Coral Bay trip report - New Years

 Well our yearly run upto the Ningaloo area has been and gone. This year was a little different as we normally take the Tinny into Ningaloo Station. We left at 3am Boxing Day & stayed at Carnarvon on the way up and were in Coral Bay at about 10:30am the next day. Got a ripper tailwind up there.

The ripper tail wind wasn't so good when we got there though. New Years day was looking promising, so a few days on the beach with the kids was in order. Got out on New Years day a little rusty but keen. Went out the north passage and trolled out to the 70m area looking for fish on the sounder. Found a few healthy looking shows and dropped on them. The only thing I got past the sharks was a small Cod. The wind picked up, so I shot inside the reef for a Squid. Got the biggest Squid I've ever caught, it actually took off around the front of the boat and had me chasing it around the anchor line. While this was going on my unwaited bait got nailed by a nice Spango, so dinner was sorted.

Next day I did the same thing, out to the 70's this time I managed to get a nice Rankin past the grey coats. His mate on the bottom dropper wasn't so lucky though. Trolled back in as the wind had picked up and managed a nice little Spanish. Woo hoo finally got to test out my new Madfish Bag. Awesome bit of kit!

The 3rd of Jan. was looking to be the best day, I had promised the young fella a run, and so it was, the bay was glass. I trolled just outside the reef where I had picked up the Mackie the day before, no luck this time and with the youngun' on board I decided to go back inside the reef and target some Spanglies. I stopped the boat to rig up a couple of lighter rigs. I had only just finished his rig when a massive Whaler turned up at the back of the boat with about 6 or 7 Cobia hanging with him. So out goes an unwaited Whiting head and I watch a nice Cobia slurp it down and I'm on! A pretty quick fight really & we've got a nice Cobe in the boat. High fives allround, so I say to Scott "you keen to catch one?" he's all for it. So another bait in the water and bang he's on. His is fighting a lot harder than mine did. So Dad takes the rod thinking the shark had grabbed his. No just a better sized one, so I hand him back the rod and help him catch his best fish to date. Woo Hoo!! more high fives. I'm sweating like a pig by this stage so we left mister Sharkie with 2 less hangers on.

We came back inside the reef and picked up 3 more nice Spango's. Another fish added onto Scott's growing list of catches, he's got a bit of a knack. The wind came up again for a few more days. So back to the beaches, it's a hard life. I went out solo again on the 9th and got 3 more good Spanglies. My mum was keen to get onto the Spanglies so the 10th was our last day before leaving for home on the 11th. Mum and Scott joined me for another session on the Spanglies inside the reef. It was a bit quiet at the first spot and the little terns and fish smashing bait only a couple of hundred metres away was getting the better of Scott. He practically begged me for him to have a cast at the commotion. So we idled over to what I thought were small Longtails. I cast out for Scott as he couldn't quite get the distance. Handed him the rod and told him to wind as fast as he could. Got smashed on the first cast in about 4m of water, turned out to be Shark Mackeral, another new species for him. Loved watching him pinned in the back corner grimacing as these little speedsters took off! I let him catch & release 2 then went looking for another spot to try. I think we ended the day with 6 Spango's a Red throat and another nice Squid.

So even though there was a fair bit of wind about up there, we still managed a few nice fish. A few red fish would of topped it off nicely. Great spot, might have to try and talk the missus into going again next year.

Cheers

Chris.

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Stevo81's picture

Posts: 1278

Date Joined: 16/04/12

 Awesome mate, the young

Thu, 2017-01-19 15:59

 Awesome mate, the young fella would of been loving it!

im hoping to get up there for a few weeks early august if possible

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Cruise Control's picture

Posts: 970

Date Joined: 03/11/10

Great report and nice work on

Thu, 2017-01-19 16:08

Great report and nice work on the spangos inside the reef. Buggered if I could find any inside when I didn't go out on windy days

devhay's picture

Posts: 328

Date Joined: 27/10/14

 Aweosme report mate! Young

Thu, 2017-01-19 16:24

 Aweosme report mate! Young bloke has more fish ticked off his list than I do haha sounds like a great trip

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Tom M's picture

Posts: 662

Date Joined: 22/09/15

 Thanks for sharing, some

Thu, 2017-01-19 16:27

 Thanks for sharing, some good memories for you and the young fella.

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Tom M

big john's picture

Posts: 8725

Date Joined: 20/07/06

Excellent

Thu, 2017-01-19 16:29

Nice work all round. Always good seeing your kids get stretched (by a fish).

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Boydy's picture

Posts: 623

Date Joined: 26/09/12

 Good write up Kirky. Tough

Thu, 2017-01-19 18:27

 Good write up Kirky. Tough work getting solid fish past the grey suits. Good to see you got a few.

Young fella would have been stoked. The inshore spang bash is always a good option and great fun.

Nice one.

 

crano's picture

Posts: 694

Date Joined: 04/11/09

 You did better than my young

Thu, 2017-01-19 19:25

 You did better than my young bloke. He was there for 9 days and only got the boat in the water once and that was inside. The day he left [3rd I think] the wind generators were not even moving.

Dale's picture

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Date Joined: 13/09/05

Thu, 2017-01-19 20:13

 Nice cobe for the little guy, well done.

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sea-kem's picture

Posts: 14833

Date Joined: 30/11/09

 Great report Kirky, sounds

Thu, 2017-01-19 21:17

 Great report Kirky, sounds like all round good family fun and relaxtion. How good is it to put the young one's onto good fish, I still get a buzz seeing my boys hook into decent fish. Sadly I won't make it up north this year :( turning the big 50 and the missus has me booked out.

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Love the West!

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Date Joined: 07/05/12

How the hell does that work

Thu, 2017-01-19 21:20

How the hell does that work Andy?

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Officially off the Pies bandwagon

sea-kem's picture

Posts: 14833

Date Joined: 30/11/09

 Lol in time you'll find out

Thu, 2017-01-19 22:11

 Lol in time you'll find out I'm sure. Nah don't mind, booked into Melbourne for Grand final week. I'll get a few days in somewhere, rest assured ;) 

Sorry to go off topic Kirky. 

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Date Joined: 07/05/12

Give up a fishing trip to

Fri, 2017-01-20 15:41

Give up a fishing trip to watch another Eagle's flag. Sounds fair

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Officially off the Pies bandwagon

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Date Joined: 25/12/12

 Simply brilliant ! Looks

Fri, 2017-01-20 01:23

 Simply brilliant ! Looks like great fun, thanks for the report !

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Colt_Striker's picture

Posts: 624

Date Joined: 26/07/09

 Top stuff, some good catches

Fri, 2017-01-20 08:44

 Top stuff, some good catches in that lot

Posts: 6265

Date Joined: 26/04/14

 Nice one 

Fri, 2017-01-20 10:00

 Nice one 

kirky79's picture

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Date Joined: 13/01/12

Cheers fellas

Fri, 2017-01-20 10:38

Was a great holiday.

Scano yeah the 3rd was glass in the bay, would of liked to go wider that day but the boy was booked in for a fish.

Madmerv's picture

Posts: 672

Date Joined: 24/01/15

Great Report

Sat, 2017-01-21 03:33

 Good to see you all having fun. Getting some reds in would have topped it off but you dont always get what you want.

Looked like a cracke trip.

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bulkie's picture

Posts: 128

Date Joined: 08/01/13

 Awesome smile on the

Sat, 2017-01-21 09:40

 Awesome smile on the kiddo's!