Me and hunterdive (Jared) just got back from five days fishing on Bluejuice Charters' maiden season out to the Montebello Islands.  It was pretty surreal being out there as it was the first liveaboard charter that either of us had done... I think liveaboards are a bit like the holy grail of fishing charters - everyone wants to do one at least once in their life - so when you finally find yourself doing one, you've got to get your head around it.  Anyway that's what it was like for us.

We flew up to Exxy on the Friday afternoon and to our surprise it was actually cooler there than it was in Perth.  The easterly was cranking across the runway and while we knew that the weather was looking pretty good for our trip we couldn't help but feel a bit nervous, especially having seen the winds up when iFish were out there a couple of weeks previous.  So we jumped on the shuttle bus and got dropped off at the marina where we met Gary the skipper.  We were stoked to find out that there were only going to be four of us heading out to the islands, and me and Jared made up two of that four! What a score.

The plan for the rest of the day was pretty simple - settle in, start tinkering with our gear, help Gary stock up as the supplies were delivered (if we wanted to) then off to the Potshot Hotel for tea, grab some drinks for the trip and then head back to the boat where we'd set off somewhere around 11.30pm.  Everything went according to plan and at 11.30 we were woken up as the boat began the trip across to the islands.  We all stayed asleep for most of the journey albeit it was broken by the odd heavy bump as Bluewater hit a larger wave or the dull throb of the diesels regularly broke through the sleep haze too.  Ear plugs helped with this though and they have a fair supply of them onboard for this reason.

We woke up at about 7am and wandered upstairs to see where we were and found we were about level with Barrow Island, two skirts were skipping along about the back of the boat connected up to a Tiagra 30 and the TLD 25, and there was a range of breakfast cereal on the table along with bread, a toaster and a few spreads.  By the time we finished breakfast and had a yarn it was time to start fishing - and the fun started.

I think the best way to summarise how things worked is to do a quick itinerary and then let the pictures do the talking.  Given it was over five days I've found it a bit hard to pull all the relevant pictures together in order so to kick it off here's how it worked for us:

• Day 1 - morning: trolled, bottom bounced / jigged a few spots in 50-70m getting onto big spangleds, a mix of trevs, a few macks on the drop; afternoon: trolled Tryall Rocks, what a gnarly fishing spot that is.  Mack heaven. We got so many macks there it wasn't funny.
• Day 2 - morning: bacon and egg breakfast, more Tryall Rocks trolling double and triple hookups the norm; afternoon: fished in 50-70m for a mix of chinamen, reds, bludger trevally and a 35kg+ estuary cod.
• Day 3 - morning: hit the road at 5am to fish the change of tide - found more giant spangleds, big crimson seapearch, red emps and rankins; afternoon: tried to find something with a bill, managed to get one sailfish interested but he ended up leaving.  Evening: jumped onto one of the islands in the evening, so beautiful.  Got a few small trout, no shortage of angry charlie courts.  Saw a few nice sized noahs around in the shallows too.
• Day 4 - one of the best days fishing Jared and I have ever had. Period.  Trolled for sails in the morning, hooked a few shark macks and while pulling it in had a sailfish buzz it right at the back of the boat.  Saw it size on with its sail up, all its colours lit up. Could have jumped off the marlinboard and nailed it I reckon, it was that close.  It disappeared pretty quickly but then when the next sharkie got caught and was retrieved we had a wahoo buzz it in the same way - side on all lit up.  Spectacular visuals.  We eventually ended up at Tryall Rocks trying to find the king of all macks. While we didn't get it, the action there was unbelievable.  I'm hoping to do an article on it for FW-Reeltime so I can include some vid but suffice to say I've never seen so many macks pulled in during one session and we had them going on poppers and stickbaits it was that crazy.  Incredible topwater action. Ended up in 30m fishing with softies and got some great trout, red bass, trevs and some impossibles.
• Day 5 - morning: the wind had picked up quite a bit overnight so we tried a couple of sheltered spots but had a fair amount of trouble fishing them - the wind was whipping one way and the current the other.  We ended up starting a lazy trip home late in the morning.  We stopped off at a few spots for some bits and pieces, had skirts out the whole way and got onto some tuna including a yellowfin, hooked up but lost two sails and then just as the sun went down one of the TLD's went off and Jared was on and he landed his first, and the only billfish for the trip, a nice little black.  Got back to the marina at about 11pm that night.
• Day 6 - we hung Exxy for the day - washed and cleaned most of our gear, went into town for lunch, met one of the FW Exmouth locals, deepwater, at the bottleshop (nice to meet you mate).

That's enough typing for now.  The pics are divided up into different themes.

THE FUN FISH

There were no shortage of the fun fish up there. Every couple of spots you'd drop onto a school of trevs and the fun would begin:

My first GT, not the way I expected to get it but I'll take it anyway.  The Lemax SlimMax / Wahoo combo worked a treat.

This one came up on bait and gave old Kev a bit of a workout

This is a PB golden for sure, didn't get a size or weight unfortunately but it certainly didn't relent all the way up through 60m.  Awesome fun.  Got him using the Ajiking Samson-Z, a perfect reel for this sort of fishing.

A nice little bludger from shallow water

THE RED FISH

Then there were the fish that everyone wants, those that are table quality - and some fun along the way.

Some lovely red emperor hit the deck

Some nice crimson seapearch

And trout (stay tuned for about three more pics for the future of this tasty number)

THE BOAT AND CREW

The Bluewater is a pretty comfortable boat, especially when there's only 4-5 people fishing!  It's got everything you need - a small lounge area, shower, bunks downstairs cater for up to ten people and then there are a few other spots where you can sleep if you'd prefer to be outside.  Gary (skipper) is a funny bloke who doesn't mind a good joke or story and cooks up a pretty good feed.  We had everything from lasagne to steak and even had a roast one night.  Of course there was always fish and / or squid when we could get them.

Nice tucker

Great crew (we had a local bloke called Ben who was an absolute legend) who don't mind going the extra yards including a quick cray hunt one night (to no avail - but how's the serenity anyway...)

And do their thing well with the fish

THE MACKS

These things were everywhere.

They'd nail plastics

And jigs (nice sized tooth mark and a fair bend in the end from the hit)

The sharkies were just a pain

But the spaniards were great fun

Unless the sharks got them first

That's enough for me for one night, I'll put up Part 2 in the next night or two which shows some of the incredible beauty of the place as well as a few more fish pics of other species we got onto.  You've got to get up there if you can, what a place.  I can now see why the Pilbara Pirates love it so much.  It's one of those spots that is raw beauty - like most places that far north I guess... it's a harsh environment but still in that you get incredible beauty.