Trip 417 Claudio & family + Roland
The Longtails and Mac Tunas were decidedly finicky off Vrylia as we steamed past, there were plenty
of them and they were actively feeding, but refused our 40gm Halco slices. 40 gm Raiders worked better
but the fish were still hard and would chase and look but more often than not, refused to eat. We did
get 3 Macs onto the deck, busted off another 2 and a good long tail just as we got "color" I said,
"this one we eat", must have heard me. The fish we landed spewed up good sized glass minnows which
allayed my fears the Tunas might be feeding on the baby puffers that sometimes school up and make
the fish "stoned" when they feed on them. Quite puzzling to me why they wouldn’t eat as they normally do.
This morning out the front I met a guy named Andrew, paddling a sea kayak, on his own with no support,
from Horn Island in the Torres Strait via Cape York down the west coast where we fish, to Duyfken point
the northern boundary of Albatross bay (Weipa). A mate of his is going to bring him more drinking water
by boat from Weipa 36 kilometers away before he embarks on his cross gulf paddle to Nhulunbuy (Gove)
550 kilometers away. He is writing an article for Australian Geographic about his adventures, a real guts effort in my
book. He camped on the coast coming down and is sleeping in his kayak on the open ocean stretch. I
saw him off the Jackson at 11am Thursday the 19 th, he had camped at the MacDonald the night before
and hoped to make Cullen point today but was a little unsure. MacDonald - Cullen is a 50 klm leg,
across the gulf is 500+ that’s a lot of nights at sea in a kayak. Good luck to you Andrew, be safe.
This trip we suffered a late cancellation by a group from America chartering the whole boat, luckily we
sold some places and the trip has proceeded. Onboard a lovely family from Modena Italy, Mom, Dad, 14
year old son and 11 year old daughter and an Aussie, Roland. It is now mid day, after lunch first day
in the river, everyone has had a cracker morning catching plenty of Goldens, Giant Herring, and Queenies
on fly, young Gaia caught a great Queen fish (photo below) and was genuinely very stressed when it would
not revive, her genuine emotion flowed on and we all became upset that she was so. We explained that we
had to eat and more importantly our pet Gropers also had to be fed, she was fine and we fed the frame
to the big Eric off the stern.
This afternoon there must be a trough or something in the gulf I saw a hint on the ABC weather the night
before we left and now we are getting afternoon on shore winds, must listen to the weather report tonight
and see what’s going on. Claudio caught 3 nice Barra off the beach this afternoon and Roland who has never
before salt water fly fished is already racking up the species count. One rare capture on his species count
was a Sombre sweet lip from the beach. The girls had a great afternoon spending the latter part on the beach
collecting shells and teaching Emily our new guide (who was with us in 2002 see reports) Italian. She came
back to the boat with "Phil, sei un brutto maiale"... "Phil, you are an ugly pig".
This morning I took the girls on my crabbing run to the next river south, young Gaia at 11 is as game as you
can get any girl, "you want to cast slices and catch Queenfish?", "yes" "you want to drive the dinghy", "yes",
"you want to hold the crabs?" ... "OK", we had a great run crabbing and will feast large tonight. Caludio,
son Fabio and Roland had an even better morning catching Queenies and Goldens, first up in the river then
offshore where they each also nailed a Longtail Tuna on fly.
As I came back to the river with the girls I could see guide Phil’s 22 foot Yamaha longboat from a distance with three figures
in the bow, I knew something was happening, as I drive over Phil chimes in on the radio, "Greg can you come and give us a hand here
we got 2 permit on". This was the start of the most unbelievable 4 days of Permit fishing I have ever witnessed. I am a bit
loathed to broadcast the guts of the happenings to the world including my competition, who aren’t a threat so here it is.
Whether there was a hatch of crabs or a regular occurrence we have never noticed, or it could happen regularly but never coincided
with a river full of trachanotus blocci. Anyway, floating crabs, coming out of the river some free swimming and others
riding on mangrove leaves like little boats.. and, Permit sipping them off the surface like trout in a chalk stream (not
that I have ever seen a trout sipping in a chalk stream but I can imagine... can’t I?)
So we drift around, the Permies clearly visible, singles twos and threes, flashing around and rising, cast any sort of crab in the vicinity of
a boil or simply leave a Feltys floating crab without the weight in the current and ‘whompa’ you’re on. We had many many double hook ups like
this first one, we tag teamed some of them with Phil drifting, positioning the boat and when one of the boys hooked a fish I would come alongside
in another skiff, transfer the hooked up angler and land the fish while Phil got the next guy into a fish... and not just any fish,
the fish that causes people to have sleepless nights, the fish that anglers the world over tear there hair out over, the fish that
rightly so has earned the reputation as being the "Holey Grail of salt water fly fishing"
Roland from the mountains behind Sydney is an avid angler and fishes Aussie bass from his kayak in the local rivers when ever he can. A complete
novice when it came to fly fishing he was over the moon to catch and land his first Permit. He at this stage had only caught 4 fish ever on fly
and one of them was this Permit.. this will make many a seasoned saltwater fly fisher spew.
I have for a little while now thought that I had probably in the past 14 years of operation seen the best of what this fishery has to offer, obviously
not so. This little episode reminded me of way back when catching Goldens on fly was a big deal, when the Frazer Island Golden trevalley tournaments
were a big thing. I remember a day, a life time of fishing days ago fishing with old mate Steve Starling, I had a golden on and Steve hooked one, he
was stunned when I purposely broke mine off so I could get photos and video of him catching his. That lunch he commented to me saying.. this morning
I caught more goldens than the total of all the entrants in the 3 days of the Frazer Island golden tournament I was in last month.. We were blown
away by that fishing in the early and mid 90’s and now this sort of Permit fishing is sitting us on our ass in the early 2000’s.. and causing us to
have sleepless nights in anticipation of tomorrows action. We had 4 days of this before we moved on and left them biting.
Mom and Dad.. a mangrove Jack caught off the beach and a Golden trevalley, thanks for coming guys we had a wonderful time with
you this week. As mentioned earlier this trip of reduce numbers has as its core a most wonderful family from Italy, father and
son are the keenest of keen fly fishers and 14yo Fabio has a cast that I am envious of. Mom and daughter are in love with the
Australian wild life and we have taken them on some great bush walks into some of the lagoons and swamps we know of in the area.
Bird life including dancing Brolgas, sea eagles and many species of parrot and kingfishers and wallabies, snakes and wild boar,
last night we found a Cuscus or northern possum, a first for me seeing one of these in the wild, neat animal.
Day last, standard procedure is, we fish a late morning (2 pm), I take the Paradise out of the river and we all meet up the coast a little where we organize
ourselves for the trip back to Seisia. By request of chef Adam a Spanish Mackeral for dinner please, I have 2 rods trolling from the mothership and the
computerized navigation programmed to clip some of the known rubble reef spots as we track north. Following is a transcript of radio transmitions between
Phil and I... "Tropic Paradise receive?", back Phil, "we haven’t got it yet but we have a big Spanish on, you should have seen it we are fighting this
tuna on fly and this thing I thought was a shark starts attacking it.. turns out to be a big Spanish, I threw a lure at it and no response,
so I got this monster treble out of me tackle box, put some wire on it cut off a chunk of tuna and fed it to it.. unbelievable, I’ll give you a call when
we land it", "yeah Rodger Phil don’t blow it we need one for dinner"... "Tropic Paradise we got it, must be 35 pound plus, it’s starting to blow up a
bit now I’ll drop it off and head in a bit"... "Tropic Paradise receive?" "Back to you Phil", "now we are surrounded by metre plus Queenfish, this is
f**king unbelievable!" An so ends another trip. Next week we have a full book check again to see if the Permit are still around and if they
are easy like this week or hard as a bastard to catch. Previous Fishing Trip Reports:
