SPORTFISHING ADVENTURE THROUGH THE MACKEREL ISLANDS! By Steve Tope.

My fishing adventure to the Mackerel Island group this year started with a week on Thevenard Island. This is about 20 kilometres off shore from Onslow on the coast of Western Australia.

This was to be my second trip to this island and was very keen to try a few favourite spots, which are accessible from the dinghies supplied with your cabin.

It was June and the Big Spanish Mackerel hadn't really started their normal run through this Island group as yet, however we were targeting big GT's and Queenfish on light tackle along with a few bottom species.

Our fishing party consisted of 3 very good friends and fishing companions for this trip. Darren Jaeger travelled from Melbourne to be able to sample some of the states best fishing along with Pete Perrin from GinGin. This was to be one of many fishing adventures we have shared in 10 years. It was back then that we worked on Marrakai station in the Northern Territory. We were catching buffalo and fencing the Mary river floodplains together. It just so happens that Corroboree Billabong (home of the Barra Classic) was on this property, along with the well known Shady Camp which was accessible before all the fencing put a stop to it. You can just imagine how spoilt we were, Barra fishing nearly every day for a season, any way that will be another story.

Our first 2 days on this trip to Thevenard saw us concentrate our fishing around Sandy Cay, as it sounds this place is a sand cay a couple of kilometres off shore towards the back of the island. Fish abound around this little cay. It has a nice reef area surrounding it with a variety of smaller fish species to complement the food chain needed to produce good numbers of larger fish.

The fishing around the cay was as is expected of this area "very good". We caught some really nice Queenfish and Trevally up to 8kilo's in weight along with small Barracouta, LongTom and even a few juvenile Spanish mackerel.

We fished with lines to 6kg casting an array of chrome slices, lead heads and poppers as we drifted over the coral from one side of the cay to the other. I believe this is the only way to fish these cays and reefs to cover a lot of fishing ground taking advantage of the differing conditions of water depth, reef style, bommies and variety of fish species which are obtainable.

The following 3 days of our 7 days at Thevenard saw us trolling out deep and looking for some nice ledges to fish. This job was made easy with a portable sounder we had purchased for the trip, knowing the advantages it would have in locating these areas while in the dingy supplied.

We lost a lot of fish due to trying to fish too light and the fish we did manage to catch we let go. It sometimes doesn’t pay to fish so light when fishing the deeper coral drop offs and ledges in the area. The 2-6kg outfits are just not designed for this type of fishing especially when the fish are probably around the 5-10kg mark and have their hole with all types of jagged objects protruding from it as an advantage.

I ended up getting a treble from a CD18 in the web between my thumb and forefinger on my hand on the 5^th day thanks to a GT with a lot more life left in him than expected. We had it removed in the first aid facility on the Island. I had to wear a rubber glove for a couple of days to avoid any infection, contrary to popular belief, "no I don’t have a rubber fetish".

We had 3 days booked on Daryl Hitchens Boat starting at the end of our week on Thevenard. I made the comment to Darren and Pete, "this treble incident may be some indication of the trip ahead", however I was very wrong.

We took it very easy for the next couple of days lapping up the hospitality and offerings on the island. You know all those good things like hot and cold running water, food in the cupboards and the great hospitality of the staff.

Our last day on the Thevenard saw us picked up around midday by Daryl and his boat Ceatation. It was to be our 1st day of a truly great 3-day fishing trip with Indian Ocean Fishing Safari's.

On the way back to Daryl's camp on Long Island, we fished some nice sand spits at the end of a couple of smaller islands. These areas are always great spots to fish for Queenfish, Barracouta, long Toms and even small Mackerel. This time was no exception some wonderful Queenie fishing was had by all. Actually i have never seen fish so prolific in such shallow water and they were not juveniles either. Queen fish up to 7 kg's were caught and a lot got away due to their friends hitting the line in a frenzy. A couple of hours of this fishing seen us quite spent so it was time to head back to our home away from home for the day and reminisce our days over a couple of drinks and Daryl's culinary skills.

Our 2^nd day saw us trolling big bib lures along ledges and deep drop offs, this produced a lot of juvenile mackerel, mackerel tuna and a variety of other surface feeding fish.

Pete jagged a nice 25kg Spaniard in the tail from one of these areas and let me tell you, "They go twice as fast that way than the hook in their mouth". He also caught a nice Bronze Whaler shark caught on a combination of a Halco Laser Pro and small mackerel, the small Mackerel had the lure 1^st.

On our way back to camp Daryl asked the question whether we would like to catch a couple of GT's, answering the question "yeah, why not".

The place we headed to is a small island with a deep drop off about 20 meters off shore, the water was so typical of good GT country in this area, rocky ledges dropping off into about 10 meters of water with a little foam.

We cast poppers of all shapes, and colours and it didn’t matter what type they were as long as they created that splashing on the surface of the water. We got some really good video filming done here of 15-20kg Trevally with their mouth wide open in a thrashing frenzy on the surface chasing poppers and being hooked up at the side of the boat. Although we didn’t land any of the big monsters due to using such light line in such rough terrain we had a great time trying. These GT's were up to the 20 kg mark and anyone who has caught Trevally of this size will no the power and speed these fish can create. One of these fish actually took about 300meters of 6kg line straight off me without slowing. I was lucky enough that he broke it off near the hook end and was able to retrieve most of my line back.

3^rd day saw us fish the bottom and drift mulies out the back with great success. A Longnose emperor came to a burly trail and was caught on 6kg line. I must say it put up a good fight for about 30 seconds and then came in very easy, considering its size. The bottom produced all types of fish Red Emperor Rankin Cod, Estuarine Cod, Scarlet Sea Perch, Chinaman Fish Coral Trout Spangled Emperor and an array of fish not even worth mentioning.

It was quite obvious that Daryl and his 20 years of fishing experience in this area pay good dividends and before leaving we had booked a whole week with him for October.

All the fish on this trip along with our other trips were released except for 1 Coral Trout, which we just had to eat. Especially knowing it is one of the tastiest fish the sea has to offer.

I feel that if everyone who was to fish this area was to follow suit, this type of fishing will still be around for our children in the years ahead. It is obviously an unspoilt resource that should be treasured for prosperity..

Tight lines and you will hear from me again.