I recently had the opportunity to meet a mate and his family in the North west, and by some sheer miracle (because I’m married with 3) it became an excuse to arrange a 10 day fishing trip.. The end result was a self organised trip that took in 3 fishing locations; Port Smith Lagoon, Cape Leveque, and Broome. Fishing was done on foot, in a kayak, and on a charter, and most of it was chucking lures.

Since I’d not fished the tropics and was organising the trip myself, I figured I’d put down some details because whilst I’d consider myself a keen fisho I’m by no means an expert, and I was stoked with how the trip turned out.. So I guess I figure if I can do it most people can (and on a budget too).

I joined this forum beforehand which gave me some good tips on choosing what rod and reel combos to take. I ended up taking my 6lb bream gear, a 4-8kg spin stick (rated to throw up to 25gm lures) with 3000 daiwa caldia kix / 20lb FINS braid, and I went and bought myself a Daiwa Catalina 10-15kg MH spin (rated to throw up to 80gms) and paired that with a 5000 Stradic with 30lb.. the Catalina rod is awesome I thoroughly recommend it… so light that it can be cast one handed if necessary but heaps of strength in the butt.

I got heaps of good tips on lures to take – metals, metals, metals was the call. I took a heap of metals between 20 and 80 grams, most of them being 25 and 40gm. That ended up being a good call too. Also recommended was light coloured plastics, poppers, and diving minnows.

As I’d not thrown lures on heavier line classes before I made sure I spent a couple of sessions at Bobbin Head, off the Cowan arm of the Hawkesbury river in NSW, with the purpose of tying and testing the knots for the braid to leader connection, and throwing lures. This ended up being 3 hours of well spent effort that rewarded me for the entire trip. I’d also spooled up my 3000 Caldia Kix with 20lb fireline and the first session I did I found the double uni knots were really bumping through the guides – so much that it was causing birds nests as the line behind the knot travelled at a different speed to the leader (as the leader slowed down due to the bumps). So I changed my approach and got some advice on different knots, leaders and braid. I ended up going to FINS braid which had a smaller diameter, and went to a slim beauty knot on the 4-8kg stick. That did the trick. On the 10-15kg / 30lb braid gear I ended up making a bunch of helically twisted leaders. The twisted leaders acted as a shock absorber, but also had a loop at the end where I could connect the braid – giving me the choice of either an albright-to-loop connection, or if I tied a bimini twist in the braid, I could feed the leader through the loop on the main line and have the 2 loop connections lock tight.. As I said, a little bit of pre-work in this department paid dividends later as I didn’t have to think about how my gear would perform when casting, and I knew what arsenal I had in my kit bag for those leader to mainline connections so I’m sure it saved me some time when I had to change my leaders..

I put together a 100mm PVC rod tube.. it was 2meters and Qantas didn’t bat an eyelid.. Qantas say you are allowed a fishing kit including a rod tube, but they don’t specify the measurement and I figured as long as it was smaller than their surfboard restrictions it would be fine. I came in under the baggage limit with all my tackle and clothes, mostly because going to the tropics on a budget without family you don’t really end up needing a lot of heavy clothes and other personal items..!

I got the direct flight from Sydney to Broome, and the first couple of days I had to myself so I rented a small 4wd and headed 150km south down the main road, then 22km towards the coast on a dirt road to my first spot – Port Smith Lagoon. The caravan park is situated on the eastern edge of a large tidal lagoon which runs about 6km north south, with the distance from the eastern edge to the sea being about 2km. The tide variation in the lagoon is 8meters+. When the tide was out, you could fish in the deeper holes of the lagoon. There are 4wd tracks north and south which allow you to access the beach / cliff areas at the sea. Even though it’s croc country the word was that the lagoon was pretty safe, but you still needed to take care.

The weekend I was there the caravan park and surrounding area was pretty deserted except for a few grey nomads.. so heading into the lagoon areas or up the 4wd tracks its possible not to see people – which could be a prob if you’re on your own and need help cause mobile phone coverage is non existent!

When I got to the caravan park the first evening I raced down the lagoon as it was getting dark, but only took my bream gear and no backup.. BIG MISTAKE. 2nd cast I had with a popper I got onto a fish but the 8lb leader never stood a chance! Have no idea what it was but I was excited thinking about the next morning.

In the morning I was so excited I was up well before dawn and into the 4wd and headed north along one of the tracks to the open ocean. When I got there I found some small cliffs with beach area in front.. The scenery was magic when the dawn eventually came.





I started fishing up the beach and it wasn’t long before I had my first fish, a juvenile trevor, and I was stoked. I set the camera on timer and took the pic of the first fish of the trip!



I caught a few more until finally the treble on my metal lure gave out. I switched to a diving lure, and that landed me my second species – a small queenie.. After never fishing the tropics prior, I could have said it had been worth coming just for that..



The tide came in and the beach disappeared and I ended up fishing on top of the cliffs with the water lapping at my feet! I ended up fishing different parts of the lagoon in the afternoon and in the evening for more small trevally, long toms and queenfish. No mangrove jacks unfortunately, but still had a blast. The scenery of the lagoon was amazing.. and when it emptied and filled the water gushed through..

Here's a shot of the lagoon when it emptied



The caravan park at Port Smith was pretty good. I ended up staying in what they called ‘fishermans huts’, but they were really shipping containers which had been subdivided into four internally and had a bed, air con, and fridge. They’d just put a free standing roof above the container. It was basic but it did the trick. I was in Port Smith only 2 days and I reckon I could have spent a week there easily exploring different parts of the lagoon and beach areas to the north and south. The caravan park has agreements with the local communities so that people staying at the park can access the land around it. The park owner also puts his superduck 3 days a week and ferries people to fish on the island at high tide – all for a $2 donation to the RFDS! I only fished, but the mudcrabs there are pretty prolific too apparently and the caravan park gives you wire hooks to try and grab the crabs.. Awesome place! Next stop... Cape Leveque...

So after my 2 days I ventured back to Broome where I met my mate (crazy Darren) and his wife and kids, stayed one night in Broome, and then headed north up the Cape Leveque Road to Kooljaman at the top of the Dampier Penninsula where we had planned to stay for about 4 days. It’s about a 220km trip, where the first 100km is 4wd, but the remainder is perfectly sealed tar road. I think they must be trying to prevent all the gray nomads from going up there because there are signs up saying no caravans allowed on the Cape Leveque Road. Saw this wild donkey on the way up the Cape Leveque Road!

 

Kooljaman is the resort on the land of the local Bardi community, and several types of accom ranging from camping to eco huts… It’s on the very tip of the Peninsula so there’s an eastern and western side which allows excellent sunrise and sunset viewing. Again we were told there were no crocs, even though at the swimming beach there was a sign up that a croc had been recently spotted in the area.

Here's a shot at sunset of the western beach area.. the rocks were a real desert red and quite spectacular.



Just off the point is Leveque Island. At high tide its probably 500meters between the point and the island but at low tide you feel you could almost walk across the channel.. The current absolutely rips through between the Island and the Channel.

The resort normally hires out dinghys with 25Hp motors, and the Spanish mackerel action offshore is supposed to be very good. Unfortunately their dinghy was out of commission so it wasn’t an option for us. However Darren and the family were travelling around the top end, and Darren had his xfactor kayak..

So the first day we were there I piled our fishing gear into the kayak, and I climbed onto the back and we paddled across. I was casting as Darren paddled and as soon as we got near where the current was pulling around one corner of the Island the queenfish action started! We had queenies swarming around the kayak.. unfortunately the current was too strong for us both to fish for them, so we pulled the kayak up to the island, hopped onto the rocks and started casting at them.. There was no wave action so it was easy to stand on the rocks with light gear and bomb all manner of lures out near the current line.. pretty soon we had long toms join the action too.. I never new long toms would smash a lure so hard. Often when they missed the lures they would come clean out of the water and tail walk!

Anyway the next few days we had a blast, paddling across to the Island and fishing from the land and the kayak.. we found some eddys out of the current and several times we managed to get double hookups. Fortunately there were not too many shark encounters, but at one stage we had a large man in a brown coat chasing a queenie.. at that point Darren decided to take his feet out of the water (he hung them over the side) and put them back in the kayak!! (his nickname is crazy darren).







When the action was hot in the kayak, we managed to capture a bit of video too, which I’ve posted to youtube..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVY9z0UG_i8


Cape Leveque / Kooljaman is well worth a holiday visit too.. could have stayed way longer in this place too as there was heaps of areas to explore and relax. But, after 4 days it was back down to Broome to charter fish for a couple more days…

In Broome we had booked to go on a charter with Fishbroome on their ‘WaveRider II’ boat which does a lot of fishing for sailfish.. They have an excellent setup with food and drink all provided, and the gear is good quality also with Stella 20000s on each of the 15kg standup rods. Over the 2 days that was a blast also.. managed to bag a couple of sailfish which was awesome as I’d never done the switchbaiting thing before.



Captain Steve was a sailfishing freak and that’s all he wanted to do.. there were schools of tuna busting up all over the place and I’d taken my light gear on boards so we managed to get Steve to stop at a couple of schools (we had to plead with him) and we got into the long tails and the mac tuna with the light gear.

Mac Tuna

Longtail Tuna

We also managed to get some Spanish Mackeral for the table.


I’d recommend the FishBroome guys – Steve really knows his stuff when it comes to the sailfish.

Jarrod (a mate who was fishing with us in Broome) captured and edited some great video on the fishbroome tour.. a couple of priceless moments trying to get the spanish mackeral away from the sharks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P08H052UB0


So after 10 days my NW adventure came to a close.. just a word on carting fish on the plane… we got some Styrofoam eskies from Coles in broome with freezer bricks, and it was perfectly ok with Qantas to have frozen fish as checked baggage.. They won’t allow unfrozen or ice which would melt. So I managed to bring some fish home too which was awesome.

Cheers to the blokes on this site who gave me advice in my trip prep - notable mentions to crasny1, damo6230, and nauti buoy