Email: lasue@wn.com.au http://www.murchisonboathire.com.au/
A very quiet month, mainly due to the demersal closure, I fear, but then again I am getting a lot of
maintenance done, new brochures printed, website tweaking, and basically getting everything right
for the coming season that is gearing up to be very busy. Bookings for next year’s northern haunts
are already fairly well booked, with only a week here and there, so if you were thinking of going north
during the best weather autumn/winter months, get it booked now!
The cray season started on the 15th of November and being a Sunday, was a bonus. The professionals can’t fish
Sundays so us amateurs had it all to ourselves! Usually at the beginning of the season there are a lot of crays to catch
but drops away quite quickly as they shed their shells and bury themselves deep in the reef holes and sand to
avoid predators getting an easy soft meal! Jason and I got 9 and then 10 crays the first couple of days, then I
had to go to Perth for a week or so.
On returning, my oldest son “Movember” Ben above and his girlfriend,
Laura, came up for 3 days and asked to go cray fishing. Well over the three days we got one cray, 2 occies and an eel!
The pots are now on the lawn waiting until after the full moon in December when the cray shells have hardened and
the crays come out starving and begin a mini migration out to deeper water. Easy to catch then with most days
getting our boat limit of 12.
Mid Week Getaway.
Justin De Mello is a keen angler. I first met him 7 years ago when he came up with a group and caught
his first tuna. It was a good one at that, landed during a double hook-up with another first timer.
Unfortunately Justin is plagued by the dreaded seasickness and likes to keep his feet on dry land.
He has been back and forth to Kalbarri a few times with a burning desire to catch a big tailor which has eluded him so far,
but there were plenty of small ones around for him and his group to have fun with.
Jason picked up an unusual small cobia one evening, 
while the rest of the gang caught a few in
the morning from Wittecarra Creek.
They stayed in my holiday accommodation, perfect for their requirements, with filleting table, bait freezer,
plenty of space, and enclosed back yard protected from the wind, which can be troublesome this time of year.
Their catches on the filleting table and brick paving. The thong and beer bottle must be there for scale!
Outriggers
I have bought a pair of outriggers, kind of been looking around for a while. We needed them on my last marlin trip
but made do with a couple of beach rod halves with a clip on the end. They were not long enough!
The stainless steel brackets will be fixed to my 7.8m boat and will be offered as an optional extra to hire for those
who want to chase marlin and sails up north.
Optional extras?
Small rate rise next year
It had to happen, but we are putting our hire rates up by a small percentage as from 1/1/10. We last had a small
rate increase at the beginning of 2008 and due to the so called recession kept them the same for 2009.
As last time, for those who have already paid their deposit/bond and who pays their deposit/bond before 1/1/10
will still get the old price quoted to you at the time of your booking. Some of you have bookings right up to July
next year and will be getting the old price!
New prices will be posted on my website early January
I will have to be strict on this, so get your deposit/bonds in before you miss out!
Boat for sale
Don Stander’s boat is for sale, the one he won the Under 6m Boat game in the last Classic.
It’s a Selva DD 5.5m 2007 model.
100hp 4-stroke Yamaha. $39,990.
For more details contact me on 9937 2043
Latest info is he has bought a Wellcraft 232, over 7m powered by a 250 4-stroke Yamaha!
He won’t be in the same category as me in the Classic again, luckily!
Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club Monthly Comp 28th November 2009.
Due to the demersal ban still on, few boats went out. I had a troll with son Jared, hoping for an early mackerel.
We got one alright, but it was a small spotted mackerel, bit of a surprise as they usually only seem to turn up around February for a short time.
The beach anglers did well with mulloway and tailor
The river section fished well again and most of the regulars have it well sussed out.
They nearly always catch their bag limit and by keeping them live can upgrade
if they get a bigger one. 
This one of Brett’s had a tag in it.
Of the 503 fish tagged over the last 5 years or so, we have only recaptured 3.
We are not sure if the tags are being nipped off by other fish, naturally lost, do the fish die,
or are there so many fish in the river that we just don’t catch them?
Popular Northern Destinations
Thevenard Island
There are new managers at the Onslow Mackerel Motel, Colin and Rosa will now look after you on the mainland.
Rosa will take your accommodation booking if you would like to visit. Phone her on 9184 6586
Colin will sort you out with a lock up storage area for trailers and your vehicle when you are at the island.
Drew is still the Island manager: 9184 6444.
This year the 6.1m and 7.8m boats are already booked for Thevenard Island but there are still spaces available for adventures in this great place.
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
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
Email: 
Low tide early morning, pick the easy ones first.
Spot them first, wait for the right opportunity, sometimes this means waiting a few sets before making your move.
Its reef ledges like this that they are on, right in the holes. Some spots you just can’t get to!
Best to go with another person who also has a licence, that way you can watch each other’s backs, call out
When you find a spot with lots of big ones, it is hard to pass up. This was a good day!
Make sure you only get 20 per license holder per day; 
most of the ones we pick are well over size.
Wash the sand off them, 
cut them out of their shells 
and pound them with a tenderiser.
Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club Monthly Comp 24th October 2009.
Sue won the senior section with her sambo and a skippy. She released a big baldchin, 
the stingray and a few pink snapper.
Nic Bramwell landed 2 nice mulloway from the beach to win the land based section.
One of them is currently in Shark Bay. Weather looking good, Steven should have a good trip!
They are going to take a lot of work to get them up to Murchison Boat Hire standard, but are going to be really nice when finished.
Due for survey on the 17th September, I am going to have to pull my finger out to get them ready!
Double hook-up of yellow-fin tuna! You can see the differences in the two photos.
We headed further out to deeper water and fished a couple of spots on my GPS resulting in this 9kg dhuie for me as well as a size red emperor, baldchin and big snapper. Jason and Daniel got a couple of smaller dhuies, snapper and red-throat emperor.
Not a lot of information was forthcoming but these photos sent from Christian De Ran shows that they got into some fish.
The conditions throughout the week were very testing, as the northerly winds churned things up a bit. The 7.8 definitely saved our week.
It was a very unusual week for us. We like to do a lot of trolling for Mackerel,
The only tuna around where some good sized Mack tuna (great bait) which provided us with a lot of entertainment. With the cooler temps, we were forced to do a bit more bottom bouncing than usual. To our surprise we found that the saddle tail perch and red
It was good to see that the station owners had began to do a bit of work around the place. Paul seems to be a lot more motivated to enhance
The bay is a beautiful place and this year was no exception. Our virgin for 2009 was a guy named Dave Stanley, soon to be renamed shark man.
We were really hoping to get a chance to chase some sail fish. Laurie had given us a fair idea where to look and we certainly had all of the gear.
We arrived in Onslow on Saturday evening and spent the night at the Onslow Mackerel Motel setting up our rods and reels in anticipation of the next day’s fishing (we did not wish to miss a single moment). We awoke to a magnificent day with light breezes (which continued for the next three days) and the excitement of getting into the water spurred us to quickly load the boat, launch and head for the island. By 11.30am we had arrived and
Our plan for the week was “catch and release” only keeping one or two quality fish for the evening meal.
Over the next seven days we fished Airlie and Rosily Island, Rosily Shoals, Penguin Bank (including a long stint of trolling for sail fish in 60 to 70m) and drop-offs immediately west of Thevenard Island. All of the most successful way-points are still on the boat GPS, some were more successful than others and those lucky enough to hire Laurie’s boat next will certainly have a head start.
The fish caught were many and varied both in size and species but some of the more memorable ones included
Unfortunately our island adventure all too soon came to an end and needless to say it was a grim group of guys making their way back to Onslow against a very stiff south east wind. The trip back to Perth was made more bearable with the many stories of the week’s events and certainly the memories of some of the superb catches will remain with us for a long time. We have already commenced planning for the next adventure.
Kalbarri Offshore & Angling Club Monthly Comp 22nd August 2009.
Son Jared teasing a skua with a mulie. The skua eventually took the mulie from his hand.
Sambo for Nik from his dinghy 
and junior Beau’s snapper from the same dinghy.
Land based sambo for Daniel 
and son Jared with his catch.
We caught a monster pinky at the spot called `trout` just as the swells were getting worse and worse.
Details are a but sketchy as I was up north, but son Ben managed the boats while I was away
We stopped and got the obligatory photo at the King Waves Kill Sign
The resident big cod came to the back of the boat
A couple of males and a female caspian tern were active on the beach. (It is obvious that the female is on the left)
The whales performed near the boat and with the sun in the right place for a change!
10kg rankin cod, 
red emperors, 
and 13kg golden trevally. Mixed in with that were
Snorkelling was very good again in the Gnaraloo Bay sanctuary zone and we did have a snorkel at 3 Mile. The water was a lot murkier at 3 Mile but this was due to the larger swell that kicked up on the last day. The fish were bigger and more numerous, but the coral not as good. All the above coral pics by Sue and taken at Gnaraloo Bay.
Sue, myself, and Paul. We rigged gardies on home made outriggers.
The swell was really pumping and these guys got wet!
Ross says with a grin from ear to ear. "Must of been the bait!" jokes Lui.
"Yeah, you guys might wanna come a have a look at this" Lui gloats.
Son Jared deserves it this month. Hooking up to a sail on a garfish set for a mackerel, Jared fought the fish on inadequate gear for a couple of hours. His second sailfish took both baits set for sails, both circle hooks setting which saw Paul and Jared
Paul shows off a very good mackerel he caught from my boat at Coral Bay this month.
Email: 
I was fortunate to be able to get on a trip out to Preston Island; it’s about 2km offshore from Cape Preston, 50 odd km west of Karratha. It is part of a mining lease and there will be a causeway built from the mainland of Cape Preston out around this island
Scott Davies was the hirer for this trip bringing along much the same group as last year.
Merv with a rarely caught surf parrotfish, 
Matt’s first dhuie 
and Norm with a good mackerel
Merv had all the luck catching most of the good fish, 
but Brian landed his first mackerel and dhufish during the trip.
Great snapper for Scott and dhufish for Norm, both hooked up at the same time. 
Scott spent about an hour on this big ray, which was actually bigger than the photo shows.
Blowing 20 knots and a rough sea, it would have been uncomfortable to say the least.
Surveying the water between the island and mainland in the background.
No really outstanding fish this month, but nothing really beats
So far they are looking the part, but a few more improvements are still needed.
They are catching all sorts of stuff. Out fishing bait!
Some of the macs were a bit a cut above average. This one around 13kgs
Thevenard Island
We stayed at Yardie Homestead Caravan Park, in one of the units that are fairly basic but adequate for our needs. The park has a swimming pool and a shop with limited stock, but handy for bread and milk etc. Located on the West side close to Tandabidi Boat Ramp. This is our trip and my assumptions. I am no expert and I am only telling it as we experienced it. More experienced anglers may have other and better ideas.
The gear we used were Penn 50TW Internationals, Tiagra 30s and similar loaded with 24kg mono. We also used a Stella 20000 and a Riobi Safari spinning reel. The spinning reels were invaluable for dropping back baits, and accounted for most of the fish caught.
The Riobi Safari and Stella 20000 in action
Skipping gardies and waiting waiting waiting. I made up a couple of mini outriggers from old broken rods with an outrigger clip fixed to the end. It is important to be able to immediately drop back the baits once a fish strikes. We found that the big overheads gave too much resistance even in free spool and the fish often dropped the bait. The spinning reels, with the bail arm open let line out without any resistance allowing the fish to swallow the bait.
The baited rig we used was a standard garfish attached to the biggest chemically sharpened circle hook we could find by a no. 32 rubber band through the eyes. 300lb leader attached to a clip on a 300lb wind on leader, loop to looped to a Bimini Twist double.
Trust me: these fish go off the scale when they feel the weight come on!
A lot of the time is spent down deep but with explosive jumps when they come to the top.
Any where between 70 and 120 metres deep is the norm. We also found ground that went up and down very steeply from 100m down to 160m and out of the range of the sounder. Most of our strikes came from this area but on the top side around 100m to 120m. Numerous spots we tried were: West of the light house, The Steps, North West of the light house and South West of Tandabidi ramp. My GPS on the 7.8m boat now has all the spots that we got strikes so you can just go to them and put the lures or baits out.
I also got a really big sailfish! A strong easterly kept us in close and we trolled gardies for sails between 35m and 50m. This one hammered my gardie on my Stella 20000 giving me an hour’s work out. When the easterly died down we moved out to the marlin grounds and I got the bigger of the three marlin landed for the trip!
The new ramp at Tandabidi was a pleasure! We managed to launch and retrieve even at close to low tide, though a launch at a very low tide is asking a lot.
Paul Youngman celebrates his first marlin release right on dusk, with his Riobi Safari, circle hook and 50lb braid with crew Daniel Jenks and Ashley Van Viersen.
The second day we had about a 1000 dolphins around the boat, they all took turns surfing the bow wave in front of the boat. The water colour shown here is what it should be, but for the rest of the week it was a bit greenish. All in all, marlin fishing is quite achievable and economical from a small boat without the great expenses of a fully equipped game fishing charter.
The Warroora Station Lagoon from a high spot, where the 7.8m boat is moored.
They got into some good fish. Kevin and his group are Gnaraloo regulars and decided to try somewhere new. They did not have to go too far out, but they said the ground was not as good out from the station as they have seen out from Gnaraloo. Accommodation is a bit cheaper but the logistics of travelling down from Coral Bay, mooring the boat and then getting to it with a smaller boat each day was a bit of a pain. The lagoon is not that well protected so receives a fair bit of swell on the beach, so bringing a big boat to the beach is not an option. 
One km of long, boring, flat, treeless, straight, uneventful, goat ravaged country not far from Overlander Roadhouse. 1 thirteen hundredth of the trip!
Cheers. 
"Photos courtesy of CSIRO"
This is it above. I can’t say much for the colour!
Bite of the Month must surly go to Paul Youngman with his marlin taken during our Exmouth trip this month.
Michael hales from Kalgoorlie so he doesn’t get much fishing done, and he did well fighting sea sickness as well as the fish.
First mackerel and above average size for Pete and Chris holds his first mackerel.