Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Well I have been waiting a while to get to Darwin to do a deep sea fishing charter and had booked this one from Kununurra. It was with Equinox charters and I cannot recommend them highly enough. The day started at 630 when we left the mooring through the loch that leads to the open ocean. The difference in water level was about 3 meters so this took a few minutes before we were under way. The boat was about 37 foot and a credit to the skipper and company, it was clean and well organised, and cruised at about 20 knots.There were only a total of 6 paying clients on the boat, this was the minimum they would take for a charter so there was plenty of room for everyone. It took us about 1 ½ hours before the skipper aka Matthew McConaghy, slowed the boat to line up for the first spot. All the fishing up this way is done by anchoring over the selected spot due to the huge tides and currents. There were a couple of smaller fish caught but nothing significant so we moved on. One of the great things about this charter was that the skipper moved on quickly when it was obvious there were no fish at the chosen location. We tried a few more marks were I caught a small cod and a threadfin salmon, the other guys also caught a few threadies and a small jewfish. The skipper was a bit frustrated at the lack of the target fish, the black jewfish, so he motored about another hour out to sea to a bit deeper water.This is where we finally hooked some decent fish that really gave us a run. It was none stop action catching these huge catfish about 1 meter long. I didn't get any photos as we were not allowed to bring them aboard due to the spikes, and the deckie released them in the water. We were using 50 lb gear and there was no way you could stop these things on their first run, they would runfor about 50 meters initially just taking line before you were finally able to get some back. Each fight would take about 15-20 minutes before you could get the fish to the boat, it was great fun but not the fish we were after. One more move put us on a bit different ground but a lot more productive. My bait had just hit the bottom when something grabbed it and took off. About 80 meters on line was taken in the first run and I was thinking "another catty". Unfortunately the fish working its way around to the front of the boat and wrapped around the anchor line, and broke free. I was bloody shattered, the skipper said that it was most likely a black jew, and that it may spook any other fish in the area.......so I was feeling pretty good about things, not !!Luckily one of the other guys hooked up with a similar fish and he was able to bring it to the back of the boat...a 12 kg black jew, awesome fish to see straight out of the water. I was thinking that I had blown my chance when I hooked up as well and after about 15 minutes boated a 10 kg black jew, my first one, I was pretty happy to at least catch one and have something to take back.There were 2 more caught by a couple of other guys before I managed a second one of about the same size....I was knackered after this fight. After all the catfish and then 2 jewfish, my arms were aching and my back was sore, but you couldn't wipe the smile from my face.At the end of the day I had a mountain of fillets but only limited space, so I gave one of the jew fish to a couple of the guys that had missed out, they were very thankful as it reported to be a top eating fish.A great day and finally some fish to show for it !!Warren cooked some up that night and it was awesome, we still have about 10 meals in the freezer so we'll be living on fish for a while yet.
- comments