This trip started a little differently with the anglers flying in on an Aerotropics afternoon flight instead of the
morning one which arrives at 10:15. Aerotropics was even gracious enough to hold their 1 pm departure by 45 minutes to
allow the guys coming from New Zealand to clear customs. How’s that airline service, actually waiting for customers on
the way to their fishing holiday. Fourteen years we have been doing these trips now, we have dealt with four regular public
transport airlines (we pay for clients flights from Cairns return) and never have we received service like we now enjoy
with Aerotropics.
Previous carriers service at times became so bad at times we chartered our own aircraft to get people here at our
great expense, just so it would happen with certainty and service. A very big thank Aero Tropics we really appreciate
you and the extra mile you go for us.
How do you say the same thing again and again and make it interesting? Good thing most people read these
reports from the most current then back track. Tunas were again prolific as were large queenies over a meter,
permit, goldens, giant herring, thumping Spanish mackerels and GT’s. As I edit what I have put down over the week now I can say the guys on this trip have smiles on there faces a bomb blast would not erase.
Afternoon day one, Pal Al rock has the same school of middling sized trevalleys and a few thumping goldens mixed in
and again there was upward of 50 fish caught and released for the session at this location. A good trick we
do is when there is a guided boat anchors and bottom fishes the rubble reef with baits or jigs a fly fishing skiff
ties onto the back of them on a length of rope and casts fast sinking lines into the subsequent burly trail generated
by the bait and the fish catching action. John (pictured) commented to me when asked "how was your afternoon... bloody cracker, caught 10
trevalleys tied on to the back of Phils boat in the middle of nowhere". The weather is calm with a 10 to 15 knot
breeze all day and everyone caught plenty fish this afternoon under the bright warm sun.
Giant herring are everywhere at the moment and what a pleasure it is to introduce them to unsuspecting fly anglers,
talk about opening the eyes of a fly angler fishing in the salt for the first time. These majestic sport fish readily
take fly’s both site fishing and blind casting, they are as fast as anything with fins and will reduce a backing
load to the arbor in seconds, before a freeform jump that has them tumble tail over head or make a horizontal flat spin
to land and blister off in the direction they land, sometimes straight back towards the angler. There must have been 20
landed (and as many jumped off) from the beach this morning in the remnants of the bait ball that we have been having so
much fun in for the past trips. The bait is now only about 5% of what it was, I spose it’s all been eaten. As the picture
shows sometimes we can shallow wade, the rule is "you can be shin deep in the water fishing as long as it is shin deep for
100 yards ALL around you and there ISN'T a crocodile there because if the was you would see it" on the other hand "when you
are ashore fishing from the beach and the bank drops off into unknown depth and you can not see the bottom, you don’t stand
within 3 yards of the water" We have video footage of the guys in the background standing shin deep, the bait fish making
a perfect 10 foot exclusion circles around their legs while they are catching giant herrings like pictured a roll cast
distance away. Even guys who have never before used a fly rod caught herrings here.
Al with his blood pressure normal with a lovely Diamond trevally caught sight fishing the flats.
Next morning, Alan had a monster spit and I am dobbing him straight in. You see he bought a new 850 Penn SS spinfisher
and matching Penn rod.. day one the drag knob blew to bits I know not how, leaving just the inner nut. I first learned of
this helping him ready himself this morning, he had a pair of crossed band aids (I kid you not) over the nut and onto the
spool. Explaining to him this was no use as the spool has to spin independently of the nut under yielding drag that I set
liberally with pliers and remover the plasters. I wasn’t there to witness the event but a further succession of
failures or errors with this particular piece of equipment had Alan reach critical mass and hurl the outfit into the gulf.
When his mates were giving him some stick over it he said "my blood pressure wasn’t real good at the time and I knew that
throwing the thing in the water would improve it.. and it did".
Tuesday, the wind has come up a bit (15-20) but the weather is still magnificent, clear blue skys and warm sunshine, the last
two Augusts have been real good weather wise and this one looks like being the same, hope it lasts.
Monster GT’s were caught around the buoys trolling along with some "log of wood" sized barracuda and some XOS size
sharks. All these critters hunt together and where there is one there is invariably the other. There were more queen
fish than I have ever seen on the flats in crystal clear water beating up on schools of wolf herring that would shower
out of the water like small samurai swords glinting in the sun. Schools of Goldens were in the shallows and were absolute
suckers for whatever you cast to them as opposed to the big schools of permit that ignored what ever you presented. Gareth
hooked and fought a permit almost to the sand bar he had gotten out onto, at the last minute the hook pulled, I was not
there but the boys telling me of the 115 kilo ex rugby player throwing his rod and then himself to the sand bad and writhing
around in a froth of rage. One lovely 15 kilo Spaniard came back to the mothership caught in 4 metres of water where the
queenfish were in the morning.
Mornings are magnificent out the front Tunas, Spanish Mackerals, barracudas and sharks.
We lost a few fish to the men in gray suits that are part and parcel of the migrating pelagic food chain, everything is reliant
on everything else from the smallest bait fish to the largest predator and all revolve around the density and location of
the others.
As the tide makes and starts to cover the flats we, the predator at the absolute top of the food chain turned our focus to
fly fish sight fishing for the exotics that are abundant this time of year. Schools of goldens were more a nuisance but great for
boosting the confidence of novice and less experienced fly casters as they would readily pounce on any thing cast with on their
sight. When I am asked "how do you tell the difference between Permit and Goldens in the water?" "Goldens are the ones that eat any
thing, and Permit are the ones you tear your hair out over".
Tuesdays making tide on the flats the deeper channels and outer edge dropping off into 5 metres of water all of a sudden burst into
activity with frigate birds swooping and turns diving above the again visual symphony of Wolf Herring showering from the water glinting
in the sun in successive synchronized jumps as the big queenfish rounded them up. This is the stuff (along with all the other great
stuff) that really gives me a chubby.
Three fly anglers caught Permit this week, there are plenty of them around and all that is needed to get a result is some skill
and persistence. Several occasions they were a gift, "high and happy" in the water column with in an easy cast, but with Permit
fishing Murphy and the line tangle fairies seem to come out in force.
Big gay Phil (left) a permit virgin no longer pictured above with Jim who is possibly the first Pom to catch an indo pacific permit.
Phil’s fish would not revive and is in the freezer for scientific examination, you see there is some debate that there might be 2
species of Permit in the pacific / Indian ocean and we get them both, these ones on the west coast, and the ones we catch on the
east. Hopefully we will catch the other suspected species again later this year and we will send 2 frozen specimens to Dr. Julien
for examination.
As a last day bonus the queenies were again schooled up in numbers greater than I have seen before. They were so thick
and continually busting the surface anglers just stared in amazement at them not bothering to cast.
An absolute cracker trip with a wonderful group of guys. Off again Wednesday another report soon. Previous Fishing Trip Reports:
