North West Fly-By

It’s almost time to head up north again so I thought I should get around to writing something about my last trip. 

We left my house about 4pm the idea being that we would drive through the night as far as we could and then pull over, roll out the swag, sleep till first light and then finish off the drive in the cool of the morning. My good friend and fishing buddy for the next few days Carl was to drive the first shift and then I would take the graveyard shift. 

The prospect of collecting some wild life on the way while driving at night is a reality but when you’re restricted to a week off and you’ve got a thousand kilometres to cover each way sometimes you just have to take your chances. A good set of spotties (unless your like Carl and are to tight to fork out for them) helps out no end and should give you a bit of time to throw out the anchor although that’s only best case scenario. Growing up in the country I always drive by the rule, “Where there’s one there’s more” hopefully your seeing the last one to cross the road and not the first!


The trip was quite un-eventful and we reached Gladstone about 2am. Gladstone was an old wool port (jetty) that was used to load small vessels to transport the wool back to Perth. There’s not much left now just some old foundations and ruins of the jetty.There are some picnic tables and plenty of room to roll out a swag and It would probably be a good place to launch a small boat.

Camp

We woke early and pushed into Carnarvon where we did our shop for the week and re-fuelled.and it was on to the station we would be staying at for the week. In no time we were at the water and arrived just as guy was just wrapping up his mornings fish. He had bagged himself a Shark Mackerel and a small Blue Bone. We went up for a bit of a chat and he pointed to the Sharkie that was lying in the sun and offered it too us saying he already had some in the freezer. Myself and Carl both looked at each other, and then glancing back at the sad looking fish we politely declined.

As we walked a long the rocks checking out the ledges and what-not we came to bit of a vee in the rocks, just as we were saying that it looks like a good spot for fish to push bait into, there was an eruption of colour and water, something started smashing whatever was down there. Carl must have thought a lion had appeared or one of those dodgy service station pies had begun to work its magic because all that was left of me was my outline in flies!

I ran back to the car, ripped out my rod, whacked on my reel and was bombing a  raider into the water in less than five minutes. I think it was about my third cast when the raider was smashed and line began to peel off the reel. I couldn’t believe it, talk about beginners luck!  After a couple of good runs I had the fish’s number and brought it in with the wash onto the rocks.
Sharkie! My first Sharkie! I couldn’t believe it, what was this piscatorial paradise where a newbie can pick up a fish like this only ten minutes of getting out of the car! A few quick pics and the fish was back in the water to fight again another day.

First Sharkie!!

We planned to camp the first night at the camp grounds to the south of the Homestead
and do a bit of night fishing as we had heard reports of monster Mulloway being caught off the beaches there. Unfortunately there was quite a bit of weed being churned up onto the beaches and we could only find a few gaps to have a go. Weed? We’d driven a thousand kilometres north and I was still being haunted by my arch nemesis!! Argh!

The spot we chose was about fifty meters wide at a point where beach dropped off very quickly into deep water. We spent the afternoon making rigs and doing a bit of exploring but really our minds were only on one thing, sunset. We had brought a selection of baits including scalies which Carl (being the good Italian boy he is) had caught fresh from the ammo jetty in Fremantle, and some sand whiting that I had caught over the previous few weeks from my local beach. A few blocks of mulies and gardies rounded out the bait box. 


As the light started to fade our lines were in the water. We waited, and waited
and burlied up and waited, it had reached 9 o’clock and still nothing, what was going on? I had fished Exmouth and Coral bay a fair few times before so was at least expecting a couple of Trevally or Emperer but nothing? It was weird. Carl decided that there was no use forcing it so he packed up his rod and turned his attention to the beers.

As the moon crested the sand dunes and hit the water it was like somebody flicked the switch. Bzzzzzzzz drag started peeling off the spheros, then ping! Bitten off. “Must be a few sharks starting to come out” I said to Carl which barely got a response. I rigged up again and reckon the bait was in the water for about thirty seconds before history repeated, to which this time Carl muttered “Where’s my rod?” and I replied “Ill get the trace”. Five minutes later we were both back in the drink. We re-baited with scalies and waited. 

Sure enough Carls rod started to scream and we both called for a shark immediately and didn’t disappoint in the battle. When beached it was about 5 foot and very very angry. Carl was yelling “grab its tail, grab its tail” which is always the appropriate thing to yell when you’re the one holding the rod and your mates the one doing the river dance in the white stuff with jaws! We had the gaff handy but it was too big for us to keep so we decided to just cut the trace and nudge it back out. I think the reality that the Sharks were only going to get bigger meant it was a good time for us to hit the hay and start fresh tomorrow. What a first day.


We rolled in to the homestead about 9am and as check-in wasn’t till 11 we decided to go for a look up the coast  On the way we bumped into a station hand who is a resident on the station six months a year. We told him about my Shark Mackerel and he told us he had lost 15 from 15 to the sharks and he didn’t want to hear anymore about Mackerel. He said there had been quite a few people fishing each morning including a group of fly fisherman and a group of South-Africans, but the fishing had been a little lean and the sharks were causing a bit of grief.

We checked into the cabin, unloaded our gear and decided to relax for a while to make some rigs and head for an arvo session. We were staying in the posh part of town, up the front over-looking the beach, 24 hour power, hot water and fridge/freezer. we decided to just kick back with a few beers and watch the sunset after a big 48 hours.

A hairy climb down to the rocks in darkness

The next morning I awoke to hear Carl stumbling around the kitchen and it wasn’t long before I realized it was light. There was no excuse in the world that I will ever believe other than Carl hit the snooze and drifted gently back off into the land of nod. From that moment on I was in charge of the alarm. It probably wasn’t the worst thing in the world that our first climb down to the ledges was in the morning light as  it can be very treacherous even with the rock hoppers and a good headlamp. 

We got down there to find everybody else already fishing hard and as all the spots facing north west were taken I set up looking south west along the higher part of the ledge .It wasn’t long before I heard some whoops and hollers coming from Carl’s direction and before I could get over there with the gaff he’d already flicked a sharkie up out of the water like an old school tuna fisherman! "One all Russ" he yelled.

I was slowly baitcasting a scalie when fly fishermen came walking around the rock with a fish on “Can you gaff this for me mate?” he said. This was going to be my first go with the gaff and he looked pretty serious. I lowered the three, three meter lengths of anodized gaff down underneath the Sharkie at the bottom of the cliff face and ripped it up, a wave of relief came over me as I felt it hit home in the fish’s flank. When we got the fish up the guy was ecstatic! His first fish in two weeks of fishing with fly, and it was his birthday! He turned out to be a really nice guy and kept thanking me all morning I got chatting with him and he explained he was a fisheries officer from the Northern Territory and had wanted to fish The Norwest for years.

While this was going on Carl had landed two more Sharkies and was truly on fire
Everyone was laughing and giving each other heaps of stick. It turned out to be a really good morning with a good bunch of guys. It was great to see so many different fishing methods and tactics all in the one spot, bait casting, spinning, fly-fishing, and figure eight casting. Not to mention the assortment of unusual lures that were being dug-out of the bottom of tackle boxes. At the end of the session all I could manage was one small spango while Carl cleaned up on the sharkies. But all that was about to change.

Our haul of "Sharkies"

The next morning we were up early and a couple of cans of Redbull later we were set up and ready to got just as the black of the previous night was giving way to the cold grey of the morning. The first fish of the day was for me, a spango at about 60cm and 3 kg. It was about 7am and a bit quiet when Carl decided to do a bit of spinning while I was soaking baits. Bang! Freight train! The braid just started screaming off the reel like id just hooked a passing bus. Carl was right behind me giving the usual advice “Let it run” “Not to much drag” “Its starting to get tired now mate” “I think it’s a good fish” It would be easy to exaggerate and say I fought the beast for hours but in truth it was probably no more than ten minutes.

 I'd fought it all the way around the rock when the station hand came over with the gaff and offered to do the bizzo, to which Carl and myself quickly agreed that was a great idea. I was surprised with how the fish behaved when it was in range, it slowed, rolled and was gaffed with the least amount of effort.



The Cobia was a cracker 20kg and a 120cm. My arms were pumped, my heart was pounding and my legs were shaking, more from the adrenalin that fatigue I think. After a quick photo session Carl had bait back in the water and was almost immediately hooked up. A short battle ensued and another smaller cobia was on the rock, this time after a clumsy gaffing exhibition from yours truly.

Average size Nor'wester

20Kg Cobia, still the strongest fish I have fought

Our last day we were joined by the South Africans chaps who we really enjoyed fishing with. Over the previous couple of days we had found that we weren’t catching the spango’s till right on twilight, when it was just getting to the point where you were starting to consider taking the headlamp off. That’s when it was time to whack a Whiting on and give it a slow retrieve. There’s always an assortment of little peckers at the bottom and it is pretty easy to get run into the rocks if you get a little bit greedy and retrieve all the way to the bottom of the cliff, but this is a double edged sword because a lot of the big fish come from that very location.


The morning didn’t disappoint and I was soon hooked up to a decent fish that was taking drag all over the place but not swimming out to far from the bottom. It defiantly didn’t feel like the average size fish and after a bit of muscle work the water broke to the unmistakable fright colours of a cracking big spango.

Carl did a great job with the gaff using it as a hook to hold the braid away from the razor sharp rocks as the swell was a little bit surgier than it had been on the previous mornings. A quick flick of the gaff inbetween swells and 79cm of Nor west snapper was on the rocks, a personal best for me and a real fat fish.

79cm Spangled Emperor, a real freight train!!

Two more big Nor'westers (one heaved out in Carl’s tuna fisherman fashion) made for more happy faces and we were on fire! As quick as they were on, they were gone. It was time for a shift to scalies for a crack at some Cobia. Clipping the tails off scalies really helps to get them out the back when bait casting. We were using a small running bean or barrel on our leader when fishing for the Spangled Emperor but left them unweighted for the Cobia. Sure enough after ten or fifteen minutes Carl was onto a small Cobia which we gaffed without a problem.

Carls first Cobia

We fished till about 10am, sided our fish and started the walk back to the car.
We took our time on the walk back as you could always see schools of tuna smashing it up from the added height the cliffs offered, one morning we even saw baldies swimming around in the reef holes 50 meters below us. Our intention was to get one more fish in before we started the drive home the next day but we never did. I don’t think we wanted to risk tarnishing the unbelievable four days with a rushed session. 

It is easy to see how people get addicted to our North West coastline. It’s not uncommon to hear how people have been making the annual trip for thirty years or more!


      

Russell Hood-Penn