Far West Coast - November 2013

I've finally found out why they call it Blow-vember! It wasn't all bad though - we had beer.

Because of the moon and tide cycles, we left on Thursday this year, instead of the usual Saturday. The first major blow of the trip came when, after making splendid time on the highway and rolling into Penong at midday, we were informed by the barman at the pub that they don't serve meals on Thursdays! I was really looking forward to that Schnitty too.

Onward to Fowlers Bay, where we aired down the tyres, and took that yearly trek across the dunes, anticipation high as the water comes into view. A few schools were spotted in the water, but as we got closer we discovered they were well out of casting range. The 20 knot headwind did not help either.

Camp was set up in our usual little alcove behind the dunes to get out of the wind, and then we headed to the ledge in hope that a school of salmon would cruise past like they sometimes do. We fished for hours for just one salmon and decided to head back to Scotts Beach to check out if there was any action going on there. The cars got separated on the maze of tracks back to the beach, and by time the two Kym's and I had reached the beach, we saw Will and Matt casting lures out into a school with about 5 other people. They had 3 on the beach before the school scattered and moved out further. We missed the action, but at least there were a few more fish in the bait pile. Not that 4 salmon was going to go far with 5 fishers.

Will was up at the crack of dawn the next morning and drove the length of Scotts Beach to look for any schools in casting range. With none sighted he returned to camp. Shortly later, I was standing on top of the dune at camp, and looking directly out when I saw a suspicious looking dark patch in the water. I tied on a lure and headed out for a cast, and Will came too.  We both cast to the school and had instant hookups, and then devastatingly, both snapped lines. They must have been some monster sized salmon. After running back to the cars to get more tackle, we came back to find they'd all vanished.

With no luck at another ledge visit, and Scotts Beach proving too difficult to land anything, we decided to roll the dice on hitting up a mulloway beach and hoping to score salmon whilst there. At least we'd be able to set up a proper camp and get comfortable. As we cooked up a feed before heading off, some quad bikes rolled into camp and it turned out to be Fisheries and Parks. Greetings were made and we let them know we had been here a night but hadn't had much luck on the fish. Then Parks asked about our permits. "You need a permit to camp here?" "Yes, it's on the sign on the way in, and you would have read this on the website before coming here". One, there is no sign. Two, who is reading the Parks website? Since arriving home I have tried to check it out, and can't even find Fowlers Bay Conservation Park on there at all. Perhaps the ranger also doesn't read it.

The two rangers were playing a bit of good cop, bad cop. After telling him I am sorry but wasn't aware and I'd ring up and get it paid once I got home, the bad cop said that wasn't good enough and I'd have to visit the Ceduna office to get it sorted out. I noted that it's likely we wouldn't be going back through Ceduna in business hours given our plan was to return on Saturday, and we usually hit the road very early. "Too bad, you'll have to work it out." said Bad Cop. Whilst Good Cop took my details, I explained to him our timing problem, and he said "No worries, pay it over the phone when you can". Thanks, Good Cop.

Further to that, we were issued a warning for camping "off track", as there was some dune vegetation on the path to the camp clearing (which was obviously well used by the recent camp fire remains). The irony was that they drove over the same vegetation to come tell us off. At least they didn't give us a $200 fine though!

So with that, we headed off, picking up a bunch of pilchards along the way as a back up plan. After much 4wding, wrong turns and scratched car panels, we hit the end of a beach and pulled up to to speak to a few other campers before heading off to find a spot to camp ourselves. The other campers said it was too windy to fish and not worthwhile, but we were here for a week anyway, so had to have a look. When we pulled onto the beach, we were greeted by an enormous, dark green gutter. Perfect.

Camp was set up behind a big mound of vegetation which provided a bit of respite from the wind. Soon after, we had baits in the water, mostly with salmon set ups to try and up the bait supply. There wasn't a long wait before all of us had bent rods and even a few double header salmons slid up the sand. There was no visible school to cast lures at, but they were taking baits and poppers with decent regularity. It was a great session and we soon had a few days worth of bait and played some catch and release with even more.

With the sun low in the sky, Will's rod (of course) had a huge bite and run, line screaming from the reel and some how managing not to get tangled in the absolute web of lines we had in the water. We knew this was something big, and hoped for a huge mulloway to kick off the week. It had the group of us about 200 metres away from the beginning point before we saw a fin emerge from the water, and knew it was a big bronze whaler.

Even once sighted in the shallows, it still took a fair amount of work to get it safely up on the beach. But once landed, we saw it was likely the biggest bronzy ever landed amongst our group. I fired off a number of photos and Will slid the shark back into the water to live another day. Great day 2 catch.

Conditions over the next couple of days were still very windy, but with a gutter so close in, casting was not an issue. I think it was Kym A, Will and Matt that landed 4 nice sized flat head during the day which made for a nights dinner.

Some local kids were fishing nearby when after many bust offs, Will decided it was time to change to wire trace which paid off shortly after when he hooked into another big shark. In front of a new audience he had the shark landed and was going to again release it, but instead offered it to the kids who had come over to watch. They quickly checked with their uncle back in the car and then graciously accepted it and called it a day for their own fishing expedition.

Whilst re-baiting one of my rods, a drag started screaming on another and there was panic to get to it quickly. I heard someone shout out "Ryan!" and without a thought grabbed the rod and commenced fighting something big. It was over quickly though as a shark took the hooks. Then I thought to myself "wait, my rod isn't red. Nor is it a Daiwa". Seems I'd grabbed Kym D's rod in the excitement. Whoops. He'd have his pay back later.

We found that the car fridge was cycling constantly, yet not actually cooling. After 2 days of this, the car battery was flat, and the temperature inside the fridge rising. When we ran out of cold beers, this became something of a crisis. Some googling suggested turning the fridge upside down for a few hours, so we used the bottom of the fridge as a table whilst we cooked up the flat head for dinner. The upside down fridge thing has actually worked for me in the past, but for a slightly different problem. But, after flipping it upright and plugging it in again, we watched the thermometer religiously for 30 minutes but it did not budge at all. What a let down. We turned it upside down again and went to bed.

The following morning we tried the fridge again, but with no success. It was decided that I'd head back to the nearest shop and buy a heap of ice and just use the fridge as an esky instead. After an hour of bouncing along the tracks, we got to the shop and felt that the fridge had kicked itself into gear again. We grabbed the ice anyway, just in case and headed back to camp. Spirits were mighty high when Kym D and I returned to camp with ice cold beer. The hours of driving, combined with solar panels plugged in had the battery charged up enough to keep the fridge going and it lasted the rest of the trip - even freezing up the water in the bottom.

From the start of the trip, I'd been calling Monday "Mully Day" due to the favourable conditions that were predicted. It was basically the only day of the trip that we'd have a break from the blistering south easterly winds. With that break, came heat. It quickly soared into the mid 30's and was stinking hot. And Mully Day wasn't turning out to be so great for fishing either. There was a school of Salmon about 1 km down the beach which we'd kept our eyes on as they looked too far out to cast to. Out of some boredom, and some much needed cooling off - I decided to walk down there and have a cast at them. I knew I'd have to get wet but getting neck deep was a bit much considering the shark bite offs we'd been getting! I managed to hook on to two of them, but they both dropped off in the wash. Some local guys pulled up and asked if I minded if they had a flick at the school. I appreciated the question (a lot would just cast over the top of you) and said go for it - I'd had enough. I headed back to the others defeated, yet much cooler. They later stopped at where we were fishing and offered us their bait and a massive bag of ice as they were heading back to Ceduna. Top blokes.

After the sun set, I made a quick call home from back at camp. I was watching my glow stick from up at camp but saw no action. As I finished the call and walked down to the beach, I see none other than Kym D winding my rod in, and Will about to grab a fish from the surf. I raced down to see what was sure to be a legal mully, and then raced back to camp to grab the tape measure. It came in at 76 or 77cm, just scraping in to legal territory. My second ever, and my first from the Far West Coast in 7 trips. Despite not doing any of the actual winding, I was still pretty happy. Mully Day!

Being a nice calm night, we all had rods out into the night, and there were regular bites happening and the odd big run. Kym A had a huge run on a stingray that he managed to get up on to the beach after a decent battle. Seeing the hook just in the sting rays lips, I though it'd be an easy removal. Unfortunately the stingray flapped at the wrong time, and the other 10/0 Gamakatsu hook went straight through the end of my pointer finger. With one hook through my finger, and the other attached to a flapping stingray, I had a moment of some concern - luckily Will was nearby with a knife to detach myself from the big ray. Note to self - carry a knife whilst fishing. It was a fairly eventful night with many more runs, and Will landing a banjo shark as well as a nice gummy shark, but no more mullies pulled in.

Tuesday started ok, with Will managing to land another bronzy. Given that the food situation looked to be running low, this one was kept and fillets put on ice. The weather turned bad though, and we had wind, spots of rain, and a whole lot of sea weed floating around in the gutter we were fishing. We sat around camp behind our wind break for the most part of the day, drinking coldies and listening to music. It was much the same on the following day as well. By Thursday the conditions, whilst still bad, weren't so bad that we huddled at camp all day. We had lines out and battled sea weed monsters most of the day. But it was a fruitless endeavour, and we were soon running low on fresh baits, despite the fact we were able to land a few salmon each morning.

By Friday, which was to be our last full day of fishing, we decided that rather than battle the weed all day long, we may as well head back to Fowlers and try get a few whiting or flathead from the sheltered area's before heading home. After two hours of cleaning and packing camp though, the idea of unpacking and packing again the very next day became unappealing. We decided to hit the road and head home that day instead. Before doing so, we had a quick look around and found some nice looking bays. Pity we didn't search earlier as we could have fished out of the wind. An obligatory group shot was taken and then we headed homeward.

We never had any final discussion on the Gashes Winner. I think Will takes the prize once again. Although I caught the only legal mully - our target fish of the trip, he once again cleaned up on the (big) sharks and also a few good flatties. Despite our mulloway beats all mentality... I think this one needed to be a bit bigger to get me over the line. Agree?

Far West Coast - November 2012

Back to 4 people, and the comfort of 2 cars for this years Far West Coast adventure - Myself, Will, Kym, and "new" Kym (Kym D for this story).

After stopping off at Penong for a delicious Schnitzel at the pub, and a few local characters talking up our prospects over the next week (one referred to Mulloway's as "c*#ts", as in - "you're gonna catch a big c*#t!") our hopes were high, and we set off on the last part of the journey to Scotts Beach.

Scotts had it's usual deep gutters and excellent looking water, but not the black schools in the water that we'd hoped to see. Having wasted many hours bait fishing for salmon in the gutters in previous years, we went off in search of schools, and ended up at the ledge. The ledge was quiet though, and we instead decided to try the deep gutter on Scotts after all, and set up camp. Things were promising when my first cast landed a Salmon, but it was all quiet from then on, and we soon called it a night after a long day.

The following day, we again searched for Salmon, desperately needing a few for bait before heading off to the dog fence. A great looking gutter at Mexican hat provided nothing and soon we returned to the rock ledges of Fowlers Point to berley up for some small fish. Instead of small fish though, a school of good sized salmon came swimming through, and Kym D who was persistently flicking lures out on his small rod, hooked up instantly. Will had a lure out in the water in no time at all and within a minute we had 2 good salmon up on the rocks. I hooked on myself, only for my lure to bust off as I was lifting the fish up onto the rocks.

Over the next hour, the school came and went multiple times, and we chased them around the corner and had persistent hook ups - at first I lost two lures for a single Salmon, but evened up the ledger and then got some footage of the boys hooking on - multiple hook ups at once were a common sight.

Bait esky loaded, and spirits high, we set off back to our campsite as the sunset, and soon everyone was relaxed and sinking some beers. It was good not to have a worry about bait on the back of our minds.

As we pulled on to the Dog Fence beach the following morning, we saw more fisherman than a winter trip to the Coorong! Most were fishing the nice looking gutter closer to the entrance, so we plowed on past, and into some really soft sand, but made it through no worries. We settled on a dark looking patch of water with some reef further out, which was creating a nice channel in front of it.

After setting up the tarp for some shade and shelter from the wind, we set up the rods and all casted out a fresh slab of salmon. Before Will required his first bait change, he was hooked on to a solid fish, and before we could get the camera's organised, he was already sliding a 96cm mully up onto the sand. A bloody good start, and gave us confidence about the gutter we'd set up camp in front of!

When the excitement of that fish wore off, Kym D got out the action kite and we had some fun screwing around with that. He then attached the GoPro to it, and got some awesome footage of our camp from up in the sky:


As the sun was setting, Will hooked and landed a huge dog shark, and then again hooked on to something even larger. He called large head shakes, and then no head shakes, and then definitely headshakes. Whatever it was, it was taking line down the beach and putting up a hell of a fight.Will put a heap of pressure on his rod to steer the mully away from the reefs, and soon we spotted a silver flash in the shallows. It was a big mulloway. He played it slowly and safely and waited for the right wave to push the huge fish up the beach. I grabbed it by the gills and slid it to safety. Will saw it was wasn't any chance of getting away now and let out a woohoo. There was jumping, clapping, and probably the odd high five or two between us all as I tried to snap off a few photos. In the fading light, getting the camera to focus was proving difficult. With a mulloway already in the esky, we'd have let this one go - but given it was easily the largest fish Will had ever caught, it deserved some justice in the photos. We decided to put it in the esky as well, and find some place to freeze it until we were on our way home. I grabbed out my flash and took a few pics that will no doubt be adorning the walls in Will's house soon.

Will's big mully - ~125cm long

After the excitement of that fish, we settled down and had some glow sticks out for any night action. I had a run and pulled in a good sized stingray - but it wasn't really the prize I was after!

The next day was quiet in terms of fishing. We saw that the left side of what we thought was a long running gutter was actually reefyness causing the dark blue water. This forced us to fish about 100 metres down the beach, making fetching a beer quite a journey. We did get the beach tent out to keep the bait esky cool and fished hard all day long. The weather was fine, but the fish weren't hungry.

Will landed a monster of a Salmon during the day, which the scales weighed in at just below 3kg. I think they must be broken because it was huge! That was the only thing landed until around 5pm though, when I noticed my line a long way sideways of my rod. I picked it up to check and felt some headshakes. It was an easy battle with an already exhausted bronzy. It's good to have at least one photo holding a nice sized fish, but I would have enjoyed a better battle.

When we woke up the following day, the gutter that had produced two mulloway was looking a lot shallower - sand had filled it in on the high tide overnight and we were restricted to a much smaller area to fish. We were really keen to fish the dog fence for a full 4 nights leading into the full moon, but accepted our fate and decided to pack up camp and move on. The plan was either to move down the beach to better looking water, or head straight to Tuckamore. With so many people fishing the beach on the way out, we didn't really want to muscle in next to anyone, so radio'd to each other that we'd just keep moving to Tuckamore and set up there for the full moon.

Whilst we were kind of disappointed to be moving away, it turned out to be a blessing. As we found out from other fisherman days later, a massive storm had blown through the area that same night and wiped out multiple campsites. Three metre swells washed up the beach and moved cars parked at camp sideways and washed gear out to sea. Down at Tuckamore where we were, we had very strong winds, but other than our tarp set up flapping around keeping us awake at night, we were relatively unscathed.

On the way to Tuckamore, I struck some trouble on the soft sandy track on the way in, slipped off the side and getting into a precarious position. The car was very tilted to the side, and the only way out was to back up, which would result in an even larger tilt. I edged up on the max trax slightly before we decided to tow it backwards with Will's hilux. This did the trick, and we were on our way again quite soon. We hit the beach soon after, and got about 80 metres in before Will's car bogged down. It was very shell gritty, and definitely going to be too hard to proceed, so we decided to camp back at the entrance. I tried to back up along the track but the slant of the beach had me sliding towards the water, and I soon gave up hope of getting out of there without assistance. The assistance was over at Will's car, which he'd managed to turn around, but was now having trouble going forward. With a lot of max traxing, we got the car back on to firm sand, and then did the same for my own car. Everyone was pretty exhausted from digging, so we cracked a coldy and watched the surf for 10 mins, before setting up shelter once again.

One thing was immediately obvious once we started fishing - there were plague proportions of these mini-Samson looking fish (I think they're called Sea Trumpeter, but we just called them shittys - far worse than c*#ts!). They were decimating our baits, and we were requiring a new slab of salmon practically every cast. Just to ensure our baits stood no chance at all, a few sand crabs were thrown in to the mix.

In the late afternoon Will had a large hook up, and sighted a huge shark out in one of the waves but soon busted off with nothing of his rig left. He then had a huge fight with a big black ray, which took some time to get in. Turned out that it was fouled hooked in the wing which would have made things more difficult. Once he was unhooked and released, Will's rod went off, and he pulled a fresh salmon in. Handy, since our baits were getting destroyed by shitties. As night fell, the wind dropped and it was the perfect night fishing weather. We stuck at it for a little while, but only Will got a run, and pulled in a nice Gummy shark which was then cooked up for dinner. You'll note the recurring theme of this day is that Will's rods kept getting runs, whilst every other rod, did not. Actually, that's the theme of the whole week! Kym A and myself are now used to this happening, but Kym D was left shaking his head in disbelief.

Kym wondering when his rod will get a bite

The next day Will must have hooked around 4 stingrays - even they were ignoring all other baits! The most humorous part about this was when Kym D went to gaff the ray in order to pull it up the beach for unhooking. He slipped and fell as a wave came in and sprung up in a panic as a ray swam around him. It wouldn't have been funny if he got a barb in his leg, but he didn't, so it was hilarious!

Will unhappy with the attention of stingrays

It was again a beautiful night for fishing, and we gave it a few hours (it gets dark really late over there) but once again, only Will got a run, and this time bringing in a very respectable Gummy. He hooked another massive Gummy soon after but this one snapped off and we called it a night.

After a quick fish in the morning for nothing more than an undersized mulloway (finally to someone other than Will, who didn't have a rod in at the time!) we ran out of bait, so had decided to head back to Fowlers for our final two nights, to clean up and maybe have one last crack at some salmon and mulloway.

We wanted to catch some fresh salmon for bait when we got back, and then hit up one of the beaches close to Fowleys for a final day session attempting to get a Mully. Unfortunately, the salmon once again weren't coming to the party (I did land a huge squid off though, which was destined for the dinner plate), so we opted to buy some pilchards and check out a spot within the bay itself.. We drove down the beach a number of km's but with an incoming tide and the beach being quite soft up high, we decided not to risk the cars. We turned around and set off to Cabbots beach. When we got there, the water looked very choppy and weedy, and to make matters worse, we'd left the rod holders back at the caravan park.

Plan C (D? E?) was to head back to Scotts beach and flick some lures / cast small baits in the shallows and see if we could get some Whiting or Flathead for dinner. Kym D managed to hook a Flathead on a soft plastic then devastatingly lost it in the shallows. Everyone besides me caught a good sized mullet though, so we all had our contribution for dinner.

Back at the park, we battered up our catch, and chopped up some potatoes into chips and had an awesome final meal of fish, squid, and chips. The only downer was running out of beer by about 6pm, but in hindsight, that was probably a good thing with all the packing still to be done, and a 10 hour drive ahead of us.

All in all, another great Far West trip. Three from three for legal mulloway in trips. It's pity Will has got every single one of them! Myself, I am shooting for the unwanted honour of most FWC trips without catching a legal Mulloway. Planning for 2013 will no doubt begin soon!

Far West Coast - December 2011

Despite the success of last years Far West Coast journey, only three of us made the long trip over this time around. Will, Kym and myself hit the road at 3:30am. We were travelling over the great dunes of Fowlers Bay around 1:30pm, hoping to see big black schools of salmon in the water as we had a year ago.

It wasn't to be though, as all we saw were patches of weed and really rough water. We thought we spotted one small school, so pulled up to have a cast, but with a strong headwind, couldn't cast out far enough. Quite likely that it wasn't salmon in any case, as we were more hopeful than certain. Instead, we headed for the deep gutter in the middle of the beach, and set up camp to cook up lunch.

After eating, we cast out some pilchards in to the deep water, and after an hour or so, Will had a good bite and wound in a big salmon. As he unhooked the salmon, a wave rushed under his feet and the salmon wriggled its way free straight into the rushing out water. Both Will and myself tried to block its path, but it zipped straight through my legs. Will didn't mind as he said there'd be plenty more where that came from. Little did we know at that point how hard it would be to catch a Salmon.

The following day, Will and myself were up early, Will throwing out pilchards, and me casting lures walking down the beach. I managed to hook a flathead in the tail, and whilst ordinarily I would love to catch flathead - I was at this point disappointed it wasn't a salmon. We really needed fresh bait and flathead were destined for the dinner plate.

After the morning fish, we drove around the headland and nearby beaches, still on the look out for schools of salmon, but there were none to be seen. Heading back in to Fowler's, via the beach, I managed to get very seriously bogged, going over some seaweed. I knew it would be soft, but there was only 50 metres of it so I thought we'd be fine. Half way through we bogged down hard.. so out came my newly purchased max trax. They're expensive things, but now I think they're worth every cent! They did only help to move us a few metres at a time, and each time we moved forward, the car skidded sideways towards the water. We got about 3 metres from the end of the weed - firm sand in sight, and the car bogged down hard. The incoming tide was swirling around the right side of the car and I was getting seriously worried. Kym and Will were shovelling weed out the way, and trying to jam the max trax under the tyres, but they would just not grip now. Luckily, a local came driving down the beach and offered to snatch strap us out. He then started reversing his car up toward mine in the most painfully slow manner I could ever imagine. My car is on the brink of drowning, and he was coming back at about 1 km/hr. We got there eventually though and with 3 pulls, the car popped out onto the firm sand. I thanked him profusely and made a standard payment in beer, and then downed a beer quickly myself - thinking just how badly that could have gone.

Speaking to other fisherman about the place, the stories were all the same. Can't find a salmon anywhere. Some had been catching bags of tommies of the jetty - so that was an option for us if we still struggled. We headed back to our Scotts beach camp, where some other fisherman were set up nearby fishing the same gutter as us. We had a chat to them and and as we were talking, Will finally hooks a salmon, and its pretty huge. Unfortunately, its another rogue Salmon, and no more followed - but he did get a couple of flat head to join the one I had caught earlier.

We decide to head to the jetty that night to see if we can get some tommies, but with no berley, we only manage to get two. We really expected that to be much easier! We decided that since we weren't catching any Salmon around Fowler's Bay, we may as well head to the dog fence and not catch salmon there either. But first we'd need to head back to the Kiosk to pick up some pilchards. When we got out of the car, a fisherman at the store recognised Will from the article in Wild Coast... his notoriety is spreading! He suggested we try the shallows at the end of Scotts Beach for small salmon, so we grabbed a few cockles and head that way.

We did manage a few a few small salmon, and some big mullet and even a king george whiting - just undersize. So desperate for good fresh baits, if it was legal I think it would have been bait. With a few more fresh fish in the esky, we headed off to the Dog Fence, and not far up the beach we spy an excellent looking gutter in close. Taking note of the spot, we press on down the beach to our spot from last year (marked in the GPS) but there was no good gutter adjacent the reef like last time, so we headed back to the gutter we first spotted, and set up our shelter.

As dusk approached, Will had a solid bite, and after a short fight pulled up a fiddler ray (and according to my quick google search, also known as a banjo shark, guitarfish, or shovelnose ray - that's a lot of names!). As he was releasing that one, my rod buckled over and I was hooked on to what was sure to be a stingray. Sure enough, a few minutes later I had a large stingray on the beach.

A few hours later, now night time, I hooked another stingray, but this time it felt really big. I was fighting for a long time before slowly making some headway, getting some of my line back onto the reel. It was in close, and the hooks pulled out - probably a good thing in the end, so I could keep fishing without needing to re-tie any hooks. We were now 100 metres down the beach though, and all had to trek through the soft sand back to camp. Not long after settling back in to a beer, Kym's rod goes off and he too has a short battle before beaching another fiddler ray. Not the greatest catch, but the biggest thing Kym has ever caught so he was happy.

As it approached midnight, I had a huge bite, and this time had the headshakes to give me good hope that it wouldn't be another ray. I was fighting the fish for five minutes before the headshakes disappeared and instead just got dead weight.. and in came a big pile of seaweed.  Heart breaking.

When we woke up the next day, the gutter was looking all washed out and sandy - the photo I took still makes it look quite good.. but it might have been a well timed shot.

We fished it hard all day, for no result. As it went dark, we decided to pack it in, and as I wound my line in, I see I've managed to catch a little gummy shark - my first ever, so I was happy with that catch (they're also reportedly very good eating).

The gutter was again looking poor in the morning, and we decided to head back in to Fowler's Bay to once again try to get a good supply of fresh baits. The plan was to set up in the caravan park, and then hit the jetty at night time, and burley up to gather some tommies. Coming back across the big sand dunes to Fowler's Bay was very interesting... the strong winds had blown over most of the track and created big new hills where hills didn't exist before. I was trying to follow previous marks on the GPS, but that proved difficult and I went off course often. Will did manage to spot a knife poking out the sand whilst we were off track though. Perhaps the best catch of the trip so far! We eventually got on the right path and made it through to Fowlers.

After setting up our swags, and cooking up a feed for lunch, we set off in the car to check out all the surrounding beaches. Half hoping to chance upon a school of salmon, and half scoping out potential mulloway spots for the next portion of our trip. We spent a good part of the day doing this, before heading back to Fowlers to execute our "catch tommy ruff" plan. As night set in, the wind was howling, and we rugged up with multiple layers to brave the conditions out on the jetty. Even armed with berley, after a few hours without a single bite, we threw in the towel and walked back to the caravan park to get some sleep. Plan B was to hit the rock ledges around the headland the following morning, and at the very least, catch some rock cod and other small fish we could use for bait.

We arose early and jumped in the Surf, arriving at our rock ledge around 8am. We berleyed up and and before long had a couple of tommies in the esky - it was a good start. Kym pulled some luderick, which we also kept, but the fishing slowed down rather quickly. We could see loads of fish in the water attacking the berley, but they just weren't interested in taking our baits. Just when hope was fading, the water turned completely black right at our feet, and I sighted some yellow fins and immediately called it as kingfish - wishful thinking - it was thousands of salmon. This would be great for our bait supply. Will hooked on and his rig busted off instantly. All our surf gear was up the hill in the car and we didn't know if we'd have time to get them before the school moved on. We quickly tied on lures to our light outfits, and cast away. Pulling the salmon up 3 metres from the water was quite a challenge on light gear, but soon enough there were half a dozen on the deck, and the water still bubbling. It was as simple as dropping the lure straight down and then jigging it up. We lost probably twice the amount we landed as they dropped off when trying to pull them up onto the rocks. The school then disappeared and Will raced off around to the next point to see if they were there and soon he was yelling for us to get over there. Dolphins were rounding the school in close and we continually hooked up, cast after cast, in one of the greatest salmon fishing sessions we've ever experienced. The light gear made it a real challenge and awesome fun. The seals and dolphins zipping around made great viewing too. We kept around 18 fish for bait and then had a good catch and release session, before we were too exhausted to fish on. We left them biting, and headed back to the car - now ready to move on to the next phase of our trip - well armed with fresh baits. We had to work hard to find them, but we got there eventually!

Back in the fishing cleaning area at the caravan park, one of the employees came over and made the odd statement that the fish cleaning area was not for cleaning "lots" of fish - only for people to clean a few fish here and there. Quite a bizarre statement we thought, when a lot of their customers would be coming purely for the fishing. She gave us a garbage bag to take our frames to the local dump (which is quite a sight.. fish skeletons everywhere!).

We headed off to our next location, and searched the coast up and down looking for a nice gutter that we could fish for the remainder of our trip. We finally settled on one that was slightly further out than desired but looked good, and we could get a camp site in close by.

There was a strong headwind  and huge waves crashing on the shore, causing havoc with our rigs. It was hard to cast far enough to reach the gutter, and the surging water constantly pulled the grapple sinkers out and sent them sideways up the beach. Regardless of all of those troubles, within an hour of setting up, Will had a good bite, and had a quick battle before sliding a very nice sized snapper up on to the beach. My frustration with my grapple sinkers rose as the thin wire continually bent straight - sending me digging through all my tackle looking for one with decent strong wire on it.

The next day it wasn't to be an issue though, as the wind swung around and was blowing from behind us, making casting out in to the gutter an easy task. Both myself and Will were up early and Will soon opened the days account with a nice little gummy shark. It went quiet for awhile as we cooked breakfast, but about an hour and a half later, Will again got a solid bite on his line, and again, brought in a very nice snapper. This one was a monster from the surf.. weighing in at 8kgs.

No more than ten minutes later, Will is sliding Snapper number 2 up onto the sand, and we could now sense that there must be a school of them patrolling the gutter. I ran down the beach to where my rod was, to change over baits, only to pick up the rod and find it go heavy with an obvious big fish on the end. I wound in a good 82cm snapper myself. That was 3 great snapper in the space of 25 minutes. Unbelievable fishing from a beach!

Kym found himself snagged in the gutter, and ended up breaking his line off, losing a few hundred metres of line in the process, and he set off to respool his reel. I probably would have chucked on the spare with the action as good as it was! But, things did slow down for awhile, until I noticed a good bite on my rod, but when I wound in, I noticed my hooks baitless, and a whole heap of line tangled about mine. It was Kym's rig that he'd busted off 15 minutes earlier! I could still feel a fish fighting, so Will and I tried to bring the fish in by hand, using our shirt sleeves to not lose any fingers. We had it coming in, but without any drag, the fish got free. What a catch that would have been. Kym was wondering if the opportunity to join the snapper club had passed, but about an hour and a half later, at around 11:30am, Will again pulled in a snapper. This set up a good little chain of action, with Kym finally getting a solid bite on his new rig, and having a good battle with something solid. After a few minutes, we sighted a bronze fin cruise through the shallows, and soon he had it up on the beach for a quick photo before releasing.

Then, it was my turn again as the rod bent over hard and I quickly struck into a good fish. I felt the solid thumps of a snapper trying to make its way deep into the gutter. I knew it was something really good, but did not expect to see a snapper and a gummy shark appear in the wash. I'd managed to this time snag one of Will's lost rigs, which had a gummy shark attached - along with the snapper on my hooks, it all came up the beach. I'll claim that one as a double header! It was still before noon and we'd just had one of the best days fishing of our lives.

The action wasn't over yet though, with Will again landing a snapper in the early afternoon, and then myself catching a gummy shark (on my own hooks this time). It started drizzling later in the day, with rain setting in right up until night time - but it didn't deter the fish, with Will landing his final Snapper of the trip. All of the Snapper caught went around the 6.5kg mark - with the exception of Will's earlier 8kg fish. It was hard to be disappointed with a stumbling across a school of such fish, but Far West Coast is about chasing dream mulloway, and we were yet to land one even close to legal.

Leave it up to Will to remedy this "problem", as in the early evening, as the rain was really coming down, he sprinted from our shelter to grab his rod and set the hooks. Soon enough, he had a 94cm mulloway in hand, and was dancing around in the rain as happy as anything. Those two day fishing were some of the finest.

Kym checked the weather reports on his phone, and it looked like the rain wasn't just setting in, it was going to get a whole lot worse the following day. With a bag limit of snapper, an almost bag limit of gummy shark, and a fresh mulloway all filleted in the fridge, we decided we'd be better off hitting the road for home, rather than spending our last day getting drenched in thunderstorms.

We woke up to somewhat fine conditions, but there was a massive thunderstorm brewing in the distance and we scurried to get the car packed. We didn't make it as huge drops of rain started pelting us, drenching us from head to toe as we got the last bits of gear in to the car. The whole way home we were driving through massive downpours, making visibility extremely poor, but we got there eventually! The total tally for the trip was 8 Snapper, 1 7kg Mulloway, 5 Gummy Sharks, 1 Bronze Whaler, 4 Flathead, a few dozen Salmon and a bunch of small fish when we were desperate for bait in the first half of the trip. It certainly started slow, and once again shows that just because its FWC, doesn't mean the fish will be there.. but persistence paid off. The 60 pound mulloway still alludes us though, and we'll be back chasing it again next year.

Far West Coast - November 2010 (Part 2)

See Part 1 first.

We stopped off at Nundroo for some ice and put half of the bag in the fridge to try and help it get down to a cooler temperature where it could start operating more efficiently. This worked quite well, and we set up in the caravan park before heading out to the ledge for a look.

As always, the ledge looked supremely 'fishy' - but we couldn't resist the allure of Scotts Beach and all its salmon schools.We headed back to Scotts and checked out the schools - they were all out of casting range. After a small amount of time, we went back to the caravan park to have a shower, clean up a bit, and cook some dinner. We had a plan to hit the jetty that night, which we did. It was very windy out on the jetty and not even a single squid was caught. A brief mention also goes out to a character at the Caravan Park we called the "Camel Back Hero" - look out for him if you're ever there. He's the guy who looks like he is ready to run a 44km marathon, at all times.

The following morning, after a quick trip to Scotts to restock the bait supply (yes it was that easy), we debated about whether to stay another day in the Caravan Park, and spent the day out at Cabbots Beach, or pack up immediately and head out to a Beach called Tuckamore. I spoke to one of the locals who told me that Cabbots rarely has mulloway come through, and Tuckamore, whilst quiet this year, has seen plenty in the past. Given that we were here to catch mulloway - we opted for Tuckamore, even though I didn't really know where to go. 

We dropped into Penong for Will to top up on fuel, and grab some 'emergency' beers, and then headed off into Chadinga Conservation Park. I followed the only track on my GPS that lead somewhat close to the coast line and after 45 minutes of winding through what looked to be a fairly unused track, we met the ocean once more. This picture is of us letting the tyres down as the track became quite soft nearer the ocean.

The beach appeared soft and we didn't wish to drive down it to check for more gutters, but luckily there was one right out front of the beach access point. A real deep and long gutter - it looked prime. We parked the cars close together and again assembled a big shelter with my 6x6 metre tarp (which now has a severe lack of eyelets). This time we made one entire side go down to the ground to stop the northerly wind howling through our shelter - worked well until the wind changed direction.

After cooking up lunch, I ducked around the back of camp for a nature visit when I heard the others screaming out that I had a bite. I quickly ran back around to see my rod sitting in its holder, lifeless. I wound in and rebaited, and then not long after I had another bite - this time I was on to it and after a brief fight, wound in my first ever Snapper - and a good size too. Finally, I join Matt & Will in the Snapper Club! Unfortunately, the video camera and the brag mat were still packed away in the car, so we didn't have time to get a measure on it or any footage before returning it to the water (November being Snapper ban month)

This catch also brought me one fish away from 'The Trifecta'. The Trifecta is when you catch 3 prize species (in this case, Shark, Mulloway and Snapper) all in one trip. I just needed to land a legal Mulloway now. Just a few hours later, Will completed his very own Trifecta. He landed a legal Snapper of his own, continuing his dream run this trip.

Will had literally just released his Snapper when his other rod started shaking about and he was immediately on to something else. Not content with already having the Trifecta, he was now upgrading on sizes previously caught, landing this terrific Bronzy.

Despite it being a very hot day (the thermometer sitting around 38 in the shade most of the day), it was clear the there was a storm brewing as the day wore on. We could see showers in the distance and the clouds were ominous. We spent a lot of time looking out at this view:

As night fell, we were treated to some awesome lightning storm action off on the horizon, but as we slept at night, that storm got worse and worse. I awoke in the middle of the night to the wind howling through our shelter, which instead of blocking the northerly wind, was now catching the southerly entirely. I'm surprised it held up. Credit goes to Harry for putting more support beams and guy ropes onto that thing than you could poke a stick at (Although Matt wasn't as impressed when he went arse over tit, tripping over a seemingly pointless rope tied 10 cm above the ground. It made things worse (read: funnier) when he brought down a heavy cast iron pot onto the back of his foot, resulting in a blackened heel). The frequency of lightning strikes during the night was unreal.

On the Friday, we woke up to see masses of seaweed floating around in our once pristine gutter. It would make fishing near impossible, and we just sat and looked out at it mostly. We did notice that the majority of the weed was lumping together in what Matt dubbed Weed Island. It would slowly shift up and down the gutter all day long, but never actually move out of the gutter. We all had small attempts at fishing in 'clear' spots, but they were short lived as the weed soon came and made a mess of things. Will persisted for hours, trudging up the beach from one end of the gutter to the other in attempts to avoid Weed Island. His persistence paid off after lunch as he landed two gummies in quick succession. Both were dispatched for a post FWC BBQ.

Despite Wills success, we decided that if the following day (our last full day) was going to be full of seaweed, we may as well pull the pin a day early and head home. There wasn't much point staring out at sea weed all day long. Luckily, as we awoke for our final day, we noticed the weed was visibly less. Still there, but not bad enough to send us home (possibly to Kym's disappointment, who looked to be sick of watching Will catch all the fish - excuse me.. I caught two!).

The day fined up nicely and we sat down, enjoyed the last of the emergency beers, and watched Will make another upgrade on his Trifecta. This time an absolute horse of a snapper pulled from the gutter. People in boats would be envious of this one! It measured 92cm, which wasn't much longer than the others we caught, but just looked so much bigger overall.

With a lot of bacon and eggs left over, our last days diet consisted completely of those ingredients, and I must say - it was awesome. We consumed 1.5kg of bacon that day, and probably over a dozen eggs. But, with the day getting later, we thought it would be best to pull down our magnificent shelter, and get everything besides the swags packed away in the car - to make for a quick and easy get away the next morning. Chadinga/Tuckamore had been quite successful, and I reckon we'll make another visit there some day. We were hoping to get a legal mully in the final days to take home and freeze up, but we can't complain with three awesome snapper off the beach - usually such a rare catch.

Despite Will's dominance, for me, this was our best trip ever by a long shot. Any day of the week I'd rather see my mates pull in fish than for no one to catch a thing. The sharks were everywhere this trip too! We could have fished wire trace all day long and probably had 6 more pictures of sharks in this story, but they do say the Mullys avoid wire. See you all next time, unless EVIL HARRY gets us!

Far West Coast - November 2010 (Part 1)

This trip will be remembered as one of a few things. Maybe "Will's Fishing 101". Or "Will's Fishing Masterclass". Or maybe just "The Trip Will Caught Basically Everything". Either way, one thing should be clear; Will dominated this trip.

With Andre's late pull out due to an injured back/hip/whatever else is wrong - it was down to 5 people on the biggest trip of 2010. Will, Matt (returning to the FWC after previously announcing himself never to return), Kym, Harry, and myself.

After the long 10 hour drive, we arrived in Fowlers Bay, and proceeded to let the tyres down before taking the 4wd's across the huge sand dunes over to the fabled Scotts Beach. Upon arrival on the beach, we immediately sighted a huge school of Salmon out the back of the breakers. We pulled up and quickly tied on lures, but with a strong wind in our face, were unable to to cast far enough to reach them. It wasn't long however, before the school moved in close and we were on in a big way. 4kg Salmon were being hauled up the beach. We needed to get quite a few for bait, and things were looking very very nice, instantly.

Matt with one of many Salmon landed

We made a fine adjustment to our location, moving 100 metres down the beach to where the gutter looked some what deeper, and decided to set up there for the night. The schools were hanging out of casting distance for the most part, but every now and then they'd come in close and we'd get a couple. We changed over to baits which proved effective in catching the Salmon that left the school. As we got out the chairs to settle in for a sunset fish, Will's rod bucked over in a massive way - and an amazing day one session just got even better.

Unfortunately, it didn't take too long to realise he didn't have a fish of any sort on his line, but instead a huge eagle ray taking a lot of line away from him. After a long battle, and Will with a now very sore back - I managed to get the gaff into the Eagle Ray's wing and slide it up the beach. 30 minutes later, and with a half broken back, Will's Rod buckles over again, and he is set for another huge battle against a monster Eagle Ray. We thought it may have been the same one just screwing with us - but it turned out to be a slightly larger one. This one was again landed and released - and with night fall not far away, we set up some wire traces and got the glow sticks ready!

There was plenty of action once it became dark. A lot of bust offs on those who didn't put a wire on, and even those that did - my line was bitten off above the wire trace. Note for next time: make wire longer. Of course there was one person who didn't get bitten off though - Will. He hooked on and brought in a massive Gummy Shark. Biggest Gummy I've ever seen caught by a long shot.

We all arose the next morning, and found a school of salmon right in close, directly in front of our campsite. It was one of probably 5 or 6 large schools all along Scotts Beach. We again got the lures out proceeded to catch fish after fish of monster Salmon. They went off like freight trains when hooked. We chased the school as it moved down the beach lobbing salmon high up the beach as we caught them and recasting immediately. The worst bit was walking back to camp holding 10kgs of salmon each. It was one of the finest Salmon fishing session's we've ever had, and after 4 Far West Coast trips, Scotts Beach finally lived up to its reputation as the best Salmon beach in South Australia.

With a large esky full of salmon fillets, we headed off towards the Dog Fence. The initial plan was to check out the beaches on the eastern side, as I'd heard some recent good reports there. There were a surprising amount of campers tucked away in the dunes as we traversed our way through the sand dunes. The main problem with the eastern side is you can't drive on the beach so you only get an opportunity now and then to check out the beach.

We pulled up to the beach at one of the access points and sighted a large gutter about 1.5 kilometres down the beach - and set off in search of a way to get to it. The track came to a stop about 500 metres later though - but close enough to the beach that we were able to duck across some sand dunes (tsk tsk, Will!). Will went down on to the beach and immediately got into trouble.. the sand was undriven on and very soft. He managed to do about a 300 point turn and get the car pointing back up onto the track but couldn't make it up the small hill. Surf to the rescue! We hooked up the snatch strap and after a number of attempts, we got the hilux up on to safe ground. We made it back to the main track and stopped to allow Will to get his tyres back up to a safe pressure. We also took the opportunity to have a cold beer and pose for the camera.

Since we couldn't find a decent gutter with a nearby area to camp at - we opted to go over to the western side of the fence instead. We found a decent gutter adjacent to some reefy structure, and set up camp there. Will immediately got his rod holder out and planted it right near the reef - a move that would later pay off in a big way.

Dog Fence Beach Campsite

On Day 3, most were up around 7am and a few extra Salmon were caught early. Given the amount we had for bait, all were released except one kept for lunch. Soon after, Will's rod looked to have a bit of interest - and soon he was battling a big fish. Fingers were crossed for a big Mulloway, but Will was still excited to get a nice bronze whaler shark up onto the beach. It had a weird cut in its gills - perhaps been gaffed in the past. A few photos were taken and it was released.

An hour and a half later, and again Will is onto a decent fish. As it came into the wash, I could see it was a Mulloway and called it - "its legal!". But Will couldn't see it as well as me and thought it was undersized. It didn't truly sink in for him until Harry ran down with the brag mat, and showed it to be 83cm. Will let out a massive cheer for his first ever legal mulloway. After years of catching undersizers - it's a great feeling! There was a round of high fives and plenty of photos taken - then the first was dispatched and fillets put into the fridge. Catching fish to eat was necessary this trip to avoid having to live solely on canned food. We had enough meat to only last us about half the trip. As a side note - I was still president of the "Mulloway Club" having a bigger PB at 91cm.

Around 6pm, I had my first taste of some Dog Fence action - my rod bending over onto a nice fish. As always when you get a big bite out west, you hope like hell that there is a big fat mulloway on the end of your line. No such luck on this occasion, but I was still absolutely stoked when this great looking Bronze Whaler was landed. My first ever Shark.

An hour later, and Will is onto another big fish. This one is going really hard though. When he pulled in a 112cm Mulloway, the cheers and high fives were even more jubilant than the first. I handed over the presidency. This fish looked really massive laying on the sand, we estimated it to be around 30-35lbs. I can only imagine what a 50 or 60 pounder would look like. With one Mulloway already in the fridge, and us still 6 days away from a freezer - Will decided to let it go. After a photo or 5 of course. What an amazing days fishing.

On Day 4, a northerly breeze started blowing, as the hot weather started to roll in. Matt seized the opportunity to set up a balloon in hope that the wind would drag it far out to sea. It worked to some extent, but couldn't get past the breakers on the first sand bar. It must have had the bait in a good spot though, as he was bitten off by a Shark soon after. Matt then set up a new balloon, but with a wire trace - unfortunately it didn't get any more bites and he soon changed back to his usual sinker rig.

Kym also "got sharked" shortly before Matt again had a big run on his line. He had a battle for about 2 minutes before the fish spat the hooks - a suspected Mulloway lost there! With no actual fish landed, it was a quiet mornings fishing, but after lunch Will landed a small Gummy Shark, and this one was kept to eat up later.

Sitting around camp eating lunch all our ears pricked up as we heard the sound of a drag going off. But before we could get too excited, we realised it was just a big blow fly stuck in the garbage bag! But that disappointment didn't last long as Matt was again hooked onto something large. We were convinced this must be a big Mully, as it took off sideways down the beach, following the gutter. It was going hard and after a long battle, Matt had it in close to reveal it was actually a big sting ray - disappointing, but a bit of fun anyway. His line snapped as the ray came into the wash, saving him the task of getting it back into the water. He re-rigged and caught a nice Salmon shortly after - so not all was lost!

With sunset approaching, Will hooked onto, and landed his third legal mulloway of the trip - which at this stage left the rest of us shaking our heads wondering what the hell we had to do to make them take our baits! With his first Mulloway mostly consumed, he kept this one. It went about 103-105cm in length and weighed 10.5kgs (23 pounds).

Will caught his fourth legal Mully shortly after that one, but at 'only' 76cm, it was thrown back. If anyone else landed it, there would have been a lot more excitement I suspect. As nightfall set in, Matt had his third big run of the day and again, he pulled a big sting ray into the surf. I made an attempt to gaff it, but in the dark proved too hard to see where it actually was. It snapped off and again saved the task of releasing it. I think Matt was actually pleased with that one snapping off. A swinging sting ray barb in the night probably isn't a good thing. Certainly not after 12 beers!

As I got up on Day 5, and peered over to the thermometer and noticed the fridge was at 13 degrees. I checked it out and sure enough, the fridge battery was flat. It seemed that we neglected to have a rotation system going when it came to getting beers out the fridge - which meant before going to bed we loaded it up around 60 warm cans - the fridge in an attempt to cool them all down chewed through the battery power quickly. I started the car so that the fridge could get going again, and then someone opened the bait esky. The worst smell you could possibly imagine came wafting out and the realisation that our bait supply had gone very bad also came to light. We dug a big hole down in the surf and poured all the remaining fillets in to it. Even covered up the smell was amazingly bad - I came extremely close to throwing up on the beach.

With no fresh salmon fillets for bait, and the food eskies ice getting low, and the fridge without cold beer, we decided we'd have to pack up and head back to Fowlers Bay for a night to get the fridge going again, and restock our ice supplies for both food and bait eskies. We didn't want to risk a fresh 11kg Mulloway going bad either.

Now, go onwards to Part 2