G'day All, Galleycat has arrived back in Dampier Harbour with the simple task of hiding from 3 dayz of 20knot Westerly winds. The journey here from Dolphin Island resulted in 2 spanish mackerel, 1 coral trout, 2 GT's and a barracouta (not so good) but still lotz of activity. If your going to drive these area's you might as well run a pattern of lures, Chris can give evidence that Barra classics work really well in shallow reefy area's.
Our base is now secure so itz thyme 2 head out in2 the Islands for a 2 week discovery cruise! I've had a response to my Facebook add and I'll be joined for this trip by a farmer (Rick) from the Northern area's of Perth.
Rick's 1st fish, 25kg of Thumpin GT. Followed closely by a stinky Barra couta. Several small mackerel then say hello to 2 more GT's B4 we nailed a nice Queenfish (perfect for sushimi and nummas).
Several dayz later and Rick and I are "fished out!".
A massive day and then night just North of Legendry Island had us tussling with some monster phishes with a massive longtail tuna and an even bigger Spanish mackerel. Then for added spectacle we had a whale shark circle the yot twice. "Too big to photograph". I've got a foto but itz just a mass of dots!
The variety of fish haz proved a winner with the trolled lures giving us some real trophy fish. Lotz of foto'z but not much dialogue as I'm 2 busy fishing! When you R releasing every fish you can, the task becomes much simpler as we don't need to bleed, fillet then freeze the fillets.
Obviously when you're only catch and release the Gaff doesn't help much so itz gloves and Boga grips to lift in sum thumping big fishes.
Itz close to a week later and we are working our way back through the Islands after a brief journey in2 Port Sampson. For Ice! as the ice production on the yot proving 2B not sufficient to give us frozen bottles when itz 38 degrees outside and even warmer in. And I kneed ice for my bourbon!
As I said lotz of fish but a few Sharx as well, unfortunate, but it comes with the territory as our floating balloon lines go "off" in 2 or 3 minutes after being deployed with massive and not so massive attacks B4 the sharx move in and make it not fun any more.
The argument as to whether 2 get Starlink itz proving unnecessary as even in the islands and as far as the Montebello's you can get service if you know where 2 look itz once more a case of local knowledge.
Longtail tuna and big mackerel are about, 2 harass the lures but itz the floating linez under balloon rigs that catch the BIG ones. With both the biggest mack and the biggest Tuna falling victim to floating live baits. As such we found ourselves fishing in 20 meters of water for the smallest fish we could catch. So much so that we were making up small hook sabiki jigs to catch ever smaller fish 4 the balloon linez.
Trophy phish fell 2 these baited lines with such regularity that could nearly set your watch to the strikes on live baits. 3 dayz later and we fish the same grounds with mixed results! A few big fish but lotz more sharx.
Rick haz left the yot and now itz thyme for some maintenance with 2 impellors 2B replaced, the port motor and the genset have both got no water flow and they are kind of essential when itz 35-38 degrees each day.
I've put an add of facebook to see if I can get a few people together for a mothershipping trip to the Montebello's. I've got the old fashioned paper chartz now for the Monte's and also last weex destination the Dampier Archipelago. with this new information (wkoa) the Monte's should B far more productive (if thatz possible)
Monster Coral trouts and more reef species than we could count last thyme!
Still there waz a lot less Sharx at the Monte's.
Jobs done and now the motors are both running and the air conditioning worx again. Yippee!