Submitted: Thursday, Sep 01, 2005 at 00:00

Now if you are anything like me then the opportunity to get out and enjoy the water seems almost impossible at times and then there is the need for a large vessel to do some of the more serious fishing available

A trip to Kalumburu is not your average weekend fishing trip, this fact alone made going there an added attraction. But as is the case with most travelers to Kalumburu they are just passing through on a Kimberley trip, which involves the usual four wheel driving and camping. Our trip was in the planning stage for several years and with fishing a priority we would be taking our tinnies to take the best advantage of all our destinations. Our preparation also included taking a wide selection of fishing gear, at the expense of clothing – but this is another story. It goes without saying that this is remote fishing with all the risks associated in getting there, limited to no rescue services, crocs and sharks and no quick trip to the shops to replace lost or broken items.

Was it worth the effort? – You bet, even though there were a couple of times during our travels when some of the crew were not totally convinced. A trip to Kalumburu starts when you turn off the Gibb River Road for a short trip to Drysdale River Station about 60 Kilometers which is a great place to stop and spend a night to have a chat, get fuel and even a home cooked meal. This will prepare you for the remaining 150 Kilometers to Kalumburu. There are limited services at Kalumburu and permits are required, refer the link to the community. The road is rough and will punish the vehicle and trailer but as we got closer none of that seemed to matter.

After a short stop in town we spent a glorious week at McGowans Island camping ground located about 7 K out of Kulumburu. The locations has its ups and downs, the camp site looks much like it did after cyclone Ingrid flattened it early in 2005, there is wreckage strewn everywhere. The 4 vehicles are scattered in a small area of beach and trees along with a few others. We are parked under a magnificent Boab tree surrounded by pandanus palms right next to our tent. Our camp has 180 degree water views and no shade but the sea breeze makes the heat tolerable.

The weather pattern was predictable with each day starting with a quite, cool morning till about 10 followed by a stiff sea breeze till about 4 or 5. The middle of the day is taken up with sight seeing and relaxing and the mornings are spent fishing as well as the late afternoon into the evening. The sunsets here are postcard stuff with a fire red sunset over the water every day.

George the caretaker has been most friendly from the moment we pulled into the place. He has showed us where to go and catch bait. The toilet and shower are worth a mention they are in a building that was demolished in the cyclone but the shower and toilet sort of survived, just cold water which is burning hot during the day because the water main lies above the ground and acts as solar heating. Some of this house roof also survived and its location over a concrete floor made it a perfect work shop.

Most importantly I must get to the fishing which has been tops. Our first day saw us unloading the boats and setting them up to go out – well when the wind died in the avo we had a bit of a fish but no real luck. This changed on day 2 when we met a young couple who’d been here for several weeks and knew where to find the reefs. He had some GPS coordinates and whilst the fishing was good it only got better when we hatched a plan to go with this couple to an outside reef (about 7 or 8 K out). You can almost guess what happens next, the bride just had to show me up by landing a magnificent red (around 4 kilos) as well as several nice fingermarks. This and what the other boats caught we feasted on fresh reef fish and put a bit in the freezer for later. She proved that this catch was no fluke either when a couple of days later she land a black jew weighing 25 lbs 10 Ozs this was easily the fish of the week. Did I tell you she doesn’t like fishing? Can anyone explain why this happens?

The day of the big fish started like the others, we went out to another distant reef on a gloriously quite and cool morning – not a breeze and the ocean like glass. We raced out to catch the others that left before us, yeah it was after 5-30 and we were running late. We sped out on full throttle riding over a subtle half meter swell and were with the others in about 15 minutes, turned on the sounder and looked for the reef, it is not large and rises about 2.5 meters in 16 meters of water. We anchored right over the reef and started catching fish non stop and let them all go except one which was going to be my shark bait for the evening. These were not rubbish fish but we simply had too much fish already. By about 8 we were almost out of bait and I was cutting up some hussar for bait – the day looked like it was going to finish early. We decided one last shift over the reef as our anchor had pulled, the bride puts her bait down before the anchor rope had even tightened and while I was fiddling with some bait she had a huge strike and it started to look like a serious fish after a few minutes. It started to head for the anchor rope so I had to work around her to pull this in and yell instructions at the same time – a deckies job is never done! That was the start of a 10 minute ride with her saying it is just another shark (Yeah we had caught a few by this time) but then we saw some silver colour and this was no shark. Up to the landing net and in the boat, the bride looked relieved, delighted and buggered all in one. What a magnificent fish to catch out of a tinnie in open waters, surely still one of Australia’s unspoiled fishing destinations.

Whilst some of the others did a mission tour and thoroughly enjoyed that. My other dedicated fishing partner and I ended up going to the reef. We had a great day because the fishing was just superb and once again we had fish for dinner. My fishing companion has been cooking them in a port sauce that had everyone licking their lips. Not much room for veggies with so much fish on offer. Dinner has been a late affair because our afternoon starts with bait netting for bait the next day, this we complete by about 4-30 when we set up for shark fishing. This is usually over by 6-30, except for yesterday when it wasn’t till 8-30. Something had cut my line and we had not had a bite. I was using a 10 lbs reef shark we’d caught earlier in the day for bait and were expecting big things but got a fizzer instead. This was nothing like the first night shark fishing.

Our first night shark fishing was our second day here and we were using a 5lbs mackerel for bait. Our MO is to deploy the bait and some weight (a rock in a bag attached with some light line) via the tinnie about 100 meters from the beach. Race back and drag the tinnie out with the 4wd then gear up for a bite – which was in about 10 minutes. Landed a lemon shark of about 150 kilos in about 15 to 30 minutes. We released this fish after some photos and we had drawn a crowd out of the camp ground.

Nights 2,3 and 4 were failures for various reasons but the best one was where buddy was on to a good fish but it ended as a bust off. Later we discovered it had bitten through our multi strand stainless trace – we figured a heavier trace from here on! We have a jew fish head for bait tonight and hope the wind dies down to allow the bait to be deployed.

The wildlife has been interesting with feral donkey bellowing at day break and frequent croc encounters, well we actually only saw one on a walk along a beach but there have been some interesting stories, a few night ago a camper awoke in the middle of the night to find a large croc only a meter away from his swag. This guy was told not to camp on the beach but said he knew what he was doing and did it anyway. The other was a day later when someone decided to go and check on the boats at 1-30 am, a crock was sitting between the boats – no doubt attracted by the fishy smell. If you’re an oyster fan then this is the place for you, they are about 4 to 6 times larger then those puny Sydney Rock oysters. But we have seen several injuries both collecting (low tide) and opening these monsters.

Tags: 4WD, Accom/Campsites, Boat/Fishing, Camper Trailer
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