Well after such a bad start to what should have been straight forward, we hit the water. Tantabiddi boat ramp is 4km from our stay at Yardie Homestead CVP. We leave camp at 6am to be on the water proper by 6.30am.
The Lagoon is magic as we travel down the channel that is marked by channel markers and in five minutes we are clear of the north passage. The boat coarse is set for a troll south at 35mtr depth where the Spanish Mackerel like to feed.
With the rods set, we waste no time before both reels scream to the Mackies. We are fishing two up for the first two weeks till our crew arrive, making it four of us. The heat here mid April is hot. To hot in fact. The air temp is 35deg and the water temp on the surface at 31.2deg is far to hot for the fish to stay on the surface for long.
The boat is throttled back to idle, Lambie takes the helm and I take on the larger of the two fish. the other is left in the rod holder. Oh no the fish starts jumping across the surface. Its a nice fish of 18-20kg. The Bloody sharks are on it and I let it run, to try to lose the grey coats(sharks). Well The sharks ate our dinner and weren't done. They ate the head and my lure.
Now I have one PITA to deal with. 120kg of Bronze Whaler. After half a hour the shark coughs up whats left of the head, plus one slighty used lure. the other lure loss as well.
Well that costs.
We try again and again the sharks are on our Mackie in seconds. This time we end up with half a Mackie of around 9kg. Dinner for a few nights. give it away by 10am and head for the ramp.
The sharks at Exmouth are out of control. They once had three professional shark fishing boats to control them and service the Flake market.
We followed up fishing for a few more Mackies for the table, over the following days. The cost of lures was mounting.
The winds on this part of the coast play havic 50% of the time. When the winds blows, we take long walks along the beaches.
We had arrived at the start of the Easter break, and our walks Rewarded us with the same type of lures washed up on the beaches, after the sharks expelled them. Our first walk rewarded us with six Halco lures @$15 a pop which made us even, for the ones lost.
So the numbers of fishing gear lost speaks words.
The boats fishing the bottom had the same issues with the sharks, with 90% of fish taken by the buggers.
Our crew arrive and next we go after the bigger fish further out, off Niggloo reef.
To be continued.............................
-- Edited by Hey Jim on Monday 3rd of July 2017 11:26:10 PM
Oh man, that's bad! Can't say we've ever had that much trouble with sharks in times past. But that's Exmouth for you. You never know what's going to rule the roost up there. One year it was wall to wall gold-spot trevors. You could have any fish you wanted.. as long as it was a gold spot. But even they are better than sharks! Actually, they proved a treat done with teriyaki sauce. The shark thing is more expected further north, but that extra-warm water seems to have them in more southern parts in big numbers. Hopefully the water temp will drop as the weather cools for winter.
It's a heartbreaking tale Jim. I hope the next edition has better news.
Jacquie, don't let that stop you. There are so many spectacular shallow water spots there where the risk is very low. Also, the darn sharks are so well fed up there that divers are pretty much left alone. The big risk is great whites, and they don't frequent those waters. The last recorded attack by a tiger shark in WA was back in the 1920s! Which meant the killing of numbers of tigers and whalers, and not a single great white, by Colin Barnett's abominable 'drum lines' was a wasteful and silly exercise. There are better ways to target the culprits if necessary.
If you really want to minimize the risk, the waters straight off the beach at Coral Bay are pretty breathtaking without going more than a few strokes from the shallows. There's a lot of help and advice available from experts up that way.You should be just fine.
