Well our yearly run upto the Ningaloo area has been and gone. This year was a little different as we normally take the Tinny into Ningaloo Station. We left at 3am Boxing Day & stayed at Carnarvon on the way up and were in Coral Bay at about 10:30am the next day. Got a ripper tailwind up there.

The ripper tail wind wasn't so good when we got there though. New Years day was looking promising, so a few days on the beach with the kids was in order. Got out on New Years day a little rusty but keen. Went out the north passage and trolled out to the 70m area looking for fish on the sounder. Found a few healthy looking shows and dropped on them. The only thing I got past the sharks was a small Cod. The wind picked up, so I shot inside the reef for a Squid. Got the biggest Squid I've ever caught, it actually took off around the front of the boat and had me chasing it around the anchor line. While this was going on my unwaited bait got nailed by a nice Spango, so dinner was sorted.

Next day I did the same thing, out to the 70's this time I managed to get a nice Rankin past the grey coats. His mate on the bottom dropper wasn't so lucky though. Trolled back in as the wind had picked up and managed a nice little Spanish. Woo hoo finally got to test out my new Madfish Bag. Awesome bit of kit!

The 3rd of Jan. was looking to be the best day, I had promised the young fella a run, and so it was, the bay was glass. I trolled just outside the reef where I had picked up the Mackie the day before, no luck this time and with the youngun' on board I decided to go back inside the reef and target some Spanglies. I stopped the boat to rig up a couple of lighter rigs. I had only just finished his rig when a massive Whaler turned up at the back of the boat with about 6 or 7 Cobia hanging with him. So out goes an unwaited Whiting head and I watch a nice Cobia slurp it down and I'm on! A pretty quick fight really & we've got a nice Cobe in the boat. High fives allround, so I say to Scott "you keen to catch one?" he's all for it. So another bait in the water and bang he's on. His is fighting a lot harder than mine did. So Dad takes the rod thinking the shark had grabbed his. No just a better sized one, so I hand him back the rod and help him catch his best fish to date. Woo Hoo!! more high fives. I'm sweating like a pig by this stage so we left mister Sharkie with 2 less hangers on.

We came back inside the reef and picked up 3 more nice Spango's. Another fish added onto Scott's growing list of catches, he's got a bit of a knack. The wind came up again for a few more days. So back to the beaches, it's a hard life. I went out solo again on the 9th and got 3 more good Spanglies. My mum was keen to get onto the Spanglies so the 10th was our last day before leaving for home on the 11th. Mum and Scott joined me for another session on the Spanglies inside the reef. It was a bit quiet at the first spot and the little terns and fish smashing bait only a couple of hundred metres away was getting the better of Scott. He practically begged me for him to have a cast at the commotion. So we idled over to what I thought were small Longtails. I cast out for Scott as he couldn't quite get the distance. Handed him the rod and told him to wind as fast as he could. Got smashed on the first cast in about 4m of water, turned out to be Shark Mackeral, another new species for him. Loved watching him pinned in the back corner grimacing as these little speedsters took off! I let him catch & release 2 then went looking for another spot to try. I think we ended the day with 6 Spango's a Red throat and another nice Squid.

So even though there was a fair bit of wind about up there, we still managed a few nice fish. A few red fish would of topped it off nicely. Great spot, might have to try and talk the missus into going again next year.

Cheers

Chris.

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