Cape York - 2006

Day 10 - Rest Day - Weipa - Fishing!!

Index

Today turned out to be one of the most amazing days on our trip - we had organised a fishing trip with Dan and Josh - two of Dave Donald's boys - who took us out chasing bait balls - within an hour, we found them - about 50km south of Weipa - huge numbers of bait, being chomped from above by birds (how we found them), and from below by the tuna - and the tuna being chomped by shark..

An unbelievable hour or two as we cast our lures into the bait ball, for the line to start running within a second as we pulled in Bluefin Tuna, Grey Mackerel, and Rutman scored a Giant Trevally.    Ivan and Rutman pulled in fish after fish, as Steve G (who was hooking them up just as often), lost one after the other to the sharks - it was just plain bad luck, as he once pulled up half the lure - taken once by the tuna, but chomped by the shark - see photo below.

Another time, a shark took his fish only a metre from the boat - and in one of the most amazing catches, he pulled in a set of fish lips!! - at least he saved the lure, but the sharks were being well fed by his catches, and he still was to land anything of any decent size.

Ian and Craig in the other boat were having just as much luck as Ivan and Rutman, so by lunch, Steve was still smiling, but there was still something missing. Until....He made up for it in the afternoon 10 fold, catching a 40lb Gold Spot Estuary Cod, and it made up for all of the shark food he had been providing in the morning - great work mate!! ;-)

The water was a cold 24 deg - higher than the air temps in Canberra at the same time!

We finished the day back at the caravan park, with Dan and Josh filleting all of the fish for us.   The kids grabbed some photos with the fish, and the boys grabbed one with Dan and Josh before they left - the day was one of the highlights of the trip - absolutely recommended!

The girls had put together salads and other additions to turn this into the feast of all time - we cooked fish on the coals by the beach, and then had a smorgasbord as the sun went down.   Yep, doing it tough ;-) Someone laid out the logs again - and we had to step over them for quite a while as the night grew old.... ;-)

A chunk out of Dan's boat from a shark - we knew it was going to be a good day!

On the way south - time for a quick beer before we have to do a days work

This is what we're looking for - birds - a tell tale sign of bait going off

A bit closer

Bluefin Tuna were jumping all over the show

And the sharks were all over the tuna - it made it a challenge - not to hook the tuna, that was actually pretty easy (and quick) - but to get it in before the shark took to it - ask Steve G - he KNOWS sharks taking your catch!