Letters of my life; some of them positive, some of them about fishing, all of them about US = Johnno a mad keen (obsessed) fisherman, Myself (Positive Karen), and our two dogs Puppy and Charlie, as we enjoy a life of fishing, food and fitness, while trying to keep some kind of balance.
Today he got his first Quondong Point Barramundi on Fly!
Quondong Point Barra on 8wt Fly
It was a clear still morning when we left the tent, but we were watching the fog roll in over the ocean. By the time we got to our fishing spot the fog had surrounded us. I never thought to check my GoPro lens, the fog had dampened it, so the start of my videoing Johnno is, well, foggy! I turned on to record a bit of him casting and retrieving, but had already pushed the OFF button when Johnno got 'the strike', thankfully GoPro's take a moment to turn of,f and I got the shot! Quickly turned it back on and was able to record him playing the fish...and falling over!!! hahahahaha!!!!
Also another Tarpon, just to prove yesterday wasn't a one off fluke!
Johnno has found a new passion!!You know he loves fly fishing above all other forms of fishing, but now there is a new fish in town!
Today: Quondong Point Tarpon on Fly!
It all started at Barred Creek, when he hooked his first Tarpon for this holiday. We had to return to Barred Creek so he could catch more, he was having so much fun...and you all thought we went back there for the Barra didn't you??
Thinking it was just a Willie/Barred Creek thing, we weren't really expecting to find Tarpon anywhere further up the rocky coast. But then he caught one on Manari Beach, and today two here at Quondong Point!!
No matter what happens or doesn’t happen. No matter where you go or don’t go. And now matter who you see or don’t see. Today, this week, this episode of your life, will be looked back upon with the deepest fondness because the time will come when you will see its glorious perfections.
Notes from the Universe by Mike Dooley.
I am already thinking of this time in my life with deepest fondness, reading this today only motivated me to make a little movie clip of this most amazing day, so we can look back on it again and again forever, and remember always this most amazing day. One day in the hundred years of my life…how many days is that? I can’t spend the time working it out, I’m too busy enjoying this most amazing day!
The weather forecast had predicted strong winds, but we got a beautiful calm clear day.
We had collected bait yesterday for fishing off the rock at high tide, so as the tide came in we headed over to our favourite fishing spot in the whole world (well mine anyway). I finally broke in my new bait caster, with the smallest cod in the world! Then a couple of little bluebone. I teased Johnno that I would keep the little ones busy while he tried to catch the big one, because he was loosing all our crabs!! Didn’t take him too long to get the feel for it again, and on our second last crab he pulled in a you-friggen-beaut bluebone!
Bluebone: Black spotted tusk fish.
While getting ready to cook Bluebone and eggs for lunch, standing at the door of our tent looking down along the beach where all the weekenders were picnicking, I noticed a large dark shape in the water. It was so familiar, it only took me moments to realise that it was the Big Cod that we had seen up at Price’s Point. I grabbed my GoPro and ran down to the beach. Other swimmers right beside it hadn’t even seen it. People came down from their camp sites and other end of the beach to watch the beautiful creature slowly glide along the shallows.
it is almost time for us to head south for the summer/wet!
The humidity is slowly starting to sneak back into the air. The build up clouds have started building up. A Broome beach was closed last week because of stingers, so the water temp must be heating up. The nip has left the night air. People have started posting Barramundi photos on facebook.
All signs that spring has sprung and the wet season is on it's way!
We love the wet season, but maybe not so much when living in a tent! So it's time to think about what we are going to do. Sitting around the camp fire drinking rum last night, we hatched a cunning plan: We are off to Perth for Christmas! .... but just not yet! We can enjoy another month of this wonderful warm weather yet before we hit the road.
We went for a drive to look for our next camp site, Manari rd is only 45km long, and we have been driving it for 18 years, but we still managed to find a new camp area at the end of the creek.
Quondong is still fuller than we like it, people are staying longer now than they used to. But everywhere is drying out anyway, the grassy area's are brown and dry, not as pretty as the start of the season. So we decided we are going back to Flat Rock it's so beautiful there in the pindan cliffs, and I catch fish!!! I don't seem to catch as many fish here at Barred, Johnno's been cleaning up on Fly!
We are making the most of this last day with internet, no service at all at Flat Rock. We will be out of contact for at least 2 weeks, more likely a month.
It's a nice day to sit and do nothing...actually every day at Barred is!!
It's saturday, there are people fishing all along the beach (haven't seen anyone catch anything yet). There's a gentle cool breeze, not a cloud in the sky. It's not too hot, no humidity that I was talking about earlier. You could almost forget that the wet is just around the corner on a perfect day like today.
It's now official: We CAN NOT take people fishing!!!
Anyone coming to fish with us bring lots of beer!
Because you are sure to catch NOTHING!!
Our last visitor Ben informed us he had his own family jinx that meant he and his brother were sure to catch nothing anyway. Then I informed him that we also were jinxed, that no-one who comes fishing with us ever catches fish! So we sat on the beach and drunk beers! Thanks for that Ben, cold beers, fun company and a beautiful beach, who needs to catch a barra anyway??
2 weeks of drinking beer in the sun means we are both a bit redder than normal; no more staying in the sun!
The tides have changed again, so we aren't expecting any barra for the next couple of days, but you know I'll go down and have a go anyway.
It's now Tarpon Tides!
Todays is the first non-windy day in months, so even though it's still high tide, Johnno has gone for a walk with his fly rod. Pup's leg is bad again, we have done lots of walking lately, so we (me and the dogs) are staying at camp for the morning, waiting for the low tide before we walk.
John's gone fly fishing.
Yesterday Johnno had a ball catching Tarpon again. Tarpon are a strong fighting, fast swimming fish, that give Johnno a good run on fly. It takes almost 5 mins from hook up to release, so I've cut heaps of footage off this YouTube clip, or it would be 20mins for the 3 fish. Johnno tried to hold the fish up for a GoPro photo, but they kept fighting the whole time, the wriggly little buggars made it hard work, but he did manage it on one fish.
One of the 3 Tarpon Johnno caught on fly yesterday.
Isn't fishing a funny thing, some days you just have to say 'hay that's fishing', No excuse's just No fish! But at least up this way we always have the tides to blame, and then there's the wind, 'Broome fish hate the wind' we say.
We had a friend who came two neap tides in a row to fish the 'good' tide's with us, he did catch fish thankfully, but the wind both times make it very hard work. Another friend has been out a few times and still not caught anything; ok so we were too drunk the first couple of times to even fish, but we did yesterday, and still didn't catch anything, next time mate!! (we did see the biggest barra in the world!) I'm starting to wonder if guests are a jinx?? It's a little bit of a worry, because we have another friend coming out for his second trip tomorrow, fingers crossed we can catch him some fish!! The tides are GREAT, fingers crossed the wind holds steady for a the morning at least!
On the in-between day, when we had no visitors, we (Johnno) cleaned up!!
The Barra that broke the Birthday rod!
We fished the low tide as usual this morning, better tides meant we were expecting Barra, Sunday meant we were expecting plenty of people about; we got both!!
There was 10 land based fisho's and a tinny trolling. The young lad next to us caught a cute little barra, but apart from Johnno that was all I saw...must be time to break out my fly gear!!! Oh talking about BREAKING!!! Johnno's first barra pictured above, 64cm, caused the breaking of his new birthday 8wt fly rod!! Luckily he received the rod a month before his birthday, getting a fair bit of use on it over the last month: Last months Blog: Johnno's New Fly Rod. Johnno managed to keep fishing, even with his broken tip fly rod, oh what you do when the fish are biting! Catching and releasing another barra before the tidal movement caused us to move on.
After Barra for lunch and a few hours of relaxing, we noticed the Boobies Bombing right in front of our camp, so off we ran to see what all the action was about. Johnno broke-in his new spinning reel with 2 pilchards, 2 wolf herring and a salmon!!
Sunset Salmon to finish another wonderful day!
Go Johnno! I had grabbed my bigger set up in the excitement of the feeding frenzy, so even though I caught fish this evening my new reel is still a virgin. :(
Johnno's birthday celebrations never stopped at our camp. Luckily the tides were so big last week it was really hard to fish. We spent our days sitting around watching the tide come in, going for a swim, taking come photos, then watching it go out again, and our evenings drinking beer or bourbon!
10m tidal movement at Barred creek last week.
We were pleased we actually took Simo fishing this weekend; she has camped with us a few times now, this was the first time we had a serious fish...next time we might actually catch something!!
The fast moving tidal water made it hard fishing on our morning walk down the beach, BUT...We did see a 1.5m Barramundi!!! YES I said a metre and a half Barra!!! I know some of you will call 'fishy tail' as soon as you read this, and so be it, even Johnno is saying 1.2, but he didn't get as close to it as I did TWICE!!! First time on the beach, totally flustered I couldn't make a good cast at it, but she was floating pretty fast in the current anyway...can't imagine I would have landed her even if she was feeding!
Excited from the sighting, we headed up the creek to see if we could find her....what's the chance's of that really?? But it was a great excuse to sit by the river, taking in the amazing colours while downing cold beer!
Johnno caught us some live bait. It wasn't long before I got what I would call a Barra bite, one pull stop, then slowly pulling away. Johnno was calling it a metre Barra bite before I even stuck, he's cheeky like that! I closed off the drag, tightened the line, and pulled hard....nothing!!! Dam it, the fish had still been moving when I struck, obviously pulling it out of her mouth!
Not long after that a car pulled into our little fishing bay, Johnno and Simo went over to talk to them, while I kept a eye on the lines. Right at that moment, the biggest Barra in the world, YES I'm sure it was the same one as we had seen out the front of the creek, swam along the ledge we were fishing, slowly, right under our lines!!! I called hysterically to the others, but by the time they got back to the bank, the big girl had sunk into the deeper water and was heading out of the creek.
Check out the amazing colours!!
As the tidal water drained out of the creek again, and we started running out of beers in the car eski, we headed back to camp to contemplate how to catch the beauty of the creek system. I'm pretty sure we talked about her all night!!
Johnno lending a hand...not much of!
It's your birthday Johnno, stand back and drink beer while we do the work!
It's almost two weeks since we moved back to Barred Creek for Johnno's birthday. I'd planned to write blogs regularly while we have internet service, but it's just such a wonderful spot to sit and do nothing!!!
Johnno's birthday barra on 8wt fly
I brought Johnno an 8wt fly rod and reel for his birthday, he got his birthday barra the day before his actual birthday, which is a good thing really, since we started drinking UDL's at 10am on his big day, and didn't stop till Monday...so not much fishing got done that weekend!!
Then we were into the big tides, which make for really hard fishing, so we relaxed, giving ourselves time to get over the long weekend!
This morning even though the tides were still bigger than they have been since we have been here, we had to go fishing; 5 days of no fish, that's unheard of for us!!!
I haven't had much luck on lure or bait here, luckily Johnno's been cleaning up on fly, so I still get plenty of footage for movie making. This morning I went through our many lures picking out some new ones to go in my little carry bag. I decided on a Skitter-pop for the incoming tide up the creek. It worked!!! I got my first Barramundi this holiday!!!
Karen's 65cm Barred Creek Barramundi on popper!
It's been a wonderful week, to cut a long story short and keep it interesting, here it all is on YouTube:
Johnno breaking in his new 8wt fly rod and reel at Barred Creek:
Big Tides gave me plenty of time to play with all my toys!
