My Turn, Finally - Weipa 27-31 May

[Moffy]

3 full days, 3 locations and 30 odd species.

There's a lot to like about Weipa.

Arriving in Weipa late Friday afternoon, we were on the water shortly after dark (having my Brother Brendan living up there definitely has its advantages). However some slightly off fuel and a resultingly hesitant motor meant that instead on the planned night assault on the Mission River bridge, we fished about 30 metres out from the Rocky Point ramp (we should have just launched at the bridge itself )

That said, fishing with a mate, Adrian (freshly back from the UK after a year and a half ) and his father, Justin, it wasn't too bad at all kicking back, catching up and sipping the odd coldly. The stream of small sharks we caught, were not too interesting, but when we cut one up for bait, things changed and a procession of small salmon came on board. Given the engine troubles, it wasn't too bad a night. A monster Catfish on a new rod and reel outfit i had sourced for Adrian provided a bit of entertainment and proved that the drag on the new reel was working well - at around 5 kg, it put up a good fight and was kept as crab pot bait for the next day.

Next day with the fuel issue sorted, and with my brother now on board, a run up the Hey river was on order to a favourite snag of ours. Sadly it fished a bit disappointingly, with only a smallish (though legal) fingermark, couple of small cod (gold spot and black spot) and some monster black bream (35cm plus) coming on board.

we moved further up river to the upper hey, where we had not fished before. Fishing a likely gutter mouth, Brendan caught a monster grouper on a live mullet that gave him a real handfull on the 80 lb handline that was set in the middle of the river. A second smaller grouper gave him equal trouble on rod and reel moments later. A few small grunter and other fish rounded out that spot.

photo quality not the best i'm afraid - taken with video camera with no flash - also a bit short on photos (as usual for our trips - as no one wanted to stop fishing when the fish were biting)

[Moffy]

the smaller grouper

[Moffy]

after that last spot, a troll was in order. so with Justin and Adrian trolling out the back, Brendan driving and me up the front casting to every liklely looking snag along the way, we proceeded further up river having a bit of an explore.

a couple of GTs on the troll and a small barra to me later, we pulled the pin and headed back downriver - only to find that our pots were unreachable due to the very low tide

a quick look out the front and troll around the Leads showed that it had calmed right off out the front and so the decision was made to fish out the front the following day.

next day out the front (after picking up our very empty crab pots ) ariving at our spot on the inshore rubble, some soft plastics dropped to the bottom were nailed straight away for a double of good sized golden trevally to Brendan and Justin, whilst adrian cursed his decision to hand over his rod while he changed the anchors over. On further drops, i managed two consecutive bite offs while Adrian scored a tiny mackeral (less than 30 cms)

anchoring up we caught a few more golden trevally and some nice fingermark and tuskfish. I managed to catch the same Tawny shark (all 9 feet of it) twice in 10 minutes, with Brendan having caught it once in between .

a few more spots later and we had a very nice feed of fingermark and tuskfish on board.

[Moffy]

the plan for the next day was to do a short morning stint up the Mission followed by an afternoon and evening out the front on our rubble marks trying to get some quality fingermark. alas it was not to be as the wind came up that day.

the morning session up the Mission however was very very good. Fishing the "Y" first up, my first bait down, a large live mullet, was nailed immediately, but unfortunately the hook pulled and all i got back was a scaled, very worse for wear mullet. It was to be about 20 minutes before it was nailed again. In the meantime, a couple of sharks caused some mayhem on some weightless live mullet we had out the back. On 3 or 4 occassions they smashed the mullet and screamed off plenty of line before biting through the leader. They provided plenty of excitement though with the surface strikes and struggles against the tight drags on 20lb braid.

When my mullet got nailed the second time, and this time the hook held a very heavy fish went close to spooling me on its first run, not sure at this stage whether i had the shark or a big bottom fish (i was hoping for a nice jewie) it was 10 minutes or more of pure fun as the fish took line and i regained some of it. The fish ultimately got away though and a neatly cut leader pointed out the culprit - another shark - it had given me a good tussle though all the same.

moving up a small side creek and throwing some livies into a nice snag the action was instantaneous, with Brendand hooking and landing a very nice barra after a very close quarters fight. Adrian followed this straight up with a 4-5kg Black Spot cod and Justin then got a similar sized grouper. With these guys all using heavy handlines to have any chance of getting the fish out of the tight cover - you would have thought that me, fishing with only 20lb braid would have hooked the biggest fish and got blown totally away - but no - i managed a measly undersized fingermark.

Shortly after Adrian managed to get blown away on the 80lb handline by what must have been a very nice fish in the snags.

Leaving the fish biting to beat the tide out of the feeder creek, we fished a few other places for some small barra, We also managed our one and only jack for the weekend (unheard of).

we had a final fish under the Mission river bridge that night for a tarpon and some small queenies - of yeah and the lump of pipe that i had to pull up on the anchor out of Bl**dy deep water.

[Moffy]

couple of other photos.

[Moffy]

part catch

[Moffy]

vvv

[szopen]

Looks like somebody had some real fun.

[dfox]

3 days and 30 species!! nice work moffy!!

[Daintreeboy]

so you didn't try the fly eh? I guess the boys wouldn't let you. Can't wait for my turn!!

[Moffy]

nah - bit hard to throw the fly off the front of brendan's boat with the full length canopy - maybe could have managed it - but really need to get a small rod tube for it so can take it out in the boat without fear of it getting broken, when not in use.

maybe going back in July [smiley=2thumbsup.gif]