Late last year we put together a plan to re-ignite the tradition of our annual boys trip northward to Exmouth. Over the last couple of years I've been fishing with John (JohnF) regularly so threw the invite his way to see if he and the whaler wanted to make the trip up north. It didn't take much convincing.

As with every trip that far north, there were months and months and stupid amounts of money spent preparing trailers (johns was rebuilt) boats (outriggers, electrics etc) and cars in preparation of the 1200+km trip north.

We decided leaving just after the Easter long weekend should make a pretty quiet trip northward on the roads and give everyone a bit of time with the families before 10 days of literally fishing, drinking and eating, in no particular order.

25 cartons of beer loaded, a freezer full of top shelf meat (anyone wants a brilliant butcher who will prep your meat, vac seal and snap freeze if required let me know) and 7 eager blokes at 4am on Tuesday morning on route to Exmouth.

A fairly uneventful trip north with a couple of welds on the guards on my trailer being the only small hiccup, but nothing a couple of truck straps cannot solve!

The 200 series land cruisers towing the Fury and the whaler made light work of it really, only needing fueling in Geraldton and Carnarvon on the way up. We arrived at 7pm, 15 hours after leaving.

A quick unpack and a few beers on ice saw us having a BBQ and downing some coldies about an hour later. The plan was to get up early, get some fuel for the boats and drop the boat into the marina.

The dig

The next day we had the boats in the drink and decided to have a light day on the water and head over to the islands, see if we can find a Mackie for dinner, maybe a tuna or 2 and see what's about around the Murians.

Lets just say it didn't take long, there were birds everywhere and a few lures in the water saw the first decent hookup. a nice 7-8k Mackie! perfect for dinner!

Both boats continued to troll, picking up some shark mackies, school macks, a few small tuna literally every couple of minutes.

With a bit of fresh bait onboard, we decided to see if we could find a bottom fish or two to compliment the Mackie for dinner. Well, that didn't take long either!. I'm a bit short on pictures for this short session, but basically rankins, Robsin sea bream, spangos were the talk of the session, and not to go unmentioned Scano nailing a nice 7kg Yellow fin tuna on the retrieve!

It was then back to the marina, a quick fillet up and in for dinner. Fresh YFT sashimi, Fresh Mackie and chips, a couple beers a few wines.. no better way to finish the first day!

The next day the weather was looking real good, so we planned to venture further north, heading up past peak towards flat. Leaving a bit earlier to get a full days fishing in

Getting going in the mornings seemed to take a while, which was something old mate John was struggling with!!! this would lead to later in the trip John being honoured with a new nick name... ol cap-i-tan bentneck!

The accommodation from the water and the mornings exercise carrying everything up and down the stairs

Fury on the way out of the marina

We started off fishing shallower around flat chasing anything that would eat surface lures or plastics...Fishing was slow for all of about 5 minutes when old mate Capitan bentneck gets on the radio and belts out Trout City!!!! from memory, it was 2 drops for 2 trout, one on jig one on plastic, and both hooters!!! the larger of the two went to matt on a plastic which went about 70cm!

Johnny boy with a solid trout!

Matt with a honker!

Plenty of fish were caught over the next couple of hours, Spango's, about 10 different trevally species, tuna, red throats and even an occy on a twisty... yep that's right!

Johns nice Trev

Carl another nice trev

We actually had at one stage a school of all different types of trevs right under the boat in about 30m but they were using the boat for cover... drop a jig in and hold on!

Fury on the water

after this, John decided it was time to push out a bit wider and look for some gold band if they could. so off they went and we stayed in shallower looking for some bottom fish.

John went quiet for a while, then all of a sudden a message comes over the radio..... we found the goldies, and did they ever!! Double headers was the name of the game!!

We ended up finding a couple of reds in shallower too which made the day

Franks nice red

Frank again with a nice Chinaman that gave him a run

John made his way over to us later in the day and had a couple drifts around us. I had found a new bit of ground int he 70's and dropped down, only to be smashed pretty much straight away. I had this rubbing feeling on the line which has me calling it for a shark thinking it was the tail of the shark hitting the line, only to be busted off half way up....

At this stage I wasn't too dis-heartened as I thought it was a shark, but instantly after I busted carl who was next to me said...im on.. thinking that was a bit strange we soon realized he and I had tangled. He would up and we found my braid wrapped around his rig, so I grabbed the bait (bare hands) and started to handline in what I thought was a shark... being careful as I didn't want to end up with braid peeling out of my hands it came up pretty easy.

As soon as we saw colour....we knew it was no shark, and next thing the biggest trout popped up any of us had seen, it went 78cm and fat!!! not sure how this trout managed to be stuck mid water for a good 5-10 min whilst we were untangling and didn't get eaten by a shark!!

Unlucky trout, Lucky me!

The end result for the day for John...great day!

Time to head in and with pretty good weather it was a nice ride in from about 34 odd mile out!

Whaler motoring in

The next day we decided with such good weather it was worth another run north before heading west from tanta's in chase of some bills, so north we went again.

This time even further chasing reds, goldies and other deep water delights. the goldies were hard to find that day, but we did manage a few more reds.

Johnny boy with his first red, first of many to come!

Scanos nice goldband

Hooked up

A good day!!

The 4th day was billish day, so we fuelled up, and there was a lot of this!!!! $1k every trip to the fuel station!!

We started off out from tantas in the 200's looking for billfish but the water was quiet, no birds no bait so not a lot of action. We got 1 solid run on my boat, which was a good bill, staying connected and getting to the leader only to have the lure pop out when leadering to the boat. Solid 30 minute fish and looked 120-140kg

After that things went quiet, we trolled down passed south passage and back, John came in closer which proved to be a good move, picking up this nice saily in 20m or so of water!! first for the trip!!

After this we headed in, bill fishing not a failure bot not a raging success.

Back to the accommodation for a good feed and more beer and wine. Needless to say, we didn't do it tough food wise. Home made Cold meats cut up and on this particular night, roasts on the spit!

The following day was more trolling and deep dropping. We all wanted to catch a ruby and motored out of tantas in chase of some. John had sounded some ground the day before and I had a mark on my GPS from previous years, which was not too far away from what john had seen so we headed in that direct into the 200-400m of water.

It didn't take long, I think it may have been our first or second drift for the first rubies to come up. to say we were pumped was understatement! to go with it we had a bill free swimming under the back of the boat which was pretty cool

John putted his way over for a drift. We both setup the drift only 20-30m apart and down went the baits... it didn't take longer and there was a 4 way bookup!!! both boats, all electrics loaded!!!

John loaded

the result! solid GB's!!!

John was keen to get a ruby so he moved out deeper again to where he started and got sharked on a couple good fish. Then it happened, the whaler finally got its first ruby!!

Scano with a nice ruby.

We started to put out way back to tantas in a bit shallower looking for some ground and stopping for a drop or 2 here and there. We managed a few more goldband and Matt with a solid long nose emperor on jig I think it was

John trolled a bit on the way back and managed to hook a nice black for scano to land his first marlin!

Matt directing john during the fight

Scanos Marlin

Days end

The last couple of days saw us head north once more for a good day chasing a few more reds, John getting a couple of nice yellow fin on the troll and another day off tanta's chasing a bill for Matt... This day I jumped on Johns boat and we headed straight out of tantas and dropped the skirts in the water in a bout 70m... it took all of about 15-20 minutes for the first hookup and turned out to be Matt's first bill to the boat!!

We started to set the spread again, only to have the 1st outrigger hit before any other lures were in the water only to have it drop it a few seconds later. This day had the makings of being a brilliant day with 6 or 7 strikes, but only managing to hook and land 1 bill for the day

Heading north had John and Matt on a duo getting into some fish!!

Some solid cobia!!

John looks happy doesn't he!!

Matts cobia

A few more pics from the trip

Matt's Wahoo

the 4000 rods

More YFT Sashimi

Sounder porn!

Nice sunset

One thing we had mentioned we wanted to give a crack whilst up there was the prawns in the gulf. So on the last day Scano and den took the tinny for a run into the gulf. With a little bit of local knowledge the lads had a ball and got a wicked feed of prawns to boot!!

Needless to say the trip was nothing short of epic, 7-8 out of 10 weather wise, Fishing off the chart, plenty of beer, great food and piss taking and the best crew we've had to date on our boys trips.

John aka ol cap-i-tan bentneck, and Matt aka the deckie of the year, couple of absolute cracking blokes along with all the lads and bring on the next trip!!!

Thanks for reading.