A few monties trips
I haven't seen to many fishing reports put up lately so thought I would write a quick report of some of my monties trips over the last 18 months.
I will keep it pretty brief and let the pictures tell the story, i have been lucky enough to head to the islands a few times with my normal deckie paul who comes up from Perth and a few different mates aswell on my boat and others bringing there own boat to tag along we have had some fantastic trips and 1 not so fantastic trip where we got to the islands unpacked the boat and went to go for a fish and i could heard a horrible crunching sound coming from the engine so i pulled into a bay lifted the engine cover and could see the water pump pulley wobbling and the bearing had failed so limped back to camp and we were grounded for a few days so made the most off fishing off the island which we still had a blast and arranged a tow back to dampier a huge shout out to blue lightning charters for the tow what a top bunch of people.
I like to camp on bluebell island as it's a quick trip out for a fish, most of the fishing Is done out west and to the north with a small amount on the eastern side, We have caught a nice variety of fish on the trips with every trip producing something new, it generally doesn't take long to find some nice trout and reds, the long nose emperor are in plagues the first couple are fun as they are a hard fighting fish buy you get a bit tired of catching them, it's always a fun going for a troll to give the arms a rest for a little bit but they get a good workout when you hook up there are some good size Mackies over there it was a nice surprise to catch a couple of job fish while trolling,
It's always fun in the water having a dive the variety of fish is awesome one of my favourites was a 80cm+ barramundi cod such a pretty fish, it's pretty easy to shoot something for a feed and always a few crays around unless your on a full moon then they all seem to be hiding deep in the coral the tides can make it very difficult and at times dangerous so you definitely need to pick your tides when your in the water and also cruising around the islands.
We try and eat a difficult variety of fish every night and some of the smaller varieties are defenatly the tastiest
On one trip i had a mate loose his wedding ring as he jumped off the boat at the island and we couldn't find it so on my next trip which was almost 12 months later I took the metal detector and a mate had a swing where he thought it may of been and within 20 minutes he had it in his hand.
I reached out to several members on here before my first trip several years ago and there valuable Info made it alot easier to plan the trips so reach out if your thinking of doing a trip I'm more then happy to share some knowledge I have learnt over the last few years heading over there.
I always launch from dampier as I find it easier to fuel up everything before heading over and its always nice to have a pub feed the night before and the night you get back to land.
Cheers
Rod
big john
Posts: 8749
Date Joined: 20/07/06
Adventure
Nice work Roddo. That wedding ring photo/story is gold.
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Swompa
Posts: 3885
Date Joined: 14/10/12
Nice one Roddo! That's a
Nice one Roddo! That's a loaded boat!
roddo
Posts: 486
Date Joined: 16/10/09
Sure is the old girl handles
Sure is the old girl handles it pretty well the lighter bulky stuff goes in the cabin like swags and cloths bagss and most of the heavy stuff infront of the engine so it still gets on the plane pretty easily.
Coastrunner
Posts: 440
Date Joined: 25/10/14
Living the dream mate
Top write up and pics
davewillo
Posts: 2405
Date Joined: 08/09/16
Some great fish and great
Some great fish and great photos too mate!
PGFC member and lure tragic
wrasse magnet
Posts: 126
Date Joined: 16/10/10
Woweee! Looks like about
Woweee! Looks like about 130km one way trip from Dampier, that's a loooong way! I count 260L of fuel in the jerry cans, how big's the tank in your boat? How many kilometers do you typically do on a trip? Great range of fish, would love to do omething similar one day but not sure my 5.8m tub with 130L fuel tank would cut the mustard.
dodgy
Posts: 4578
Date Joined: 01/02/10
My haines 17r had a 90 litre
My haines 17r had a 90 litre tank and I used to carry another 80 or jerries. Did 6 or 8 trips with that rig. It's only 80km from fortescue mouth.
Just need that 'can do' attitude and have a good idea of weather windows.
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roddo
Posts: 486
Date Joined: 16/10/09
Yeah it's a bit of a trek
Yeah it's a bit of a trek over there but we'll worth it. I take 520l of fuel 15 jerry cans and 220l in boat fuel tanks , I typically do about 500-550 kms and my fuel economy is around 1.25km per litre.
A couple mates come over in there 5.5-6m plate ally boats they are a bit lighter so have better fuel economy so don't need to bring as much fuel but it's a place where you don't want to run out. I always allow for more then I need incase I hit some bad weather for the trip home which has happened before what's normally a 3-4 hr trip took 8 hours.
Best advise I can give anyone is load your boat up for a trip like that with all the gear and see how much fuel you would use once your over there you don't use alot of fuel each day I allow 50lt a day and some days if we are just diving I might only use 20 litres but other days we might do a big mission and use 70l.
roddo
Posts: 486
Date Joined: 16/10/09
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sea-kem
Posts: 14984
Date Joined: 30/11/09
Top report Rod thanks for
Top report Rod thanks for posting mate, those Trout look delish.
I'd like to do this trip more so than the Abrolhos due to the history of the uslands and the location.
One day......
Love the West!