After 13 days at work frothing about the upcoming trip, I managed to get the last day of swing off and head down to Exmouth to go to the Montes with Bernie on Mahi Mahi 3 (Montebellos Sportfishing Charters).  I could do up a full story, but I reckon the pictures tell most of it.  I will put a few little bits and pieces in there for you guys to put the puzzle together.  All in all a most memorable trip and even though the sharks were fierce, we produced some magic fish!!  Here are a few of the best ones I took that summed up the trip from the hundreds I took.  Hope you enjoy.

The boat on one of the first drifts after steaming most of the morning with lines out but unfortunately little action:

Once we stopped, baited up, along came one of the first fish onboard, things were looking good!:

Two in a row, nice:

Double trouble:

There were some big ooglies down there, not long after this the sharks moved in and we moved out to goldband territory:

Mick the deckie holding up one of the boys saddletails from in amongst the goldies:

Ok, steamed most of the way to the Monties, got a good bag of fish already so lets just get a marlin as well:

No worries, marlin ticked off in the first arvo, lets get everyone in on the action and go for a cast at an old weather station marker:

Rainbow Runner:

Tilly Trevs:

Twas going off every cast, people hooked up every where, just chaos:

Cruising into the island after a top first day, marlin, quality reds and bottom fish and a hot sportsfishing session:

The next day started a bit overcast and with some rain, yep, rain in the Pilbara, unbelievable.  GT popping was on the cards and things were pretty slow unfortunately, we had one good gt swipe and I scored a decent goldspot:

West Coast Poppers in action, nice looking lures:

Seeing as the popping was slow we went out to do some shallow water jigging and bouncing:

Jigs were getting huuuuuuuurt, bent, broken, smashed, lost, you name it!

We had one of the hottest session I've seen on cobia, I lost how count of how many were caught, but plastic, metal, pretty much anything that touched the water got eaten:

Heading out for another popper fish we put some skipping gars out the back, well Mr Mackie decided to get hungry and we landed 4 or 5 in 3 passes with quite a few other schoolies and small tuna hooked and released:

It was the other boys turn in the small boat, they managed to land a 20kg odd GT which I wasn't able to get a photo of, after that we then headed back into the island to camp for the night:

This photo doesn't do the food justice, it was one of the highlights of the trip for me and as far as an operation goes for customer service, anytime you felt hungry, food just seemed to appear and then more would appear and then more and more.  I can speak for the crew on this one, the food was top notch and we were never hungry and I don't just say this, it was bloody awesome.  Fresh beer battered mackie frames for entree and fish two ways for main, both sensational.

Next day we headed wiiiide to the blue marlin and ruby ground:

We hit an estimated 70kg fish in the first hour, unfortunately it didn't do much and the hooks pulled soon as the tag went in, a capture none the less:

Another hour later and we had a solid hit and run, getting a good look at it, it was well over the hundred kg mark and would be getting close to the 150kg.  The photos don't really do it justice, but it was a solid bit of fish that unfortunately didn't stay connected for more than a minute as it greyhounded back at the boat during the first run:

As we were about to drop for a ruby fish in near glass conditions, along came a school of hungry dollies, smashing anything that hit the water straight away and going shy not long after:

It was then ruby time, they really weren't on the chew, but we were able to get enough to put a few in the tub:

The decision was made to stay out wide for a broady fish:

Unfortunately the weather came up to 15 knots and made it uncomfortable out there so the decision to head in was made late, which turned out to be a good call as to not ruin the next days activities.  It was also very difficult to get any live squid which would have been the perfect bait.

Next day we had a bit of a look around some shallow water spots for jacks:

We then headed to a little cave swim spot, pretty cool for the boys to cool off in:

Then it was dive time, what can I say, it was goooooood:

New PB at 730 within 20 seconds of rolling out of the boat and I saw a horse on my second dive jumping out of the boat that was a scary sized trout, just didn't have the gun loaded in time.

We then headed to the back of barrow slowly making our way south, unfortunately someones swag was not tied onto the roof and blew away, some quick swimming down shark alley and it was rescued......

Nice conditions to wake up to:

Fishing the back of barrow, well these pics tell the story:

We then camped at long for the night and had decided to fish the rigs off Exmouth as word had gotten around about the record blue marlin caught.  Spending most of the day out wide we didn't even turn a reel, it seemed it was just one of those days, that's just marlin fishing I guess.

All in all it was an awesome trip and great to be able to access all of the montes in style and not have to worry about fuel every 5 minutes.  Anyone thinking about doing a trip, all I can say is don't wait, just do it!  Bernie, Andrew/Mick do a top job in making sure you've got the best chance of catching a monster or 20, what ever style of fishing you prefer.  I got my PB trout on spear and biggest red which were my objectives for the trip and all whilst kicking back, drinking beer and eating damn good food.  Again these are just a few of the better photos I took, there were hundreds, do yourselves a favour and get on a trip with Bernie whilst the Monties are still accessible, who knows what the government will do next.

Cheers,

Adam