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Contents
Troy Clifton - Coronation trout reflections
Cover
Barramundi
Rogan Kinear Photo: Tim McDonald
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By Kahlee Andrews Pics Jordan O’Brien t was one of those trips that leave you wanting more. More fish, more action, more laughs. It was a week on the sea that makes you never want to return to land. As spearos, everything we could ever dream of was out at these reefs. Big fish, breathtaking scenery… Hell, I wouldn’t have minded if they’d dropped me at an island and left me there! It just seemed so natural - away from the hustle and bustle of Brisbane city, no phone reception, no internet, and no jobs to concern us – just a small group of fantastic people cruising along the Capricorn Bunker Group exploring and experiencing the things that we dream of. A variety of spearo’s boarded the 100ft Eastern Voyager boat – young and old, experienced and novice – but at the end of the day we all shared the same addiction, and the next five days would either satisfy our cravings or just leave us wanting more. I won’t share the details of each of the five days in this article (I’ve written about the trip quite a bit in the Adreno blog) but for me the first day of the trip was a memorable one. We woke up to blue seas, as far as the eye could see, and not a thing else. Douglas Shoals was our hunting ground for the morning. Although the swell, wind and heavy rain was enough to turn even the most seasoned of diver’s green, some cracking fish were brought to the filleting boards nonetheless.
Kahlee - Record Pickhandle Barracuda
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s i w e L e i b h b s i Ro f b o j y s o R
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, dude,” y a w e h t f o t u o s g in h le t lf-asleep “Let’s just agelit tatlecoutpoo abruptly for my he aw John said n’t do air conditioning, I driv .” Ohithbotyh, eI mind. “I do own, and I like my music loud t-shirt, it windows d was dressed in shorts and a would hit quivered. Igrees at best, parts of Mexico ixteen-hour was 15 de were about to embark on a s st quarter 46 and werive. I would freeze for the fir straight d and fry for the last three. permeated of the trip the enormity of what lay aheadh this time And before rain, John spoke again, althoug my frigid b: to himself ..... Dear, Lord
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by Bryson Sheehy
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hat night we sat, gazing in awe at underwater images of Barramundi taken recently, truly eye opening stuff. I made the comment along the lines of ‘Now that I have landed my first Barra it makes me want to go out and find a REAL trophy fish’. Tim nodded in full approval and with that our host informed us of a spot that currently has so many Barra, even if you had no visibility you could probably shoot into the murk and land a fish over a metre. Tim and I turned to say something to one another but instead both of us were speechless, so in true style we asked for a reconfirmation just incase we didn’t hear right? Well we heard right. The next issue that crossed our minds were crocodiles, a reptile to be given the utmost respect for their stealth, nature and past history with humans. Crocs have been known to frequent this area in the past so we sought local knowledge and asked for recent updates regarding the creatures and were comforted with a solid ‘Not a lot since before the heavy rains’. That brought up the next question of visibility. We really were taking a stab in the dark with this one (excuse the pun) because we planned to dive a long way from the previous days efforts so we had to go with a backup plan just incase we did have 1ft of visibility that was almost assured to us. We were apparently to search for a sand hole that was four to five metres deep formed off a rock edge just down from a major headland which was in very close proximity to a large river system. Yeah wow, digest that one. So early the next morning Tim and I set off to previously unexplored grounds only a few miles offshore, this was the first step in our plan to sound around and try to get a sample of what this reef could produce for latter exploration. On my second dive I found myself on the bottom and I noticed a very large emperor shape gliding in towards me, turns out
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it is without a doubt the biggest Grassy Sweetlip I have ever seen! I turn on the camera to start filming and as it beeps the fish does a right angled turn and disappears. Note to self, turn the camera on earlier. Upon surfacing Tim could tell I had seen something good and I’m sure the short footage I took will back up my opinion. We kept scouting around and shortly after drove over the top of some real solid country, we check our watches and note that it’s the end of a fairly large tide meaning we have about an easy workable window of an hour to anchor, film and dive on what’s below. Upon jumping in I see a school of Slatey Bream that are easily seen from the surface sitting on the sand. About three metres above them is a 6-7kg Blackspot tuskfish, I have seen these fish swimming mid-water in the past. It mainly occurs when there is a school of small bait in the water column above, which leads me to believe that not only do they bottom feed on shells/crabs etc but indeed prey on baitfish from below. Convincing others of this is impossible, so the footage of it free swimming up in the water column before it is speared was great proof. With the turn of the tide not far away, we decided on throwing down the frames from the previous day’s effort as this is better than just ditching them randomly in the ocean. Out of the frames emerged bigger Red emperors, another Tuskfish and a few Trout who popped out of their hiding holes so we took advantage by diving and filming in turns, resulting in some good action for the video. Once again, we spent a couple of hours more than anticipated and ended up hanging onto the boat in order to breathe up against the current, we didn’t mind as we were still surrounded by fish. Although we didn’t need anymore reef fish, we were more than content, lying silently on the bottom observing. After we had managed to successfully kill a few easy hours awaiting the tide, we headed in for the second part of the days plan; big Barramundi. Driving towards the headland, a place that rarely sees clear water, sees both of us with our eyes constantly on the changing water colour, we were a few miles from our destination when the vis dramatically took a downturn and we both said no matter what the visibility is we are getting in even if we have to shoot off the hip. (Of course the other diver stays put on the surface.) Well literally half a kilometre out, the colour of
the water drastically improves to at least 2-3 metres vis, way better than the less than a metre we were expecting. This got us both grinning from ear to ear. I looked at Tim and said ‘oh, we are going to score it epic!!!’ We line up some landmarks and anchor a fair way away from the spot as we have to be very covert in this area. It sees a lot of the general public and fishermen so the rules go along the lines of: 1. No fighting fish break the surface 2. Bear hug the fish if you have to 3. No carrying on like that snapper footage in the first DVD incase we attract unwanted attention and 4. Target your personal best Barramundi. We jump in and were greeted with three metres of visibility which is totally unheard of, we were so pumped and scared that we didn’t want to go to the honey pot of a sand hole straight up as the whole scenario we were in just seemed too good to be true. So we put the guns down (stupid) and took a camera each and dive the opposite side to what we were told. Tim’s first dive results in him diving down and upon reaching the bottom looking up to find eight Barramundi all over one metre in length and as he makes the move to turn on the camera BOOM! Opportunity gone. He surfaces with that same look I had after the Grassy earlier that day. We search for the school with guns in hands this
I guess it began for me as it did for many with a four foot length of stainless tubing, 6 flimsy prongs and a thin strap of rubber.
by Dan Tarasiuk
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s a young tacker growing up in Adelaide, I was obsessed with fishing. I marvelled at Rex Hunt catching amazing big fish, while I was stuck chasing whiting with my dad and brother. After finishing Uni in 2007, I decided to look for a job up North to go and experience some of this ‘amazing fishing’ for myself. I ended up in the small but bustling town of Ayr in the Burdekin. The Burdekin is a little-known region sandwiched between the beautiful Whitsundays to the South and booming Townsville to the North. Two small country towns, Ayr and Home Hill dominate the region situated on opposite sides of the mighty Burdekin River. This river is the most powerful on
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the East Australian coast pushing up to 4 Olympic swimming pools of fresh water out to sea per second! All this water doesn’t help with visibility, making it pretty murky for the first 4 months of each year. After first arriving, a stranger by the name of Grant (who now is a good dive mate) took me out to the barrier reef. Fishing all day we only caught 4 fish and managed to burn 320 litres of fuel! My world was changed when Grant suited up and speared a Coral trout right next to the boat. The rest was history and I’ve been diving pretty intensively ever since. The Burdekin offers a range of diving from chasing Barra in the creeks to steep rocky headlands and the Great Barrier Reef.