Broome report

I’ve had my trip to Broome planned for well over a year now and finally the time for me and my best mate Ben to go had arrived!! To say we were pumped was an understatement!! Here is my report, it’s fairly long but I hope you enjoy.

We got into Broome on Monday the 6th and had two weeks to see what the fishing could deliver both by land and by sea. We managed to sneak a quick fish off the jetty the first night with no luck, we couldn’t believe how big the tides were and how high the jetty was... maybe it was going to be harder than we thought. Still our hopes were high leading into day two.

The next day we decided to give the jetty a miss (still a little perplexed as to how people actually caught fish off it) and decided to head off to Gantheume Point to try catch a Mackie off the rocks. Again we had no luck spinning/popping or baiting a Mackie up, even though we saw one swimming only about 5 metres away from us. Ah well, still we remained positive as tomorrow was our first day in the boat.

Day three saw us on the boat for the first time. Our game plan was to head out to Willie and Barred Creeks to try our luck trolling for some Pelagics. The morning session was ok getting 5 school Mackerel and dinner, but after lunch things really went quite. We tried chasing around tuna schools for a little bit but it wasn’t easy in the rough conditions. After a while we decided to go back closer to home for a bottom bash. We ended up just off Gantheume point and caught a few undersize coral trout and Spanish flag. Little did we know we were only about 600m from an absolute gold bit of ground that we found later in the trip. Back at the beach there was a pretty funny situation that arose while retrieving the boat. The boat hire guy had a petrol powered winch bolted to the tray of his ute, as he powered her up and began to lift the boat onto the trailer the weight of the boat completely ripped the tray off the ute. Couldn’t believe it when it happened, but the tray was pretty rusted as it had been exposed to the salt water almost every day. So after about an hour the guys had sorted it out... but the boat was left high and dry. Haha, well done to Darren from the boat hire place who kept his cool through the whole thing.

Unfortunately the wind blew up over the next few days meaning we couldn’t get out on the boat. So we went back to the point to try our luck again. No luck!! by this stage we were starting to get a little worried that the trip wasn’t going to be what we expected.

Later in the week we caught up with fellow wrecked member Steve (freshsquidmarks) and went down to willie creek for a fish off the land. It was a fun day, catching bits and pieces and talking fishing for most of the day. I dropped a nice diamond trevally which would have made a great photo. Steve ended up getting a nice flathead which was a bit of a suprise to all of us, not what you’d expect to catch in Broome. After we dropped Steve off we were a little more confident of what laid ahead for the trip, he gave us some good advice on places to go and what the dynamite bait was. So we went straight to Woolworths and bought 5kgs of banana prawns... not for dinner... but for the hungry fish that awaited us. Steve was an absolutely ripping bloke by the way! The fishing went nuts from this point on in the trip...

Still to windy to go out on the boat we decided to give the jetty another chance over the next few days and nights with prawns in tow. What we experienced was the best land based fishing I have ever had. We caught heaps of Trevally,  We got blue bone, Spanish flag, Crimson perch, heaps of batfish (fight like buggery but got annoying after a while) one i let the groper eat... woops, golden snapper, heaps of Queenies, mackerel. Lost a few fish to the groper and had a few unstoppable’s as well. We caught most of the golden trevally and reef dwellers on the prawns but all the mackerel and queenies we caught casting plastics into the far corner of the jetty. On light gear it was awesome fun trying to stop them from bricking you on the jetty. I would easily go to broome again just to fish the jetty. Saw some amazing fish get pulled up by others as well, including a stonking blue bone that would have nudged 10kg. We ended up fishing the jetty morning and night for almost the next week as we waited for the winds to slow. Was well worth it , wish we had of gone back sooner.

The next time we got out on the boat we had the pleasure of being joined by wrecked member Marky (Another cracking bloke!!)  We decied we’d try again for that our elusive Mackie. Marky was pretty sure he could get it for us. Ben and I ended up leaving most our gear behind (Fishing the jetty night and day was taking its toll, haha) but we eventually got out there. Marky was the first one to chuck out a lure while ben and I were rigging up. That lure got smashed by a Mackie after  sitting in the wash for about 2 min...  game on!! Marky gave ben the rod and after a 5min battle he had the 8kg Mackie cooked on the surface. The fish was as well hooked as you could hope so marky didn’t rush the gaff shot, this fish was going nowhere... or so we thought.  He bit through the 80pd wire trace and he was gone. That was the first and only Mackie we saw on the trip... really the only fished we missed. So close though. Marky said that was the first time he had seen that happen. We spent the rest of the day trolling around and bottom bashing. Was a pretty quiet day fishing wise but we had a blast, Marky gave us plenty of advice which we used in the days after, really top bloke. He also lent us his teaser for the rest of our trip. You really have the life up there mate!!! Jealous! We ended getting a few of these little weird looking fish that none of us could id (see the pic)

The rest of the trip we split our time catching queenies from the jetty in the morning  then heading out on the boat in the afternoon. We found an awesome patch of reef just off from Gantheume Point which  we fished when the tides suited. Over the days we fished there we caught hundreds of fish, some of the highlights were the big coral trout which was amazing on the chew and a pretty rare capture accoriding to some of the old boys on the pier, the big chinamon, The first size blue bone, the countless sharks that smashed our livies and the school of juvenile queenies that moved in on the last day I reckon we caught 60 atleast... on the bream gear which was heaps of fun. Between the bottom bashing we chased tuna schools, each day we lightened the tackle which made for some funny sights. Ben got down to about 2kg and I got down to about 4 kg, and of course thats when the bigger fish started to take the slugs we were casting into the schools.  The last day I got in a solid mack tuna that went about 8 kg on the scales... took me about 25min of that gear. Had me stuffed by the end of it. Was heaps of fun though.

Well, that about covers it!! Was easily the best two weeks fishing of my life, without exagertating i reckon we caught about 300 fish between us in the two weeks. The weather ended up turning it on for us in the last few days with afew glass outs. We didnt get that the big mackie we wanted but we didnt care to much. Ben and I were shattered when it was time to leave. Meet some really good people while we were away, all the locals were friendly and were happy to give advice. Already looking forward to the next time i make the journey... bring it on!

Big thanks again to Steve and Marky for having a fish with us, just shows how good this forum is with good blokes like that willing to have a fish with random victorians like ben and myself. Too good!!

Enjoy the pics..

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