Western Australia Road Trip in June Part 2

Day 6 We drove to Exmouth and I wasted no time going to the Mildura Beach Wreck to pop for GTs and Queens. Had a few huge takes and hookups on poppers but the fishes somehow didn't stay hooked. They were big and strong though.

Sunset at Mildura Wreck Beach after some late afternoon popping from the rocks. Awesome!

Day 7 was supposed to be a boat fishing trip, but the weather was bad so we stayed on shore for some boatyard fishing, which was rather fun too, with small GTs readily attacking my lures from the rocks. We landed Garoupa, Bream and Tuskfish too.

Here's a selfie with one of the aggressive small GTs from the rocks. Lots of fun.

Day 8. We swam with the largest fish in the ocean, the Whaleshark!!! Yeah! For once, I didn't mind leaving the rods in the car.

Thanks to the amazing crew of the Whaleshark boat, who helped us take some nice underwater shots, and made our day a memorable one. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Here are the girls all excited about the swim with the sharks.

We saw lots of small fish and remoras swimming around the shark, and we had to swim hard to keep up with these sharks.

That's us in the water with the sharks.

Basically, a spotter plane finds the sharks, the boat drops us into the water ahead of the swim path of the shark, we wait for it to pass, then swim along with it. A once in a lifetime experience for us.

Here's a pic of my brother trying to get a pic of the whaleshark.

The company's name was 3 Islands. Thanks Mag, Roxy, Tara, Josh and Tyler for making this a truly memorable day.

Day 9 We drove back to Carnavon where we fished from One Mile Jetty again, landing some legal sized Bream, which we brought back for dinner.

The thing about fishing in Carnavon is that the bites never seem to stop. The kids had fun catching these bream.

Day 10 Near the end of our return leg, we stayed with the Vigilantes and had a wonderful homecooked dinner. Before that, we went to Geraldton beach and I caught the last fish of the trip, a small Dart.

Here's a dart which took my bait meant for Tailor... with my trusty Bata slippers.

Day 11. In the morning, my brother decided to stay in Geraldton to catch up with his friends. That's when we said our goodbyes. We also thanked our gracious hosts Phil and Sally Vigilante and made our way back to Perth, where Daniel brought us to a scrumptious Dim Sum lunch at Dragon. We had time for some shopping and we finally made our way back to the airport to deposit the Kia Carnival (which was much better than I expected in terms of comfort and space, I must admit).

At the front porch with Phil and Sally on our last day in Australia. I'll remember the apple crumble too.

Back at Perth Airport just before boarding the plane back to Singapore. Kinda miss home too.

Well that's the end of my quick update of a trip to Western Australia where I drove almost 3000km and had the chance to experience winter and summer all in the same trip.

Western Australia Road Trip in June Part 1

Took a short break from local fishing in June and went on a road trip to Western Australia. Drove from Perth to Kalbarri, Kalbarri to Monkey Mia, Monkey Mia to Carnavon, and Carnavon to Exmouth. Stayed in Geraldton on the way back too. Altogether, it was good time spent with family, and we managed to catch up with Fishing Daniel in Perth too.

A view of Perth City from the windy hills on our first night.

Day 1. Arrived in the evening, met Jason at the airport, got the car from the rental, and drove to my cousin's place in Applecross, Perth, to spend the night. Met Carol and Linda, thanks for the wonderful homecooked dinner. Met up with Daniel, who showed us his home 'tackle-shop' with more Shimano Stellas in one location than any other tackle shop I've seen. Thanks Daniel for a great dessert at Chocolateria San Churros and a night tour of Perth, with a great view from the hills.

Met up with Daniel for dessert, some late night shopping and some sightseeing.

Leaving Carol and Linda's house at the start of our road trip. 

Day 2. Started off at 8am, took a few pitstops along the way, and ended up at one of the best fish and chip places in Geraldton for lunch. After lunch, we headed to Kalbarri, a short drive up, and checked into a cozy double storey resort apartment. Did the first fishing of the trip that night by the town beach, Chinaman's Beach. How apt, when my brother, with his interesting Chinaman's moustache, and I were the only two guys fishing at the beach. The girls played at the beach, picking shells and stuff. Being ambitious, I used big pilchards on ganged hooks, hoping for a Mulloway or a big Tailor, but to my surprise, after losing one or two good takes, I landed a familiar fish, a Garoupa. Had a superb fish, calamari, crabstick and other stuff, with chips for dinner, and called it a night.

Barnacles on the Wharf at Geraldton served up good ol Aussie fish and chips.

This Garoupa must have followed me from Singapore to Kalbarri.

Day 3. Had a pre-dawn session at Chinaman's point in Kalbarri where my brother hit a nice big Tailor which put up a good fight. Me, I was just trying to hook them on metal lures and I could see the huge Tailors chasing the lure right up to the beach but the solid hookups did not materialize and their interest soon waned. At 8am, we went back to the resort, packed up, and headed to Denham.

Big Tailor at Chinaman's Point in Kalbarri.

Along the way, we took some tourist routes and went off the tarmac to reach some hiking trails. Hiked to a scenic lookout called Nature's Window, where Nature had carved a window (duh) into a huge rock. Very interesting, and very beautiful. I think everyone loved this part of the trip a lot. After a few hours of hiking and picture taking, we got back on the road to Denham.

See why it's called Nature's Window? On the road from Kalbarri to Denham.

We reached Denham in the late afternoon, and spent some time enjoying the nice rental apartment and looking around the town and the beaches. We hunkered down to the town jetty for live calamari, and managed to bring a big one back for dinner. Our masterchef session began with my mum being the first contestant, deciding to cook a traditional Chinese style dinner of fried brown rice with various dishes, including the Calamari.

Day 4. No travelling today. We rose early to meet the dolphins by the beach at Monkey Mia, one of the key highlights of the trip. There was no disappointment at all despite the light drizzle. As we stood in the water, the dolphins came right up to us and the lucky few were given freshly caught fish to feed the dolphins. Another wonderful experience.

Interaction with wild dolphins at Monkey Mia, what an experience!

After the dolphins, I tried fishing off the beach, but did not have any bait with me. Fortunately, my daughter had dug up a live clam and gave it to me to use as bait. With that one teenie bit of clam, I landed a big Whiting (Pasir Pasir, or Swa Chiam). That was enough. With that one Whiting chopped up into little chunks, we landed more and bigger Whiting, which were really fun to catch. Then, I saw a dark shape in the water just at my feet, it was not a dolphin but a Shovelnose Ray. Always the opportunist, I swopped my Whiting rig for a large single hook on strong leader, hooked up a Whiting, and cast it in front of the Shovelnose. It took no second invitation. The fish just plopped itself over the bait, took it in its mouth, and started swimming off. That's when I closed the bale arm of the reel and struck, and that's when the train took off! Wah! So fun hearing the screaming drag off the beach, but I had faith in my tackle and technique, as I slowly tired it out after a few more runs, and managed to get it close enough to the beach for my brother to grab its tail.

OK, it's not about the costume please. This fish really made my day, my month, my year.

Hooray! My mission to catch a big fish in Australia was accomplished. Videos and pics were taken and the majestic fish was released to fight another day.

The ladies went on a Catamaran cruise around Shark Bay, and made a visit to a Pearl Farm, where the kids learnt how Pearls were cultured. They even managed to rescue a farm that had broken loose from its moorings and was drifting to shore. This prolonged their boat trip, but no one was complaining.

By the time they came back, I had a nice catch of big Whiting. Everyone was satisfied, especially me. Ahhh... this was almost paradise.

This is the part where the guy dropped his sunglasses into the shark lagoon... hmmm, how is he gonna get it out?

Anyway, we went to Shark Bay's Ocean Park Aquarium for lunch (we ate Kangaroo meat...) and an educational tour, where they fed Coral Trout to their big sharks, (and the guide lost dropped his Ray Bans into the shark lagoon cos the shark pulled too violently against his rope). Nice place to visit, but we'll remember our bug spray next time cos of the sand flies. Took a scenic walk at Eagle's Bluff too, trying to spot a Dugong or Ray below the boardwalk.

Evening was Jason's turn to cook, and he stirred up some delicious pasta with deep fried Whiting which I had caught that morning. Kudos to the chef.

Berk caught the first squid, a small and cute one.

After dinner, I had another go at the squid at Denham Jetty with Berk and we landed some. However, we had to give the squid away because there was no more cooking to be done until the next night in a different town. However, this proves that Denham Town Jetty is still one of the best places to land a big Squid.

Standard sized squid at Denham Town Jetty.

Day 5. On the road to Carnavon. We checked out in the morning and made our way down the Denham-Hamelin Road, eager to check out two spots we saw on the way up. First was Shell Beach, a surreal beach made up of tiny shells. Trev really loved this place, for she loves shells. Next was The Hamelin Pool Stromatolites, one of Shark Bay's key features, where we saw colonies of bacteria growing out of the water. Such huge bacteria colonies must be the envy of all pond keepers, haha.

Shell Beach with surreal backdrop.

Here's a close up of what the beach was made up of.

Stromatolites at Hamelin Pool.

OK, so we stopped for some information. A World Heritage area leh...

We reached Carnavon in the afternoon, had some time to shop around town, and met the locals. There was even a nice big toy shop there where Berk got some Moshi Monsters she said she was always looking for. Evening was when the action began. After getting some fresh local seafood like shrimp, scallops, calamari and coral trout, with white wine and mediterranean spices, I had my ingredients ready for my turn to cook.

Small but feisty Threadfin Salmon and Mulloway entertained us for the evening.

But before that, it was a quick hop to one mile jetty for some evening pre-dinner fishing. Walking one mile out and one mile back made for decent exercise too, haha. But the fishing was fun and we totally depleted our bait, landing Bream, Threadfin Salmon and Mulloway, the three main species here. All fish were released to fight another day, and we made our way back in time for me to prepare dinner. I made a special Mediterranean Seafood Soup which was completely consumed (nothing like warm white wine and sundried tomato based soup with chunky bits of squid, scallop, shrimp, fish, garlic, onions, baby tomatoes, celery and olives to cap a fine day). We ran out of soup to dip our bread in. Day 5 was super fun, but now it was done, and we rested for the night. The next day was the day we would reach Exmouth, the furthest point in our Western Australian Road Trip, where we swam with the largest fish in the ocean, but I'll leave that to my next blog post.

And there goes the Mediterranean Seafood Soup. Great for cold nights in a foreign land filled with fresh seafood.

Simple Ubin trip with Ray and Berk

Before flying off to Oz, Ray and I decided to go on a simple lunch-hunting fishing trip around Ubin. We just needed to land a decent fish for lunch at the floating restaurant. We wanted to eat wild-caught live fish (something that you can't always get with money, especially if the fish are not cooperating).

Lau Di Fang Garoupas of this size can put up quite a good fight.

What a challenge! With a late morning start, we headed to Good Feeling, but lost a couple of good bites, then everything went silent. Fortunately just before shifting to another spot, a decent Barramundi showed up, and lunch was settled. Hah!

Lunch at the floating restaurant. Nothing tastes better than the fish we catch ourselves. Yumm.

After a yummy lunch (I have to recommend the long beans with salted egg yolk), we decided to go to Lau Di Fang nearby for some big Garoupas. Sure enough, a big Garoupa came along and I managed to fight him up to the boat after a good struggle.

Today's Barramundi were not big, but they were still fun to catch.

Finally, we decided to end things at Good Feeling again where a few more Barra turned up to entertain us before we headed back. Not a bad day. Targets met. Happy.

Ubin and Southern Islands are firing up! Kids go fishing again!

Here's a quick update on the trips I made on 10th and 13th May 2014.

Trev managed to land the largest Barramundi of the trip, a real jumper weighing in at 4kg.

On 13th May, I brought Des, Janice and 6 kids onto the Ubin boat for a really fun trip. With so many kids around, I thought it was going to be a tough day for fishing because, knowing kids, they are often impatient and keep reeling in to check their bait. And of course, if they hooked a big one, how in the world would they be able to land it? But ah, was I wrong!

The moment we hit the first spot, I was just demonstrating how to bait up, cast the line and reel in the line when I landed two barramundi in quick succession. The kids were amazed at how easy it seemed. And it was really easy.

Soon, everyone had a line soaked and the fish were in a very eager biting mood. I think Janice landed a Barra next, then Luke found the secret technique and caught a small Barra, and then a bigger 3kg barra, which really gave him a good fight.

Fisherman in the making, Luke, posing with his catch.

Later, Treva had a huge pull on the long thin rod and we saw the line racing for the surface and I told them to watch for the jump.

'Wow!' Everyone was shouting as a big Barramundi leapt clear out of the water. Then it took drag at alarming speed, and Treva thought she couldn't handle the fish anymore. Yet, she held on, and after more jumps and drag pulling, the big fish was eased into the net for a nice pic.

Later Luke was telling me how much he hoped he could get a Garoupa so I considered going to Lau Di Fang, but before we could raise the anchor, he had a good tug and up came the Garoupa he had ordered. After that, I received several more orders, haha.

We moved around to the deep undersea cliff, where a Golden Snapper was landed, and then it was off to the floating restaurant for some ice cream. Unfortunately, they no longer sold ice cream and the kids were happy with their soft drinks and coconut juice.

Back at the boatel with our catch. Isabel and Janelle seem to be looking the wrong way, gee.

We tried a few spots near the marina as the sky was turning dark, and managed another nice Golden Snapper before heading back to the boatel to wash the boat, and yes of course they had fun spraying water at each other. We're looking forward to the day Luke or Treva brings us fishing, right Des? Looks like our days of anchor pulling are numbered. How're your lats?

Guess you can tell from this million dollar smile just how much Bryan loves parrots.

Yeah, and on the 10th, which was a Saturday, Bryan, the King, and I (heh heh), headed to the Southern Islands for some food fish. Easily, we landed nice Garoupas, Parrots and Snappers - the usual stuff. Gotta go try for something different soon. That's all for my quick update, stay tuned for my cooking update, heh heh.

Garoupas, Parrots and Snappers... the usual stuff. 

Madai trip with the Hokkien Pro and his Bro

Saturday was here again, and this time, Hokkien Pro (who suddenly found himself with no golf game on a Saturday) decided to have a fun time fishing with me at the Southern Islands.

The best way to spend a Saturday is with a bent rod and a big fish at the other end. Here is the Hokkien Pro fighting yet another decent fish while his son waits with the landing net.

Having not submitted his golf scorecard for a number of games, the club called to inform him that he could no longer play golf on Saturdays, and so he decided that fishing was the next best thing. So while the golf clubs were given a break from the Pro, the Garoupas, Snappers and Sweetlips of the Southern Islands had a tough time, especially with the Pro around.

Here is yet another victim of my old worn out $6 Asari Madai... almost out of tentacles. 

Of course, we finished up our 1.5 kg of prawns catching a whole lot of Spanish Flag Snappers and Garoupas, and the whole ice box was full of good fish, enough to last me till the next Saturday, at least.

Back at the Marina, to pose with a few fish, including an imaginary one.

Dinner back at the Yacht Club was a wonderfully steamed large Garoupa and the Yaps came along to join us. Now I have to wait for the next Saturday.

Bert and the Bees

Albertus brought his colleagues and friends along for what was supposed to be a simple day out hunting for a nice catch for dinner, but some bees decided to re-write the script. Here's what happened.

After getting food and drinks from the Punggol Sheng Siong, we trooped down to the marina. There were two Andres, Merwyn, Bert, Rachel and me. Seeing that the boat was already in the water, we proceeded to load up the stuff, and that was when I noticed one or two bees buzzing around me and I saw one landing on the seat and crawling underneath it. I found it very strange, so I lifted the seat cushion up and got the shock of my life! There was a bees' hive on my boat, just under my seat, and there must have been thousands of bees!

BZZZZZZZZ!!!!

The aftermath of the fogging and spraying down with water - a pile of bees.

Sounding the alert, I told everyone to quickly head back to the shelter while I tried to solve the problem. It took some time before the proper equipment came along, but with the help of Ong and a fogging machine, the boat was brought back onto land, fogged and sprayed down with water. It actually took about three hours before the boat was cleared of bees.

The patient anglers waiting on shore were still glad to be able to go fishing, though it was already lunch time. While clearing the honeycomb from under my seat, I got stung by two remaining guards, but fortunately, they were just honeybees. With only half a day left, I was just hoping to get a decent fish to cook for dinner at Great Atlantis.

Fortunately, the fish were in a cooperative mood and Rachel was the first to land a nice Golden Snapper. Even before we managed to settle down after taking some pictures, Andre landed a Barramundi. Dinner was settled.

A Tiger Garoupa like this always makes a nice dinner dish. Yum!

In fact, the fish kept on coming and we landed another bigger Golden Snapper, a few more Barramundi and I landed a nice fat Tiger Garoupa. I think we had more than enough for dinner, yeah!

Two of the Golden Snappers went for Teochew Steamed while a Barramundi was Hong Kong Steamed. Good food and new friends always go well together!

Though we only had a half day to fish after the misadventure with the bees, we had a nice catch and I had made some new friends. The dinner at Great Atlantis, as expected, was wonderful!

Back at Ubin for some Barramundi action

After some hectic fishing at the Southern Islands last week, I sorta missed my Ubin Barramundis. So I rounded up the posse which included Bryan, Nadine (it was her birthday trip - Happy Birthday), Fau and Ismail.

The Birthday Girl caught a nice Golden Snapper. That's your gift from the sea!

Of course, to catch Barramundi, I had to go to Good Feeling. But even before reaching the spot, we landed some good stuff during the pit stops when we saw some birds diving down for baitfish. Always a good sign, Fau was the first to open accounts with a beautiful Red Snapper. Then Bryan added a surprise catch with a Mackerel on metal jig. That's rather rare in Ubin waters.

Bryan must be wondering why he wasted time jigging in Rompin the previous week when you can get them locally.

Anyway, we finally reached Good Feeling and the Barramundi were all around. After catching four of them, plus a few Snappers, I decided to move to another spot. Anyway, we had more than enough fish to eat already. So I headed to the undersea cliff where Bryan managed to Madai up a fat garoupa. When the bait was finished after a few more fish, we headed back to the boatel, happy with our catch. I love these relaxing boat trips with friends.

Ubin always obliges us with these goodies, and an Orange Haired Tigerfish was thrown in as a bonus.

The humble Madai produces the goods

Went for a half day Madai trip with Balya to the Southern Islands simply with the intention to catch a few Spanish Flag Snappers, but it turned out we caught more than we bargained for, in a good way.

Here's my all-time favourite fish, the Golden Snapper, landed on a $6 old bashed up Asari Madai Jig that I've been using for several trips already.

On the way out from the Marina, the weather didn't look too good, so I started heading towards sheltered waters when along the way I had a hunch there were fish below us (we were passing an old Spanish Flag Snapper spot). I stopped the engine and we let down our lines. True enough, there was a nice Golden Snapper waiting for me which initially grabbed my Madai, fought for a second or two, dropped, and came back to attack the same lure. What an aggressive fish!

Having caught some other nice fish like small Spanish Flag Snappers, we decided to move on to calmer waters for lunch, and fortunately, the weather cleared.

Here's Balya with our simple half-day trip catch. Sweetlips, Garoupas and Snappers.

After catching a few small fish, we decided to head towards the Garoupa Zone to land some big garoupas. We landed two decent garoupas in quick succession but the biggies were not around, it seemed.

The ever reliable Asari Madai produces yet another table fish.

As luck would have it, after landing so many assorted fish, including a large Sweetlip, on the Madai, I noticed that my 100lb kevlar leader for the assist hook was rather frayed. Thinking we were about to head back anyway, I let my line back down for one last try, and that was when the big one decided to bite. Sigh... you can guess what happened.

The fish pulled, I pulled back, it dragged out my 40lb line, I thumbed the spool to stop the massive fish from reaching the rocks, and the fish slowly but surely turned. I even managed to reel about 5 metres of line in, with a massive tugging weight on the other end. Thinking I was in the clear, I began my simple pumping motion, and that was when the fish took off on a slow but powerful run, and my kevlar leader's last surviving fibre decided to call it a day.

The moment I felt the fish escape, I knew what had gone wrong. I was staring at that frayed leader just a moment before... well, looks like another hard lesson learnt! And the big one got away!

Well, going back to the boatel with a large Golden Snapper and some other good stuff isn't that bad anyway, but why are there tears in my eyes? Sob Sob... haha.

Jigging trip with Bryan and Kings

Catch of the day - a beautiful Coral Trout

The weather was not good in the morning, so we waited on shore for a while, and finally headed out in the afternoon. Still not keen to use bait, we decided to use metal jigs this time. Armed with our $4 cast fighters, we hit the spot with anticipation.

It didn't take long before we started landing reef fish like big Parrots and Spanish Flag Snappers before a nice Coral Trout appeared. That made my day.

Then Bryan and Kings got in on the action with a school of Giant Trevally below the boat. All GTs and Queens were released to fight another day. Hassan managed to get Hazlan to join us for a while, but all was fine and in the evening when the current slowed down, we cruised back to the boatyard with aching arms and a pretty decent overall catch.

Light game action on metal jigs - our local GTs sure give a good fight!

Fun with Lures

Getting a little bored with the usual bait fishing, over the last few weeks I decided to switch back to using artificial baits just for the challenge.

First, I took out my trusty Rapala CD-14 from the old Pulau Aur days and started trolling around the Southern Islands with Kings. Was fun just imagining something like a Mackerel or Barracuda striking our lures but it was relatively quiet most of the day. Finally, just as we were about to give up, I had a strike! ON!

It didn't take me long to bring in the catch of the day, a beautiful Garoupa which was promptly steamed and eaten fresh that very night. The trip may not have produced many fish, but it sure was good for a laugh!

The only catch of the day, but getting it on lure made it doubly fun!