Just got back from the yearly trip from Gnaraloo. Great to see Seakem (Andy) up there right next to us in the cabin sharing a few beers and laughs! Sit back, grab a tin and have a read.

This year a few other boats that were supposed to come bailed so only had 2 crews of 4 on 2 boats. The little barcrusher and a big ol Westerberg 7m that had just had a full make over.... We were expecting a few dramas but nothing really eventful occured... Lost a winch handle on the first day which is dumb luck, broke the winch 2 days later which is just poor maintenance but apart from that was all smooth sailing really.

Day 1

Headed off early from Perth around 2:30am. About 20 mins out of Leeman a cheeky Roo decided to jump out in front of us. No joke they design bull bars perfectly. Hit the LHS and pushed it down and to the left off the road..... Blood and shit all over the car and boat but shit happens... No real damage done, broke a plastic light bracket on the front but the light wasnt plugged in anyway..... Non eventful from here on in. Got to Gnaraloo around 4pm and we were about to check in but we noticed a few cheeky old fellas chatting up a very tidy back packer at the filletting station.... Quick detour to the fillet station to see what had been caught. Bugger me guess who it was... Andy! Quick chat and found out we are staying right next to them!

Day 2

Windy and terrible... Decided to give today a miss in the boat. Got everything ready, rods all rigged up, everything all tidy for the next day.. Alot of beers and footy, thank god we took starlink with us. In the arvo on low tide we took a few frothies and a gaff to 6 mile and walked the reef looking for occies. Managed to get quiet a few occies for bait which was bloody awesom.... Next year I need to remember my booties, I walked bare foot but lucky i was raised in Port Hedland so my feet are hard.... Beers, dinner and catch up with Andy and we all headed to bed for a good nights sleep...... Well it wasnt good, one of the blokes snores so bad honestly thought he was going to choke to death. Closed his door and could still hear him haha..

Day 3

So pretty much the story of the week the wind was up in the morning blowing pretty strong easterlies then changed around direction about 11-12 so every day we had a bit of a window to get out... First day lauching and bloody hell the sand in the bay is soft. We had a 615 bar crusher and a 7m westerberg and it was a struggle until we worked it out. Even with real low tyre pressures getting the boats in and out was a mission. We had a 3rd car joining us the next day which made it easier we used them as a snatch vehicle but yeah it was hard going getting both in and out of the water.

Headed out to the ground we know produces well, lots of bird activity around but nothing really taking lures. Got a half decent bag of reds and a couple of rankin. Nothing huge but surprisingly the sharks werent as bad, what we did find this year is that we caught a heap of massive cods, ones that were way over a meter. Dont know why they were so prevelent this year. 

Came back to the beach and fisheries were there. Good to see them checking everyone and having a precense. One of the blokes on another boat kept a malabar cod which was unfortunately over the 1m mark so I think he got fined. Sad because the thing would have died anyway. I have a photo of a massive cod we caught that I will upload a photo of to see if anyone can tell us what type of cod it was.

Same story, back to fillet station, dinner, rums, talk shit, bed. Nothing eventful.

Day 4

Was pretty windy this day and turned out to be our most average day fishing. Late start and went to a few close in spots that mates of ours absolutely cleaned up on reds a few years back. We searched around everywhere and only managed a couple of reds and rankin did a bit of trolling and mucking around with nothing special. Our other mate turned up this day so made it easier with the retrieval. 

Filleted, beers, rum, talk shit... The usual.... The wind seemed pretty decent the next day and looked like it would drop off more and stay down for a fair bit the next day so we made a group decision to head to a spot that we have cleaned up on pelagics in the past up near Coral Bay.. Need to travel a fair way but it is worth it. So it was decided, lets go there!!

Day 5

Excited we started earlier this day anticipating the wind to drop. Breaky, coffee, load up and down to the beach to start the launching process... All pretty smooth, bloody hard to launch though. In the water and hugged the coast as far up as we could until we had to punch out..... Was still pretty windy but thought bugger it we are committed now. Steamed out in pretty shitty conditions and got to the spot. Started to get everything ready while sounding around. Found the spot and guess what........ Nothing on it!! found the lump and literally bugger all fish spotted on it... Last year when we went over it you could see the schools stacked up over it.... The skip was a bit depressed, put the boat in neutral and said "thats unfortunate".... HAHA naa he yelled "Fu&k Sake!!!!" hahaha..... Still continued to get the lures and rods organised and the boat slowly drifted.... about 5-10 mins went passed just getting shit organised then we went to take off to start trolling and the sounder was lit... you could see the fish in the water column below us... Marked the fish, put the lures out in the spread and and before we could even get a 3rd rod in the water we had a double hook up.... the other boat called over the VHF they had a double hook up too...... But they lost both of theirs... Unfortunate... We managed to get both of ours on board which turns out they were the biggest we would get for the day, they were decent size. As we were pulling them in the bleeding the skip threw a vibe down and within seconds.... whack.. he had something masssiivvveee on... He only had very light gear and after a small fight.. Ping gone.

We set up and trolled again, every time we went over a particular mark the fish were stacked and we were on... We ended up trolling out a bit wider off the lump and we managed to get 2 wahoo and the other boat managed a yellow fin tuna... Both boats were having an epic time. I think between the 2 boats we ended up with 13 fish all together..... By this time the wind had died right down and he bite had really slowed down. We tried dropping on the lump but nothing massive took the bait and the only half decent things that did we can only assume as decent fish got sharked so we moved on.... Fished a couple of small flare ups on the way back in and managed a couple more reds. Back at the beach, pull out and back to the filletting station. Took the same sort of photo necxt to the boat like we did last year, hopefullly will be a tradition if the fish hang around the same mark. Bloody awesome days fishing....... Worst thing about a good days fishing is the filletting and cryovacing.... took for bloody ever!!!!

Back to the cabin finally, late dinner and a few beers and stories! Was an epic day

Day 6

The weather was again looking pretty decent so we decided to head out to the 100s for goldban. Had a heap of good bait from the mackies we filleted the day before so we thought yep lets do it!! Headed out to a mark a good mate had given me, when we go there there was another boat very close by (One of Andys good mates), luckily they werent on the spot. Had to sound around a fair bit but eventually found a good school of fish. We ended up stayin in this area for a good few hours picking up goldban, rosies and reds. Got a very healthy bag and stayed within sort of 300m of the spot, there was alot of fish sounding around. There were no really massive ones this year - Last year we got 3 up to 7kgs which were huge...... Headed back in with the usual launch routine, was getting it pretty down pact now. Back to the fillet station and unloaded.... The boat that was right near us at the spot when we first got there saw what we caught... Bloody hell where did yas go to get them hahahhaha.... We stayed in that spot we saw you at hahaha, should have stayed there!

Back at the cabin and a few...... For some maybe a few more than than a few hahahah ........Some of the crew were really excited and decided to turn one on.... Sorry Andy and the boys hahaha! they had an all nighter and when we got up the next morning to go fishing - BTW the next day was going to be the best day out of them all, they were still drinking jack daniels hahahha. 

Day 7

The boys who stayed up all night were keen to come out in the boat..... Not happening fellas.... At least 2 of them helped lauch and pack the boats haha, they will have a sore head in the arvo

Best days fishing for the trip, wind was down, conditions were good and the fishing was awesome!!! We ended up bagging out on reds, every drop we were getting them and even getting double headers. We managed to get 1 big Coronation off one of the spots we got a fair few off last year. the other boat got 2 Coro.  We left them biting to try and go get some more Goldban. Saw Andy out on the water and by this time it was glassy conditions but the fish had completely turned off. We managed 1 goldban and after a couple of hours of catching nothing we headed in..... Coming up to the beach our all nighter deckies were perched up on the beach with the awning of the car out sleeping hahaha they didnt want to miss out..... What a cluster.... Throughout the day they decided to go to 3mile and pumped the tyres back up to 30 psi.... No drama.... Backed the trailer in and got the boat on the trailer... No drama.... Went to retrieve and even with another car snatching the ar got bogged.... WTF is going on do you even have it in 4WD?...... Woops.... no centre diff lock, no low 4 no nothing... HAHAHA a bit buckled the driver goes... I need help hahahahhaha.... Get out mate hahah.... I jumped in, few max tracks, car in 4x4, diff lock on and TRC off.... Snatched straight out..... Thats when he told us he has 30 psi in the tyres hahaha.. Anyway no harm done!! 

Fillet, cryovac, dinner, rum.... Same same. Weigh in of the fillets and we were done. The other boat was a little short but decided that we would start packing up and head to carnarvon to shorten the trip back.

Day 8

Pack up and clean up and head to Carnarvon for a pub feed and watch the Mighty Eagles win........ Well one of those things happened. Ended up at the old Gassy Hotel... Was actually a bloody good night with tooo many frothies. Great way to end the trip

Day 9

Uneventful trip back... But we did get a call from Paul the owner of Gnaraloo. We were accused of stealing 100 Litres of fuel out of one of the drums. Both our boat and the other boat we were with called Paul back and explained we only went up to the fuel drums once and that was the morning he put them out for us so I dont know who is telling porky pies.

Home, unloaded, devided fillets and the trip was done!!

Other shit to mention

- Station was actually looking pretty good and at least a small amount of effort was going in to looking after the joint finally. Probably due to the for sale sign on it..

- The filletting station water hose is a joke, surely they can replace the hose once in a while. Damn its getting small hahaha

- Ants in our cabin this year were bloody attroucious. Never seen it that bad.

- Roads in to both the station and the beach were pretty good

- Taking starlink up is bloody awesome

- I think fishing this year was alot slower than last year. No real massive reds or goldban caught this year compared to last year.

- Doing Gnaraloo is bloody hard on your gear, just have to make sure you prepare properly

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