The plan was to head to the monte's for 3 days over the long weekend thats just been.

Watching the weather everyday to make sure we did not get caught out, and the Friday before the weather was looking awsome!

Packed Friday night ready for the early start from Dampier to head over to the Monte's. As none of us had been there before, we made sure we carried enough fuel and safety gear for anything that may happen.

Went over in a 25ft Blackwatch console and which held 400 ltras of fuel and we carried an additional 200 with us.

Fuel strapped in

Wanted to leave Dampier by first light, but we were a little slow moving in the morning and took a little more time getting the boat set.

Finally headed off by around 6.30am.

The weather out past the Dampier islands was pretty good, very little wind which made a good start to the trip. By half way over a South westerly had set in at about 10-12 knots, which made the short sharp chop a little rough and wet, but still managing to sit on 26-27 knots.
Made the islands in 2 hours 20 minutes which we thought was pretty good timing.

We were considering which of the 2 locations we had chosen as possible camping locations to stop at, and finally decided on 'chanpagne bay' as what looked on the charts, as a good sheltered bay, as we were expecting light southerlies for most of the long weekend.

As we had not been to the monte's before, we made our way through the islands slowly, getting our bearingson the place, and understanding the layout of the islands. By this time it had heated up and the temp guage was sitting at 35 degrees at 10am!

I got itchy feet and wanted to start fishing, even before we had dropped the gear off, so i rigged my light 12lb gear with a pink plastic and started to flick around some shallow water as we made our way past tramoulie island. 2 casts later and i got a big hit. After a 10 minute fight, i got my first Chinaman to the boat and netted and guessed at 6-7kg. Made for some good photos too.

we pushed off to our destination and droped our gear off and setup camp. Champagne bay made for a nice clam location to setup in.

After the camp was setup we went for a cruise around some of the islands with the intention of trawling a few lures and throwing a few plastics to see what was about.

We heaed to the east side of Tramoulie Island trawling a couple of gold bibs around in hope of finding some trout.

First hit on the lure, and result....bricked..... couldnt believe it, not sure what it was, possible GT i guess, but mate the 65lg gear look like 6lg gear. First lure down.

In the next hour i think i lost 6 lures to fish in the same shallow location, and some lost to sharks.
My bright orange and gold lures were dissappearing fast, but i finally managed to get a fish onboard, which was the biggest GT i have landed (Nothing in the likes of what Brad gets, but none the less a good fish)

After this we managed to land an assortment of mackerel, with Spannish, spotted, and sharkies coming aboard, but all a bit on the smaller side.

Moved over towards some shallow water in the hope of finding something different, we started to flick plastics around, and believe it or not huge blue bone were smashing them, but we couldnt get one board, but many sighted. A heap of different cods, perch, emperors were landed which was aheap of fun on the light gear.

Tide was running out, so made the decision to head back to camp before it got too low and being our first trip, was a very wise decision

Sat down that night to some fresh fish, a few cold beers and a great sunset to finish off the first day.

Next morning we rose to excellent conditions, light southerly maybe 2-4 knots and looking good... But we soon realised we had not left the boat in enough water, and she was belly up.

Luckily we had thought the night before wer might run out of water, so we positioned her on a nice shandy patch so no damage done.

After the tide came in a bit she flated and we made our way out. Again this time targeting species on the trawl, on poppers, and softies.

Again plagued by small mackies of all kinds, hitting lures contantly.

Managed to get some nice rankin on lures which was a first for us.

Found some nice rocks sticking out of the water, and with fast moving water thought we were in with a chance of finding some queenies and maybe some more GT's.

First cast first hookup on a gold twistie.

Nice little queenie came up.

Had a ball on these things, they fly around when they are in a feeding frenzie. Got to the stage where i could jig the twistie right on the side of the boat, and the queenies were jumping out of the water to get it. Pretty amazing sight.
Plenty of other fish landed on the same area. Trout of many kinds, perch, emperors, queenies, and more.

Decided to move on again and try a few more lures.

got a huuuuuuge strike, and i called it for the mother of all trout as i could feel long winded bumps and she was heavy.
Well lets just say, i got the shock of my life when this came up!! didnt see it until right on the boat.

Quick bit of fancy boat work and plier work saw the big girl get back un-harmed. Man those things have some beaks, woudlnt want to get too close!

Tide was getting low again, so time to head back to camp for more brews, more fish and another great sunset.
We had kept 1 queenie for bait, but just after we had cleaned our fish back at camp, a 8-10 foot hammer haed showed up. Well couldnt reassly resist, as he was hungy as!! and was only swimming in a foot or so of water! So out went the queenie (on rope, no hooks) and we watched this shark hoe it down...what a sight that was!!!

Rose the next morning for the last time, and the idea was to head out the west side for a look sea.

Instead of going outside the islands we went through, and being a rather high taide were pretty confident we would make it through with no real issues. The water was gushing in.

Made our way through and found a nice little rock just inside the reef to throw some plastics about. I knew we were in with a good chance of finsing some good sized spangles, and it didnt take long for them to show.

But it also didnt take long for the sharks to show either. When a fish was on, it was 5 seconds before the shark was on him!

Didnt want to give too many to the sharks, we managed to get 3 or 4 in with losing 2 to the sharks, so we called it quits.

We decided to take a tour of the islands and check out more of this amazing place. With great weather we saw many places we will visit and fish next time, and 3 days was just not long enough.

We definately be going back to visit the monte's again!!

Made it back to Damiper in 2.5 hours, but we did hit a 20-25knot NE wind 20 mile short, and wow that was rough!!! but still managed 25 knots holding on :)

ps: sorry si grammar is bad, was in a rush to type!