Well, its about time I put up a quick report.
Unfortunately my week in Exmouth was quick and frustrating. Despite strong Southerlies we got out everyday, much to the amusement of Adam Gallash. The crew consisted of me, Mark Wong and Jay Burgess, who drove down from Karatha.
On the first day, we managed to get out to the islands, and popped some spots that I had raised some fish before. I had alot of new gear to get familiar with before my next big trip and I was hoping to get some teeth-marks on them beforehand. First cast raised a GT under a meter - half-heartedly I worked my popper back quite disgusted at its size compared to the massive Ebipop 200. Little was I to know this was about as good as it was going to get. Anyway it gave my Ebipop a shy bump which I casually shrugged off and soon swam off. At this point I had high hopes as first cast, first raise. Jay was getting noticeably amped up.
However the next 3 days consisted of continuous popping on the lead-up tides for another shy look and finally the one and only small GT landed on my 'final desperation' lure. It was at this point that the trip turned more into a diving-freedive trip than anything. Our attempts at popping inside the lagoon with small stickbaits and minnows were foiled too, when not a single sized spanglie, trevally, queenie, or any sort of significant fish life showed interest. I was at a loss for words.
The only GT landed - 103 cm. Don't let the photo fool you though, a conservative estimate using the formula put him at about 15kg.
We did try jigging out the back of Tantabiddi, but the sharks were in full alert mode, and after losing my day's quota of jigs in continuous drops to mackerel and sharks I had had enough. Jay managed a nice Coronation through the toothies though.
Anyway, it was now time to "Kill some shit".
As the southerlies continued to pick up during the week, we spent most of our time in the Gulf shooting fish, either with my speargun or camera. Mark is an avid diver, and I have just gotten into it so we were both quite happy to take snaps of the great variety of marine life. I have noticed that with scuba you tend to appreciate the microfauna that's around - I have some great shots of nudi's and christmas tree worms that I will put up shortly. Jay managed his first few trout, which I must say is an achievement considering how shy and rare they are at the known spots in the gulf. I was told that up in Karatha you don't have to spend anywhere near an hour swimming around just for 1 fish. Unfortunately the two that Jay landed were around the 47cm mark, with two 60+cm specimens shot pulling free. Don't you hate that with trout?
My unlucky streak continued as I was not able to hit a single trout, and of the 3 nice bluebone I did see, the 2 I shot turned around and laughed at me when my spear ping-ed off their heads. In the end I had to contend myself with a 105cm queenie and a small cod, none of which was wasted. In fact I think all the trout I saw bar 1 was when I was under using scuba and only had my camera with which to shoot them with. Nevertheless, I was happy as I was able to push myself freediving up to about the 8m mark. Only a few months ago at Onslow I was struggling with 6m!
Here are the pics of the trout that me and Mark took on scuba, in the same area as we were freediving.
Here's a big Spanglie and a Chinaman out from West Side (no guns allowed).
Adam as usual provided lots of entertainment whenever we met up. He is an extremely busy person though so I suggest anyone wanting to visit him make an appointment with his secretary as he is never at home on the couch playing super-mario.
Thanks to Laurie of Murchison Boat Hire for the boat. The better dive shots are to come once I am done editing them with Photoshop as vis and lighting was not the greatest.
