Spectacular Woody Head

Author: josh

Category: Trip Reports

Created on Sunday, 16 October 2011 17:34

Written by Josh

Today's fish of the day turned out to the be the only fish of the day and we'd traversed quite some distance to find it - to that point approx 28km as the crow flies - and most ironically of all, the hook up came just as we were pedalling away from the scene of a shark encounter. To this point we'd toured Shark Bay and then doubled back towards the Clarence mouth, whale watching along the way, yaking and sailing with dolphins and right up to that moment, failing miserably on catching fish.

Steve and I were out the day before - in much less inviting conditions, and aside from one big hookup - in which I got chewed off - all that we found were red rock cod... so I wasn't expecting much from today and not at all surprised at how slow it turned out to be. I was, however surprised by this hook up when it came, partly because it was right at the tail end of the trip but especially because at the time I was busy looking out for the shark (I got a good look at it, calling GW) we'd just inadvertently disturbed.

Taking a Rapala CD magnum masquerading as a pilchard, when it first struck both Bob and I suggested it may have been the shark we'd just past, which had only moments before submarined out of view (I'd watched it sunning itself for several minutes prior). I'm glad to say it turned out to be about 60cm worth of big red instead.

As you might imagine, I hauled this one in as quick as I could, with a few tense moments as I leaned out wide to net the fish in. I didn't see the shark following it at all but my imagination had already gone there. I pushed off pretty quickly to clear the area so I could bleed the fish, at which point a pod of dolphins came in, I think at first following the blood and scent (not the first time I have noticed this behaviour) as they seemed fairly pre-occupied with my boat for a bit.

Some of the whale watching we got in today was fairly spectacular and we weren't alone in the watching. While the whales put on a show for Steve, Rob, this family of 3 on the TI, another boat and I there were a few close encounters, at one point a whale fully breaching just 5 - 6 metres away from me. Sadly, all of the quality footage I thought I was taking was once again foiled by a zoomed in lense, still not corrected from last weekends trip *doh* So while I got a few good snaps, I failed on capturing the best moments in clear video.