Reeling in a big one

Fishing Charter off Exmouth

Wednesday 19^th October

We’d been trying to get the boys on a fishing charter since Cape York, but everywhere was always booked weeks in advance. We managed to get them booked in at Coral Bay, only to have the charter cancelled the day before! After no luck with all the charter companies in Exmouth we were giving up hope until Daniel got a call from one of the guys he’s spoken with. The guy (Corry) wasn’t running a formal fishing charter, but was taking his dad out for the day and offered to take Daniel and Jackson (and another man who was on a waiting list) along with them. The boys were stoked to finally have their chance. The weather was predicted to be great so they went to bed very excited for the day ahead. They left the campground early (6am) and didn’t get back until 5pm. Jackson was full of excitement as he regaled the day’s adventures to Emilia and I. They certainly had a memorable time. 

Below are Jackson’s recollections of the day:

• We went on a fishing charter and at the start we were catching heaps of Emperors, but they were all undersize then I hooked a school Mackerel and pulled it in.
• I hooked a big Chinaman Fish and it nearly pulled me overboard so Dad had to take over and we got it in. It was huge!
• When we went out deeper (at the start we were fishing in approx. 20m of water then we moved to approx. 50m depth) we all hooked up onto Spangled Emperors and I was the only one who got my fish in (out of 4 people) because sharks attacked theirs!
• We saw a huge Hammerhead shark (between 4-5 metres long). The dorsal fin was massive and it was circling the boat- it was scary!
• My dad hooked up onto a good size fish, then a 1.5m reef shark came and ate the fish (and got hooked). Dad was busy fighting the shark to get it to the surface but it wasn’t just a shark….a massive Cod had the shark in it’s mouth, but the cod didn’t get hooked (luckily because huge cod like that can die if they come to the surface too quickly). The cod spat the shark out and Dad finished pulling the shark up – then we released it. That was one very lucky shark!!
• By lunchtime my arms were killing me, I had a bruise on my tummy from resting the rod there and I’d been nearly pulled into the water by massive fish a few times….it was an EPIC day.
• We arrived back at camp at 5pm exhausted but exhilarated from our fantastic day. We had the Mackerel for dinner that night – it was really yum.