Reproduced with permission from "Sport Fishing" Magazine
of the USA
"There they are! Ten o'clock!" As our guide Greg Bethune
made the call silver sides flashed through the slightly milky water.
I controlled my urge to cast out my shrimp tipped jig waiting instead
for Marvin Gibson, hunkered down on the bow to drop his crab fly
near the school of Permit just ahead. They milled busily over the
sandy shallows, 100 yards off thick mangroves lining the adjacent
river mouth.We might have been fishing the Florida keys. But I recalled Bethunes
advice on the start of our trip "You mates need to take these
crocodiles seriously, even though they may be over 16 foot long
you may not see them. But they will see you. And you will not survive
an encounter with a crocodile. Best not go into the water at all
and stand back from the waters edge when casting from the shore."For that matter I don't recall ever seeing black fruit bats the
size of Ospreys in the Keys. In fact, many things here seemed both
familiar - such as the long, sandy beaches beneath scattered pine
trees interspersed with areas of thick mangroves - yet different.
We did catch "snook" in the mangroves but they were the
aussie version, the prized Barramundi - bright silver and lacking
the dark lateral line our snook posses. We caught grey snapper that
darted from the mangroves to hammer our plugs, but there called
Mangrove Jacks. In the channels we caught jacks that really are
jacks although known in the Pacific as trevalley. Then there are
Ladyfish like you've never seen in Florida Anglers here call them
giant herring since they reach more than 15lb. On the other hand
Tarpon common in the estuaries rarely grow larger than 10 pounds.While any die hard Florida Keys and everglades angler would have
a ball using his standard tackle and techniques none would ever
mistake the remote primeval coastline at the very tip of Australia
for any waters back home.The Cape York Peninsula lacks anything like the overseas highway
that connects Key west to the Florida mainland. In fact, most of
this coastline is accessible only by boat, and has few ports and
scant population. The many wild river mouths around the cape remain
barely fished, and the whole place gave me the feeling of having
fallen into a lost world where a T rex could be around the next
bend.Only a self-contained mother ship can offer anglers an opportunity
to explore long stretches of the cape's beaches and estuaries. One
operation has done just that for more than 10 years: Bethune's 42-foot
live-aboard Capricorn Mist. I joined Bethune as one of six anglers
for a weeklong expedition along the peninsula last autumn - spring,
Down Under, (The boat is amazingly well laid out to accommodate
eight people quite comfortably.) The cosmopolitan group included
two Aussie mainlanders and another from Tasmania, two Yanks and
a Scotsman _ yielding no shortage of varied accents of the mother
tongue.After making the 1½ hour, 480 mile flight north on a commuter
plane from Cairns (sit on the starboard side for spectacular views
of the Great Barrier Reef), we landed on the little strip at Bamaga,
Cape York Peninsula and just 90 or so miles across the Torres Strait
from New Guinea.Bethune drove us 20 minutes to Seisia, and from there we steamed
south into the evening nearly 90 miles to our first anchorage, not
far from the Jackson River mouth (catching a few fish on the troll
as we went -including some for some very fresh sashimi that evening.
The Jackson would be our farthest point south, from which we would
fish our way back up the coast during the week.As we cruised past the Jardine rivers broad opening Bethune said
The Jardine has the highest outflow of fresh water of any river
in Australia.' But the Jardine has no decent rain catchment basin,
so where does all the water come from? A subterranean flow from
the highlands of New Guinea and beneath the Torres Strait. Bethune
says that testing with radioactive isotopes has proved conclusively
New Guinea as the source.The next morning broke with antediluvian tranquillity; the still
air surprisingly cool and the only sounds the strange calls of distant
birds and occasional splashes of fish.After breakfast following a quick primer on the 40hp Tohatsu outboards
that power the skiffs, we were off.Bethune makes the fibreglass 15-footers himself, styling them roughly
after Keys flats boats. He fishes one or two anglers per boat, other
anglers can tag along in their skiffs or go off to explore on their
own. It is pretty hard to get lost, and besides we often found good
action before we even left sight of the anchored mother ship)
All-You can catch Buffet
On that first morning, in fact we spotted birds working and fish
busting just off the river mouth. Having already mentioned to Bethune
my proclivity for surface plugging I grabbed my medium spinner rigged
and ready."those would be long tall tuna, mate" Bethune said as
he cut the power and we drifted toward the melee.
"Will they hit surf...?" Before I could ask the question,
the Johnny Rattler lure I'd tossed near the fray had drawn a smashing
strike on its very first twitch, then another, and then I was on.
So was angler Rod Ross, from Tasmania, in the stern. Fishing 200
feet us our fly-rod addicts on this trip - Gibson (from Corrales,
New Mexico) and Graham Frost (of Edinburgh, Scotland) - were hard
into a double.Working against 20-pound braided line, the spirited longtall -
a hard-fighting tuna all the way (think stretch version blackfin)
-took me 20 minutes or so to bring to the boat.We spent the next couple of hours running down busting fish, which
seemed to be all over. We had no trouble releasing these Tunas -
or other fish - since we fished barb less. Bethune asks all anglers
to debarb their hooks, citing a much higher hook up rate, less damage
to fish and, if point comes to shove to anglers.We headed back toward the mother ship, where we did a bit of trolling
nearer the river mouth, looking for something different before lunch.
We found it: Within perhaps 10 minutes of lines out, Rod had hooked
something that started out doing its best to remove the 50 pound
braided line from his spool. Turned out to be a familiar long, brown
shape - a cobia.It didn't surprise me that these worldwide nomads should be taken
here with some frequency, The Gulf of Carpentaria (pronounced with
accent on the third syllable, like cafeteria) features a generally
sandy shallow, gently sloping bottom. That and green water reminded
me of another great cobia spot the Florida Panhandle.We put lines back out, and I landed a "doggy" mackerel.
Actually it was a small spotted mackerel, but Queenslanders lump
any of the four species here - spotted, narrow-barred (spanish),
broad-barred and Queen~ school mackerals- as "doggies"
when they're no more than 2½ feet or so. Before we made It back
to the mother ship we had added to our list a small narrow barred
mackerel and a barracuda as long as my leg. The cuda I saw on this
trip were not great barracuda, those fish-stealing logs of the Atlantic
but a more slender Pacific variety with a bright-yellow tail.When we hit the deck of the mothership, Greg's wife, Jenny (first
mate, cook and crew), ushered us into the galley. Awaiting six hungry
anglers: all the fresh Gulf banana prawns we could chow down. By
the time we'd done that, the urge to nap was mitigated by the sight
of terns hitting the water in pockets all over the river mouth.So, we hopped back into the skiffs and took off to cast to queen
fish, a thin and particularly acrobatic member of the jack family
absent from U.S. waters. These great lighttackle game fish which
run 3 to 15 pounds and occasionally exceed 20, abound across northern
Australia. Later as we drifted past eerily quiet mangroves the estuary,
water boded behind my plug and I had my hands full with a gill-rattling,
silvery barramundi. Had it been more than a few pounds the powerful
fish would surely would have had me right back in the snag from
which it darted to snatch my small minnow plug.A short while later, I made out the silhouette of a big crocs snout
just before it slowly slipped down into the clear-brown water. Then
motion near by I caught sight of a bottom-cruising shark of some
sort which swam almost beneath the skiff in the shallows, and I
noted that it wasn't much smaller than the skiff itself.All too soon, with the tropical sun setting like clockwork right
around dinner time, we had to run back to the ship - but not before
hooking up with a big, very tough and gorgeous golden trevally on
the troll, not 200 yards from the mother ship.Within an hour, I'd showered and was sitting around the bow with
the rest of my mates enjoying some fine Australian wine, seafood
hors d'oeuvres, good chatter and the last remnants of the day in
a scarlet glow over the offshore horizon. Against the calm, inky
black sky, a few stars began to pop out and I noticed how surprisingly
cool the air seemed
Good with or without a Guide
Even with just one full fishing day under our belts, it seemed
as though we'd already enjoyed a pretty substantial vacation. But
many areas in the coming days awaited our exploration.That's what I love about the Cape York area - its versatility"
says Jim Harnwell, managing editor of Australia's popular Fishing
World magazine, a veteran of several trips to this stretch of coast
'You can fish the reefs and offshore waters in the morning for tuna,
mackeral, big queenies cobia and a great variety of reef fish then
- depending on the tide - fish rivers for barra, mangrove jacks
tarpon, threadies and blue salmon, trevally, giant herring and maybe
a permit. Then you can head back out for a late-afternoon session
on the reefs, the best time for really big Spanish mackerel and
for the most prized reef dwellers such as emperors and coral trout.
(colourful gropers)"And If you want a change of pace, you can run 30 minutes
up the rivers to clear fresh water home for sarratoga the Australia
version of the exotic arawana of the South American rivers] as well
as more barramuundi various trevalley and some surprisingly large
queenies. "And you can sight cast to most of these fish!,"Harnwell also recounts the excitement of fishing Cape York's sandy
beaches - casting to cruising permit, golden trevally, barramuni
and giant trevalley. 'I've seen really big GT's in pretty close,
60 pounds or better, I reccon - big gray shadows chasing down mullet
or other baitfish. Best of all, says Harnwell, You can catch most
of these on various offerings - bait lures or on fly. It's as if
the whole place is just made for light tackle action.It's exactly that sort of fishing that convinced Bethune to start
his Carpentaria Seafaris with the Capricorn Mist back in 1990. He'd
worked for years around the Cape York Peninsula, including a stretch
operating a Gulf prawn trawler, adding to his vast knowledge of
local waters. Bethune's operation has been very busy simply on word
of mouth, drawing about 50 percent of clients from Australia and
the other half from the United States, Europe (many from England)
and South Africa."The big aspect of these trips is variety," Bethune says.
"Some guys; like to record the species they catch, trying for
as many as possible. We've had anglers catch well over 50 different
species in a week," and its all in an area where you are likely
to see few or no other fishermen all week; your group may as well
be the only humans alive on earth, with seldom a boat on the horizon
or a plane in the skies overhead, and daily news casts out of range.Bethune spends most days as guide for a couple of anglers on the
bigger skiff, others, in skiffs on their own, can follow him to
fish the same areas (so however far Bethune goes, they need not
worry about get ting lost or hitting shoal water).On the other hand, anglers with even modest small-boat-handling
experience ~ have little trouble exploring the action on their own
- along beaches, in river mouths and lower rivers, as well as offshore.
For the most part, sandy or muddy bottoms mean the odds of tearing
up a lower unit on rocks or oyster beds are slim. And during the
eight month season that Bethune fishes here, winds are typically
light and mostly offshore, from the east, which means these skiffs
can generally fish up to several miles out, in waters varying from
flat to a modest chop.Bethune did not supply hand-held VHFs. He's considering doing so,
but points out that in 10 years he hasn't had any need for them.
Nevertheless, I brought one along and found it useful (fortunately
not needing it for an emergency) but glad to have it for peace of
mind in case). Ditto a hand-held GPS and even a mini-EMB if you
have them.One should be aware of the tides before heading out from the mother
ship. Tidal flows around the Cape can be more extreme than in many
near-equatorial areas, varying by more than 6 feet At one point,
a bit of overly optimistic boat-handling on my part might have stranded
us for a while had the tide been ebbing rather than (as I knew it
to be) flooding.Staying in the boat is generally good advice. The variety of critter
in these fertile waters not friendly to human flesh includes crocs,
sharks (bull, tiger, whaler, others), stonefish and stinging box
jellyfish, to name a few. None present a great danger as long as
you're wading in water that's clear and shallow, that said, many
fish are taken by anglers casting from the lovely beaches. Keeping
an eye out for crocs is always a good idea - but it comes down to
common sense.
Encounter with a milkfish
Even, with some element of surprise lost in the Web and e-mail
research customary these days for anyone planning a big trip, It's
hard to imagine a week in the Cape York coastal outback not providing
a host of surprises for any visiting angler. I had my share and
leave you with three unexpected encounters with inshore species.
For years, Aussies called them snubnosed darts or oyster crackers.
From time to time, anglers spotted there elusive shadows in shallow
water just off the beaches but hardly anyone ever caught 'em.That was a challenge that Bethune, who knew very well what sort
of fish these were, couldn't resist. (The International Game Fishing
Association calls these snubnose pompano which maddens Bethune,
who has released dozens of 20- to 30-poundes and says he knows a
permit when he sees one.) He spent much of the 1990s figuring out
how to catch these Indo-Pacific permit - or at least trying - until
he became something of an acknowledged expert Down Under."I have no doubt that I know more about catching these permit
than anyone in Australia - and I don't know much! Bethune concedes
with a laugh, I've had clients who have hooked both Atlantic and
Pacific permit tell me the Pacific fish defiantly fight harder".I can't say, since we didn't hook an "oystercracker"
although that was neither for lack of trying nor lack of shots.
But then, we were in good company- In recent trips Bethune told
us, fly-rodders had hooked 11 permit -and landed none!One morning I joined Gibson and Bethune and ran the several miles
up the beach on the hunt for permit. The tide was perfect and the
season (August to October) still right. While Gibson took the bow
with the long rod, I stood ready astern with. a small, live crab,
Florida Keys style That was my idea Bethune had never before tried
bait - only flies - for permit.Sure enough after some searching we could make out a small but
unmistakable circle dasy-chaining permit Long story short: Over
the next couple of hours, we had several shots at the fish just
off the beach, more elusive than spooky in the somewhat turbid water.
Amazingly, time and time again they simply swam around my offerings
which included the live crab, a half crab and fresh prawn tail on
a white bucktall jig - but did grab Gibsons fly on three occasions,
one came unbuttoned and two busted off.Permit three, anglers zip. But I know they're there. In fact, Bethune
says, on the previous trip they found much larger groups of up to
50 permit, daisy chaining in the shallows.
Our next surprise came while running back along the beach that same
afternoon. A modest afternoon onshore sea breeze had set a bit of
a chop as Bethune suddenly cut the throttle back and did a U-turn.
"Barramundi" He hollered. He explained that he hadn't
expected to see them along here quite yet but noted that later in
October small barra often do congregate just off the beach in numbers.Sure enough, not 50 feet off the sand, we spotted yellow fins -
the unusual color characteristic of barra feeding outside there
estuary haunts - and my first cast with a bright blue and white
Yo- Zuri Tobimaru minnow drew a smashing strike after a few seconds
of the dart-and pause routine. We ended up catching and releasing
a number of barramundi - a real treat to challenge them on light
lines (and awarded with some spectacular leaps) without being cut
off over the smooth, snag free sand.The next afternoon brought one of the biggest surprises of the
trip. Bethune had taken us into the Doughboy River, our last anchorage
before heading back up to Bamaga. No angler should visit this area
without spending at least a day fishing far up one of the capes
pristine tranquil rivers.Our targets included. queenfish, trevally, snapper (mangrove Jacks
and fingermark), and barramundi and, once all the way up to the
sweet water " the exotic sarratoga. By the time we had run
the 10 or so miles up river we began seeing enormous swirls and
caught fleeting glimpses of very big, fast-moving fish. Every time
we'd run past a pocket of these fish the water would erupt.We slowed down and began casting to the activity that appeared
to be feeding. At first Bethune pegged them as monster queenfish
(that in fact do feed up the rivers). That is until my line came
taut and 35 or so pounds of streamlined Milkfish came skyrocketing
out of the shallows. The long chrome bright chanos chanos often
abundant in tropical coastal areas but seldom caught. For the next 50 minutes I slugged it out in one of the hardest
battles I've ever fought with any inshore fish as the milkfish towed
the skiff with three passengers steadily upriver (and up current).
Fortunately, I'd hooked the fish, using 35lb super braid line and
the heaviest outfit I had. Once In the boat the milkfish (which
my spoon, had hooked on the side of the head) made Bethune day with
as many species as he has caught on these trips, this was a first
for him, as it was for me.And that's saying quite a bit since not so far outside of these
same estuaries (which by the way, can be loaded with Pacific tarpon,
known locally as Ox Eye Herring) In water neither deep nor blue
Bethune has caught small black marlin.
Cape York is a land of many surprises. One of the many for me was
how quickly a week can fly by - a week in a lost world of great
weather, incredible landscapes, good company and fast fishing for
a host of fascinating game fish.
