November 2008

http://www.murchisonboathire.com.au/
MURCHISON BOAT HIRE NOVEMBER 2008 ELETTER
November is usually very quiet for the boats. The weather is usually a bit blowie & the fish
can be a bit uncooperative, but it has proved not to be so. The 5.3m boat is in Coral Bay until just after Christmas, and the 6.1m boat is currently at the mackerel Islands.
Mackerel and tuna have turned up early, (see story below) and the bottom fishing has been
exceptionally good, with big fish the main catch.
So it looks like it is going to be an outstanding season.
I can’t wait!

A lightning visit from Perth for Damian Robinson only gave him 2 days to decide which one to pick for
his trip out with mate Jason Robins. Hiring the 6.1m boat they picked “South” as their destination due to the early
sea breezes expected. I have to admit that the ocean did not look that good but they stayed out for quite a while,
which is a good sign. Sure enough they came back pleased with their catch.

Damian had a couple of baldchin and a respectable cod.

Jason Robins shows off his catch, and he still had some in the esky!

Top days fishing
Justin Demello, had the same idea as Damian and Jason above, but spending 5 days ensuring a good day out.
They took advantage of the $50.00 boat hire discount by staying in one of my accommodation units
With 6 on board it would have been a bit crowded on the 6.1 so went out in the 7.8m.
I had a suspicion that there might be some mackerel down at Wagoe as rumours had reached Kalbarri, and that is where they went.

First up Shane Demello was onto a very early season mac, quickly followed by the
tuna below. Andrew Ng then got his mac. Caught on the 25th November, the earliest by far that we have ever caught mackerel and tuna here!
Here Marcus Chee fights his tuna. It is the first time he has ever been fishing! This northern blue-fin put up one hell of a fight, and Marcus was pleading for help in the end. He still has a lot of work to do on his “pump and wind” technique! It weighed in at 12kgs.
The following day he was complaining about the small size of the bream he was catching at the jetty. That’s normal fishing Marcus, you’re ruined for life!

I initially called it for a yellow-fin, but it just did not look right in the pictures and on the filleting table
There was a bit of discussion on the Fishwrecked website, the thread follows
http://fishwrecked.com/node/17864#comment-112529

Read what Justin had to say about the trip on http://www.fishwrecked.com/ about the trip here
http://fishwrecked.com/node/17869

A bottom bounce later on produced this great cod for Justin Demello.
I told him to get some Octo Jigs as I was having quite a lot of success with them
and sure enough, second jig and this estuary cod came up with an Octo jig in its mouth.

Only Stan Seow was left to catch a fish. Leaving it till the last moment a big bite on his bait made his braid spooled Riobi Safari outfit groan and sing. After considerable time, this more than a metre estuary cod
glided to the surface. Too big to legally keep we returned it to live another day.
A very successful trip when you consider the smallest fish kept was 8kgs!

Good intention bad planning
Mike Kurgan hired the 6.1m boat for 5 days early November. He arrived with his wife, announcing
that he was on his honeymoon and going out in the boat on his own to troll for mackerel!
Two things are wrong with the statement above!
One is that there are usually no mackerel around in November,
Two, no one has the courage to go fishing on their honeymoon!
His wife probably knew this and thought he had other intentions and was planning a surprise.
But no, he went fishing! Mike picked the weather unfavourably and battled the wind each day.
I took him out to a tailor spot one evening, but even the tailor were uncooperative with just
one baby taking a bait. (poppers were not working)

It was still the biggest tailor that he had ever caught!
On the last and best day, I went out with him and tried a couple of my good spots, but
the fish were less than enthusiastic! My baldchin groper came up on an Octo jig, and the red-throats were big when we got a bite but a pretty slow day all round.
Highlight of the day was when Mike announced that there was a shark following out the back!
Luckily I had a shark rig ready to go and a fat mullet was tossed out. Unsure of the species, as it looked quite fat and blue, Mike called it for a mako. Well when it realised that it was hooked up after a few minutes all hell broke loose and it dragged 150m of 80lb braid before doing two enormous cart wheeling leaps.
We chased it down, then it went again with two more leaps twice as high as the boat!
I was stunned! But I got a photo of the splash. 10 mins later the 100lb leader parted
above the metre and a half of wire!

Abalone season off to a good start
The super low tides that we have in November each year really help when collecting abalone.
When this coincides with a low swell picking abs is easy. Son Jared back from boarding school came along to help. We only pick the real big ones and picking them was easy, I did not even get my shorts wet!
Luckily we are north of the Greenough River and the season runs from 1st October to 15th May all day any day.
We are standing on the reef platform between Kalbarri and the end of the Southern Cliffs. There are plenty of abs but finding the big ones needs a bit of reef hopping.
These above were size but we left then as they were not quite big enough, but there were a few bigger ones on the reef above.
They have to be over 60mm; the one above has a lot of algae on it as it came from
a very shaded area under a ledge. You have to look quite hard and under ledges to find the big ones

5.3m Day Trip

Nick Dunn was up in Kalbarri early November and stayed for 5 days or so. He had the 5.3m boat hired for a day
and waited for the best day during his stay to go out. With his brother Tim, over for a short 4 week holiday from
Aberdeen, Scotland, they headed to the Sand Patch picking up 3 snapper. They set a burley trail
expecting a few more but it did not happen, only a few small rubbish fish with Nick trying for
“Bite of the Month” by getting severely bitten by a conger eel!
Keep away from those teeth! They have an anticoagulant in their saliva that makes you bleed constantly!

Bite of the month

This months “Bite of the Month” goes to Stan Seow

A difficult decision this month, Damian’s big cod was going to make it
then Marcus’s big tuna looked like it might knock the cod off,
Then Justin’s bigger cod was looking good until right at the end Stan
got his big bite he was waiting for landing this after an enormous struggle.
See all the previous Bite of the Month winners on my website.

Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club, Local comp 22nd November 2008.
Not much caught during the comp, due to the very ordinary weather and rain on the Friday night.
However Ashley van Viersen landed a few good mulloway from across the river last weekend.
This one went 25ks and he says that he got others at 16kgs, 10kgs and released a few more.
He also got loads of tailor as well, all released!

It makes me wonder?
Last Saturday morning I got up early, dressed quietly, made my lunch and slipped outside to hook the boat up to the ute.
It then started to rain and the wind picked up to 30 knots. I decided that it was not worth going out and admitting defeat
went back into the house, quietly undressed, and slipped back into bed.There I cuddled up to my wife's back, now with a different anticipation, and whispered, 'The weather out there is terrible.'
My loving wife of 20 years replied, 'Can you believe my stupid husband is out fishing in that shit?'
I still don't know to this day if she was joking, but I've stopped going fishing!

Thevenard Island
This year the 6.1m boat spent a lot of time up at Thevenard Island in the Mackerel Islands group off Onslow.
Helen will take your accommodation booking if you would like to visit. Phone her on 9184 6444
bookings@mackerelislands.com.au
Check out the website: http://www.mackerelislands.com.au/

Gnaraloo Station
Gnaraloo contacts for accommodation:
Barbara: 9315 4809
Email: bookings@gnaraloo.com.au
Website: Gnaraloo.com.au

Game, Bottom and Beach Fishing Action
These links will take you to Youtube showing some great action video clips taken from
my boats and also a very good mulloway from the beach.
Triple tuna hook-up
Dhuie and snapper
Beach mulloway

Or go to the Adventure Bound website and view them there. Click this link.
http://www.adventurebound.com.au/news/latest/youtube_kalbarri_wa_offshore_episode.html

Noel and Robyn are willing to accept bookings for my boats at Port Gregory
I will deliver the boat down there for 2 or more days hire for free.
& return it to Kalbarri for you.

Remember if you rent our accommodation in Kalbarri you get big discounts on our boats.
Have a look on my website for the details, and check out the savings.

5-day weather forecasts, http://www.buoyweather.com/ go to virtual buoys, pick the location you want.
This is the one I go by!

Big bait – big fish
Laurie

October 2008

http://www.murchisonboathire.com.au/
It’s the quiet time for me at the moment; the wind starts blowing making it difficult to find a good day to go out.
I get to do a lot of maintenance, and catch up on those jobs that seem to get pushed to the back of the queue.
I have just finished 2 sets of steel mesh ready for the first hire up to Gnaraloo to assist in recovery of
the boat and hirers vehicles in the sand. The first hire gets to take them up in the boat and after using them, to leave them
at the top of the beach for the next hire. They are also used by everyone else, which is fine as long as they are
returned to the top of the beach and not left in the water.
2 pieces weld mesh, staggered & welded together with half inch Rio each side to strengthen it.
There is a building boom on (was) so there is plenty of weld mesh around!

Exmouth Trip
University student Kasey Leong made a short dash to Exmouth during the uni break with 2 mates, picking up the 6.1m boat
at the turn off on his way up from Perth. The first week of October might be a bit late in the year, and that was confirmed
by his comments as to how windy it was. Luckily they had diving gear with them so were able to spend a lot of their time
under water. No wind down there Kasey! The main mission for the trip was to pop for GTs,
however fishing had shut down, although the trip wasn't a complete write-off.
Kasey got a respectable GT from the back of the Ningaloo Reef, out from Tantabiddi, it went about 15-18kg.
He was using a Stickbait, kind of floating popper without the pop part in under 4 m of water.
He says that from 3 days popping only 2 other fish were raised. One was from the back of the Ningaloo, and the other from South Murion Island,
both on his first cast! Both fish were small (under a metre) and were quite shy, only nudging the lures.
Out the back of the reef, the sharks seemed to be very alert, although this coronation trout somehow got through the gauntlet. Diving-wise though, it was worth it, and despite the low vis in the gulf due to the big tides and wind, all involved had a good time.
Here are a couple of pics taken from the Bundegi reef.
We will be going back up again when the winds take a break. Thanks to Laurie for his great service and reliable boat, as always.
Photos complements of Kasey

Big crowds at the Pelican Feeding
During the school holidays big crowds gather at the pelican feeding here in Kalbarri. It still
amazes me, the size of the crowds!

This is just one random day that I stopped in to take a few pics
It’s more of a kid’s thing and kids are selected from the crowd to chuck them a mulie.

A misleading sign. Don’t bring your dog, they won’t feed it!

Another misleading sign

Total waste of time and money erecting a sign like this!

What should it read when they put the lines down????

Bite of the month
This months “Bite of the Month” goes to the GT caught by Kasey Leong
See story above.
See all the previous Bite of the Month winners on my website.

A great day out
A very short flying visit from my brother in law, Peter Barker, over from Cohuna, (The carp capital of Victoria)
prompted a trip out in the new 7.8m boat. Luck was on his side with a very nice day presenting it’s self on cue.

Wife Sue got a double header first drop followed shortly by a dhuie.

Peter then got his dhuie followed by a small shark

Sue got another dhuie, must have been bite time as it had a cray down its throat with the feelers and legs sticking out!

I fished with jigs the whole time not touching a single piece of bait. I did as well as the others,
even landing a size baldchin on an Octojig, and an undersize dhuie on a different brand jig as
well as a nice size dhuie.

We tried to release one of the bigger dhuies, but when they get to this size, the release weight is just not big
enough and we had to keep it. We stopped fishing and came home early.
It’s not always like this, but we saw a big group of whales and went up to see them. I know from
experience that they generally congregate over good ground and kept my eye on the sounder.
There was not much in the way of hard ground but a plume of fish on the bottom near the whales prompted
a drop which resulted in all the above fish caught

Kids Whiting Comp
Every October School Holidays, the Kalbarri Offshore and Angling Club, hosts a whiting competition for kids on each
Thursday of the holidays. It has grown to become a highlight for regular visitors and continues to grow in size each year.
Fishing Western Australia came on board this year as a major sponsor and the prizes were very good.
Kids were winning rods and reels for the smallest blowie, biggest whiting and all sorts of fish. It’s a catch and release comp so anything counts.
We had a record breaking 195 excited kids signing up the first Thursday and 176 the second week.

About 360 fish were caught over the two days in four hours
They caught 13 species of fish, including blue and mud crabs

We had 5 quad bikes ferrying kids to and from the weigh station with their fish.
Each day we finished off with a lunchtime sausage sizzle and prize giving
DPI came up and did a flare demo and let some of the kids
fire off flares.

The new Fishing regulations to come into force in January 2009

PROTECTING OUR FISH FOR THE FUTURE – WEST COAST
New rules for managing the recreational catch of demersal scale fish in the west coast bioregion

New recreational rules from January 2009
Fisheries Minister Norman Moore has announced a revised package of recreational fishing rules to take effect in January 2009,
at the same time that further changes to reduce commercial fishing effort will take effect.

1. Reduced mixed bag limit for high risk fish – 4 per person per dayThe mixed daily bag limit for “high risk” fish will be reduced from seven to four fish in the West Coast Bioregion.

2. Reduced species bag limit for pink snapper – 2 per person per dayThe daily bag limit for pink snapper will be reduced from four to two fish per person.

3. Increased minimum legal size for pink snapper south of Lancelin South of Lancelin, the minimum legal size for pink snapper will be increased from 41cm to 45cm on 1 January 2009 and then from 45cm to 50cm in 2010.

4. Boat limit for “high risk” fish A Boat Limit for “high risk” fish is introduced for recreational boats and licensed fishing tours. Where one to four fishers are on board a boat, the boat limit would be
eight “high risk” fish (subject to individual daily bag limits). Where five or more fishers are on board, an additional two “high risk”
fish per person (over and above the new boat limit) is permitted for the fifth and additional fishers.

5. Discourage fishing competitions from targeting “high risk” fish.

6. Reduced possession limit at Abrolhos Islands to 10 kilos per person. The finfish possession limit within the Abrolhos Islands Fish and Fish Habitat Protection Area is reduced from 20kg to 10kg of fillets or from 2 day's
bag limit to one day's bag limit of whole fish per person – this possession limit can be transported back to the mainland. The possession limit to remain in
place for at least two years while a review to assess the option of managing the Abrolhos Islands as a wilderness “no take away” fishing area is undertaken.

7. Voluntary logbook program for “high risk” fish Introduce a voluntary logbook program for high-risk fish to provide additional catch and effort information.

8. Recreational Fund review The Recreational Fishing Fund will be reviewed with a view of providing recreational fishing stakeholders more meaningful input
into recreational fishing spending priorities.

9. Research into large-scale closures Further research be undertaken to investigate the appropriateness of introducing large scale fish reserves or closed areas to provide protection for large numbers
of fish or over an area, which is particularly important to spawning.

And for recreational cray fishers

Minister limits recreational lobster take to six.

Fisheries Minister Norman Moore today outlined details of plans to limit the recreational fishing take of western rock lobsters.

“Taking effect from the opening of this year’s season, the daily bag limit for lobsters taken by each recreational fisher will be
reduced from eight to six,” he said.

“There will be a similar reduction in the catch limit per boat from 16 lobsters to 12 and we will impose a ban on the use of power
winches on recreational boats to prevent the lifting of commercial pots.”

Mr Moore said he would also place a personal possession limit of 24 lobsters per licence holder. This will replace the existing
‘unrestricted’ number of lobsters allowed per licence holder - subject to daily bag and boat limits - and will apply State-wide.

“Starting next year, we will delay the current November 15 start of the recreational rock lobster season in zone C (which
extends from Jurien Bay to Augusta and is where 80 per cent of recreational lobster fishing occurs) to coincide with the
November 25 start of the commercial lobster fishing season.

Mandurah Boat Show

I just happened to be in Perth while the Mandurah Boat Show was on so went along to have a look.
I felt that the show lacked a bit of lustre or vibrancy? It might have been my mood as I wasn’t buying a boat this year, but
I did see a few that I would like. There was nothing new and seemed to be same old same old stuff.
They would not let anyone aboard this boat, the biggest at the show, even when I said that I was a serious buyer they did not believe me.
I guess they have a list of people who arrive by helicopter!

Thevenard Island
This year the 6.1m boat spent a lot of time up at Thevenard Island in the Mackerel Islands group off Onslow.
Helen will take your accommodation booking if you would like to visit. Phone her on 9184 6444
bookings@mackerelislands.com.au
Check out the website: http://www.mackerelislands.com.au/

Gnaraloo Station
Gnaraloo contacts for accommodation:
Barbara: 9315 4809
Email: bookings@gnaraloo.com.au
Website: Gnaraloo.com.au

Game, Bottom and Beach Fishing Action
These links will take you to Youtube showing some great action video clips taken from
my boats and also a very good mulloway from the beach.
Triple tuna hook-up
Dhuie and snapper
Beach mulloway

Or go to the Adventure Bound website and view them there. Click this link.
http://www.adventurebound.com.au/news/latest/youtube_kalbarri_wa_offshore_episode.html
Noel and Robyn are willing to accept bookings for my boats at Port Gregory
I will deliver the boat down there for 2 or more days hire for free.
& return it to Kalbarri for you.

Remember if you rent our accommodation in Kalbarri you get big discounts on our boats.
Have a look on my website for the details, and check out the savings.