Western Australia

West Australia.

Having a brother and sister in law plus several friends living in various parts of Western Australia I have had many opportunities to sample what it has to offer both as a holiday destination and more importantly a fishing destination. 

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As a general rule, regarding shore fishing, the metropolitan regions are over fished and although will often throw up a big one every now and then, they require a certain hardcore local knowledge

Saying that lots of fun can be had with small species from almost every jetty Bridge sandy beach or rock. 

A point worth mentioning is the amount of tiny puffer fish in the town areas. Literally millions of them, known by locals as blowies, these can infest an area and strip your bait from your hook then bite clean through your hook before any other species get a look in. 

Often many families will come after work or on a weekend, bring an esky (cool box) a few drinks and sandwiches and have a lovely time together and if lucky enough to catch,  possibly barbecue it on the council provided barbecues dotted around the beach areas.

Most serious Australian fishermen will have a boat of some sort, be it a small aluminium one usually referred to as a tinny, up to the sky’s the limit, and this is the gateway to much better quality sport.

I will be mostly talking about ocean fishing on this blog as the freshwater scene in West Australia is very localised and select.

Its not impossible but if I have time I will cover what I have done a little later

In my honest opinion as far as shore fishing is concerned you have to get off the beaten track, by that I mean well away from metropolitan areas often several hundred km north or south.

Every time I have made this effort it has been worth it both in terms of fish caught and experiences had. The distances are often long but if you enter into the spirit of adventure can be great fun.

The roads are straight, long and often desolate.. Sometime  you may not see another car for hours on end and the only sources of fuel are the road houses, usually about 400 km apart. It is essential to refuel at these and make sure you have sufficient water and food for at least 48 hours.

You will not often see hotels or motels outside city areas, however you may see some campsites, which vary in quality.. I say no more.

I have had the misfortune to break down 3 times on the great North highway.

The  first two times on the same trip.

We were about 4 hours north of Perth when there was a bang from the rear of the car.

Tyre had blown, we had a spare but when we tried to jack the car up the jack sized at one spot and would not get the wheel off the ground.

We had to dig the earth out from under the wheel with two desert spoons, taking an hour in the hot sun with a million flies using you for a landing practise. 

A further hour north and another knock from the rear..

The tyre we had just put on had come loose and three wheel nuts had come off.. The wheel only just hanging on by the last few threads of the last nut.

Now what!!!

If we tried to go on with just one nut likely a bump or corner would shear off the wheel bolt and that would be it.

We sat and sat.. Several cars passed but no one had any spare wheel nuts..

The great North highway is littered with dead and abandoned cars along the way and out of the corner of my eye I spied one about three quarters of a mile ahead.. I had an idea.. My brother and I walked to the wreck and took the wheel nuts off it and tried them on our car..... They fit perfectly.. In fact I think they stayed with the car until it was, sold two years later

With a little hindsight we could simply have taken a single nut from each existing wheel and ran with 3 3 3 4 on each wheel, which would have been OK as a temporary measure. 

The journey onto shark Bay proceeded without further hitch. 

The other time was my fault when I foolishly didn’t refuel at Denham because of the price  and tried to make the roadhouse 109 km east.. We ran out 6 miles from the roadhouse but were picked up by a good Samaritan, taken to the fuel station and brought back to our car.. We were lucky. 

Speaking of luck. Below is an anecdote you may find amusing. 

The Curious Tale Of The Bart Simpson Boxer Shorts. 

I usually visit Australia in March or April and the preceding Christmas, as a gift, I was given a pair of Maroon/dark red cotton boxer shorts:  on the front of these was Bart  pulling a moonie and grinning. 

So what! you may say.. Well what indeed.. Looking back, I am convinced these had been, by a convoluted process of shop returns and re gifting, bestowed on me indirectly by the very devil himself.

The first time I wore them I think was for work in early January.. I set off as normal only to be hit by another car. The driver of said car was uninsured and to cut a long story short I had to repair the car myself. 

The next time I wore them I got stuck in a traffic jam on the A19 for four and a half hours. 

The next time I was cleaning out and refilling the garden pond only to become distracted and leave the hose on... For 3 days... 

It occurred to me the common denominator in all all these situations was the shorts.. Everytime I had worn them bad luck had hit me.. Which was bad luck as I only had one other pair of undies.... Only kidding I have two extra pairs. 

The shorts were relegated to the back of the sock drawer never to be seen again.. At that moment I really should have burned them, destroyed them, buried them in a lead box and had priests conduct religious cleansing rituals on them... But I didn’t. 

When it came to pack for Australia guess who I found whilst looking for smalls to pack... How could I be so stupid to believe bad luck was the result of Bart Simpson knickers.. How childishly foolish.. How could a pair of underpants have direct influence on my day to day life. 

Into the suitcase they did go.. On one shoulder the angel was saying, don’t be daft.. There only a pair of shorts.. On the other shoulder  Lucifer himself was in fits of laughter. 

Avoided wearing them in Australia until I had to: We were due to leave for shark bay the next day and went to the shops for some groceries.. I went to pay.. No wallet.. Panic stations...phoned the house. The brothers wife searched everywhere.. searched everywhere.. No wallet.. On the way back car radiator burst. Steam and water everywhere.. Got car to garage  on route home and it needed a new radiator $350AUD. OK.. It was money we had but loathe to part with.. Radiator would be here in an hour.. After 2 hours radiator arrived.. The wrong one...the mechanic was apologetic.. Phoned supplier, guess what? no radiators available for that car till next week.. Radiator would have to be repaired but that would take 3 days. 

I went into the toilet.. I stripped off the shorts.. Bart grinning at me.. I deposited them in an old drum three quarters full of waste engine oil.. As they sunk out of site the phone in the garage rang... Its the supplier.. He’s found a radiator do we want it...??? 

It was in and fitted in half an hour and the garage did it at cost because of all the messing about.. When I got back I went to put on fresh undies... Well actually they were yesterday’s still on my bedroom floor together with the jeans I had worn last night. On shaking them free my wallet dropped out.. 

To this day I have never worn or bought any of  The Simpsons merchandise.. I will not watch The Simpsons..if its on in  someone’s house or a trailer comes on for a forthcoming show.. I get anxious.. 

As for the garage I presume they must have got rid of the old oil quickly as I believe its still standing and in business.. However I would not be surprised if it(the waste oil, not the garage) had been buried in landfill and the site had been declared a danger zone after many of it’s employees had unexplained accidents. Or, the oil having been burned, the Ash dissipated into the atmosphere to rain down misfortune in particles of demonic fallout on the whole of Australia 

Anyway I digress. 

The town of Denham and Monkey Mia at the Western tip of shark Bay are great places for a short stay. 

There are campsites and chalets to rent, fuel, 2 supermarkets a restaurant and fish and chip shop, a visitor centre and a pub. 

Monkey Mia is famous for its dolphins, which you can swim with right on the beach and feed by hand whilst getting an education of their habits at the on site visitor centre. 

Camping and chalets are available at Monkey Mia. 

The shore fishing here is fantastic.

A deep channel runs along the beach and all sorts of tropical and subtropical species use this as a superhighway.

A strong rod, at least 80lb braid, a 3 oz lead, wire trace and 5/ 0 hook are all you need.

Baited with any small fish, cast out and wait... Even in the heat of the day you will get blistering runs from shovel nose sharks and stingrays. 

Best time is after 5 o’clock as the sun is setting cast your rods out, sit on the beach and wait.. 

Often you can sit from 5pm to 1 or 2 in the morning catching roughly one fish per hour on average  the sharks run about 30 lbs and are super fast and give terrific sport, while the rays, often up to 100 lb plus, give the dogged fight you would expect from dustbin lids with fins. 

Other species such as bluefish  known as tailor in Australia, trevally, lizard fish, mulloway, Spanish mackerel, gars, pink and Queen snapper and several species of cod.. By cod I mean grouper not Atlantic cod. These and many more will sometimes take a look at your baits.

Set up is usually two strong rods with baitrunner type reels, 80lb braid, a minimum of ten feet 150lb mono rubbing leader, lead, wire trace and 5/0 or 6/0 hook. 

Catch any small fish with a bit of prawn and cast this out. Whole if fishing for Ray and shark, cut for other fish,sit back, look up at the stars and wait for the reel to play its music. 

If sport is slows down a little, turn off all lights and soon thousands of tiny crabs in all colours will emerge from the sand and nibble your toes.. Cute.. But irritating after a while. 

Another option during the day is to beach walk and spot fish on  the move, and cast to them, the Americans call this sight fishing and its great fun. Casting to black shapes in the surf is explosive stuff, and in the shallow water of the flats the fish can’t go down and so tear off at a searing pace often jumping, making rooster tails of spray.

I once did this type of fishing on caprice, without a hat or water and ended up in a sorry state, severe sun burn and dehydration.

I had a headache that lasted for days and really spoilt a chunk of my hard earned holiday.

So, make sure you have a hat and some drinking water and slip slap slop as they say.

Something else to try is to take a day’s charter from Denham. 

These run almost daily in season and weekends off season. 

For about 100 dollars per person you will be taken to some of the best fishing Western Australia has to offer. 

Expect to catch, bluebone, baldchin grouper, (pronounced groper in Australia) pink snapper, Queen snapper, emperor, dhufish, cod, and many other species whilst bottom fishing. On the troll don’t be surprised if Spanish mackerel, tuna, bonito, cobia, Mahi Mahi, sailfish etc etc, take your lures. 

Plus as many sharks as you want to catch.

You usually end up doing a combination of both about 30 percent trolling, 70 percent bottom fishing. 

I would thoroughly recommend taking a charter. 

I would not thoroughly recommend the camp sites, I believe they have been refurbished since I was last there but from what I can remember were insect ridden shit holes. 

Went for a shower once in the shower block. There were three cockroaches in the shower tray defending their territory.. I tried hitting them with a boot, stick, a rock, two rocks... They were real tough

 guys.. Ended up cracking the shower tray trying to squash them.. Which I didn’t.. They then disappeared down the crack giving me the two fingers. 

Avoid March and April as wind and flies are a nightmare. 

Fishing tackle and bait are available everywhere on site and so are freezer facilities should you need them. 

Shark Bay is a very beautiful place in its own right and has many tourist attractions such as shell beach, Eagle bluff and the shark reserve.. Or you could try to spot a quoll.. A small marsupial.. Or simply just avoid the snakes spiders and feral cats. 

Lure fishing is very popular and can be very productive from the beaches piers and docks.. A shallow diving lure will get you tailor, trevally snapper and several small shark species which are dynamite on the lure rod.

A note on sharks while bathing..

If you are afraid of sharks don’t bathe Alone. At dawn or dusk. Don’t bathe in murky water and don’t bathe anywhere near to fish gutting stations.

Shark is often sold as generic fish in your fish and chips.. Ie, if you go to a chip shop and ask for fish and chips you will get shark. 

If you want any other fish you have to ask for it by name. 

My brothers mantra toward being attacked by sharks is.. :”don’t eat them and they won’t eat you”

So be sure to order snapper and chips as opposed to fish. 

 In the metro areas of Perth you are most likely to encounter white sharks. These prefer the slightly cooler waters of the south. Once you cross the tropic of capricorn you are most likely to encounter tiger sharks and bull sharks. 

Further north the sharks are less as they have mostly been eaten by the saltwater crocodiles. 

It is quite trendy today to be a shark vigilante but please beware sharks are a real problem in this area and many locals will have known someone who has been either lost to, or damaged by, a shark. 

I love sharks but I would not necessarily try to convince a local that they are harmless. 

North of the tropics the freshwater fishing starts to become viable with the estuaries providing barramundi, mangrove Jack, thread fin salmon and barracuda, plus many bull sharks. further up you can lure fish for barramundi, saratoga, bream, and catfish,some times catching exotics too like archer fish and Australian bass. 

South of Perth in the Pemberton region there are trout fisheries and at the right time of year can provide excellent fly and spin fishing for brown and rainbow trout. Redfin perch are always about and eager to take a spinner or small lure and thrive in the many rivers and impoundments of South Western Australia. 

That just about brings to a close this chapter on West Australia.. It is a massive place and I know I have not really scratched the surface but if you are visiting relatives, attending a wedding, backpacking or just going through a midlife crisis, don’t forget your fishing gear.. Its well worth the effort. 

A final shot of the sunset to finish off

Oh and one of a 100lb plus shovel nose.