hey FW finally got around to posting this years shark bay trip. dont have any of the photos as of yet except this of the pirate vessel (below if it works).

left perth thursday night and stayed at a mates half built farmhouse in gero, complete with redbacks including 1 eating a baby tiger snake, awesome... stayed there that night and left nice and early the next day (rained both days...) didnt look like rain was going to clear untill we hit useless loop road where some blue finally shone through. the road in was rough as always and the boat trailer and water supply suffered to it. water tank we towed in broke and lost 800lts of water and the boat trailer lost numerous fittings wheel archs and buffers. finally made it to camp and the set up but the bung had fallen out of the boat on the way up sigh... oh well set up camp and waited for the other group/boat. just hung out and had a few drinks that day and launched the still ok boat on the beach. next morning the damaged boat trailer was taken to the loop for repairs and a new bung and we managed to get both boats in. weather was bad so went for some 4wd exploring instead, had to do some serious water crossings on the way back due to some big tides and heavy rains. still a bit of fun.

next day finally had both boats in the water and head out for a days fishing, was a fairly slow start to the day with alot of undersized bluebone. first decent fish managed was when i left my baitrunner in the rod holder when nature called, barely started off the back of the boat when the drag buzzed and i had to call out for someone to grab the rod, 8000d and shimano terez with 30lb braid (a little overkill i found) made short work of it and before id finished business my mate had landed the first decent fish, a 410 bluebone (tuskfish) on my new gear, which he happily pointed out...  not much else happened before the same mate scored a 570 pinky out of nowhere. we caught up with the other boat who had bugger all at that point and rafted up for lunch. during which casting out the back at a shallow reef we we got about 12 sized black snapper ranging from 340 tp 450mm 3 of which belonged to me and i got my first pinky of the trip only barely over at 510. we kept the 2 pinks and a handful of blackies for dinner.

weather turned bad after that with 30 - 40kph winds almost all the time. we tried what we could to get some more fishing in and went for a beach fish at a few spots that looked ok. best manged was 2 30cm pinkys and i scored a 60cm shovel nose on my 2500 sedona on 8pb braid, but have to say it didnt put up much of a fight. tried another spot but that was it. we got desperate mid week and pulled the boats out and cut across to a different inlet in hopes of avoiding the wind or at least reducing it. worked to a degree and we got an ok day on the water but the fishing was slow. had a little fun with some snook at a drop off, i personally landed 6 in and hr and kept 4 to try smoking,which i found to be delicous and will happily do it again. otherwise there was a longtom, more undersized pinkys and then some norwest blowest started wrecking the rigs so we pulled the boats out and explored more.

got up early 1 morning to a fairly flat sea and we skipped breaky to have on the boat and got out there before it turned bad, hit some more spots from last year and cooked a bbq on the boats. 2 of the guys caught some more shovel noses 1 just over a meter on his stradic Ci4 4000 which he rated highly. both went back and we saw some small sharks about but none wanted to play. weather stayed ok and we head off to explore new, deeper water, caught a few more blackies and baby bluebone in  few spots and nothing in others. started heading out for a spot right out deep in the gulf but got turned around by the weather and had a slow trip back to base. hr and a half over heavy chop for about 12nm was less fun, but not too bad in the end and we made it back safe and sound.

last day we spent most of exploring, visit the blowholes and played on the 4wd tracks and just messed about in general, we got back to camp at nearly 5pm and the wind had just dropped off, we had a last little window. no time to waste we rigged up as fast as we could and jumped on the bigger boat that was still in the water leaving the less keen behind. we nailed it out to a nice little rock wed had luck at before and got to it, wasnt long before a few small snapper were landed and thrown back when a mulie i had slowly winding in got smashed and i got my first decent fight of the trip, the terez bent over and a few meters of line lost (more worrying in 2ms of water in very rocky ground) but after a short fight landed a 60cm pinky biggest of the trip right on sunset and i was stoked! we kept at it and i and a mate got another 3 blackies between us before it was too dark and we head back.

the fishing was alot slower than last year and no personal records broken but a few new (to me anyways) fish landed/tasted and a few fillets to take home. in the end theres alot of good memories and thats what matter most so all in all a good week camping with the boys and looking forward to it again next year.

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