knocked off work this arvo and scooted up a creek in a mates boat for a few hours. Was great to be the deckie for once. It was touch and go to get in however we managed. I hookled and dropped a barra on the first troll run, POC dropped two on the next. Then a few stuck. We had a pretty hot session landing 7 barra, me 4 and POC 3. WE dropped probably the same. Highlight was definately POC's popper caught barra in daylight, first time i have seen it done. It wasnt a fluke either the fish were on, he managed another 3 MASSIVE hits on the popper in that session, unfortunately no hookups then. This one made up for it, i managed to get a few shots of the fish. Needless to say Paul was a pretty happy camper. Biggest fish were around the 80cm mark. Gotta love the Pilbara!

Cheers, sorry about the lack of photos this time, ill have to show paul how to use my SLR.

caught this cod on the weekend, it had a nasty suprise for me.

G'day to all,

Have been living in Port Hedland for just over a year now but have recently purchased my watercraft. It is great to be back on the water again. Although not a huge decked out boat, at 4.35m she gets to up the creeks for a bit of crabbing and fishing. Workmates here have bigger boats which they invite me out to the deep blue for some serious fishing and it has been great. I dont know how much longer I will be invited though because I seem to catch the bigguns and let them know all about it..... hahahaha.

These pics are a few of my time over the past year but hope to get out more now I am on a new roster and put up some more from time to time.

Fishing with the kids at 6 mile creek Port Hedland. OOPS I appear to have snagged a mangrove with my brand new out of the box lure.

The best idea was to send the boys in to retrieve it. That water looked cold....hahaha

Teaching my little girl to fish. She seems more interested in the breakers.

The latest addition to our Pilbara family, Abbey. C'mon girl, everyone has to learn to retrieve fishing gear.

One of the perks of the top end of this fine country. The MUDDIE............I knock the muddies out in an ice slurry as soon as they are in the boat. When I got home the little one wanted to hold one. I stuck my hand in the ice and pretended one of them grabbed me. It took me 1/2hr to get her to pose for this pic...hahaha

Good mate of mine owns this fine water craft and it is pictured here anchored in the clear blue waters off of Delambre Island near Karratha.

My young lad with a Chinaman caught in the deep blue off of Delambre Island.

Same trip but back at my mates house. The young lad with his first Couda.

Dropped a live stripey in near Dixon Island and hooked up with this little beauty. Gotta love Cobia they pull like a freight train.

A couple af spanish mackies caught off the front of Port Hedland whilst we were chasing tuna.

She loves posing with the big fish....

This spanish mackie weighed 24 kgs and measured 145cm. Went for a 200m run and swam right back to the boat.

Hooked up with a man in a grey suit.

55min to bring him to surface only for him to get the shits when we gaffed him, he broke the trace and drifted away.

Bulk Iron Ore carrier leaving Hedland for China with some of the finest Aussie dirt onboard.

They push some water out of the way and create a nice wake to get the boat rockin and rollin....

I thought I had hooked onto the bulk carrier as it was going past but pulled this cod in instead.

Mate Russ with a spaniard he caught with me rod. Can't keep pulling all the fish in so I have to share it around....couldn't wipe the smile off his face.

To put this in perspective. I am 6ft4in tall and weigh in at 130kg (What can I say, I am a beer drinker with a fishing problem after all). This is a big cod......over a metre of cod. Sent him back to bottom to live another day and because he is protected over a metre.

Not as entertaining as pilbarabrad of course but I am only starting out and reading the tales in here hope to pick up a few tips and share more moments as time goes by. Loving my time in the Pilbara and there are plenty more good times ahead.

Going out on the weekend to try for my first WA barra but only time will tell.......

Tight lines everyone and stay safe out there.

We headed out today for a bit of a recon trip to suss some new jigging ground. Unofortunately we didn't manage to get to our intended destination as it was a little bit out of our reach in the conditions today. Alas, we still managed to get some 60km out and found some nice ground with some pretty good potential. Did a bit of jigging and bait fishing and caught various fish on both methods, trout, rankins, estuary cod, red emperor. Glenn managed an exceptional rankin on a jig and I went for a lip gaff job (because we left the landing net at home) and as I lifted him into the boat, lip gaff pulls out, rankin falls back into water, assist hooks fall out = good rankin self releasing :( On the last drop of the day I hooked something really good and somehow it managed to grow about 100kg half way but and I ended up pulling up a STONKER spango head with one of the biggest sharks I've seen hot on it's tail... grrr. Anyway all in all an enjoyable day on the water, didn't bag out but got a good feed and found some nice ground for some future trips, plus plenty more exploring to do further afield when the conditions allow :) Here's some pics from the day.

Muz and I took a day off work to head up a local creek in search of his first barra. After spending some time with Adam in the area a week ago I was pretty confident we could find a few fish. We made our way to the system in pretty average conditions early in the morning. We were hoping to have the place to ourselves but alas that was not the case, we saw another 4 boats during the day. The tide was starting to ebb and our spot had a bunch of live baiters in it, this made trolling pretty hard as our run was now half the length. All good, we set out the lures anyway and I cant remember if it was the first or second pass when Muz came up solid on a nice barra, it jumped and.........carrying on in the last trips fashion it got off. hmmmmmmm is this going to be another one of those trips? that’s what I was thinking after Adam and my last "dropped him trip".

Anyway we persisted and continued to drop another 6 or so barra throughout the day, we couldn’t figure things out was really really really frustrating. If I actually had any hair I definitely would have been pulling it out. On the flood tide most of the boats had cleared off so I moved into one of my favourite sections of the creek and set out the lures again. First pass and BANG!!!! finally Muz was on and the lure had stuck, or had it. Muz landed his first barra in the most unconventional of ways, get this... The barra had a hook hanging out of its bottom lip, attached to the hook was about 2 foot of leader with a #4 ball sinker and a swivel. Muz'z lure had tangled on to the piece of leader and maintained enough tension to bring the fish in, even when it jumped. Well, we were stoked, 7 or so dropped barra and finally one in the boat. Within the next couple of passes I had too hooked and stuck to a barra, a healthy high seventies fish and we finally closed out the day with 2 in the boat. It could have been 10!

Muz'z first ever barra

My first after dropping 4 or 5

Taking a back step for a minute, we did pretty good during the middle part of the day on jacks, thready, I got a triple tail which was pretty cool, even some small grunter found their way to the boat. Muz was cleaning up on his favourite type of fish as well, the cattie!! hahaha

Muz'z PB thready

I got quite a few thready's on Plastics, was sight casting to them, pretty cool in some very tight snaggy country.

My PB triple tail, went hard for a small Fish

Muz'z flattie

Well after that we woke to a pretty awesome morning and decided that we had to "put in the big ones" to redeem our efforts from the previous time fishing. We made our way to another creek and on arrival things were looking good. There were a few fish showing on the sounder so we anchored up in a spot and decided to cast some lures around until the tide slowed. I was catching threadies and grunter etc on plastics when I saw a big swirl near a near by snag. I changed to a deep diving reidies taipan and flicked it in close, just as the lure got bellow the surface a BIG barra came up and WHACKED IT. Instantly my line went slack, but it was weird because I could see the lure in the barras mouth, it was just sitting there. I reeled in my line to discover that the bib which has the tow point attached to it had snapped off on the very powerful barra strike, great what else could cause me to loose another fish! The barra then shook its head and set the lure free, crushed barbs you so, the lure floated to the surface and I grabbed it as a keepsake of yet another lost barra and another first for me.

breaky

Broken lure = result of powerful barra strike!

Well at this point another boat arrived and anchored up in our trolling run to live bait. This pretty much ment that on the low we too had to live bait. My cast net had more holes in it than a pair of fishnet stocking so I set about with some 60lb jinki and a pair of scissors to mend it enough to grab a few mullet. I sat in the mud and sun for the next half an hour fixing it as best I could, I prayed that something would finally go our way. I went for a walk over to the other side of the bar and couldn’t believe my eyes. At a time when bait had been scarce I saw the biggest school of mullet mooching around right next to the bank. Would the old cast net have one more moment of glory? I cast and landed right on top of it, there was fricking mullet going ape! and I got about 30 of them in the one cast, I put as many as I could into the bucket before they died. Stoked a bucket full of stoinka mullet, one and final cast of that bloody net. It has about 60 bucks worth of leader holding it together I think it has done its job, safe to retire her I think. Finally something was going our way.

Well it was time to set a few out, as soon as we set the pick the boat just up river was on to a double hook up of barra. Then another, and another and well another... We landed a solid queenie and a thready but no barra. I couldn’t figure it out, we were in a great spot that had produced many times before. I think the other boys were up to seven then we finally got on to a run. Muz was first then me then muz then me again. Before you knew it our luck had changed and we had boated 7 or 8 barra while only dropping about 2 or so. The biggest of which went 93cm. During that time the other boat didn’t get any, isn’t it funny how this thing works out sometimes...

The first of a good run, and finally some good luck!

my 93 odd cm barra, released

Sweet, well sorry I dint post all of the photos, these are all off the point and shoot, I am saving all the "good" ones for an article I am working on. Hope you enjoy the read, was good to get some reward in the end...

Anybody heading over in the next few weeks?

Well we didn’t have much time this year unfortunately. Adam came up Friday night for a fly by visit. I had my daughters birthday party to attend on Saturday morning so the plan was for Adam to get the boat ready and we would take off from K town at about 1400 Saturday arvo. Was forecast to be windy all weekend, and it was, the trip up was slow although not too bad we had the anticipation of catching a few barra urging us on I guess.
On arrival things were difficult, a 2000 low tide meant it was mid water on arrival into the creek, and with the sun fast fading it was very very difficult to get any bait. I think from memory in the couple of hours of work I only managed 4 really decent mullet. We had a few dead baits so I was still confident things would be ok.
We both opened the accounts with a decent thready each, mine went 106cm, not a PB but not too far off either. They were both released.


106cm thready, went bloody hard on the strike and I must admit I called it for a barra initially.

Well I set another dead bait out into the hole, I wanted to save the mullet for the low and the initial push of tide to follow. After a couple of catfish were landed by Mr dot com my rod screamed off, the jump followed and we caught a glimpse of a silver barra hard up against some snags in the moonlight. Well it didn’t take too long and it was all over, first fish in the boat from memory it went around 84cm


The tide had started to slow quite a bit and I decided to throw out one of the live mullet we had, I put it in the middle of the creek this time and it must have only been in the water one minute when it screamed off again. Adam asked if it felt like a good fish after which a barra blitzed out of the water, perfect timing and a great way to answer his question. Again the fish came boat side and Adam netted it, right things were looking good second fish in the boat in less than an hour it went 70 something


All right, things really heated up after that, I threw out the same livie which I had used to catch the previous fish and as soon as it hit the water I was on again. This time a BIGGGGG fish ran hard and fast sideways in a very very skinny piece of water. For the first time in my Pilbara barra fishing experience the fish managed to get me in a large and messy piece of timber. I asked adam to undo the anchor rope so I could pull us toward the snag and try to get the fish out. The barra could quite possibly have gone over a meter and it was still jumping while wrapped in the timber. We managed to get it off the first branch but unfortunately it managed to ping the 80lb leader after a few minutes of trying to get it out, I think Adam could have just about grabbed it with his hands but the combination of trying to hold the torch, leader, snag, boat and net was a bit too demanding. The fish was not landed and it was the start of something.
Adam was flicking a fizzer out into the shallows and managed a MASSIVE hit but unfortunately it didn’t hook up. At the same time I hooked into another fish on baits and was just about to bring it into the boat when it took one last charge under the boat and managed to ping me on the chines, my fault just being a bit to lazy and complacent. So that’s three dropped. Adam got a blinding run and unfortunately didn’t hook up, the mullet was scaled and on closer inspection we noticed that the hook had bedded back in on the mullet, that was the 4th dropped for only 2 landed.
Well finally on the push again a blinding run broke us away from our beer drinking and banter, this time it was Adam's rod and this time he stayed connected. A large fish showed itself in the moonlight and a good battle unfolded in the skinny water. Ads did well keeping the fish away from the timber and it wasn’t long until it was lying on the brag mat. The fish was full of roe and in good breeding condition, it went 91cm.


Well we called it quits after then our 4 livies resulted in 3 landed and about 3 dropped not including the fizzered barra. Could have been 7 in the boat, not a bad session.
Well we awoke to a beautiful morning, we had time for a quick session before we left for home. We set out the lures and it was pretty instant, in keeping up with traditions and my continuing bad run I dropped a thready on the first pass and Adam dropped a nice barra on about the third. We caught a heap of cod and other species as well

One of many dangas landed

Well after quite a few passes and Ads deciding to put his rod in the rod holder for a change of technique he hooked up on to another nice barra. This time I managed to fire off a few shots before, yes you guessed it, we dropped another one. Still we only had 3 barra for a potential 9 or 10, ahh well at least we were seeing them. Upon closer inspection of the photos we could see that the fish was only hooked on to the front set of trebles and considering we were using babless hooks it is no wonder we dropped him.




the last shot shows the very point that the fish managed to shake the lure free
Anyway we had enough of trolling, we settled down with the two livies I gathered and packed things up ready for the slow trip home into the wind. With the push now well and truly coming, Adam hooked into another nice Bazz. This one went very hard and we were surprised to see the fish was only 87, not a bad fish but def punching above its weight class.




As I said before the trip home was slow, but worth it. 4 landed 91cm, 87cm, 84cm, 73cm and countless dropped. Not bad in and out in less than 22 hours
Cheers

Finally got a decent day weather wise so James and I opted to try and put some nice fillets in the freezer before the summer breezes really kick in.

Launched at 6.15am and had our first lines in the water at 8.15am.

Spot is only the size of half a tennis court so short drifts were the order. First drift saw a 77cm red grace the deck, next drift a 61cm, third drift saw James boat a great chinaman and then the fourth drift saw James boat a 71cm red.

Trolled some zukers out in 80-100m looking for some gold band but only picked up two small striped tuna. Water temp only 23 degrees.:(

On the way in I picked up a very good show on some flat coral. Marked it, pulled the lures in and went back to it. Show had already moved a 100 metres in less than 3 minutes. Weird! Dropped down and immediately hooked a nice fish. Couple of minutes later a 73cm goldband popped up, you beauty. Went back and the show was gone. WTF! Spent half an hour looking and gave up. Spewing as they were more than likely a school of solid goldies.

Water calmed off and we were back at the ramp 90 minutes later. Lot of miles covered, but never saw another boat until we neared Onslow.

Well might as well put up a report even though the day wasn't that good. Headed out yesterday afternoon so we could camp the night and be right at our spot for the beginning of the run in tide early next morning. We were hoping for a quick pop that afternoon but we arrived just after the sun went down and light was fading fast... oh well a couple of quick casts and then off to find anchorage.

The next morning we woke up and started popping. Glenn hooked a 'petite' GT on about the third cast and things were looking good but it was a while before we got some interest from anything decent. I stopped popping mid retrieve to say something to Glenn when my sea frog was whacked good while it was just floating. Unfortunately I didn't hookup and he didn't come back for another go. Glenn had a 20kg spaniard get 10m airborne trying to eat his popper at a renowned big GT/spaniard spot. Later on, Glenn get's a nice hookup on his Cono Cono from another solid GT but pulled the hooks after about 3 seconds. 0 from 2 damn. Kept on popping and I had another awesome hit on the sea frog in which he grabbed it and pulled it under the surface without managing to hookup. He then proceded to hit the popper about 2 or 3 times while it was 2m below the surface but no hookup.

Decided to move to another island and while I was throwing poppers against a reef edge we noticed some splashes out wider so Glenn threw a cast out into the deep and his Cono Cono was slammed HARD. Glenn set the hooks violently to ensure he didn't lose this one but after the fish tried to run under IMMENSE drag pressure Glenn lost the fish. Closer inspection reveals the uni might have pulled. Damn 0 from 4 and an Orion popper down the drain :(

There was BULK milkfish around the area and one of my casts manage to jag one and it put up a good account of itself on GT gear but I pulled the hooks before I got it in. Kept popping for not much interest. Moved back to where we started early in the morning and had a few more casts and managed to raise another good size GT but no strike. Also did a bit of light jigging between popping spots, all the usual stuff cods, coral trout, gold spot trevally, sea perch, snapper plus a really nice spaniard which managed to get off.

WAAAAAY overdue a good days popping... only consolation is today is the first day in a long time we've been out in half decent weather.

Fished a couple of spots landbased today, very quiet. Had the  crap scared out me twice when my popper got hit right at my feet, first Blacktip and second a big ugly cod. I missed both! 

Had some touches on a twisty so i swapped to a SP and scored a couple of these guys.

Pity about the angle to the sun. 

I had a follow from a much bigger blue version. That would have been interesting in 2 feet of water!

My fishing buddy cut his hand on an oyster so ended up catching the NRL grand final from the waiting room at the hospital. 

the rig

Tim and a reasonable threadie

Before the sun

Lads In the Pilbara,Ya Brads,Jay after some jigging gloves are you getting them off the net or from Adam.

Got my Prize reel now and need the gloves to hang onto her for the serious jigging out wide.

Stella! 18000 FRK YER BOY.

Aquagenes

G'day lads

headed up noth last weekend to see if we could get onto an early session on the barra, what started off as a slow trip it turned out to be a hot session.. After ariving at balla balla friday night we opted to suck beers and have an early one as we were opting to get a early start in the morning! Well after 15 coronas and the clock hitting 12, we then jumped into bed and punched some ZZZzzzzz's. we awoke to a slight breez blowing and opted to fish a few creeks south of balla. After getting ample mullet we fished at a well know spot for jewies! 2 baits in the water and the first beer popped by 6 30 the water began to warm up, after fishing for half an hour i hooked something that took a bit more line than the usual cod and catties and realised i was into a decent fish, after a 10 minute fight i began to gain line and stear the fish towards the boat......... and thats all she wrote, two big head shakes and the fish pulled the hook!

 We then headed to a creek to try and get into some barra! after  getting to the creek with no drama we began to trawl! after 2 hours of trawling and no fish we then decided to use the rest of the bait! after loosing majority of our bait we then began to trawl and within 10 meters i hooked a solid salmon, after landing a decent thready we then decided to cheack some promising looking holes for some muddies, with much suckses we then decided to trawl to our camp spot, within 20 minutes i hooked another decent thready. it was succsesfully released and we then decided to head for camp! after a few brews and some baked beans on toast we hit the sack!

the morning saw us chasing mullet along the banks trying to get enough bait for a good solid session! with a bait tank full of mullet we then headed to THE SPOT, once we were set up we then spent the next hour tusseling with huge thredfin salmon! as the tide dropped the water began to rise! This temprature rise saw myself loosing 6 barra in a row, some pushing and estimated 1m. after loosing a fish that saw my jaw dropped i then rigged up another sl12, the next bait i managed to stick to a solid barra for 800! after a quike happy snap the fish was released! my mate then hooked another solid fish and landed another solid barra of the same size! after 6 more big thredfin i then opted for the BIG BAIT, the biggest mullet in the tank! within 30 seconds of the BIG BAIT hitting the water i had a slow solid run. i set the hook and to my suprise a barra of about 700 began greyhounding across the surface! another small barra landed! the next few baits saw more big salmon some pushing 1000mm! the last decent mullet was then ingulfed by another solid barra around 750 to 800!

All salmon and barra were released but the muddies, well what can i say, im a sucker for a good muddie!

this hot session has us frothing at the mouth and ready for the next good tides!

THE BARRA ARE BACK

Hey lads hear are some of the recent billfish we have caught and a few fish i have speared in the last month! the photo of the trouts head isnt an ikijimi spike, thats where i spear it, the trout was just shy of 800mm and the chinaman was 97cm and weight was 12kg

The forecast for friday was looking good so I teed it up with one of my mates to head out in his boat for a fish. The weather turned out better than expected and soon saw us heading out wide for a bottom bounce. The first place we stopped produced some good fish and I managed to land my first trout on soft plastic. The two other fellas on the boat landed nice sized trout as well before the trevaly moved in and started smashing anything that moved. After being stretched a few times by trev’s we decided to head out in search of a billfish. Things were quiet until we found a small bait ball that was holding some good fish. We landed three sails, dropped two and a black in around half an hour. We saw a few sails free jumping and even a Black marlin that looked around the 100kg mark. My hat goes off to the fella that was out there alone in his 4.4m tinnie. At one stage he was hooked up, getting his tag pole out and still managed to talk on the radio all at the same time. He was getting quite a few fish too. If you’re reading this mate, well done. The bait ball was moving quite fast and the bite was slowing a little so we decided to go search for a red. We tried a few spots but all we could manage were a couple of juveniles. As it was starting to get late in the day we packed it in. An afternoon glass off and an acrobatic whale and its calf made for a pleasant return to the ramp. A big thankyou to my mate for the trip (he knows who he is), I had a phat time.

My firt SP Trout burger

A Dodgy sail pic (sorry we were a bit rushed)

One for the skipper

Having a whale of a time (sorry couldn't help myself)

Arvo glass off

The eskie

Fellas, 

 Planning for a monte's trip in a few weeks and trying to figure out what to and not to take..

Apart from the obvious fishing/diving gear, fuel, surfboard, bedding, cooker, shit tickets

Can someone tell me any MUST Takes and dont Bothers from there previous trips??

5 days 6m ali plenty of fuel. 2 blokes

Cheers

Tim and i ventured into the creek agan today, it was probably going to be the last opportunity for us to have a fish together for a while so we took advantage. The forecast wasnt the best and the tides were crapola with only about 50cm of movement over a 20 hour period.

We ventured into the creek and noticed the water temp was down on the other day peaking at less than 20 degrees early on. We set some crab posts and started on to the first troll run. As always the cod were thick, almost a fish or two every pass. On the second pass i got a really decent whack followed by some very slack line. At first i thought i had been pinged, then the line came up tight again and i was on. The fish went very hard but didnt carry on like anything i could easily pick at first. It wasnt until i got a glimpse of the yellow paddle tail and my lure stuck in it that i had figured out what was going on. tim and i moved the boat into the middle of the creek and Tim neeted my first barra of the season. After dropping three the other day it was nice to land one. On further examination we noticed that the fish only had one of the hooks off the middle set of trebbles stuck in its tail, very lucky but hey i will take it.

Monkey is off the back, and with water less than 22 degrees i was pretty happy

lucky Brad strikes again

She took a bit of reviving after the fight but she went off well in the end
The fish was also tagged but after a longer than usual fight due to the method of hooking i made the call to release the fish straight away rather than stuff around trying to read the tag, the fish took a bit of reviving but released well.

We didnt manage any more barra we did get a few muddies in the pots and flatties etc on the troll. One thing that did happen oday that pissed me off was; we droped the posts and went for a spin out the mouth to have a troll. When we came back to get the post we noticed they were missing. There were only three boats in the creek and one of them (full of young boys) went flying out while we were at the mouth. We went up to the other boat to ask them if they saw them, they were pretty good but didnt know what had happened to them. We assumed it was the young lads

nice flatty

Tim and a flat man chu

another

one thing i like about karratha back beach ramp is that it is tidal, we got back to the ramp as early as we could and waited for the boys. Their old man picked them up with the car and i approached them and asked them straight up if they took my crab pots. They denied and i said it was pretty convenient how there were three boats in the creek, one boat we had already talked to and had a look, us and them. hmmmmm

Anyway on the way home i saw a car flashing its lights at me, he followed me home, pulled over and told me his kids had fessed up, he made them give the posts back and i gave them a bit of a revving, they didnt even seem to give two shits, bloody wankers

anyway all is good, got my posts back but they probably also ripped off the muddies as well, did i mention that they are wankers?

At Gully's bbq last night Brad and I made plans for a mud crab mission early the next morning. After gaining approval, I met Brad at 4:30am to catch the tide. It was mainly going to be a crabbing expedition with the barra rods thrown in to pass the time.

We arrived at first light in the chosen creek and set the pots then commenced trolling. After a short while, Brad got a hit and called it for another cod, until it jumped- barra! Unfortunately it threw the hooks but it was good to see one so early. Continuing trolling and I got a good hit. Jump- another barra! This one pinged my line- not sure what happened there. We were surprised to have seen one barra, let alone two. The trolling went quiet so we soaked a few livies each, only to lose them to more cod. Back to the trolling and my turn was next, finally keeping the hooks in something other than cod to land a nice threadfin salmon. We decided to let it go as we only had the small esky onboard and this was occupied by 2 nice muddies already.

With the tide coming in quickly we didn't have expectations of anymore fish when I had a final hit while on the phone, barra again! This one took a little line but it was under control until it jumped next to the boat and threw the hooks. Spewing! We called it quits after that so we could retrieve before lunch.

Final tally was 1 thready, 2 crabs and 3 lost barra. 0 from 3 is pretty disappointing but it was good to see things warming up and has got us inspired for another barra sesh.

Cheers Brad for a good day out mate, I'm off to cook the muddies right now.

I told Tim last week that if we got a fine weather window we would venture out for a popping session off dampier. Well alas the window came and we decided to take advantage. The reports of late were not the best, not a lot of fish had been raised nor landed but we headed out anyway. We beat the sun to our spot and began to work an area that has "gotten the monkey off the back" quite a few times in the past. Not today, we did raise a good sized fish but no hook up unfortunately. We moved on again and decided to fish some slightly deeper water, i hooked up almost straight away on a pesky spanyid, i managed to get the fish off without bringing it into the boat, Tim landed a nice sized shark mackeral, he first i have seen caught on popper, it was released.

me trying to get some sleep on the way out

Tims sharkie

Next we tried another area, the tide was quite low and the ground we were popping was very unforgiving. I threw a lure into a nice bit of cobalt water, on about the third bloop i stopped to scratch my armpit, then WHAACK!! I managed to stay connected to a solid fish, we boated it after driving into some deeper water. To my surprise the fish was 108.5cm fork length which we estimated to be around 28kg's, not a bad start.

28 kg G train

Tim was the next to hook up, again, and again, and again. Tim was having a run of very bad luck, unlike him i know. He did managed to stay connected to a couple of fish, around the 17 and 12kg marks respectivly. He raised more fish than either of us, and got bricked by a HORSE!!!! unfortunately resulting in a lost lure, again.....

Tim loaded up

unlucky Tim's number 1

Tims number 2

my second fish approx 20kg's, released

My second GT and tim getting a litle close

I landed one more GT of around 101cm fork or 20kg's, not a bad day. 4 in the boat, probably another 10 raised, 4 dropped including a HORSE, home by lunch time on a glass ocean. Awesome!

Hi everyone,

Was just wondering about the detail of the different brands of charts available at moment. Am fishing Dampier and Samson and are about to get a new plotter and was wondering which was the better software between navionics and blue chart. A mate told me c chart but am not sure what type of detail it has for up in the nth west. Any info would be greatly appreciated, have read some of the older posts and was wondering which is better. Cheers

Where do I start? Lucky Tim and I kissed our very understanding ladies on the cheek late Sunday night on route to the Montebello islands some 60 nautical miles off the Dampier coast. We had originally planned to head out a few days later however a fine weather window and some more favorable tides were too good of an opportunity to pass up.

We launched at fortescue on the high and were greeted with less than favorable conditions. The wind had come up and we only managed to make it to shoal island at 6 knots some 12 miles from the launch. We decided to pull in for the night and hope for a nicer morning, neither of us complained about the wet swags we had to sleep in that night.

Well we woke to some pretty awesome weather and were on our way pretty early on route this time to the montes. We made it within a couple of hours, the old rig was loaded with a lot of gear, probably over her limit but she handled it well enough, after all we had to be self sufficient for 5 days in total. On top of the camp gear we had 10 jerries of fuel , 2 large eskies full of block ice and all of our fishing gear.

our home away from home, not a bad view eh?

After arriving at the montes we set up and spent the first afternoon exploring a few areas inside the islands. We found some amazing ground and ledges holding massive amounts of large coral trout. We speared a trout and took a cray for dinner. We had planned to “live off the land” as much as we could, we had only taken water a few snacks and the marinades and sauces required to cook up seafood. On the first night we had satay cray and coral trout skewers. On other nights we lived on fresh coral trout sushi and trout and cray teraki skewers. Yumo!!

Tim the food gathering guru

Some more gathering for the feast

me preparing the meal, not a bad kitchen hey?

Fresh coral trout sushi for starters

The main, teraki cray and coral trout skewers

The rest of the afternoon we spent flicking lures around some of the many bommies and points in the area, we caught heaps of fish on plastics and hard bodies it was heaps of fun. We had an awesome session on plastics and whiptail jigs with almost a fish per cast in a school of goldens. Was a blast!

tim with one of a million trout we caught this trip, most were small but great fun on lighter gear

nice little coral cod

One of many emperors we caught on light gear

Nice little coraly on light gear

another

another on an SP

another

Day two we had planned to go out and chase some GT’s. We set ourselves a goal of 10 for the day. We rose to a beautiful morning, and after a feed of fresh pancakes and tinned fruit for breakfast we were on our way. Glen and I pulled a few G’s out of a spot while we were there last time and after exploring that area a little better Tim and I found a few other potential areas. We had to take turns driving the boat while the other cast. I started with an Orion stickbait and had about three GT’s chase my lure down on about the second cast. On the next cast I had about 5 GT’s chase my lure down again but no hook up. Finally on the next I came up solid, a good fish of about 15kg’s made its way to the boat after that.

Tim hooked up next on a black Weezel polecat, I think it was his second cast. The fish fought well and before too long Tim landed his PB GT on popper. Not a bad effort. Well by about 2:30 we had our target ten GT’s for the day, we probably could have easily caught 20 when I think about it, if we had of started earlier and kept going after we got the last, ahh was good fun biggest fish for the session was caught by me and was around the 22-23 kg mark, caught on a silver and green Weezel polecat. The orange Orion stickbait produced a good number of fish as well.

I forgot to mention Tim got bricked by a what could possibly have been a 30kg plus fish on my black weezel. Seems like every time I use a black lure I get horsed. Bad luck Tim, next time mate.

Here a a couple of photos of the GT's, just for the Faulkners, i know they love to look at them over and over again!

number one on an orion 140 sinking stick bait

Tim loaded up

Tim's PB 18-20kg's on a Black weezel Polecat

Loaded up!

What would be the biggest of the session taken on a Green and silver Weezel polecat

G bus

Tims 2nd our 4th taken on the same black weezel polecat

my 3rd and our 5th taken on a Aussie flag coloured Weezel Mink

Tims 3rd our 6th taken on a red Weezel mink

my 4th our 7th taken on the same aussie flag weezel mink

Tims first on a stickbait, our 8th taken on an Orion 140 bigfoot

my 5th our 9th on the orion 140

A hungry number 10 for the session

number 10 of the session

Here are a couple more from another quick session at another area, we used stickies because it was quite choppy and we were pretty stuffed from the day, stickies are a bit easier to work

Number 12 and my 8th, on that same stickbait - the orion 140 bigfoot

We rounded out the day with another dive, Tim once again provided with a couple of nice cray’s to accompany our sushi.

The next day we had planned to go out wide for a jig, although the weather didn’t let us. We instead dedicated some time to searching for jacks and fishing inside the islands. We dived on some new spots and we found some massive jacks to 80cm on a huge ledge in 12m of water. I did manage to catch two on SP’s, biggest however was 52cm. We do know where some massive jacks live now so look out next time we go back. In the arvo we chased some squid on the flats for dinner, we managed 4 nice squid and Tim knocked up a mean salt and pepper squid entre to accompany our fresh coral trout sushi. We headed out to tryal rocks again late in the arvo, I managed another two G’s while time dropped one, not too bad for an hour.

like its puffing on a cuban, a nice fish of around 20 - 22kg's

another shot of the same GT

some of the tools of the trade

A likley looking spot

Another

A nice jack, my first at the montes and on an SP

52 cm jack, released

Another hungry jack!

Spangos were pretty thick, we caught quite a few on SP's

Another trout on SP

A nice final morning

Well on Thursday we wanted to go grab a few trout to take home with us, the wind had come up a bit, that combined with the bigger tides made things a bit tough. We managed a few trout still, it is pretty easy in this place. We went back to camp and packed things up before heading back to shoal for the night. We almost didn’t make it, with the bigger tides we had loaded the boat will all of our gear at the montes and almost got stuck on the reef with the low near our camp site, a few more minutes and we would have been there for another night, can just imagine what the missus would have said.

Lucky Tim doing his thing

A couple of nice trout for the missus

One of the many nooks in the area worth a dive

Tim gives his approval to a great trip

Anyway after a relatviley fine transit through to shoal wherre we spent the night, we came home friday morning. Overall a bloody good trip. 4 days of good food, good company and a bloody awesome location. I realise now how much more time I need to uncover a lot of the secrets of this place, starting to get a few things sussed now. Cant wait until the next time

Cheers

Brad and Tim

Anyone heading over to the Monties in 2 weeks.

Im going with a mate and leaving from dampier, If you wont to convoy and off and do your own thing once you there.

Aquagenes

Spotted a Manta on the weekend. A closer look showed a big cobia swimming with it.

Put a lure in front of it and this thing came right up to the boat and this is when i realised just how big this fish was, well over a metre and easily 20kg . My 4000 size reel felt awfully small ! It scoffed the lure and took off. The fight lasted all of about 15 seconds as it went under the boat and i presume snapped my main line on the manta. 

Massive buzz! i gotta get me some more of that action! 

Gully was in town again this week however this time he had a few hours available on saturday mornign to go for a fish. We headed out early with my mate who is new to this site Sean8, we had to be home by lunch time so that Gully could go back to work.
Anyway before the sun was up we got on the water, plan was to head out wide, try get sean an spanyid first up then have a bottom bog and a quick swim before heading home.
We were slightly ahead of schedule so we stopped for a pop along the way. We were anchored up in less than three meters of water with pretty harsh bottom. Not really the ideal popping circumstances but hey, not complaning. i caught quite a few big eye trevs while it was still dark. Gully and i were discussing what the likly scenario would be if i hooked a monster GT, just as we were discussing what the potential outcome would be, it happened. A HUGE GT engulfed my WEEZEL polecat and ran hard. I had my drag set at about 16kg's and i was grabbing my spool and i couldnt stop this thing, i looked over at Gully and laughed, i got a few wraps on him and just when i though it might turn him PINGGGGG!!! another lure gone!
Ahh all good, the sun was starting to creek up now anyway so we moved out to the mackie lump, within 5 minutes we had a double hook up on spanyids and sean landed his first ever mackie, ot huge but good fun!

well there were a few fish on the bottoms so i decided to drop some jigs for a while and the others dropped a few bait. Bait was definatly out performing jigs today the boys did quite well on chinaman (gully landed a huge one but dropped it over the side before i got a photo), sean got his first rankin, trout and chinaman.
Fish of the day definately goes to gully with his nice red.

Seans first rankin

one of about a dozen goldens we got today

caught quite a few chinaminzas today

seans first ever trout

seans first ever chinaminza

Gully on to his red

Nice red

flat as a tack!!

We topped off the morning with a swim, back at the ramp by lunch time. Not a bad effort, oh yeah it was glassy all day. Got to love the Pilbara!

I'll keep my fingers crossed that this winds dies off for you. Dont like your chances though.......

where to begin, i suppose at the start.

The weather forcast was looking good and Glenn and i were itching to get back to the montes, even if it was only for two days. This time we planned on squeezing everything we could into our time. We had our jig gear, popping gear, dive gear, light gear and whet ever else we needed to get us through the 2 nights two days we planned to spend at the place.
Glenn dropped around my house around 830pm, we connected the boat and we were on our way. There was no wind what so ever for the trip over. Using the flame on the gas pods to guide us in Archong's direction we were there in no time. conveniently the moon began to rise at the same time we were ready to navigate into Archong's protected bay for a good nights sleep.

nice morning

Waking up in the morning was, well bloody exciting - we were at the Montes! Ok quick check of the chart to move up the coast to another island we have not been to before, we planned to dump all of the jerries and other stuff we didnt need before settling into some fishing.

Some fuel

make shift fuel depot

First stop was on a little cut out in some rocks, I was pretty hot and decided to jump in for a quick look. There were a lot of trout and bluebone around as well as a few good sized crays. I pinged one trout around the 67cm size before we left in search of some deeper new ground.

ugly man and a nice trout

We made it out wide and found a few lumps covered in fish however they were not really playing the game. A few small cod found their way to the boat and Glenn managed a nice little chinaman on jig, even with the plastic hook guard still attached to his assist hook.

chinaminza on jig

Anyway things were a little quiet so we decided to go on a mission out to Tryal rock in search of some GT's. It is a long way out to sea for my little 5.2m center cab but she was up to the test. While at Tryal rocks i managed a nice GT and so did Glenn. In the hour we were there we got 2 good GT's mine on a new WEEZEL popper and glens on an S-pop. We both also had hookups on HUGE spanyids, and i got BRICKED!!!!! by something huge and managed to loose my new popper, ahh well good fun

Weezel

Nice montes Gbus!

Glenn loaded up

Glenn's G montes G train

Anyway after getting belted on our way out and back from Tryal we decided to see the afternoon out with some trolling for trout. We saw a heap of whales about during the transit. They were putting ona real show was pretty cool. Anyway we got to a fishy looking area and set the lures, it didnt take long to get a couple of small fish to the boat.

another

and another

and another

Ok we had enough of the trout and decided to burn back to camp. On the way we decided to have one last stop and some of the many many rock formations around the area for a look. Glenn threw out a stickbait and had a massive trout stalk it back to the boat but there was no hookup. This was enough to entice me to jump in with the mask and snokle again to have a look around. This particlar spot was pretty cool. I finally found some of those 6-8kg mangrove jacks that people talk about. There were also massive chinaman that would have gone 15kg's easy. I didnt take a shot at the jacks because i didnt really want to swim back to the boat that was quite a way away on dusk with a strugling fish, ahh all good just good to see those jacks in the flesh, dont worry i marked the spot and i will be back.

if you know where this is youll find em

Sun setting on the first day

Anyway with the sun setting on the first day and an empty stomach we burned back to camp to make some tea. After which we decided to have a night fish in and around the island we were stayin on. Im glad we did. We must have landed more than 30 spangos in that session between Glenn and I. It was awesome on the light gear, we literally left them biting so that we could get some sleep, awesome!!!

A couple of the more than 30 spangos Glenn and I got between us in a hot night session

We awoke to a pretty windy morning and decided to head out the west side of the islands in search of some new ground. I had a dive around some more nice rocky formations while Glenn flicked stickbaits around. I managed a nice jack and Glenn caught all sorts of crap on his lures, was good fun. After that we moved out to some reef which looked promising. After a quick troll run, in which glen piced up a very nice trout we settled down for some drift baiting. We got bricked by some unstopables, very frustrating not to get a few of them up. We did manage a few good trout and about a thousand red throat emperor.

very nice trout taken on an 8m diving scorp trolled dead slow

getting bricked!

small danga!

Anway after i got bricked a few times again it was enough to lure me into the water with my gun. The place was teeming with trout, unfortunately there were a few sizy sharks around as well, meaning i had to be sure with my shot. Anyway, i did ping a nice trout straight up and had about an 8ft whaler come out of the depths trying to get it, i have never got back to the boat so quick and with the help of Glenn pulling me in managed to get out unscaved and with a nice trout. I waited a few minutes then jumped back in. This time i just swam around pretty close to the boat around te bommie. There were tout and bluebone everywhere, was reluctant to spear anything because obviously that fired up the sharks. A BIG i think it was a lemon shark was getting very interested in me, circling and getting closer and closer. It was very relaxed and not aggresive, Glenn was watchin it from the boat come right up to me. It soon swam off and all of the other sharks seemed to have gone as well. Right, one last shot before we go, a nice trout came into my line and i brained him. A perfect shot, up to the boat and out i got, almost home time

a nice last trout 70cm

Anyway we went back to camp and loaded up all the gear, while we were stripping down our fishing gear Glenn threw out the last big of bait in about three meters of water. It didnt take long and he was on, huh a nice spango on the pe3 gear, a nice last fish of the trip

Loaded up for the last time

Last fish of the trip

The run home started off a bit bumpy but we managed 30 knots most of the way, we had plenty of fuel left so we were concentrating more on speed rather than fuel eccenomy for the transit.

What a great trip, i am learning more and more about this place every time i go

Cant wait til the next time......

This may come a shock to anyone living in the Pilbara but I have been fishing up here for most of my life and up until recently had never caught a tuna. Most people consider them a pest. It wasn’t a technique thing. A lot of these fish have been caught around me, it’s just every time it was my turn to grab the strike I would end up with every species except tuna. Not any more, I now have one less fish on my ‘to catch’ list.

Not huge but still a tuna

And a little Mack for din-dins

Parked up of a bit of swimming in Malus bay.

Yep And another great day in the Pilbara,Headed out for a few reds out wide the morning with the mist hanging real low making things very intresting.

After the sit through the tide changes 3reds 2 crimsion and 1 cobia and ranki.

Man i love the Pilbara.

Aquagenes