Eight highly skilled sport fishing gentlemen had a wonderful tropical multi species fishing holiday during the 2003 Japanese national Golden Week holiday.
Our first fishing holiday safari with Japanese anglers, lead by Ebi (above left) of Trout and King fishing Tours of Tokyo with a Long
tail or Northern Blue fin Tuna caught from the bow of the mothership 14 hours after boarding an international flight in Tokyo. Caught on
light spin rods casting 35gm Halco metal slices and poppers, all 8 anglers caught Tunas this way including Ishi (right). Also caught as we
travelled down the coast a nice Spanish Mackeral for Peter (below right) and a double hook up of Cobias on trolled high speed bibbed
minnows by Sato and Kiyo over some "secret waypoints" enroute our first destination.
So much for day one, a great way to break the ice and satisfy some enthusiasm after a 9 hour international and 2 hour domestic flight. A great
start to a great fun filled fishing week.
Queenfish were abundant as they have been all year feeding on the masses of bait that is still coming out of the rivers after the "wet" season.
Caught on flies and poppers these schooling fish provided hours of entertainment on an "on call" basis. You could catch some in the morning, go
off and persue different species and come back any time and catch more "Queenies" on fly.
(Left to right) Sato, Kiyo, and what is not a smaller fish but a bigger gentleman, Uga, convinced he was a Dugong in a previous life one fun
loving guy who, when his fly line caught in the propeller also munched the tip section of his 2 piece Sage fly rod laughed, saying "now 3 piece"
and when one of the sections of the dismantled broken rod fell over the side laughed again saying, good now back to 2 piece".
Using sinking fly lines and Jigs fishing deeper in the water column anglers were rewarded with catches of Trevally’s, both Goldens and Giants. Sato and
Ebi with a Golden (left) and one of the most efficient, quiet achieving anglers I’ve met, Mitsu with a GT. If you were not looking in his direction
Mitsu would often catch and subdue a quality fish like above with out the other angler or the guide knowing until it was splashing on the surface.
Without flying the Carpentaria Seafaris flag too high, I don’t know of anywhere, in the world in fact where you can catch in one day, exotics like coal
Grunter (upper L) and Saratoga (Upper R) in the fresh water, the magnificent and rare Diamond Trevally (Lower L) and others in the lower estuary and
flats, then be catching pelagic speedsters like tuna in the close inshore waters, all in a day or half a day from a custom 14 foot fibreglass fishing skiff
with your hot shower, cold sunset drinks, chef prepared dinner and inner spring materesd bed 20 minutes away in a flat calm river mouth anchorage.
Below, Toshi with a Barramundi that proved a little difficult to catch this week. The boys "power napping" in the shade after lunch on the massive upper deck.
If you are interested look at the other fishing reports archived on this site to see what could be coming up next month. Then tune in next week and see what’s caught on the up coming 2003 trips.
