Well it was 10am on Sunday morning and 7 of us were finally getting into the 4wds to make the 17+hr drive to Yalata. The weather forecast didn’t look too bad when we left Perth the only concern was that there was a chance of a thunderstorm late in the evening. Any way we made it too Coolgardie and started to fill up 1 of the 4wds with fuel when it absolutely started to piss down. Everything got wet all our clothes and even our swags got damp as the rain was so bloody heavy. Once fuelled up we got back on the road and apart from 1 roo trying to take on the bulbar of the leading 4wd all went to plan and we arrived at Nullabor road house for brekky. We found out that they had over 40mm of rain that night, ah well good for us as it would keep the dust settled for the rest of the drive to the beach. On the way in we ran into some blokes that were camping where we usually camp (Bobs Kitchen) and they said that they had caught 12 mulloway on Sunday from 50-70lb, so our hopes were high that we could do the same. We arrived at our camp “Hilton” at about 12pm SA time and started to set up camp quickly as we could see more dark clouds looming. We had only just got the camper up and started to rain cats and dogs so we all retreated to the camper to wait for it to die down. We finally got the rest of camp set up by 3pm.

After all that we got set up to go for a fish, the wind wasn’t on our side and the rain had settled in for afternoon. We found a nice little gutter about 500m up the beach so in went all the rods. The fish were very few and far between with only 2 little soapies and few banjos on the board. We retired about 9pm as the boys were starting to get hungry. The next day we headed down the beach towards the cliffs to find the beach very shallow and with very few gutters to choose from we were forced to fish back towards camp. The fishing started off slow but as the high tide started to rise we finally got into a few fish, mainly soapies and stingrays. We were hopeful that the big mullys would come in during the high tide. The water didn’t look to bad at that stage but the big boys didn’t show and for the rest of the day all we could manage was a few more soapies and 1 good gummy shark and 1 legal mully of 80cm and we all got sunburnt for our troubles.

The next day turned out to be crap with the wind blowing from the South and at about 35+ knots, we decided to have a lazy day back at camp. We went for drive up to Bobs kitchen and Jacksons Hole to see how the other blokes were doing. The boys at Bobs had been into mulloway all day the day before and had the same opinion that today was a waste of time and that they were catching up on sleep also. It was amazing to see some of the mully carcases they had layng around camp. The biggest they got the day before was 95lb and a nice 8kg pinky. The boys at Jacksons hadn’t caught a thing and they had been up and down the beach that morning to find out that the only hole that was firing was Bobs Kitchen.  

I was able to check the weather from on top of one of the sand dunes and it looked good for the next 2 days. So it was off to bed early as a pre dawn start was needed to get to a spot we had chosen earlier in the day next to a reef to the east of Bobs.

We arrived there just as the sun was rising and as the tide was very low we had to cast quite a distance to reach some deeper water. The water was a churned up due to the bad weather the previous day so I didn’t think we would get any fish until the tide turned at around 10am.

At just after 10 I got a nice little mully of 7kgs and was thinking that this might just be the start of a good session but that was the first and last mully for the day. We watched the crew up the beach get a nice mully of 20kg and 1 pinky of 9kg (spewin). We called it a day at 4pm and headed back to camp for some tucker and to work out a plan for the next day.

The next morning the weather was sensational and we headed up the beach back towards Bobs, we stopped at a nice looking gutter and started burleying hoping to bring in a few fish on the high tide. The morning turned out to a fizzer and we didn’t even get a bite. We did manage to go for a swim though which was very refreshing as a few of the boys started to stink!

That night we fished a small bay just to the west of where we fished in the morning, as soon as the baits hit the water the fish were on, just small soapies to start with then we got 6 gummies in about 40 minutes and then all hell broke loose with all rods going off. We landed stingrays, dogsharks, more small mullys and a few good school sharks. This went on for about 2hrs then it went quiet for a bit, the tide had just started to come in and the fish weren’t far behind. More stingrays, dogsharks and 1 lone school shark. I hooked 1 fish that we called for a mulloway as soon as it hit with huge head shakes and 50lb braid pouring off the reel. I had him stuffed after about 10 minutes and he was just cruising up and down the gutter right in front of me, the boys were just about ready to go and gaff it when the mono trace let go just off the 3 way swivel. I was devastated to say the least, but that’s fishing you win some and lose some!

The last 2 days of the trip we complete blow outs so we headed to fowlers bay to try and get some salmon for a bit of fun. We fished a small bay near Mexican Hat; we only managed 2 salmon about 1.5kg and 2 stingrays. 

All that said it was great trip with lots of laughs and good blokes to fish with and even though we didn’t get many fish is was great to get away.   

Cheers

Mitta79