Great Pelagics

Some excellent pelagic fishing has been had this year, although patchy at times, there have been both longtail and mack tuna, GTs, Bludgers, spaniards and even an occasional billfish showing up.



A nice GT on Jig





Tuna on Fly





Yes, this rod did break!!




Some great spanish on fly opportunities have presented themselves



















A Pair of hard pulling Bludgers (the fish, not the fishermen)















Another First Fly caught Spanish.












A surprise 350lb black marlin which ate a 10lb spanish mackerel whilst being fought on 30 lb spin tackle - boatside in just over 2 hours!!

A FEW UNUSUAL CUSTOMERS......

A Couple of Kissing (Fighting??) Blue Bastards

Estuarine Stonefish....

Floss with a couple of much sought after species on the fly - a nice diamond trevally and a rare tripletail.

First Day Ever Saltwarter Fly Fishing...

WHAT A WAY TO KICK OFF YOUR SALTWATER FLY FISHING CAREER - QUEENIES, GOLDIES, BLUE SALMON, BIG COBIA, A FEW REEFIES FOLLOWED BY A SIGHT FISHED BLUE BASTARD AND ENDING UP WITH A BARRA, WELL OK THE BARRA WASN'T CAUGHT BY MAX (GRAHAM CAUGHT IT) BUT HE DID CATCH ALL THE OTHERS AND MORE, JUST ON DAY 1. WHERE ELSE BUT WEIPA.

A Picture Says a Thousand Words......

Hi all and my apologies for not posting news and pictures for some time, so I'll put lots of pictures here in the next few days which will give an overview of the last couple of months. Enjoy!!

A few nice jewies have been making an apearance.

Barras too.....

No time to scratch!

Well I know I said i would keep things up to date but when you get home from work and clean the boat for the next day and then do emails for an hour, you just don't have the fuel to think about posting an entry onthe blog.

Even Notso has been just too tired to make an entry.

Anyhow the fishing has been pretty good since last entry which is about 3 weeks. Plenty of spaniards around and quite a few tuna although they are infrequently showing themselves staying deep and under cover. A week ago there were spaniards leaping in the air and visible in just about every direction there were so many.

Ther have also been a few schools of bludger trevally around, these fish pull hard like a kingie or samson fish and are great fun.

And of course there are the everpresent sharks making a pain in the butt out of themselves.

There is the odd day out there though when they are not around and it sure is good to play a fish to the boat and not be harrassed by them. Plenty of good blue salmon on the beaches also.

Here is a few pics to drool over for the moment. I will update as soon as I can.

"Kaos"

This week we had the "Kaos" group as they are more affectionately known.

They are 8 guy's with the right attitude that really know how to enjoy themselves and have been coming for the last 5 years.

Kaos and his group were mostly fly fishing and had some wonderful beach fishing and afew rare encounters with pelagics with few sharks.

"Sad about the shirt colour ladies"

Last week was a bit of a mix with both conventional and fly fisho's that also found a few good fish.

Kristian Stebbing with a nice GT, he managed to land this one after a much bigger one broke the leader

Tim Meares with a fine barra caught and released in the Embley

Back in the swing

Everybody has been busy in the last few weeks with the season now rolling along at last.

The fishing has been good most day's and plenty of fish to keep the anglers happy, both for the fly fishermen and the conventional fisho!

Here are a few pics to check out from this last week and I am sure Notso will post a few also

Rick Baobel with a 70cm barra fly caught from the beach

Ricky Baobel with a fine cobia caught on a soft plastic

Check out the bait schools on my sounder. This shows just how much bait is coming into the harbour. This was right at the entrance to the harbour being hammered by big queenies.

Unfortunately for a number of those queenies they were being caught by a few guy's in hire boats fishing in the area and killing every one of them.

If everyone that comes up here has to fill their freezers to have a good time, then it wont be long before we have no reason for those idiots to come here as the fishing will be just the same as where they live.

Queenies turn into fish icecream when frozen, yet some people have to kill everything that swims just because they can. If only these tourists could just have fun catching a few fish and releasing most, maybe taking enough for a feed but put a few back for next time.

Sonya & Tony's Week

Well, it was game on again for me last week, with Sonya and Tony fishing for 6 days, spending 2 days down the coast and 4 in the rivers. The fishing was quite special some days - up to 60 or so fish in the creek for the day, with another day producing over 50 barras, both on lures and live bait. Te pelagics were a little tough at times, however one afternoon we found a number of mackerel and some tuna - both longtail and macks which were eager to eat metal slugs cast into the feeding masses.

Sonya managed a great threadfin salmon on a lure one afternoon, while in the middle of another day, in a quiet(?) backwater, lunch
had to be delayed as mullet after mullet was eaten by masses of hungry barras

This nice golden trevally fought hard and after release we watched as a dolphin that was hanging around caught and ate it.

A few more pics

Just a few more pics of the happy couple fishing together.

Notso finally caught his triple tail after hooking a bigger one the day before and losing it at the boat, his first ever!

Kristy caught this 88cm barra on a lure which is her PB on a lure also.

The release what a great feeling watching them swim away!

Playing before the work starts.

Myself,Notso and Kristy decided to go out chuck a few lures about and have a few cold beers yesterday afternoon. The pics below are what eventuated to make it an enjoyable and interesting few hours.

The little lizard ( about 1.6m) was infatuated with the vixen surface lure and almost climbed into the boat while chasing it. Kristy had her feet on the gunwhale but retracted them incredibly fast even though she was looking through the viewfinder taking the pics, I won't print the expletives that came from my darling daughters mouth at the time. we did manage to catch a few nice ones though.

A New Season Begins

Well the rains are still with us and we had a phenominal wet February.

So far this year since Jan 1st we have had 1590mm with our wettest day 140mm, so it looks like being a beauty if it keeps going.

There have been quite a few barras around lately, so Duane and I went out for a fish the other day for 4 hrs. In that short but enjoyable sassion we caught 2 queenfish, 4goldies, 2 mangrove jacks, 18 barras, a couple of barracuda and an estuary cod.

Not too bad for a couple of hours?.

Although I went down the coast last week and didn't get much top the boat to speak of.

Hooking a few good fingermarks but the sharks and a big groper giving us a hiding and stealing just about everything.

Here is a pic of Jason Owens (Owy) our new guide with a 90cm barra caught and released yesterday in the Mission river.

For those of you who don't know, Jason is an experienced fly fisherman and will be a welcome addition to the team this year. He also has a few clues on those frustrating Milkies and can obviously use a baitcaster also.

Rainy time

AS some might be aware we have had quite a bit of rainalready this year, and we are hoping it will be a big wet and flush out the rivers

.

Here is a couple of pics of both the boat ramps after the high tides and storm surge from cyclone Helen.

Both of the boat ramps have a couple of feet of gravl and rock piled over them and are virtually unuseable.

Exciting Trip for Brynn

My son Brynn visited for a week to see the family before Xmas and to get in a bit of fishing while he was here.

Although I am still supposed to be laid up after my operation I decided to take my boat out with Notso, Kristy and Brynn.

We caught a half of dozen tuna and a couple of Spaniards before hooking up a nice marlin of around 140lb.

Brynn had the marlin alongside for a couple of pics within 50 min and ended his Weipa trip on a high and what a xmas present.

This was Brynn's first ever marlin, and did a great angling job to land it.

The marlin was released to fight again and we got some great video and pics.

Merry Xmas to ALL

I would just like to wish all of my clients a very Merry Xmas and hope to see you all in the New Year.

I have just had my hernia operation and am feeling a little sore at present and worst of all can't go fishing for a week or so, there fore don't have a lot to report.

I will however have something for you straight after the New year celebrations.

Just for something to think about here's a pic of Nic Jooste and his fly caught bull shark

R & D

Just what does a fishing guide do on his days off?? Research of course (well, fishing anyway). This pic is of a permit I found recently mooching along the beach (look closely - tail and dorsal out of the water). Alas - there is no photo of me holding it! The fish seemed pre occupied on whatever it was doing and never seemed to acknowlege the crab fly I had - maybe I found a blind permit! Anyway, that's why they're high up the hard to catch ladder. Kristy was with me for the day and we enjoyed some nice weather, caught a coral trout for tea, a decent queenie on light spin gear, played with a mantaray and found a couple of barras.

Marlin to Manta Rays

Hi all, Well I'm back from another Cairns marlin season and already have slipped a quick charter in back here in Weipa. This year I had Lee who guided with us for some of the season here in Weipa on the deck. As you can see from the picture, marlin like to get up close and personal at times! Luckily Lee (LuckyLee??) got out of the way of this 750lb fish, using the tag pole to fend off and tag the fish at the same time. The season turned out to be the slowest in years, altough there was still some great fish to be caught, although cyclone Guba ended it a little early for me.





Last week I had Bill and his son Alex, both from Sydney fish with me for the week. They had a great week with lots of fly targets including small queenies, goldies, giant herring, small queenies, small mackerel (even had a 30lb fish almost jump in the boat in the harbour), barras, manta ray action and, did I mention the small queenies. Huge volumes of jelly prawns were the food supply along many of the beaches which attracted most of these fish. Well, some more time off, so its R & D for a while, but stay tuned for the results!! NOTSO