Well it was that time of year again when we pack the utes and head for Wagoe Farm just outside Kalbarri. This year with Easter and Anzac Day coinciding in the same weekend, meant we could stay up there longer in the hope of scoring an easterly breeze or two over the weekend.

The weather gods were once again smiling down upon us as we had jagged perfect conditions for the second year in a row. Every morning saw relatively flat seas, easterly winds and favourable swell conditions on the beach. Bright blue skys, tempretatures in the mid 30's and warm balmy starlit nights a pleasure for the 10 of us who made the trip.

Fishing wise it was relatively quiet from the reefs with sand snapper/ painted sweetlip almost as prolific as the menacing flies on the farm. An unfortunate bite off at the shoreline after a 30 minute fight with a 6 foot shark on balloon the first day and the usual heap of bust offs to big unknowns, with a few missed chances of landing that prized pink snapper thrown in the mix were quickly forgotten by the Easter Sunday.

At first light absolute mayhem out on the water broke loose no more than 150m out. Have never witnessed so much surface activity that close in to the reef before. Tuna and Mackies were being boated everywhere along the coastline in front of the chalets, as they courtesly trolled in and around our helium balloons.

In amongst all the commotion our balloons were amazingly remaining untouched. Thankfully, that Sunday saw myself land the first spainard on balloon of the trip @ 1100 long and 8kg. The only fish caught that morning. Spinning metals in between also had no success.

Anzac Day Monday was much of the same but less on occasion compared to the morning before. Still large schools of baitfish being smashed left, right and centre, but out further in around 400m offshore. This turned out to be more successful with myself claiming a new pb land based mackie @ 1360 long and 16kg on the scales. My brother Dave also a fellow fishwrecked nut managed to land his first and pb lontail tuna @ 1080 long and 14kg.

The morning got better with another two hook ups on balloon resulting in another spaniard the same size as the day before landed by my old man and cousin. The only downer on the day was the unfortunate bust off of the 4th hookup. The breeze had swung by then, but we had already had ourselves our most succesful wagoe trip to date.

Can't wait to get back up there next year. Cheers to Ted and Jenny of Wagoe Farm for once again keeping the weekend as smooth as possible for us die hard fisho's. No doubt my favourite landbased location in WA.

Cheers

Rob