I just got back from a camping trip to warroora station, located just south of coral bay, did ok on the fishing front so thought id put up a few photos and a bit of a report.

Left Perth Saturday morning, about 3am to get a good headstart on traffic, the ol non turbo hilux and boat were fully loaded and the hilux appreciated the cool night air giving it that little extra power as we roled out of Perth rolling along between 80 - 90kms all the way. We made it to Carnarvon about 2 30 in the arvo I guess, found our motel and settled in to sink a few coldies for the night before heading the rest of the way north in the morning.

boat and hilux fully loaded

Sunday morning came and we headed the remaining trek to waroora station, the weather wasnt looking great but we thought hey, weve got a week, it should come good, we found no spare camp spots left on the beach but that didnt matter as the wind was blowing havock with the vans so we were happy to spend the time a little more sheltered in our tents over the back of the 14 mile beach dune.

So we got our campsite, paid the caretaker and started setting up camp, not long after getting the tent up i noticed we picked up an unwelcome friend on the track through the station, i piece of steel felt like coming along for a ride puncturing my tyre in the process, and on a public holiday long weekend with 2 full days to wait before we could drive all the way back to carnarvon to get a proper repair done ( no decent tyre guy in coral bay - whats with that ). Anyway we got a temp repair on it with a plug which we limped around on for the next few days, all good.

 Setting up the camp

 The plug and the puncterer

Setting up camp and plugging the flat tyre

The weather to put it nicely was crap, but hey, we werent fussed, wed get the tyre fixed tuesday, then we still had a few days before we planned to head home and  decided wed stay longer if needed to get the boat out for at least one days good fishing. Also there was a big mother of a croc in the area we were camped so diving in the same area was not advisable, (this was caught a day or two after we got there a few kms south of our camp)

Wednesday came around and the weather was a little better, not good enough to get out to the outside of the reef though but at least good enough to get the boat wet and have a scout around the inside of the reef for a couple of hours. We decided to have a traul before the winds picked up again sending us back to the beach to retrieve the boat. (we were playing things faily safe as that same week 3 boats had been capsized in the same bay, one being a brand new 5 metre trailcraft, now with no equipment, no working electronics and a new engine requiring a rebuild....

My boat in the water (once for the trip)

After checking the forecast we decided we had better get a better plan as the weather gods werent interested in helping us out on this trip so we fanged into coral bay to book on a fishing charter for the next day and a dive charter for friday.

Thursday came around and we were hmmmm well after previous metro charters i have to be honest, we werent expecting a great day, we arrived early to get some breakfast and i bought along my penn overhead setup for its maiden use, we then met up with about 5 other people making for 8 total fishers for the boat, a good improvement on metro charter straight away...

We then were told we would attempt to get some billfish on the way out and back and would bottom bash when we got to location, to make it fair we all picked a card, he who got the ace got in the chair first if we got a hook up on a billfish, then 2 then 3 then 4 etc...I didnt have any expectations but drew the ace card first and was up if we got a hook up, again i was very very happy with this but wasnt to be ohnest expecting big things (purely from dissapointing metro charters id been on previously)

About 30 minutes after putting the lures out bang we were on and it great fashion, the sailfish we had hooked was putting on a fantastic arial display and i was in the game chair before you could blink, the other rods were wound in and i was given the prize rod to fight the best fish of my life with, it was tiring winch to get it in but no way was i going to let this baby beat me, not on your bloody life! It didnt take too long and I had it up to the boat, Im not to sure of the size or weight as we didnt bring it aboard, just alongside to tag and release where i got a few photos of my fondest catch to date.

My first billfish, will take alot for me to top this catch!

After that we put the lures back out and within 20 minutes we were on again, this time a young lads number was up, he musnt have been anything over 12 or 13 and he too was onto a beautifal sailfish also keen on showing us an arial display. He too got it in with very good coordination mind you and this fish was also quickly tagged and released.

After this we set up for some bottom bashing, the rest of the boat used the supplied alvy deck winches, i used my overhead penn rod and 30vsw reel for the first time, and dam it showed the difference it made, i reckon i caught double everyones catch purely because of the feel of the 80Lb braid compared to the 150Lb mono they were forced to use. I was there with my father in law and younger brother and the three of us caught well in excess of 40 good sized fish (prob closer to 50 i reckon), the excess of our limit was given to the other fishers onboard who didnt manage to get their quota for the day.

We caught all sorts, Spangled emperor, Red emperor, Diamond trevs, GTs, Robbos, Rosies, Goldband etc etc too many to remember them all im sure.

There was some more excitement as a 100 kilo plus sailfish jumped onto my neighbours snapper rig and managed to wrap itself around the anchor chain 3 times, this too was quickly set free and my neighbour was chuffed he could now brag he had caught a fish of this stature on basically a big hand line!

My first fish on my penn overhead setup

 Father in law got this shark on his alvy winch

 My little bros first catch of the day

The catch we kept for the day (the three of us not the whole boat)...can anyone tell me what the fish is that looks similar to a dhuie in the blue bucket, i was disappointed when the skipper told me it wasnt as im still yet to catch one.

On the way back in we again had the skirts out didnt get a third hookup but we did saw an awesome arial display off on the port side about 50 metres away, one or possibly two sailfish going nuts in the air for about 3 minutes constantly, we swung the boat over their but no hookups on that occasion. 

We got in and the crew filleted our catch and bagged it all up for us (thanks guys!) and our engel got a gfood workout freezing it all down overnight.

The next day I did the dive charter had a few nice dives, saw some nice things including a reef shark cleaning station, big groper etc and then spent friday arvo and saturday first thing packing up and hitting the road, of course to top the trip off we got bogged dragging the loaded boat through the dunes out of waroora and had to let the tyres back down to get out of the sand then when we arrived at the main road and went to pump the tyres back up my compressor blew up snapping a conrod on the pump, luckily after about 45 minutes someone stopped and gave us some air so we could hit the road at a speed over 40 kph. Anyway then we drove back to perth in one hit taking about 16 hours to get back and arrived in the driveway around midnight.

Tip to others we were told from the locals.....waroora is possibly the worst place to stay for wind, head to coral bay or north of it if you intend to go, next time well head the north side as the locals told us its natoriously windy the south side of coral bay but much calmer the north side,thats coming from the fishing charter skipper whos being doing it 18 years plus so its a reliable tip.

All this typing has got me thirsty and hungry too, better get a beer and some red empreror out of the freezer for tea tonight, got lots of fillets to get through!

Thanks for reading, Kane