queensland cape york adventure

[jon]

Well after having itchy feet all year the time finally rolled around for our annual trip up north with my self my two neighbors and their dad. past few years we had been going to Arnhem land but this year we opted to head up to princess Charlotte bay/bathurst heads area for three whole weeks of crabbing drinking and fishing. we left friday arvo from ipswich and were up there at the camp by sunday which isnt a bad run considering we spent a night in mareeba and got off the road early. theese were the rigs we dragged up there

gets a bit rough up in scrub country lol

our home away from home for the next few weeks.

on the fishing front it was a bit slower than expected but we still got into some good fish and got plenty to eat.

these pikey bream up there where just brutes and if you had wanted to you could have bagged out every day. but i didn't drive thousands of k's to eat bream lol. although the tasted pretty bloody good

there were plenty of barra about but we sound to be getting done by them to the point it was pissing me off. a few good ones were taken on lures during the day casting every sang up small drains and creeks.

but the majority of the time we targeted them at night with live 5 to 9 inch mullet in a couple of feet of water. half the time you see the fish explode out of the water and had sliced your 60pound leader before you even had chance give em some stick.

two of my favorite catches although no monsters by anyone's book was landing a 44cm mangrove jack on my 1-3kg stick with six pound line :woohoo: this thing just nailed my small unweighted pody mullet and headed for the hills (ok the mangroves) with my little real singing its guts out then silence followed by that antagonizing feeling of the fish beating its tail as its snagged and you cant gain any line after a bit of tugging to no avail i was ready to cut it when the other boat drove past were we were anchored and i jumped onto its bow and cruised right up to the snag. i could literally see this thing in the roots thumping away and after bit of pressure and he finally headed back out then back in then finally into the net :woohoo: and boy did he taste good on the barbie that nite with a few (ok maybe a heap) of beers. lol.

and the best part was when i landed him he had someone else's 40 to 60 pound leader hangin out of his gob and i got him on 6 pound braid and 10 pound leader.

another good one was was my pb GT coming in at 64.5cm caught on 20lb braid in about a metre of water up a mangrove lined creek and boy did he pull some line. we were cruisng up the creek with the leccy when i spotted him and his mates terrorisng the local mullet so i lobed a halco hardbodied barra lure just past them, twitch twitch and bang!!

other species encountered were blue nose salmon, grunter bream, estury cod, black jew, a monster ox herring easily over a metre but he was used for bait before i got a pic unfortunaley

Now on to the crabs, the crabbing up here was absolutely unreal!! First pull of 7 or 8 pots saw us with 15 or more nice bucks. And the continued for the whole trip, I ve never eaten so much crab in my life we ate a minimum of two muddies per person per day for the whole 20 days or so we were at camp. (let me tell you drinking XXXX cans ALL day and having a staple diet of mainly mudcrabs does wonders for your bowels and toilet habits :S )

cooked cleaned and into the engel ready for the next feast!

We were noticing when we got lazy and threw our pots out the front in the bay and not up the creeks we got less male muddies there was always remnants of sandies the the muddies had crunched to bits. So I made the call to drop the pots way out wide away from the muddies and boy did this pay off first pull of three pots saw us with 25 or more nice sandies. The next time we went out we laid six pots and got over sixty something legals easily throwing many of the just over size ones back in the drink and still taking a nice haul back to camp for us and our camp neighbors.

whilst up there we met some awesome old Vietnam vets who i spent a fair bit of time with walking through tight mangoves chasing barra on lures and exploring the mudflats and such. these guys were an absolute wealth of knowledge when it came to the bush and still hard as nails despite their age and if i can do half of what they can at that age ill be happy.

heres me and one of them, Pete, rescuing a turtle of the mud flats who was baking in the sun high and dry trying to move but unable to when we found him. these buggers are heavy than i thought.

so thats it. gonna be hard goin back to work after over three weeks of nothing but all day beers, mudcrabs and fishing. oh well only two weeks till jewel reef :whistle:

sorry for the long winded report just so much to fit in and still left heaps out. i encourage anyone who is able to take the time and effort to plan some of your own get aways up north as theres heaps of spots now that you dont need big fourbies to access and this is some of the best country in the world up there

thanks for reading

Sef,

[wesfish]

great report mate! looks like a trip of a life time

[dan25]

Mate, that is awesome, really enjoyed the report. Defs something I would love to do in the near future...

[reel mate]

Great to see a report from the far north mate. Got me pumped for a trip up to Bathurst /Melville islands in a couple of weeks. Well done.

[The Mad Hughesy]

Looked like the trip of a lifetime bud, awesome report

[Lozzel]

Thanks for a good report, with some luck we should be back up there next year.

[Do$tylz]

AWESOME!!. best report I've read on AFO for a while. I'd love to do one of those trips one day. I'd be in heavne.

[Old Scaley]

Great report mate. Should have been there myself at about the ame time, but leave cancelled a week before we were due to leave - thanks heaps Mr Newmann The whole Cape is like a fishing wonderland and that area is unbelievable for the crabs. We can all crab like Rosco up there

[ellicat]

That's tops !

Australia - ya gotta love it ! Even more so when you can get away from the people and crowds.

Some nice pics from the bush.

Is that a flathead in the barra's mouth ?

[shortie]

AWESOME!!. best report I've read on AFO for a while. I'd love to do one of those trips one day. I'd be in heavne.

Not exactly 5 star accommodation Henry I don't think you could handle it

[richard7785]

one word is all i can say. envious. man thats a cracker of a trip.

[BASSTURD]

awesome report mate, thats defineately on my bucket list.

[cy1301]

What a fantastic trip!!

[tugger]

Brings back plenty of memories from my northern adventures Sef i know what you mean about the beer and crab diet. After a trip like that you never want to come back you guys would have had a ball thanks for the report

[ChrisC]

damn it- I can't wait to have a trip up North like that cheers for the report

[Angus]

Shame to have to back up with a simple Jewel Reef trip

Awesome report mate.

Angus

[mickmc]

Yeah really good report. Did you get out and about the islands off shore? And what was the road in like - I haven't been there since the last few big wet seasons but it was quite reasonable prior. A bit of water and a few long sand patches but generally OK. Apart from the corrugations on the main haul which were the worst I'd ever encountered anywhere!

[muzz]

Cracking report mate, and that's the reason why I'll be moving back to the NT at the end of year. Plus the coin :woohoo:

[jon]

That's tops !

Australia - ya gotta love it ! Even more so when you can get away from the people and crowds.

Some nice pics from the bush.

Is that a flathead in the barra's mouth ?

yeah brian lol that was a flatty and in all honesty i think he tasted better then tha barra

[jon]

Shame to have to back up with a simple Jewel Reef trip

Awesome report mate.

Angus

yeah i know aye hard life, i literally cant wait to go on this jewel reef trip. i ve been practising my fg knots and have been making a bunch of 100 150 and 200 pound crimped leaders and have stocked up on some nice large stick baits, poppers and big plastics. Cant Wait

[jon]

Yeah really good report. Did you get out and about the islands off shore? And what was the road in like - I haven't been there since the last few big wet seasons but it was quite reasonable prior. A bit of water and a few long sand patches but generally OK. Apart from the corrugations on the main haul which were the worst I'd ever encountered anywhere!

yeah the roads fine mate thier grading it closer and closer to the bay not an awful lot of track left and nothing hard on the track at all. as far as the islands go we didnt make it out as we were in 3.85 tinnies and to be honest the wind was just shocking for the majority of our trip with gusts over thirty knots being a regualr occurance there wasnt really any long periods nice weather. a few of the 4.5 to 5.5 metre boats got out there a few times but also turn back around and headed for the esturies a few times aswell. hope this helps mate. enjoy your trip

[ryanyoung]

Awesome report mate, has me chomping at the bit to get out there!

Cheers,

Ryan.