Spearfishing Shark Encounter

November 10, 2016 9harry

Whilst diving with a mate (Phet) in the Kalbarri river mouth recently targeting some buff bream for shark bait, Phet saw a shark. We quite often use Buff bream for shark bait as the sharks seem to have taken a liking for them.

When we got in, we first went searching for some fish to eat but with no luck finding a fish to eat we started to get some Buff bream for bait,it didn’t take long to find some buffies, as they are quite plentiful around my home town of Kalbarri. Phet speared the first one which would have been about 2-3kg so me being competitive, I went and had a look for a bigger one than the one Phet got. About 30 seconds after Phet got his, I saw one about 4 kg lined it up and as I was about to spear it a bigger one about 7 kg swam past so I speared that one instead, it was a huge Buff bream.

So we both got out and put the fish up onto the rock and jumped back in for about 10mins when I turned around and Phet was yelling at me, “there’s a Bronze Whaler Shark get out of the water”, as we both got back onto the rock I asked him how big it was and he said it was about about 5-6 feet long which isn’t too big as far as Bronzies go, but it was the first shark Phet has seen whilst diving locally so it scared him a bit.

Always remember not to dive alone and to watch out for each others back.

Catch And Cook: Part 2 Bald Chin Groper with creamy garlic prawns.

November 8, 2016 9harry

Hey guys part two of catch and cook part 2. I will be telling you how I caught and cooked my catch, and my preferred places to catch them. The fish that I use in this part of catch and cook is a small Baldchin grouper about 2kg, which I caught whilst fishing in a monthly comp with Laurie Malton from Murchison Boat Hire on board his 7.85meter aluminium walk-around. I caught this fish in about 30 meters of water, and the ground we were fishing was rocky broken bottom and had heaps of caves in the area which is the ideal habitat . I was using a 4/0 circle hook with a medium sized running bean sinker on 80lb mono leader and the bait I was using, squid and pilchards.

Pan fried Groper with Creamy Garlic Prawns

2 fillets of groper

10 green banana prawns

5 garlic cloves

1 long red chilli

garlic chives

1-2 shallots

butter

3/4 cup of cream

Method

melt butter in pan add chopped garlic and shallots fry for 2-3 minutes

add finely chopped chilli

add fish to the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes, then add the prawns

once seafood is cooked add the cream to the pan and heat through

serve on a bed of rice with greens on the side.

YUM!!

Catch And Cook: Part 1 Parrot Fish

November 8, 2016November 10, 2016 lynnie57

Hey guys starting a new little series of posts called “Catch and Cook”. In this series I will be explaining how I caught the fish, how I cooked it, giving you the recipe and the best places to catch that particular species of fish.

In the first “Catch and Cook” I will be talking to you about catching,cooking and eating Parrot fish.

The main way to catch Parrot fish is by using a speargun because they aren’t a common fish to catch on bait. The way I like to get parrot fish is by free diving with my spear gun at the beaches in Kalbarri where I live. This is a hot spot for parrot fish of all different sizes from 20cm all the way up to almost a meter long.

Recipe:

eggs.

Bread crumbs.

Milk.

Fish but it doesn’t matter what fish it is.

Plain flour.

Method:

Whisk the egg with a dash of milk in a bowl.

Place the filleted fish in some plain flour until it has a thin layer on it.

Place the fish into the egg and milk and fully cover it in egg milk mixture.

Now place the fish into a bowl of bread crumbs

Heat a fry pan with a little bit of butter in it.

Lastly place the fish into the fry pan until it is golden brown and crispy on the outside and cooked though the middle.

Now plate up with some lemon and your favourite spices

Kalbarri Offshore Angling Club Fishing Comp

September 16, 2016 9harry

The Kalbarri Offshore Angling Club held a monthly fishing comp on the 28/5/16. The weather wasn’t looking that good but it was good enough to go out in. It was Dad, Laurie and I, Laurie owns the Murchison boat hire in Kalbarri, he has a range of boats that you can hire. So Dad and I met Laurie at the boat ramp ready to put the boat in and get out onto the water. After about a 45min steam we reached our destination that was about 18miles offshore and about 50meters deep. On the first drop there wasn’t much on offer other than a few little bites so we decided to move spots , as we started to wind up Lauri got smashed by something big, after a few laps around the 7.85meter walk around and a 10 minute fight, Laurie got the fish up and on the boat ,it was a good sized amber-jack that went around 10-15kg.

Once we moved to the new spot and dropped the anchor we were instantly getting good hits, straight away Laurie hooked up to something solid, after a short struggle he got it up, it was a good sized mulloway. We got that on the boat and in the ice box, and when I looked up I saw that Dad was hooked up to something solid as well, he landed another good sized mulloway for the boat.Being a competition, we decided to put down some line class gear to try and get a game mulloway, so Dad and I put down 4kg line and Laurie put down 6kg line. Again it didn’t take long to hook up; Laurie and I were both hooked up, it didn’t take Laurie too long to get another mulloway to the boat. But unfortunately my double bimini twist snapped, which wasn’t a good feeling but that happens when you fish with light line. Dad also got a mulloway on line class. As the day went on the fishing went quiet but we were still getting some reasonable bites so we persisted.Dad hooked up again and it didn’t take him long to get a good sized red emperor to the side of the boat. This was a real good catch. Soon after that Laurie hooked up again and it ended up being another good sized red emperor… things were starting to happen! And finally my rod went off and a real good fish was putting up a good fight. To my surprise it was my biggest and first Rankin cod which I was pretty stoked with. Following that Dad landed a solid pink snapper.

The fishing went even more quiet where we were only getting small fish when a bigger fish came though and smashed my bait but this fish didn’t fight very hard we I got it up it was a solid red throat emperor. After the bite was pretty much non-existent we had a long bumpy trip home. We came home with a good bag of 4 mulloway, 2 red emperors, 1 Rankin cod, and 1 red throat.

It was a really enjoyable day out.

Gear I used:

I used a shimano stradic FJ 4000 with 40lbs depth braid on a shimano bushy bait king 15-24kg rod.

And a shimano charter special 1000 with 4kg mono filament on a custom rod.

Fishing The Kalbarri Pens

September 8, 2016 9harry

After living in Kalbarri my whole life I have come to the conclusion that the commercial boat pens in Kalbarri (locally known as the pens) is one of the best fishing spots in town…………. In my eyes at least.

The great thing about the pens is the variety of fish that you can catch there, ranging from Black Bream, Cod, Mangrove Jack and pretty much any fish you can think of. I also doesn’t really matter what the tide is doing or what time of day it is, you can still catch fish. You can use just about any technique that you like .You can try fish with soft plastic, hard bodies, dead baits, live baits and any think else you can think of.

One of the best nights fishing down at the pens I have witnessed is during a fishing comp called the mulloway marathon, which fellow Next Gen team mate Robbie Leck, another mate of ours Bailey and his younger brother and I were fishing in. On this night Robbie and our mate Bailey caught 7 sized mulloway ranging from 55cm all the way up to about 90cm, all within a few hours of fishing.

Some of the best and most productive times to fish the pens are at night when the tide is highest or at its lowest. During the middle of the day around lunch time can be a good time to catch good sized bream, mangrove jack and a few other species and dawn is also a good time to catch fish like mulloway, bream, tailor and so on.

The gear I use to fish at the Pens is a Shimano Stradic 2500 loaded with 10lbs platypus platinum braided fishing line on a flueger trion 2-4kg rod. I use this outfit to catch bream, mulloway, mullet and other fish. If I need to put a bit of hurt on the fish I use a Shimano Stradic 4000 with 40lbs depth braid on a flueger trion 3-6kg rod. This outfit works for cod, jacks, and any other bigger fish that live down there.

The bait I use at the pens: I tend to use cut up pilchards, prawns, and sometimes squid. The pilchards work well for bream, jacks, mulloway, cod and pretty much everything else that lives down there. The prawns work well on bream, jacks, small tailor, mullet and the odd cod.

After School Dive

August 20, 2016 9harry

Recently the swell in Kalbarri has been pretty big, averaging around 2.5 meters. This has made it pretty hard to get out for a dive at some of our usual spots. Earlier this week I managed to get out for a dive with three mates, Phet, Lochie and James. We went to our new secret spot, where the water is pretty shallow, (only about 1 meter deep), but there are plenty of fish and cray fish for the picking. When we first got in the water it was a bit chilly but after a few minutes it was fine. I headed off towards a few rocks that were sticking out of the water. The first rock I looked under had about 4-5 crayfish and at the back of the ledge there was a small wobbiegong. I went under to get one of the crays but I was unsuccessful because they all shot back into their holes till I couldn’t reach them anymore. After about ten minutes of swimming around I swam past a ledge and saw something big pass me. As the fish was heading into the cave, I could make out the gills of this beast. As I went to take the shot, the fish swam deeper into the cave. I dived down, prepared for anything to happen. When I dove down I could see the whites inside of the beast’s mouth. I aimed and fired. It was a successful shot straight down the throat of what turned out to be a 52cm estuary cod, of which I was pretty proud of. At the end of the day I had a speared cod. Phet had a crayfish and a mullet. James had a mullet as well. Sadly, Lochie was unsuccessful.

Thanks to my loving Mum who couldn’t pick me up, I had to walk all the way home on my own. I had my speargun in one hand, my fish in the other, whilst pushing my bike. Luckily I live near a good beach to dive and fish at.

Gear of choice:

I was using an Ocean Hunter gun I had cut down for shallow water.

Phet was using an Ocean Hunter 1000mm gun.James and Lochie were using hand spears.

Jurien Bay

August 4, 2016August 7, 2016 9harry

I was down at Jurien bay with fellow team mate Curtis Waterman and on one of the days we went out on the boat we decided to fish for skippy. When we got there I only had my big rod and my my rod with 2kg mono on it. Curtis and his Dad said I had no hope of catching anything and on my first drop I got a little pink snapper. On my next drop I got absolutely smoked by something big which snapped me off. We fished there for about an hour and got 13 skippy all up all from 40-45cm. I got the most with 7 and proved Curt and Russ wrong that light line catches good fish!