Australia 2012 Report 5

[Snatcher]

We arrived at Perth Airport after a four hour flight from Sydney. The flight proved interesting,having to walk my grandson up and down the aisles for most of the time. At the airport we picked up our hire car and drove the 200k down to our holiday bungalow at Abbey Beach,Geographe Bay (yes that's the way it's spelt)

The bungalow was within sight of the beach and I was dying to get fishing. This being a family holiday though I had to be fair and limit my fishing to either early morning or evening sessions. The first morning I was down at sunrise and having no bait simply went through my lure collection with not one offer.

Noticed a guy fishing further up the beach so wandered that way to talk to him,hoping that he was a local and knew the score. It turned out that he was on holiday from Perth and was trying to catch herring using prawn for bait. He had not had a bite either. He did tell me that I could buy some fishing bait at the local petrol station though which I was quite relieved at as lures did not seem very effective here.

The next morning armed with sandworm,squid and prawns I walked the short distance down to the beach. I set up a simple running ledger rig and baited up a 2/0 baitholder hook with sandworm. First cast I got a bite but failed to connect. This kept happening every cast so thought it must be small fish and accordingly started dropping down in hook size. What was pleasant was being able to stand in the warm Indian Ocean up to my knees - a far call from the Whitley Bay sea temperatures !!

Eventually I did manage to capture one of the bait snafflers and it turned out to be a whiting. It was positively identified by a jogger who was going past at the time.



Well that was another new species for me so I was well happy. Had a few more bites but failed to hook up. On a couple of occasions whilst bringing in the bait had follows by what appeared to be garfish.



I packed up at this point as the heat was starting to get uncomfortable. They were having an unseasonable heatwave when we arrived with temperatures of 40 Deg C around noon. Far too hot for my baldy pom crust !!!! The bait went back into our fridge/freezer for the next session.

My next sunrise trip down to beach had me ledgering with worm and prawn on a size 2 hook. These baits were getting stripped bare in seconds so opted to try squid hoping it would last longer as it was tougher. Eventually I did manage to get two more whiting onto the beach. These were returned after a quick picture



At this point I saw a large black fin in the water just about 50yds out and was not sure if it was a shark or a dolphin. Seeing as how I was now wading thigh deep I decided to take a few steps backwards and in doing so nearly stood on a good sized stingray that had moved into the shallows behind me. The fishing went quiet at this point so it may have been a shark so decided to head back for breakfast.

Our last day at Abbey had me down on the beach again at sunrise and the first two casts had me catching two better sized whiting and I quickly returned them to the water.



A few minutes later my squid bait was taken by a much bigger fish which commenced to strip off my 15lb mono at a fairly quick rate. I managed to eventually stop its run and slowly started getting line back. I had a nasty feeling that this fish was a stingray and was not too keen on trying to unhook it single handed. A couple of minutes later I saw the fish for the first time and it was a fair sized stingray. As I was slowly walking backwards to beach it the hook pulled out much to my relief. I knew it would have been a new species but was quite happy with the outcome. My Australian encounters with stingrays were not finished with this lost fish though.

I rebaited with squid and cast out again to get an immediate hook up with a nice silver trevally which was followed by another on the next cast. I had caught some of these back in 2008 so it was not a new species for me but was quite happy catching them.



My next fish was a new species though,a nicely coloured flounder. A quick picture and back it went. I then caught his twin on the next cast. Well pleased with this little session I headed back for breakfast.



On the way back along the beach I noticed a large stingray swimming close in so managed to get a picture of it. Was it the one I lost ? I will never know.



My last night had me walking down onto the beach again just as the sun was setting and all of the locals seemed to be in the water splashing around and enjoying themselves.



I had intentionally not brought my fishing gear down and just wanted to watch the sun setting. What a fantastic sunset it proved to be.



Next morning had us driving back up the coast to Freemantle where we were to stay for 3 days before heading back to Sydney. I managed to buy some frozen squid and headed down to the local breakwater. Got talking to an Australian angler who was halfway through a bottle Jim Beam He was a bit incoherrent but the story appeared to be that he was catching puffer fish on Chicken Kiev. What a character !!!!

Anyway I started ledgering with squid and was catching a pufferfish every other cast. I was happy to get another new species but when they inflated into a spiny ball it proved difficult getting the hook out.



Well that was my Western Australian adventure over and it was most enjoyable with some new species for me. On getting back to Sydney we heard that there had just been a fatal shark attack on a diver near Abbey Beach where we had been staying. That made 4 fatal shark attacks in Western Australia in a 7 month period. Two divers and two surfers killed !!!

My next report has me back fishing in Sydney harbour again.

John

Edited November 19, 2014 by Snatcher

[Newt]

Looking forward to it John. It certainly looks like a pretty bit of beach you had there to fish.

[Bobj]

Goodoh, mate. Like the diversity in our waters, hey? Often had up to 7 different varieties of fish in one session.

The silver trev is locally known as 'skippy', or 'skipjack'and we used to catch cricket scores in Bunbury.

 

Good sunsets, too.

[Zigs]

Looks a lovely place to fish Snatcher, you'll not want to come home at this rate

[captain cojones]

Lovely Snatch, what an adventure. :)