Far West Coast - March 2007

In terms of distance travelled, this was by far the biggest Gashes trip we've done. I think we did something like 2500kms all up. I'll try recap what happened day by day as we were over there for a whole week. Matt, Ondie and I were on this one.

Day 1: Departed at 3:45am from Matt's house - getting into Pt Augusta just after the sun rose and in time for breakfast at Macca's. Continued on to Fowlers Bay, arriving about 2pm and set up the tent in the caravan park.

Had a couple of well needed coldies after the long drive and then went for a drive out to the other side of Scotts Beach to see if we could find a good rock ledge to fish off (aiming to get some tommies or salmon to later use as Bait). Spotted a likely looking area from up high, so made the trek down only to find it was far to windy to get a line out far enough past the rock ledges.

We headed back to Scotts beach and managed to pick up a meal of KGW from the shallows. I hadn't caught a land based KGW for a lonnng time and these were good size too. I was happy.



Later on we went to the jetty that night armed with a load of beers in the hope to fill our esky with bait for the next days trip to Yalata. We weren't able to muster up a single tommy, but sat out there to finish off all the beers we wouldn't be able to take into Yalata anyway.

Day 2: We got up early and stopped at Scotts beach to try and get some much needed bait, but all we could get was undersized fish! We moved on, stopping at Nundroo for fuel and to buy a load of pilchards.. then continued into Yalata lands.

Went in via the coombra track which seemed to take FOREVER. Damn this track was corrugated to hell... the ashtray which was full of loose change annoyingly rattled open constantly for the hour plus drive to the coast. I've since emptied it. Matt discovered a beer in the fridge which we must have missed the day before and promptly drunk it much to me and Ondie's jealously.. it was quite hot out there.

Heres the beach at Jaxsons.. probably the best looking water we saw all trip



I did manage a 57cm Mully here, but that is all. Had a couple of other good runs which I felt the headshakes on.. and then pulled in some seaweed... which caused much mocking from Matt who insisted it was seaweed all along. Later on when I DID hook seaweed he was convinced there was a fish on and ran off to get the gaff, hahaha. We were only going to do a day trip in here, but given we had to pay for a campsite anyway, we decided to stay the night. It was quite bizarre sitting around camp at night completely sober. A first for our trips I'm sure.

Day 3: A morning fish at Jaxson's Hole was unproductive, and then we packed up and headed for the Dog Fence, via Nundroo to restock the beer supply! I wish I had a photo of this.. 4 30 packs of beer falling all over Ondie in the back seat. It looked great.

The track down to the beach was only mildly better than the Yalata tracks. The beach was extremely flat with no gutters to be seen anywhere. We drove probably 5-7kms down the beach and spotted some good looking water. Turned out the reason the water looked deep there was due to some reefyness making the water look darker. It was still far too shallow. Still, Matt pulled in a huge sweep from amongst the rocks, and Ondie caught a mammoth Mullet too. Ondie travels 1000kms and kept catching Mullet hahaha.

Day 4: The plan had been to camp at the dog fence for 3 nights, but given the not so great looking water, we weren't confident of catching anything decent here, so packed up again and drove to mexican hat beach. The water here looked a bit better, and some other guys on the beach told us they got stuck into a big school of salmon earlier (F*@KING SLAM!! - story for later), which sounded fun at this stage.. but they'd moved on by now. We set up camp behind the dunes and fished late that night. Ondie hooked a 57cm mulloway here


This is why its called Mexican Hat beach.

Day 5: Spent the whole day on the beach fishing, and Matt landed a nice sized salmon. We wrapped it up and cooked it on the fire later that night. We talked about getting up at 2am to fish the high tide, but then drunk too many beers and it just didn't happen. I think I could repeat that sentence for just about all of our trips.

Day 6: Packed up the camp again (we were loving this) and headed back towards Ceduna, to a place called Davenport Creek. This place is awesome! Some great sand dune 4wd'ing to get to the camping spot which rest next to a large tidal creek. You can sit on the waters edge and drop your line straight into deep water.. we instantly hooked onto fish, but kept getting undersized KGW and ST's.

Davenport Creek at high tide. There is a ledge that drops off deeply where Matt is standing.

I should note at this stage, we figured we were all pretty even in the Gashes stakes, but gave the nod to Matt for his assorted bag - a few big KGW's, some massive sweep, and a big Salmon too. But Andre and I weren't far behind at all, both catching Mulloway which Matt hadn't managed (amongst other fish of course). Somehow (beers) talk begun of pulling in a flathead from the creek and how that would secure a gashes victory. Later that afternoon Andre gets a massive bite and his rod bends over.. he sets the hooks and starts reeling it in.. and .. snap... the line breaks. Andre devastated, and we always refer to it as "the flathead that would have won the gashes" - even though we have no idea what type of fish it was.

Day 7: Woke up early for the long drive home. The tent fly mesh was completely coated in mosquitos trying to get in. Had to run to the car and get aeroguard before trying to pack up and hit the road. No fishing this morning, and Matt took home the Gashes!

I loved this place, since then being trying to organise a trip back there at the height of mully season (Nov - Feb) but haven't yet got back there. Hopefully next Summer!