Haven't been fishing much lately and was wondering if theres anything decent been biting around our metro beaches.

Been hangin for a beach bash but aside from running my own business, doesn't leave me much time. So I thought I'd

ask around before I head out for a fish so I dont end up wasting a day off. Hope the weed isn't too bad lately either...

Last few times beaching has been absolutely horrid.

Any input guys?

Cheers.

Hey all havent been out for a fish for ages so thought would get down somewhere local for some bread and butter fish. Got to south mole about 4 and got the odd herring here and there, along with a few skippy. Birds where diving and started catching some good size slimeys which was fun on the light gear. About 6 the herring just went absolutely mad with a fish a cast. They would hit the bait before you had time to flip the bail arm over and get the line tight. Ran out of berley but were so thick just put a small rock in my plastic burley cage for distance and was pulling them in still fish a cast. Dropped two which would have almost hit 30cm. Didnt bother with photos of sorry but great fun for a feed and to top up on some bait:) Left em biting! 

Day 2 was  a bit of a disaster. We woke to dark clouds approaching on the horizon and 20knot south wetserlies buffeting the coast. It was decided that would head over to Mia and hug the shore to hide from the wind.
There are a few sandy flats with small patches of rock between Monkey Mia and Peron Point where bream can often be found. Ira informed me of many good sessions on these flats and i had high hopes of finally cracking a 40cm bream.

We fished hard for 5 hours catching one small flathead after another. To break the boredom of landing yet another flathead the heavens would open and i would regret not having any wet weather gear .
Ira did manage to land 3 nice fat yellow fin whiting another first on the flick stick. With no bream in site we decided to call it a day and hoped for better luck tomorrow.

Woke up in the morning to much calmer winds but with the swell still pumping we were once again kept close to shore. We decided to fish some of the flats out from Denham. Good Choice .
Ira once again tied a Madeye Flick stick on so i decided i would fish the Mad Crab all day and see if our results would vary. As we pulled up on some broken ground in around 2m of water Ira sent out a cast to where the weed meet the sand. First cast he was on, it amazing how things can change in a day. We soon neted a large flat head and after a quick photo sent it back. I continued to prospect the water with the Mad Crab.

I spied a nice small bit of reefy weed and presented the Mad Crab just off the back of it. Ira cast a few seconds later landing about 5 m past the reef. I gave the crab a small lift off the bottom and was belted by an unknown. I told Ira to Grab the camcorder but before i finished speaking his line came up tight and we had a double hook up. These fish were strong and kept trying to get back to the reef. It took a bit of work to keep there head up. I had mine boat side first and netted a beautiful Black Snapper.

 Ira’s fish was still giving him curry and it took a little while longer before he had an even larger black snapper onboard. Black Snapper are stunning fish with electric blue “eyeliner” contrasting their motley black body that gives amazing camouflage.

This was my first Black snapper and while much smaller than the Pink Snapper we got the first day i was surprised at the fight they give . Pink Snapper have blistering fast runs at the start but then come in relatively easierly. Black snapper may not be as fast but they are like mini bulldogs with tons of power and they enjoying burying you in any near by rock or reef.

We continued  drifting this area for the next couple of hours. Once again the baldies and and tusk fish continued to find the Mad Crab irresistible and i would have landed at least 15 by the end of the day depleting my Mad Crab supplies.

The black snapper also stayed on the chew and it you never went any longer than 10min between hooking a fish. I say HOOKING a fish, landing them was another story. We both got blown away time after time and at last count our tally was at 13 smoking’s. It was the speed in which they did it as well. You had literally seconds to pull the fishes head up otherwise it was game over. We both up our leaders i went from 4lb to 8lb and then to 15. Ira went from 4 to 10 to 20lb and was still getting smoked.
My favourite capture of the day was a Black snapper of around 36cm that took off with his line as we came on top of a really rocky bit of ground. After being smoked minutes before he assured me he would be ready for the next fish. Sure enough as soon as this fish hit he struck hard then put in the fastest most furious pump and winds i have ever seen on light tackle. He manage to keep the fishes head up and polled in. I was nearly in stiches and was spewing i didn’t get a chance to get it on film.

We continued up a bit and found some deeper ground with a nice gutter running through dropping off into 4m. There were tons of mullet in the area and below them we could see Yellowfin Bream School. We probed the area hoping a bream would come and nail our presentations. Ira’s reel then screamed off. Could this be the bream we were hoping for. The run was much faster than the black snapper and we were unsure of what it could be.
To our surprise it was a nice Golden Trevally. These fish do show up on the flats in summer but are quite rare in winter.

I continued casting hoping t land my first Golden. I turned around to see Ira’s rod load up again. Once again another Golden.  Unfortunately these were the only two around. And while my Mad Crab had the advantage on the Black Snapper and the Tusk fish, the bait fish profile of the Flick Stick was to the Goldens liking.

We had only been fishing for 3 hours and had already landed 6 different species (flathead, pink snapper, black snapper, Tusk fish, Bladies and Golden Trevally) along with a few other unwanted. Still we were yet to come across a Bream or even a Tailor which are normally impossible to avoid. Would i finally break my 40cm bream curse?
Check back for Pt 3
 

What a cold front we had over Perth the other week. Big enough to reach as far north as Shark Bay and turn our 5 day trip testing the new 3” Madeye Flick Stick and Mad Crabs into a 3 day Trip.

We started the first day down the bottom of the bay trying to shelter from the wind. Shark bay is almost void of any rock so even the smallest bit of broken ground can produce big results. We headed out towards some rocky outcrops and crossed our fingers the fish would play ball.

We both tied on 3” flick sticks and within no time Ira had a small pinky nudging 40 at the boat. I was keen on getting a few Photos but Ira assured me that there was much bigger fish out there.
The rat snapper were plentiful and we both landed around 10 or so that put up a great fight on bream gear. The definitely go harder than bream of the same size and are great fun n shallow water.
While we weren’t getting busted off by the clean fighting pinks small tailor continually kept bitting through the leader. To try and get away from the tailor i tied on a “Mad Crab” and was straight away into baby tusk fish and baldies. While they weren’t big that certainly had a knack at trying to bury you into the reef. While the first 4 or so were good fun after around 10 i was beginning to get flash back of getting harassed by wrase back home.
While Ira had caught a couple of Tusk Fish it was amasing to see how much they preferred the crab pattern. While no big ones were landed this time im keen to head up again to try and land a sized model.

The rat Pinkys were still coming in thick I managed to pull one fish 45cm out from the rats but with no larger  fish in sight  we decided to change spots.

We reached the small rock around the size of a car sitting in 2-3m of water. I decided to pull out the 12lb out fit with a ¼ jig head and tied on another Flick Stick. As our drift got closer to the rock Ira said “Next two or 3 cast are were the fish will be”. Sure enough on the third cast i hopped the flick stick across the bottom as i flicked it up off the bottom it got steam trained and braid began singing off the Sol 3000. Even in shallow water it amazing how clean the Pinkys fight. After a few minutes we soon caught a glimpse of a cracker of a fish. Ira slipped the net underneath the first real snapper  to be caught on a Madeye Flick Stick.
Its a great feeling to see something you drew on a piece of paper turn into a fish producing lure. After a few happy snapps  i cast out to the rock Again. Smashed again. This was great fun catching snapper in water that you can clearly see the bottom of. Another fish on board a few more pics and back it went.

The next hour or so was absolute mayhem. With 60cm+ fish lining up to smashed a well presented soft plastic. After landing a few more fish on the Flick Stick i decided to Tie on an Proto-type Octo Skirt. I have already had success using these back in perth for nice snapper up to 5kgs. The way the skirts flutter without even having to jig the lure just drives pinkys nuts. Sure enough both designs got engulfed. The Octo Skrits are definitely a dynamite lure for snapper and we hope to be able to bring them out in the near future after a bit more tweaking.

As we headed for another drift of the rock i decided it was time to try a hard bodied lure. The Sebile 35mm and 42mm Flat shads have proven to be a great Vibe for big bream  so how would the larger model go on the larger fish. It took a few cast at the rock but a nice pink came and picked it up off the bottom. This fish didn’t really notice it was hooked and for a second or two it sat the crushing on the lure. After i applied a bit of pressure he soon woke up and another battle ensued. As the fish came up we got a realised how dark he was with striking bars on his scales. Maybe this is a fish that live in the weed and has blended in to suit his surrounds. 

It was now Ira’s turn to put down the camera and have a go. He insisted on sticking with the 4lb bream gear and sent a flick stick out to the rock. In no time he was on. The fish peeled of line and we had to chase him down with the Kota. I was worried the 4lb would be no match but Ira skilfully played the fish towards the boat. After a few tense minutes i had the fish in the net. Another beautiful pink snapper.

By now we had landed around 12 fish over 60cm and with another 2 hours up to Denham we decided to leave the fish bitting.

It was a great start to the trip but how would the next 2 day fair.

Heading up to  Jurien on the 15 Sept for four days of bliss with out the mrs or kids. Heading out wide, whats biting?

 We spent friday night, all day saturday and most of sunday moving house so by 3pm I needed to de-stress. Headed out to a bit of ground and found plenty of whale and manta action but only the one fish, a 700mm trout.  The big jawed bugger had srapes and scratches on his head and down one side from the coral when he nearly buried me so it was decided he deseved another chance and back in he went. . . Felt good too. . Good luck big fella 

 There you go Adz, an old pic I found from back when the shirt was new.

After the dilemmas with the site late last week I decided that I needed to head out for a fish to clear the head and take out some spear anger.  (Many thanks to those who rang, sms'd, pm'd and emailed - much appreciated and makes me realise how good and supportive the members of this site are)  Headed out late Friday afternoon to the Muirons, did a couple of hours of spearing and ended up with 7 bluebone, biggest just over 700.  (didn't think to take the camera :()

Headed out Peakwards on Saturday with average conditions in the morning and very brown soupy conditions in the gulf making things look average, soon as we got past Sunday Island the water just went blue and we knew it was going to be on.  Unfortunately we only found one trout, but the bluebone were there in numbers and we chose 8 nice ones mostly around the 55cm mark.  After diving most of the morning we took one late arvo drop and between two boats ended up with a couple of rankins and spangles, the sharks didn't take long to move in and tell us it was time to head home.  Cruising in we saw Lucky Tim heading back out after a quick restock in Exmouth, poor bugger looked like he really wanted to swap boats.  Unfortunately I didn't get any catch photos as I left the fish for the other boys to fillet.  I then followed that up with a suprise party and a big night on the turps trying to forget about the week that was!

With a very slow start to Sunday we managed to get out for a whale watch late afternoon, nearly glassy conditions (was an hour later unfortunately ) but still managed to find a few playful families that topped off the weekend.

Cheers,

Adam

Hey guys,

headed out at gentlemens hours (930am) with FW newbie Josh for a quick fish Nth of the Cape.

Josh got the ball rolling with a 4kg Dhuie and 2 nice Nanny's around 2.5kg on bait.

After some persistence I rounded out the bag with a sweet 8kg Dhuie on the old trusty 7in McArthy Bullhead on the silly (pe1.5) gear.

Bagged out in about 2hrs, happy days.

Days catch -

Apologies about the crappy camera phone pics

 I headed out with my brother and dad on Friday and found it pretty hard going. We caught all our fish before 10 when the bite shut down and we went looking for more ground, we found a few likely looking spots that were full of fish but just not on the chew. We still managed a couple of dhues, couple of queen snapper, red snapper and a rippa bauldy.

Just wondering if anyone can give some reports as to whether there is any whiting getting caught around any of the metro beaches atm

Morning all.

Going to go and give it landbash up at Capricorn in the morning(Monday).

Can anyone tell me  if there is much sea weed up that way at present.

Bit of a long drive for me if there is.

Regards

Simon

Not something you would do every day.  Apparently these fish go like trains so this certainly wouldn't be easy.

http://www.fishing.net.nz/asp_forums/mc-worksstella20000-276kg-bluefin-updated_topic69235_page1.html

Hey,

Went out for a fish on Thursday 18th for an afternoon / night fish for snapper. We ended up caughting 4 Dhuies with 1 keeped and 3 realsed all around 6 kgs , Also caught 8 pink snapper and a new PB 69cm , and 4 king Geogre White and a new PB 61cm. It was a great afternoon out for fishing and cant wait to get out there again now.

Cheers,

Rob

Went out for a bit of a snapper hunt on Friday night.

Only put in around 2ish hours of fishing, got one decent 81cm pinkie on the PE3 gear (wish he'd taken the PE1 gear that was out instead!) and then hooked up to a 70+kg ray, that I wasted a solid hour fighting and then trying to free from my anchor rope after he tangled himself there quite nicely.

Conditions were glass flat though so was a good night on the water, and the snapper went unusually hard - though could be because it was in 7m of water :-)

 After the crrrrapppp winds swell and everything else down south for us all lately , i got lucky and found a deckie spot with a mate today. Andrew has only just bought a 5.5m fraser centre console with a 140 suzi on the back and was keen as to get it wet! Decided to throw the dive gear in just in case (with all intentions of jumping in regardless lol) and hit the water about 10am this morning. Looked like poo! Recent 4-5m swell turned it to shooooup!

Andrew didnt have any marks on the new plotter so we hunted around for abit and stumbled onto some reasonable ground that held plenty of tiny trout in about 15m. The viz was atttttrocious and diving that depth with a slight north tide and whales song calling non stop makes one keep on the look out thats for sure! 

The 3 of us dove there for maybe 1hr n half and i finally fluked a 700mm trout sitting under a overhang which was stoned with the euro 120 and thrown on the handle! Happy days

Prouty ended up bagging a small trout himself and we moved off to find some new spots. The next try proved fruitless altho the ground looked the goods , very trying tho diving to 16m and missing the ledge due to the viz so we moved again to some other ground closer to the ramp....

Abit of sounding showed some ok looking gear and i was first in while the other lads chatted like old ladies..... First in best dressed they say! Breathed up and dropped into the haze... Slowly made out bottom , then a massive sambo , then a ripper dhu! Again the euro made no mistake and as i surfaced with the dhu in hand you shoulda seen the other boys! Yup this spot'll do! Weighed in at 11kg so very chuffed for average conditions!

The lads continued to do some drops and Dan managed a nice 600mm dhu for himself before the north tide just turned the water to absolutely undivable and we came in to fillet and listen to the Eagles pump the Dons!

Great day out 

Went out last week with my daughter for a couple of hours to get some squid ended up with 4 nice squid and as a bonus my daughter caught 2 cuttle fish her first every cuttle fish, She can tick these of the list.

H

Happy days

Stevo

Well i have been trying to get into some decent metro fish for the past 2 years now with not a great deal of success, not having too many mates obsessed with fishing like i am many attempts have been solo missions. The few times i have taken people out they have caught nice sambo, legal snapper (not huge), queen snapper or blue morwong if u will etc. while i get absolutely bloody nothing!! it started to get beyond a joke... I have been going out solidly for the past year now rain hail or shine dark or light trolling, at anchor or bottom bashing, putting any info i could get or research i could gather into practice.

It seemed that I always did well up north in kalbarri, broome and exmouth, but who doesn't... they are all fishing mecca's! However when it came to metro i was below average at best, only consistantly getting squid and tailor. I should add i have an old 17ft half cabin boat so have tried 5 fathom, carnac, parmelia bank, stragglers and 3 mile all with little joy.

BUT THEN.......... Finally....... I went out on thursday nite on my own again for the bloody 5th time this fortnight and it finally came together.

I had anchored up before sunset just outside cockburn sound, got a good berley trail going and floated some baits back and it was on first up a couple of sambo one rat and one at about 80cm (released) then my line screemed off a short fight had it boatside i was using heavy tackle i wasnt going to take any chances... it was my first legal pinkie at 54cm!!! then started to cast around a plastic which got nailed by a big skippy soon boatside... my first legal fish on soft plastic... next cast the placcy was nailed and bitten off so i went back to the bait as the fish were hot on the chew! for the next hour and a half i caught a few skippy and 5 more snapper! the last one going 66cm! yeowwww!! i had noticed they started getting bigger the later it got but had run out of bait and berley so left them biting and headed back to the ramp at 7:30..... (2 pniks kept, rest released).

I have finally done it and cant wait to head out again! if i never get another one im still content!!

Of to exmouth next weekend hopefully have more to report...... bent rods and tight drags all!

Headed out at three yesterday for a quick fish hit some of the southern patches .Fish were on all patches but mostly small .We did hook into a good fish ,snapper from the head shakes.and Jesse got cut of as his light rod was no match for a fish of that size .But not to be out done I then hooked a good dhuie only to be done in the coral .was a bloody good fish .I guess It would have got a tagged stuck in it and released anyway so didn't feel to bad.We finished the two hour sesh with six dhuies all tagged and released one snapper and a good fox fish .Biggest dhuie was around 6kg.

We'll my new boat is finally decked out and worth the wait indeed. Chivers Marine (Bibra Lake) have fitted out an awesome boat which is a Haines Patriot 680 & the new 300 V6 Yamaha 4 stroke. I will do a proper write up on the boat later on but yesterday was time to blood the deck!

A very late launch and a arvo sesh in the deepwater was the go. A mate Brent came out for the run and despite having caught deepwater fish with me before he hasnt got the Blue-eye Trevalla!

After locating a school of Trevalla on the Furuno I said to Brent drop your baits. First drop and he was on, he caught his first Blue-eye Trevalla and was stoked!

Photo missing!!

I had a quick drop on the jig after he landed his fish but the current wasnt making that very do-able. I spent time adjusting my sounder settings whilst Brent recovered from the last fish. After a bite to eat I located fish again and said to Brent send one hook down on the rig as if he gets a fish thats his legal 2 fish. I bulked up his circle hook with big slimy mackerel baits and down it went!

After hitting the bottom it didnt take Brent long to hook something twice the size. I was thinking a descent Bass or maybe a huge Trevalla as this was pulling the Whiplash 65lb off his spool. After a long fight (manual windup on his Tyrnos) his second Trevalla and a PB at 28kg (weighed)!

Photo missing!!

I was happy just being out on my new boat let alone seeing Brent land two quality fish in two drifts. I had a quick drop and got a descent Hapuku on bait and that was more than enough so we headed in!

 Hey there fellow fishwrecked members my name's Christian this is my first post as i just joined today but i thought id share my most recent memorable capture.

The call was made after hearing that a few mullas were being landed after the storms, to go put a few hours into catching one. choosing E-shed as our preferable spot we decided to get there nice an early as we heard a few had being landed there over the previous week and knew it would be harder to get a spot later in the evening. We arrived around 5.30 and got our spot and rigged up using packet  scalies for bait that we'd bought earlier. 

After a while of peaceful livie fishing catching mostly yakkas and snook one of the rods went off. Oh the excitement but wait RAY! ah damn!! so the line was cut re-rigged up. A short time later my mates rod screamed off and it was his turn to catch an angry ray.. This was to be a common occurence as over the next 2 nights we hooked about ten and saw many more rods in the distance going off all to rays.

Then came night 3 this night was to be our night but it was funny that it only came by chance that we ended up at E-shed AGAIN! We had decided to fish for tailor earlier in the night but having no luck catching one I made the call that we should try for mulloway again. so back we were again at the wharf rigging up and catching livies. After a while my rod went off but slower this time than the other nights, i gave it a lil and attempted to set the hooks but i missed... shoot. Bringing the livie in i noticed its head was missing and instead of changing baits i cast it back out in the exact same spot. This payed off as five minutes later my rod started to tick slowly again i gave it plenty of line this time before i set the hooks and this time i was on and this was no ray( although no one believed me i called it straight away) this was different, every 10 seconds my rod would thrash as whatever was on the end of it tried to shake free. After about ten minutes of strong runs with plenty of head shakes and a tangle that almost proved costly we got a glimpse of my first mulloway and was she a beautie. then came the next problem landing it and I'm so thankful we still had the 14ft gaff in the car from the previous nights( also thanks to the guy who gaffed it for me i couldn't of done it better myself). 

And there it was 1.2m and at least 15kg of glistening silver i couldn't believe it i was so wrapped and i still am now i just gotta catch my mate one he was a lil devo as id caught it on his rod which i was using for tailor earlier in the evening, ah well there's always next time..

 How stoked am I:P

fThats my mate holding it and it still looks big even though hes 6'3

just wondering where the best area to get a cpl of gummy sharks in the metro area?

 I had to get rid of this twitch so went for a little flick yesterday arvo after uni, and im starting to like this style of fishing, incredibly relaxing until one tries to get you in the snags. A mate and I landed 3 all identical size of around 350mm

Triple bonus you can say.

Congrat to Simon for his 65KG Giant Mekong Catfish & 30KG Siamese carp and Andrew with his 40KG Giant Mekong Catfish.

Landing 3 big giant fishes in 1 DAY trip to BSR is rather rare catch but it can be done if we follow  my plans diligently. ;)

I will not disclose what strategy I use or what I bait I use here due to trade secret. haha !!!

Just enjoy some of the wonderful photos I took for them for their 2 DAYS fishing trip with me. ;)

65KG Mekong Catfish landed by Simon.

30KG beautiful siamese carp also landed by Simon that day.

Hey Guys,

SimonC, Oracle, Munners and I headed to the Abrolhos after a spur of the moment decision on Tuesday arvo last week! Well need less to say that the decision was a good one with plenty of action from a place ive been meaning to fish for a long time. Pelagic and Demersal action was second to none with plenty of fish boated. Heres a few pics to explain how fish enriched the joint is!

Enjoy!

Cheers,

Sam

Stinking Sambo on PE3, ~24kg

Stickbaited YTK ~15kg on PE3

Jellybean YFT on stick. A slightly larger Fin was hooked next cast to empty my spool rather quickly! Undergunned was the norm with this outfit

Jason's (Oracle) hungry YFT to engulf the poor little Roosta!

One of many picturesque Dhu's

And again....

Turtle Dove was on fire.....

Ive got some more pics on my laptop at home which will be posted tonight!

Cheers,

Sam

Weather was a bit average today, started off pretty nice but deteriorated rapidly .

http://www.youtube.com/user/BecandBen71#p/u

 am sure Samc will post a full report complete with professional quality pics but I would like to say WOOHOO to the Abrolhos Islands for turning on the surface action. Oracle, SamC, justin and myself hatched a very last minute plan to overnight at the islands last week. It has been on my to do list for 5 years but weather and work never seem to play ball. Anyway we got off to a very late start form Perth on wednesday which saw us leaving Port Denison at 4:30 for the 54mile run across. I must give a big shout out to Poddy for his assistance ond keen eye. When we hit the designated meeting spot neither boat could get radio contact, and luckilly poddy and his mates saw us and came to meet us in the dark to guide us in.

After a magic night on the boat in dead calm conditions we awoke to a very blustery 15-20 knot wind. Lucky for us this died down over the morning and let us get out. Justin and i stuck with jigs whilst Sam went the stick baits, I won't rain on his parade but the photos will tell the story when he posts them.. Anyway after 6 hours of shallow water fun we hit the back of Pelsart(sp) to find a rather large 4m swell pumping in close. What was also pumping was huge schools of Yellow fin. This has been on my bucket list species now for 5 years as well, and despite a few rat ones in Exmouth we have never looked like cracking them. To say we had a ball would be an understatement. the biggest to the boat was 30kg with a couple more breaking 100lb leader after prologned fights(we had no sleeves or crimps on the boat - schoolboy error). ON top of great tuna action we cracked some big yellow tail kings and some of the fattest spotted mackerel I have ever seen.

 Hi Guys, 

Its been a little while since I posted but finally have the time having arrived in Darwin a few days ago.  To keep it easy i will just put up some of the better photos from the last month and caption them. I'm updating my blog too at the moment so there will be more details for those of you that are interested:)

As a summary I grabbed a bit of a lift through karrajini national park and then cycled from broome up to the fitzroy river where i made camp for a few days with the aim to catch barra. Then Back on the bike along to derby down the Gibb River road and onwards to Kunnunara, along to Katherine, up through litchfield and then to Darwin. So i've clocked up nearly 4000kays on the bicycle and by some amazing stroke of luck managed to even get some fish on my lures!!

www.worldbiker.blogspot.com

80 mile beach and a pretty nice sunset. I was convinced a fish would nail my lure but after 3 hours i gave up and settled for a good sunset instead!

cable beach in broome. Saw some guys catching some pretty decent whiting from the rocky area. Set off towards willare road bridge a little later and battled bad head winds for two days to get there.

One of the first big boab trees i found. they made great spots to rest out of the midday sun.

First crocy i saw..10km from the fitzroy river. seemed to be suffering from a bad case of heatstroke!

After 3 hours of casting and running up and down steep banks a small barra nailled my lure 3 times in a split second but didn't hook up. i was starting to wonder whether the barra was a myth..then this little beauty nailed the lure! ah and relax!! two more had a go but didn't hook up. 2.5 days of hard fishing for one small barra..worth it as it was my first australian barra!

This was my campsite on the fitzroy..about 6 km from the main road. a nice freshwater croc chose to sunbathe on the beach just below my tent.

crocodile eyeballing me! didn't see any salties..only about 15 freshies who had probably eaten all the barra!

fitzroy river in the evening

Cycling Gibb river road. managed to bust out 100 kays a day and get from derby to kunnunarra in just under 8 days..would like to have spent longer but i only had some much food packed. some kind people gave me a few goodies along the way which helped.

early morning on the gibb

pushing the bike through a sandy area :(

hmm still a long way to go. At this point i was pretty excited about the can of coke i planned to buy at mt barnett! had been thinking about it for the last 5 hours!

completely stuffed after 100km of corrugations. think i was gathering the energy to make a cup of tea!

Dingo that followed me down the road for a few kays and then tried to steal my map. guess the poor bugger was lost?

a lovely spot where apparently there was no camping. unfortunately i was so tired i had no choice but to sleep there.

another beautiful spot on the gibb

durack river crossing..it was 10 am, 60km ridden and i'd just been given a cold can of beer. Not really a good idea and it meant the next hour was pretty interesting.

Pentecost river crossing. Everyone warned me about crocs but upon arrival i figured that the stream of 4wds would have scared them all away. it was pretty shallow too. Being a fisherman my other logic was match the hatch..with so may prados and landcruisers to feet on why would a croc want a skinny cyclist? I carried half my bags accross and then was wading back for the rest when a 'kimberly wild' bus pulled up and all the people climbed off and started taking photos of me! just what i wasn't in the mood for. i had already had my photo taken 15000 times  and was getting a little bored of it. the khaki clad tour guide marched over and said " you're not going to ride that thing across are you?" i was a bit put out to her refering to my bike as a 'thing' but managed to keep my cool and reply that no i was going to carry it across. at that point in an almost hysterical voice she said " what about the crocodiles" so i replied that we had an understading as i put the bike on my shoulder and marched off across the river! think she must have been building up the croc thing to all her tourists and i put a spanner in the works! the funniest bit was that as i walked across my arse was hanging out as my shorts were completely torn and in pieces! well at least the tourists were entertained and got some good photos!

how i began to love corrugations. the last 150km was stony and fully corrugated. often i could ony make between 6-10km/h so put in long days of 10 hours on the bike.

Not a bad camping spot apart from i didn't realise that the hawk that was nesting in the tree was going to drop blood all over my nice white tent! drat!

a wedge tail eagle that didn't seem too impressed with me taking his photo!

I was on the gibb in the school holidays and there seemed to some sort of gibb river road challenge on. most people seemed to be a rush to get somewhere which was a shame as they were missing alot travelling at 100kmh. the fact that they showered me with stones and dust didn't help either. many people snapped photos of me as they sped past. it was a shame they didn't have the time to stop and have a chat:)

This Goanna demonstrates the dangers of drinking too much beer. 

A nice sunset shot

an inspiring find at my fishing spot on the ord river

probably my worst nightmare!!

caught this in the ord river...anyone know what species it is?

i went for a recce on the Ord and found a nice looking pool. upon closer inspection i saw loads of little orange eyes look up at me..heaps and heaps of small barra were hanging about intercepting morsels brought in by the current. went back in the early morning and got 13 barra and 21 tapon in a couple of hours. great session..nothing big but plenty of acrobatics and non stop action until the sun came up and the feeding tailed off

one of the tarpon that nailed a silver metal.

throwing lures on the ord! good fun..just wish i had more small lures.

On the way to Katherine from Kununurra. just taking it easy trying to clock 120km a day. resting during the heat of midday.

Camping in the NT.  At three in the morning a bull arrived and decided to stand ten metres from my tent and bellow his heart out. I was lying inside praying he didn't get any funny ideas. I had a vision of him mounting my tent in a desperation as no cows seemed to be nearby.

barra seem to be everywhere in the NT

resting up out of the midday sun under a bridge. Best spot as no trees give enough shade for long

I stopped on the king river and after a while gathered the energy for a fish. after a few casts i saw something fishy going on and let the lure sit on the surface after the retrieve. this little sooty grunter suddenly came up and smashed the static lure hard and unluckily for himself got a hook caught in his mouth! promising start!

After just a few more casts  i saw a good fish race out of the snags and nail the lure. no hook up unfortunately..fired me up tho and soon a barra of around 2kg grabbed the lure and proceeded to jump about the river which brought a smile tto my face. didn't manage to get a photo as it did the houdini on me was i unhooked it. next one which was bigger put up a great fight but unfortunately also jumped back in when i was cleaning the dirt from it. so only this crappy photo of a king barra

King river..which i had all to myself! Nice!

Earlier in the day i noticed two cans of VB neatly placed by the side of the road. Of course i rescued them intending to give them a new life. Worked out well as when i got back from the barra fishing i could celebrate with two almost cold VB's!;) I also picked up a brand new roosta popper..replaced the one i lost back in kalbarri..

I noticed loads of orange eyes in the creek where i was camped in litchfield park..hmm had no bait so sacrificed a frog and sent it in on a line and got a few of these out. quite entertaining as it meant i could go to bed at 8 o'clock instead of 7.

Saw this seriously big ant hill in litchfield park which quite impressed me! determined little buggers!

Camped by this beautiful little creek in litchfield.. tea and a jaccuzzi! nice end to the day

Stopped on the finnis river for a 4 days and camped with two croc handlers. it was a particularly interesting few days as we shared a lot of stories and had some good fishing. I got some beautiful sooty grunters who really fight well. proper brute. a few small barra also got the lures. After hearing so much about crocs i was pretty nervous about fishing. we found one salty living quite a way up stream but it wasn't until the third day that we discovered a monster croc living close by. Deon had seen it at night when he was fetching water. so i went in the morning and sat by the river with my cup of coffee. sure enough after 5 minutes up he came just a little way down the river which is a mere piss puddle. unbelievable..the guys thought 15 feet and who was i to argue as they have worked with crocs for 12 years..sweet heart came from the same spot so maybe it was his son!

 Nice sooty grunter

This is where i saw the big croc but unfortunately i had left my camera back at camp..doh!

Camp on the Finniss river..fridge, laptop, surround sound..bit of novelty for me! nice to have some company for a change.. just shame it wasn't two beautiful girls but hey ho!

Nice spot for a swim in litchfield national park

Final report for our exmouth trip.....

Headed out to the murions for our final trip on the thursday. We headed home last night.

and boy was it interesting, with our local neighbour on the boat, giving us a few pointers here and there, we basically had one of the best days fishing i have had in a long time. We had recently fished the murions hunting spangos on poppers, and we did well boating fish to 700mm. Today was different, showing us different ways to fish the murions. 

We ended up chasing bait balls all day long in 2-3 m water in the gap.....Using popper's we hooked up to sharkies, spaniards (that free jumped out of the water smashing poppers), goldens,school mackeral, gold spots, spangos, coral trout, GT bust offs, Huge estaury cods, red throat and some unstoppables.....

Unfortuntly my gear wasnt up to scratch and the first few casts in the morning i got smoked by a big GT and the drag basially busted so i was unfishable really, and turned into boat guide.

For around 2 hours we had spaniards, goldens, sharkies, gold spots under our boat chasing anything we threw at them. But it was all about the poppers, the poppers seem to struck gold on the bigger stuff smashing the bait balls.

I learned alot about my boat and its handeling, how to navigate through big ass bombies that would of sunk my fiberglass boat instantly, and it all comes down to team work.  Also my understanding of tides and moon phases, is a bit more knowledgable.

Photos will be up soon

Exmouth ill be back next year to hopefully have an even better time as the last 2 weeks. Mind you all in our last 3 trips to the murion we would of boated over 60 fish over the 3 days, and i can confidently say 90% of these fish went back in the drink, with the odd spango and trout staying for dinner.

Headed out for a fish after work friday with Ringy and bp0685. Left the ramp about 130pm looking for some new ground to hit with the plastics. Headed north to an area I was shown to find plenty of fish on the sounder but nothing touching the plasctics. hit about 20 spots showing fish without even a sniff. The call was made to head out to the 40's in search of some new ground. Swell wasn't too bad and a bit lumpy but nothing the stabicraft couldn't handle.

Fished a few more spots that looked good on the sounder without a result. Stumbled on an old float sitting in the water and sounded around. A bit of ground that was worth a drift. A bit fast and deep for the plastics so reverted to driftbaiting. First drop I bust off, BP hooks up and drops it and Ringy hooks up to a monster. 5 min later and half way to the boat he drops what I called for a big Dhu.

Anyway rerig and back around for another drift. This time ringy hooks up to a monster that had intentions of heading north. A few minutes and 100mtrs line lost Ping. Another unknown gone. Bugger. Rerig and around again for another drift. Next drift triple hookup, bp first to the boat with a nice 50cm snapper then Ringy with one about 55cm then mine about 70cm. Not a bad little spot. Fish in the esky and back around for another drift. Bang Ringy is on again and this time to a nice fish. A few minutes later and a 5kg snapper on the boat. Fishing slowed down after dark and with 4 snapper in the esky was about time to head in when I load up on a monster. Didn't fight like a snapper and had no idea until up pops 15kg of estuary cod. Wow didn't think they were this far south. A few pics and back in the water. Struggled to revive him and even the release weight would not get him down. After 5 or 6 attempts the call was made to keep him and call it a night. Back at the ramp about 8pm.