and mullet. Could of easily spent the whole day there but with the tide coming in and not really wanting to be stranded until it went out again I got a move on and headed across to Tantabiddi. With the wind still blowing and a few people at the ramp saying it looked unfishable I put the boat in and stayed inside the reef drifting over some reasonable looking ground, scored a heap of little cod, a small fingermark and Mangrove jack on mullet baits before calling it a day. Drove back to the eastern side of town and set up camp out the wind in some sand dunes, lite a fire, cooked up one of the cod and planned the next days adventure. |
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| TravGrundy | Jun 28 2015, 12:09 PM Post #3 |
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Black Bass
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Had the wind change direction during the night so when I woke the next morning I found the boat with nearly three inches of sand through it, along with the pajero and trailer badly bogged. With the wind still blowing hard I took on the painful sting of the sand with my trusty shovel and after a fair bit of swearing and hard work was out on the road again. Spent a fair bit of time trying to get the sand out of everything but in the end gave up and headed off to Tantabiddi again. Again the strong easterly had whipped up a bit of chop but compared to Albany it looked pretty nice out past the reef, so I shot out the main passage to the first bank and started trolling north along the 25-30m line. Didn't take long for the surface lure to attract some attention with a big dark shape coming screaming up behind it and the nose of a sailfish break the surface, but I just couldn't hook it. In the end I wound the line in and had the a fully lit up sail come right up under the boat. Was one of those moments where I wished I had the camera going. I kept trolling north, dropping another run on the skirt before having a few bottom bashing drops with the last of the creek mullet. Picked up a heap of small emperor before getting bored and bringing out the trolling gear again. This time I started heading back in towards the reef, noticed a few long tom jumping in front of the boat when next second a massive marlin comes completely out of the water no more than 30metres to the right of the tinny. Took a few seconds to get over the shock of seeing the beast and I have to admit im a little happy i didn't hook it as it would of been a very one sided battle. Continued trolling back towards tantabiddi just off the reef in 8-10metres of water where I got my first spanish mack for the trip, (even if was only small) saw a bit of action on the surface so pulled out the soft plastics and picked up another small spanish mack and a barracuda that I kept for bait. By now the wind had dropped right off and I could see all sorts of interesting fish, sharks etc on the bommies below. I switched from lures to lightly weighted barracuda baits and picked up a few bigger cod, emperor and my first jobfish. Also got bricked a few times which was annoying. With the sun getting low I pulled out the bigger stick baits and had some casts over the reef in hope of a Gt or something interesting. Didn't take long until I hooked up to something decent and before long I had my first Shark mackerel on board, another fish to tick of my list. Headed back to the ramp at a steady 42kph and headed off to find a nicer campground for the night. |
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| TravGrundy | Jun 28 2015, 12:29 PM Post #4 |
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Black Bass
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Had a decent nights sleep and was back out at Tantabiddi reasonably early. This time I headed out the main passage and started trolling south deploying my home made teaser consisting of mirror off cuts and old lures. After a hour or so the tld30 started screaming. I tightened the drag as much as I could as the fish continued to take line, 15 or so minutes later I was starting to get in control of the fight when the rod started bouncing with the tell tail signs of being sharked, 30seconds later I was biten off. From its first run Im guessing it was a big mackie but I was pretty pissed off about being sharked, as I was rigging up again three big sharks were cruising around under the boat which was a little unnerving. I continued trolling south and found some likely looking bottom bashing ground, so pulled out the avet and some shark mackerel as bait. Had a couple of good bites and finally hooked up to something half decent for a whole 15seconds until I was sharked. This became the pattern for the next few drops so I switched back to the trolling lures and slowly made my way back to the main passage in metre high chop. Still annoyed at all the sharks I decided to hit the 1.5m deep flats inside the main reef and throw some stickbaits for trevally. Didn't see any Gts but scored a nice golden and had a few follows from little mackerel but couldn't hook up. As usual the wind dropped right off in the late afternoon so I shot back outside the reef for some bottom bouncing, picked up an alright emperor and a baby coral trout before the sharks moved in again. Spied a school of tuna on the surface so chased them around but couldn't get any hits. Headed back in and did a bit of exploring on the way back to town which resulted in getting bogged, bit of shovel work and I was able to continue on |
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| TravGrundy | Jun 28 2015, 12:45 PM Post #5 |
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Black Bass
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With yet another day of strong easterlies forcast I was back at tantabiddi bright and early, being the first boat out on the water. Decided to troll north again along the same line that I saw the sailfish and marlin on earlier, picked up on little macky then decided to spend the rest of the day chucking lures right up along the reef. Had heaps of follows from coral trout, spangled emperor, mackerel but just couldn't convert them to hook ups. Finally manged to hook onto a nice gt that made me learn the lesson of why you should upgrade your hooks, bending the stock treble like fence wire. Did spot a heap of sea life including, whales, dugongs, manta rays, turtles, parrot fish and three surfing gts which was pretty cool. Like clockwork the wind died off and I went out chasing the birds that were a few kms out, Found a massive school of little tuna so pulled out the bream gear and starting throwing metals completely surrounded by tuna. Picked up a few tuna along with my first legal mackerel that had me giving chase in the tinny. Also hooked onto a few bigger fish that the bream gear didn't really stand a chance with. |
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| TravGrundy | Jun 28 2015, 01:08 PM Post #6 |
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Black Bass
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Woke to very little wind so decided to head out from Bundegi instead for my last fishing trip. Spotted a heap of birds working the surface out from the navy jetty and before long I had a nice tuna onboard, I could see there were a few bigger fish in amongst the schools and managed to have another screaming run on the deep diving minnow before being sharked yet again. Could have easily spent most the day chasing the tuna schools around but instead I headed out the North West Cape where there was a pretty big swell coming through from time to time, up to 4.5-5m according to the sounder. Anchored up in 11metres and scored some nice size emperor and a little mackie along with being bricked on every one of my setups before the sharks made things impossible to fish. Decided to up anchor and start making my way back towards the gulf, was cruising along over some 9 metre deep water when I had a look behind and saw four massive waves behind me that were going to break. Gunned the outboard and made a quick get away to a safe distance where I had a look at the final two waves break and the huge amount of white wash that was left. After that I thought I'd just play it safe and have one last crack at a Gt along the oyster reefs between the Navy jetty and the Mildura wreck. Didn't take long for my first hit to come and after a good tense battle I had my first Exmouth Gt safely on the boat. Took a few photos and sent it back on its way, had three more casts and was smashed again. This time I wasn't so lucky as the fish took me straight down onto the oysters and won its freedom, rigged up again and had a few more casts around the place but couldn't raise anymore fish. With the day getting on and a 18 hour drive still ahead of me I began heading back to the ramp, only to come across another school of bigger tuna. So had to stop and throw some lures at them, hooked onto four but only managed to get two onto the boat as the sharks were sitting under the boat waiting for their free feed. Got back to the ramp right on sunset with the whole gulf a complete glass off, tied the boat down onto the trailer and hit the road home. Misjudged the distance from Exmouth to Carnarvon a little and ended up doing 70km with the guage below empty but still made it, had a nap just north of the overlander then continued my way home yesterday, arriving at mine around 7pm last night. |
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| Courtz | Jun 28 2015, 05:35 PM Post #7 |
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Samson Fish
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Awesome write up...... Jealous as..... Havnt been out for a while, and now ive done my ACL and needing a reco, it may be a little longer..... |
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| Boots | Jun 28 2015, 05:55 PM Post #8 |
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Dhufish
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Nice write up as usual Trav, sounds like you had a good trip, pity about the sharks!! |
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| Fish | Jun 28 2015, 07:02 PM Post #9 |
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homebrewer not fishmonger
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awesome weekend away trav! very jealous and cant wait to catch up for a fish again. |
| 4 kids, no beer and lots of mullet | |
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| Wookiee | Jun 29 2015, 09:21 AM Post #10 |
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great trip TG. thats a big trip to do solo as well. Those damn sharks are a big problem and only getting worse. outboards have become the new dinnerbell. what a pain in the arse. |
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Carpe Pisces The walking carpet disaster. | |
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| Fergie | Jun 29 2015, 09:47 AM Post #11 |
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Bream
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Good report, thanks for sharing and like wookiee said those sharks are becoming a real problem. |
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| Lefty | Jun 29 2015, 11:36 AM Post #12 |
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Administrator
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Trav, Your a bloody gun as usual. Glad you got onto some good fish and weather for your trip. Shame the taxes up there (Noah's) are so high. |
| Fish, Brag & Post Pics | |
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| TravGrundy | Jun 29 2015, 07:40 PM Post #13 |
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Black Bass
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Cheers everyone, Hadnt planned on heading up that far so was a little unprepared with tackle, needed more trolling lures and little metals for those tuna and mackies. Was good to get out for a trip but reckon I'd fork out the extra bucks on a unit next time. Nothing beats a nice hot shower at the end of a days fishing |
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| SnappaDan | Jun 30 2015, 11:41 AM Post #14 |
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Black Bass
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Awesome work Travis,sounds like a real adventure with some good fish seen and caught. It would have had to be a bit warmer up there than down here. |
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4:37 PM Jul 11