A very busy Christmas break with all the boats going out every day. Thanks to the great weather over the holidays and abundance of large mackerel and yellow-fin tuna everyone had a very productive and enjoyable time. Almost too much content with lots of pictures this month & had to exclude some anglers! (I can’t help it if every one catches fish)
One group of guys had a burster of a trip. Mike Irvine and crew consisting of Tim Storer, Pat, Byron and Chris had the 5.3m boat for 5 days over the New Year break catching 12 spanish mackerel, 3 spotted mackerel, 1 what looks more like a big-eye tuna a dhuie and snapper and a variety of other bottom fish. They lost a hell of a lot of fish as well which is the norm for mackerel fishing and Mike tells me that there was no paint left on his king brown Halco lure at the end of it all!

Spotted mackerel.

A first mac for a happy angler, Nice little yellow-fin tuna.

The King brown coloured lures were the mackerel’s undoing.

The King Brown stripped of paint from so many teeth marks. Note the upgrade to chemically sharpened Owner Stinger Trebles. Code ST-41BC 2x Size 2/0. They do make a difference!

The macs were big as well!

Here are a couple of pics emailed to me from Matt Ryan and John Veerhuis’s trip. They took the 6.1m boat up to the Sand Patch with John picking up this solitary mac.

The second day’s hire was in the dinghy, as they wanted to do some fishing up river. They took the advantage of a quick troll early in the morning at the Sand Patch again and dropped a mackerel, but it all went off for them up river by Castle Rock with the incoming tide in the afternoon. They ended up catching and releasing 30 undersize mulloway among the estuary cods and bream!

Black bream, little estuary cods and 30 mulloway this size made up the catch. ( The mulloway were released)

Now that the river has settled down and a defined deeper channel formed, I have put a series of yellow floats marking the channel at the very shallow first bend in the river. The trick is to keep the yellow floats on your left when going up river. It is still very shallow at low tide but passable at high.

At the beginning of the year Damian Sheridan called in and picked the dinghy up for the 3 days that he had booked. The weather gods smiled on him producing 3 very good days in a row. He emailed this pic saying they headed out to just north of the Sand Patch and in only 10 metres of water picked up a half dozen pinkies with a few bust offs. The pic is of Jonathan Baulch who caught this 7kg monster on a mulie on this first cast! Well done Jonathan, Nice fish!
Damian said “It was a great day for us seeing we didn’t really know where to go”

Jonathan stands in the dinghy with his monster pink snapper.

Matthew was up with his family and friends. I know Matt from mates from Perth and he is a very keen angler. First night he was out at Chinamans landing this little greenback releasing it to grow bigger. Last year it took him all week before he got his first one, he tells me.

Matt’s Chinaman’s caught tailor

With a fair swell running I was sure it would go off at Black Rock. We took a few big waves from surf as shown above but the tailor were on!

We landed 8 just as the sun was setting, this being the smallest and all released.

Here is an unusual catch. During one of the rare days when there is a boat available during the school holidays, I like to get out with my kids. The overcast day was not that good with a 12-knot southwester blowing, but we had a go anyway. After an hour and the lures constantly snagging up on weed, I switched all the rods to skipping garfish. This method keeps the baits free of the weed. Blanking out at the Sand Patch without a hit for 2 hours, despite the blue 23.5-degree water we headed back to the river mouth. Halfway back my daughter Rebecca took a hit on her garfish.

This 8kg broad-barred mackerel was the result. We don’t see them here very often; identified by their smaller and upturned top jaw, very distinct markings on the forward dorsal fin, smaller head proportion and very indistinct broad bars on its side, which fade when dead.

Broad-barred and narrow-barred with the heavier & thicker jaw right

Now have a look at this!
Dewayne with his 35kg plus yellow-fin tuna!

This is the biggest tuna caught from any of my boats and it was in my dinghy.

Matt Radbund and mate Dewayne grabbed the 4.3m dinghy and trolled around the Sand Patch eventually giving up and started a slow troll home when Dwayne took the hit. Chasing it down with the dinghy and 50lb braid Dewayne made short work of it and had it to the gaff within 15 minutes! A huge effort Dewayne and a fish of a lifetime!

Up river later in the day with their partners they had fun on small mulloway and mud crabs.


Phil Kear and his boys also had a good trip up river catching baby mulloway and bream & nearly bagged out on tailor at Wittacarra Creek!

The Kalbarri Sports Fishing Classic preparations are well advanced and ready for another successful event on the 2nd 3rd and 4th March this year. The 5.3m boat and accommodation was snapped up pretty quick for the “Classic” weekend after the cancellation so only the dinghy left now. If you would like info on the classic just email me you address and I will mail stuff out to you. You can download an entry form from the Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club website. Just go to the Kalbarri Classic Sports Fishing page.

The caravan park at Port Gregory is under new management and a booking agent for my boats. You can now book a boat and pick it up in Port Gregory.

Remember if you rent our accommodation you get big discounts on our boats. Have a look on my website for the details, and check out the savings.

Big bait – big fish
Laurie

Murchison Boat Hire
PH/FAX (08) 9937 2043