Fishing...Eighty Mile Beach WA

Andrew
Good luck. When I fished there - 7/04 there was a fisherman every 10 metres along the beach as far as the eye could see and the only guy catching fish was the bloke fishing with tiny hooks catching tiddlers!!! But the pictures in the shop seem to tell a different story so there must be fish there. If you are only having a short stay be aware that the tides are huge and you can only fish off the beach at high tide. At low tide my wife walked straight out to sea for twenty minutes and still didnt reach the water's edge. She came back too!!! You can buy bait in the shop at the van park and I'm fairly sure you can buy fishing gear as well.
Have a good one!!!

tessa

Never fished there before but i know there is alot of blue nosed and threadfin salmon around down that way in the cooler months. Should be a few there now. Best bait is Bony Herring or mullet. Best catching them with a cast net, as fresh is always best. Though most shops in Broome stock it as its the best for salmon. Chop into decent sized pieces and use anything from 5/0 to 7/0 hooks, preferably long shank style. Not really sure what there really called, though suicide style will do also. Use around a Number 4 lead sinker just to hold it in place and to get it out over the waves. If there is some dirty water fish the edges of that, as salmon love the murky water, and also they like the shallows, generally anything from 1 foot of water to 3 metres is there hunting grounds.

Andrew it's a really great place. The track onto the beach is right on the van park's door step. You can drive up and down the beach for miles. There are Kilometre markers up and down so that you know roughly how far you have travelled. Head north and there is a river mouth (which I wished I'd known about on the 1st day and not the last), where a couple of blokes landed 14kg thread fin salmon (gutted) that were head and tail over their 80series tail gate.

I used gang hooks with a star sinker. Bit like a snapper rig. ie weight at the bottom and hooks attached to a shorter line coming of a 3 way swivel about 450-600mm above the weight. Worked for me. Some guys fished light for whiting and such others fished long and heavy. Play it by ear. Watch and ask. The van park kiosk has all the gear and tackle.

When the salmon(threadfin) are biting you will cath fish with any type rig.Remember they only seem to bite about 1hr. before high tide through to 1 hr. after high tide. Ifound a star sinker at the bottom with 2 5/0 single hooks off the trace baited with piece of mulie(pilchard) worked very well.Bait and tackle are available at the shop in the c/park together with fresh home made bread and basic groceries.As said the beach is on your doorstep and you can also drive on the beach. Hope you catch a few.

Was there about 5 weeks ago - some of the best fishing of my life.

Didn't have a beach rod - all we had were 8' snapper rods that we had been chasing barra with - but they worked! Caught plenty of bluenose salmon - biggest was 55cm, which was about 3kg. Better fighting fish for their size than the barramundi we caught this trip. Beach rods would obviously be better.

For these we used 15lb line (too light for threadfins), running bean sinker, swivel, about 18" of 20lb Penn leader line, then a commercially made 12" wire trace with a single 3/0 hook - the wire trace is a must, they have razor sharp gills (my right forefinger has a new permanent scar - so gloves too while dehooking). I lost several fish to bustoffs before switching to using the wire trace. Even after a while the 30lb wire trace gets worn through or twisted and needs replacing, so heavier like 40lb or 50lb might help. After a while I did away with the Penn leader, and just had running bean sinkers direct to the 12" wire trace's swivel - still caught plenty of fish but I like having a longer leader in the surf so the bait can roll around a bit. You could get away with larger hooks - the bluenose have a large mouth, a 4/0 would probably be preferable.

We used pilchards bought from the caravan park's bait freezer - I would cut them into 4 or 5 pieces, and use a single piece on the hook. Very economical. Heads and tails stay on the hook longer and seemed to catch the most :) The caravan park shop does have a reasonable but limited supply of tackle available.

The guys catching the monster 20lb+ threadfins were using heavy gear with up to 100lb line, and gang hooks with full pilchards as bait - I did see a big mulloway cruising the surf, so a big heavy rod might be fun - but I also spoke to guys who'd been there 2 weeks without landing a single threadfin - so if you're just after a feed, target the bluenose! Catch a threadfin or mulloway over 20lb and it goes up on the bragboard. We caught 16 bluenose the first day, and about 8 the next two days (started leaving once we had enough for a feed) - they ranged from 30cm to 55cm. Bag limits are 4 per person per day - we only kept 2 larger fish per day, the fillets from the 50cm+ ones can be cut in half and shared between 2 people. Best grilled in butter, no need to remove the skin before cooking as it peels off in the pan. Comes up a treat crumbed too.

We fished all times of the day, and caught fish all times of the day - most bites were during the last 3 hours of the rising tide, and at high tide. Most people walk from the caravan park - and there will literally be 100-150 people lined up for a couple of kilometres fishing, with only 20m between them. A lot of these people also don't catch anything. I reckon the trick was getting away from the crowds, and fishing "actively", rather than plonking rods into a tube and sitting on our backsides in a beach chair, so I reckon we were able to convert a lot of strikes into hookups - some of the bites are subtle, and you're not sure if you're hooked up until you start retrieving some line - but boy, when the line goes tight they're off! We drove up and down the beach instead of joining the lineup - just need to head up or down the beach 3km to get away from the crowds and have your own private section of beach - still amazed however that you can drive 15km up the beach to get away from everyone and fish, and someone will drive the same 15km and park 50m away and start fishing next to you because it must be a good spot or something! Common sense dictates if someone's driven 15km from the nearest crowd, they want to be away from it.

With the 8' rods we had to wade into the surf to fish - we wore wetsuit boots for this because there ARE lots of stingrays. There's rumours of plenty of sharks in the surf, so wading is at your own peril. Expect some bycatch of shovel nose sharks (gummy, no teeth) and big catfish - please release these alive if you catch them, it's disgustingly wasteful to see dead catfish, rays and sharks dumped up on the beach because someone decided they would be better off dead than released alive. We also saw what looked like a metre long bronze whaler dumped on the beach, and a two metre shovel nose shark. Why people kill unwanted fish instead of releasing them is beyond me.

The incoming tides aren't dangerously fast - so you don't have to worry about getting overtaken by rising water. The water is very turbid though, don't expect to go swimming. The water was also a *lot* colder than Broome! Always park above the high tide line. We did see what we believed to be a metre long taipan on the beach (seagulls giving it hell), and a very large dead seasnake, so keep an eye out for them too!

When driving the beach - you're not permitted to drive within 30m of the sand dune bases because that is a turtle nesting zone, and it's also softer sand. On the high tide line is a good spot to drive. There's warning signs about 4WDing on the beach, as apparently there's some risk to the beach being shut down to 4WDs because of people driving too close to the dunes compacting sand and crushing turtle nests, so pay heed to the signs. We saw people driving onto the dunes even though there were still turtle eggs in the sand due to hatch in May - people like these get access cut off. There's plentyful water in the public carpark for washing underneath your vehicle after driving. The sand is generally firm, but soft getting on/off the beach, so you'll need to lower pressures - the caravan park has a free air compressor. There's no free camping at Eighty Mile Beach, and you have to have your vehicle off the beach by 7pm, because the gates are locked at this time. You can drive north for 23km, or south for 6km along the beach from the caravan park. The caravan park has quad bike rentals if you don't want to take your own 4WD on the beach - get in early before they book out - some people were using them simply to hoon up and down the beach all day instead of as fishing transport :) Get in early for ice too - it seems to sell out most days early.

The caravan park was one of the cleanest we visited in our 10 week trip around Australia.

If you're into collecting shells, take a run along the beach at dawn checking out the high tide line - big baler shells wash in with each tide, and the competition amongst some of the caravan park residents to be first on the beach each morning for the best shells is fierce!

Hope this braindump was useful!

We were there in May this year and caught blue (threadfin) salmon and small reef sharks in front of the park. As above I tried gang hooks above a star sinker and also 2 small hooks above a smaller sinker and both worked well. Fishing the line between the dirty and clear water is a must - initially I was casting way out and getting nothing so took note of the blokes that were having success and noticed they only cast out to this line which wasn't far at all. I fished an hour before high tide and an hour after with most success before the high tide. However, one arvo when I was cleaning the fish a bloke turned up to camp and asked about the tides and although he had missed this 'prime time' he went out anyway and came back 20 minutes later with a Giant Threadfin Salmon, unbelievable. He was beside himself and just goes to show that you can catch them anytime really.

Cheers,

Mark.