Fishing 101: Our 5 top fish each

My 101 blog!!!

Our Five Favourite Fish:

Team Positive Fishing: Karen & Johnno

  Six Months of fishing Manari Road, we have caught many fish!  Here are our favourite five each:

Johnno:

1) Permit!  Of course!  Our ONLY plan when we left Derby on this extended fishing holiday was to make sure Johnno caught a Permit on Fly before we left Willie Creek.  

2) Tarpon on fly are now Johnno's favourite fish to catch. He has caught a lot of them over the last 3 months, since learning where and when to fish for them.  First at the mouth of Barra Creek, then Manari, and now here at Quondong Point!
Check out some of the Tarpon clips we have on YouTube: Tarpon on Fly Tarpon Tide Tarpon I am currently making another Quondong Point Tarpon clip.
I love that he is talking of oversea trips to catch bigger one, Cuba or Florida!  Yah bring it on!!!

1 of 3 Tarpon caught today at Quondong Point.

3) Queen Fish on 8wt!  Big Fish, light weight rod = Hard Work!!  I brought Johnno an 8wt rod and new fly reel for his Birthday in August.  This is the first big fish he caught on it, very happy day!!

4) Mangrove Jack:  Took him 6 months, but finally Johnno caught one on Fly (Yes he has caught them before on fly, but this was his first for this holiday).  Quondong Point, Incoming Neap tide.

Hard hitting, mean fighting Mangrove Jack!

5) Salmon:  Johnno has caught many salmon over our last 6 month fishing holiday, but his favourite was this bigger one caught on his new 8wt fly rod!

Salmon on 8wt = hard work!

Karen:

1) Mangrove Jack on Popper!  MJ's are mean hard fighting fish, hitting the lure hard and running hell fast back to the rocks.  No wonder they are on both our top five lists!  I've caught two on Popper and couldn't tell you one was better then the other.  Both times they hit so hard and fast, taking me by such surprise, then the excitement once I seen the pink colour, the urgency to get it to the bank before I loose it.  Super cool, adrenaline rushing stuff!!  I'm hooked!  I've been hunting for my 3rd hook up since!

2) Bluebone on rod! Johnno has caught A LOT of Bluebone over the years, plenty on this trip.  They didn't make his top 5 list because he loves fly fishing, but usual catches them on hand line for our dinner.  I've caught plenty of smaller bluebone before, but was super proud of myself when I caught this beauty, (as big as Johnno normal catches) on rod and reel!

3) Barramundi My one and only Barramundi for this trip (Johnno has caught heaps on fly) makes my top 5 list, not only because I was so glad to finally hook one, but because it was on Popper in an unexpected spot, it hit hard and jumped, quickly waking me from my peaceful walk down the beach!

65cm Barramundi on Popper at mouth of Barred Creek WA

4) Shavel Nose Ray aka: The Beast!  The 20 minute long tug-of-war fight up and down the beach wore me and it out.  Luckily Johnno was there at the end, to help me land it in the waves, and then safely swim it back out once recovered.

The Beautiful fish, named The Beast for the intense fight it put up!

5) Little Trevalley!  We have caught MILLIONS of the baby bulldozers over the last 6 months!  They make my top five list not for their size to fight ratio.  Even though I have said a few times on this trip, enough Little Gt's, take me somewhere I can catch something else, I was ever thankful to have them to play with while Johnno has been chasing Permit and Tarpon on fly!!

....Little Queenies don't make my list even though they are fun, they are spikey little buggers and i've had more than a few sore fingers from them!!  Little Mackerel however are always a fun bi-catch when fishing for little Trevalley!!

If you want to see the rest of our fishing fun while on this trip be sure to check out Positive Fishing on YouTube and FaceBook!

My 100th Blog: Wow What A Trip!!

100 Blogs in 6 months 

with 52 YouTube clips!

What a trip it’s been!!

What a coincidence? (no I don’t believe in them! Everything happens for a reason!!)
After 6 month of living carefree on the beach we finally decided what the next step will be.  Then while creating todays fun little blog I realised my next blog, this one, will be my 100th!  Which was my goal: Write 100 blogs while on holiday.

My blogs started when we were packing, I wanted to include the build up  before the big release.  I made sure we recorded day one, even though Johnno wasn't impressed with the size. The first was very important to me, I wanted to remember it forever!!  The rest of that week followed suit, nice slow, relaxing, with plenty of catch and release.

Our ONLY plan before we left Derby, Johnno had to catch a Permit  while at Willie Creek.  With magnificent rod skills, Johnno had his fish on the beach in no time!

It was the wet season when we came to Manari Road.

There is build up and fire about as we never our end here.

It's been a walk on the beach, with so many highs and even a few lows, some times it felt a little unreal, but over all we found our positivity, and some amazing fish!

A very big cod.

PS: I've been reading '50 shades of Grey for last two days'!!! haha now I feel like Anastasia when she is being shy and clamping her hands over her eyes!!  
...and anyway it's my 100th blog, I'm aloud to be stupid!!
If your not having fun, your doing something wrong!

5 Free camping spots above Broome, Western Australia: from Drone!

Positive Fishing at Quondong Point in 2013: back when we used to do over nighters only.

Team Positive Fishing has been camping/fishing Manari Road (above Broome WA, Australia) for the last 6 months!!  It's been insanely amazing, relaxing, fun and exciting, sometimes all on the same day!

For more information on fishing sites and catches, make sure you check out Positive Fishing on Facebook or our little clips on YouTube.  For this Blog I want to share with you the beauty of this amazing 50km stretch of coast, from the air!  All footage recorded on GoPro Hero 3 attached to a DJI Phantom 2 Drone.

We have camped at each of the below place's twice, and are now getting ready to head onto the next part of our adventures.

1) Our first stop Willie Creek, south side. Or check out the other clip if you need to see more of this most beautiful beach, I couldn't get enough of it while we were there!!  I took a million photos here!

2) Barred Creek, is the next stop up the road, so I will keep it in order of sign posted tracks.

3) Quondong Point is my favourite place in the world.  Thankfully we got here early in the season, while it was still green, as seen in this clip, and before it got too busy.  During the months of July to September it gets very busy here, with campers under every tree and caravans on every flat spot.

4) The sign post says Price's Point, but it's better known as James Price Point: This is the site of the proposed Gas Pipe line, that almost lost us the entrance to this road and most of these amazing places.  Lets hope that never happens!!  Keep it Free, Keep it open!!!  Gas Free Kimberley!! Thank you to the No-Gas supporters!! Also check out our camp site there from Drone.

5) At the end of the road there is a wild open area known as Flat Rock.  Only 10km's past the Price's Point camp area, not marked on many new maps.  This is a wonderful fishing, camping, site-seeing, bird watching paradise!!

With only a couple of weeks left camping on Manari road, we have returned again to Quondong Point.  The fishing seems to get better every time we come here.  With the heat on the rise quickly most the caravans and campers have left the area, and we are once again on our own here, just like at the start of the season.

Current camp site at Quondong Point WA, Australia.

Return to Paradise!

Quondong Point is my happy place!

Current camp site at Quondong Point.

I was going to say we never should have left, but:
1) Well we had to, police orders! Bush fire evacuation!.
2) You learn to appreciate what you've got when you haven't got it any more.
3) We ended up with a better camp spot when we came back!!
4) We have the whole place to ourselves!!!

If it hadn't been for the bush fires we would not have left.  If it hadn't been for my planned 'holiday away from our holiday' we would have started heading South when we got moved out of Quondong Point.  

Only days before the bush fire that drove us out of Manari Rd, I had booked flights to Adelaide, From Broome, to visit my sister.  With the seasons changing, it’s starting to get warm, humid, and a little uncomfortable camping on the beach here, almost time to head south!  But with my flights already booked we found ourselves in a little bit of limbo...what to do with ourselves.  

Road into Langi's: end of dry season!

We headed back to our home turf, the Fitzroy River.

So i've been trying to write this blog for two friggen hours, but internet keeps f..en up, so this is all you get!!

NO FISH AT RIVER....Two barra as soon as we got back to Beach!!!!
Well done Johnno on fly!!

View from my book reading chair!

Shady dog house!

View from our tent.

Our tent.

Shower time!!

Bush Fire Evacuation!!

Positive Tree Change

Thursday morning we noticed the bush fire in the distance had gotten closer to us over night.  A friend who'd driven back from Flat Rock (end of Manari Road) advised us it's closer and bigger than it looks.  We went for a drive up the road to check it out, had just decided to wait and see what it dose, it didn't look close enough to start packing yet....then 3 police vehicles drove past us, and we knew we were going to be moved out.

Sure enough when we got back to camp our neighbours informed us they were closing the road and we all had to move out.  It was a bit of a panic to start with, the first message we got was 'don't pack, leave everything, everyone just has to drive out NOW, without their trailers'.  I was frantically chucking fishing tackle and camera into the car, no way we were leaving them.  Thankfully we got the next message that there was time to pack and we could take all our gear.  So mid day, roasting hot sun, dry hot wind, we packed up camp and left Quondong Point, unsure of what to do with ourselves.  

We had friends offer us a bed, but with everything just chucked into the trailer, not packed in it's normal easy to find place's, we were in a mess!!  Hot and tired we drove out of town, booked into the Roebuck Road house, fall under a shady tree and cracked a cold beer!!

We got our first shower in 6 months!!!  But didn't have any clean clothes, a towel, or even our bathroom bag; everything was still stuffed into the messy trailer.  Was still lovely to have fresh water!!!  We headed to the bar, Johnno wearing my holey fishing shorts, because all he had on when packing was his sexy little pants, and I'd thrown all the other clothes in...who knows where.  We drunk beer laughing at how many people were in the little out of town bar, we felt like we were in the city!!  It's been 6 months since we have been in a bar!!!  We had the most amazing meal; Johnno ordered Chicken Parmi, I had Beef n Reef.  We drunk some more beers while trying to plan our next step.  Then we crashed out on the swag with the dogs next to us.

Cable Beach, Broome; Smoke from fire that moved us out of Quondong Point.

 Friday, realising that the fire was bigger and the road would not be opening, we had to decide what to do.  We have booked into Gateway Caravan Park, 28km out of Broome, because it's the only place that we can stay with dogs.  NO FISHING HERE!!!  

When we booked in the wind was blowing hard with dust blowing everywhere.  We looked around wondering where we were and what we were doing here.  Thankfully the wind died down, and it's been a rather relaxing weekend.  Saturday we pulled everything out, cleaned and rearranged, showered, washed dogs.  Four loads of washing, a dozen loads of dishes, and everything out of the car; finally we are salt and dust free!  Ready to go again!!

But Manari Road still hasn't open, so today is relax, feet up, doing nothing day!

Resident horse, not sure of his name, we call him Ned.

Ned stops by regularly for a drink and a carrot.

Sunset the little Wallabies come out.

Inland Sunset!!

There's heaps of different plants and birds here, so I might spend my relaxing afternoon wondering around with my camera.

Quondong BARRA!!!

Hell YES, Johnno is officially a friggen legend!!

Quondong Point has always been My Happy Place, but it just keeps getting better!!

Yesterday Johnno got his first Quondong Point Tarpon on Fly. 

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 Marven, You Are A Friggen Legend!!

Quondong Point

Johnno's new passion is catching Tarpon in Fly!

Broome Tarpon on Fly!

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!!

WHY WE LOVE QUONDONG POINT

Sunset view from our tent

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.

A little look at this most amazing day:

Seasons changing

Foggy morning at Barred Creek

The seasons are changing, 

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.

Weekend fisho's at Barred Creek

View from our tent today, perfect!

Tarpon Tides

Today: Another day in paradise!!

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.

Breaking & Breaking-in new fishing gear!

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. :(

Barred Creek: WA sunsets are amazing!!

Biggest Barra in the world sighting!

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! 

Birthday Barramundi!

Johnno's birthday cake, beach style!

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!

Karen's Barra caught this morning: