Last Days in Denham

We leave here on Friday (two more sleeps) so yesterday we had our last day of fishing. The pink snapper season opens on the Monkey Mia side on August first so we decided to go over and try our luck, having never caught a size pink there before! Size is between 50 and 70 cm and we can have one for each of our licences.

We were in the water by about 10.15 and apart from catching half a dozen bait fish we'd got nothing! At 12 15, I started to get bored and whingy and wanted to go home. About 5 minutes later, Russ pulled in a 59cm pink and I caught a 37cm black snapper. We started to drift and caught 4 more blacks (biggest was 42cm) and heaps of just undersized pinks. By 2.15 ish we'd drifted about 9 more ks down the coast! and needed to head home so we could clean the fish and shower before going to friends Charlie and Beatie's for a drinks. Just as we were using our last bits of bait, I got a huge bite and knew I'd caught my snapper. He put up an amazing fight and at 63 cm is the biggest fish I've ever caught out of our tinny. We turned for home and realised the wind had got up-it took us 45 minutes bashing through the waves to get back to the boat ramp. It was exhausting.

So, this morning we went out to the hot tub at Peron Homestead once again to soothe our aching muscles and soak out some of last nights alcohol and a cooked breakfast was pretty good for our recovery too ;-)

Should'a' Gone Fishing

We went over to Monkey Mia crabbing today-I'm embarassed to say we only got 3 crabs AND 12 whiting and 3 big flathead. Should'a' gone fishing and we may have caught more crabs!

Fishing and Hot Tubs

We went fishing "out the front" yesterday. It was a particularly slow fishing day, but Russ did manage to catch our first ever Spanish Mackerel late in the day. We also caught a couple of snapper after we got him. We pan fried the mackerel, cooked up some oven baked wedges and made a big salad. Fresh, well filleted mackerel is now my official favourite fish-it was so good!

This morning after a cup of coffee, we packed up and went out to the old Peron Homestead for a soak in the artesian hot-tub. After an hour or so in the water, we cooked up bacon, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms and toast on the BBQ. I can't remember when we last had a cooked breakfast, so it made for a lovely start to the day.


14 Months Ago

Fishing and Dolphins

Today promised to be a gorgeous day, so we jumped in the car and headed off fishing. Drove 25ks, put the car in 4wd launched the boat, pushed it over the shallows, then motored out about 3ks. It was right at this moment Russ remembered he'd forgotten our bait. We had a bucket of yesterday's cooked crab shells to dispose of, so hunted through them for some claw "knuckles" caught ourselves a few barracuta, then proceeded to fish. We ended up with two lovely pink snapper-55 and 58 cm. We're only allowed one each and they have to be over 50 and under 70cm so we were very happy.

I managed to shoot an amazing little video of 4 dolphins playing around our boat (would have been better if I'd figured the camera out 5 minutes before!). I posted it to facebook if anyone is interested.

Whales

Launching the boat at Fowler's Camp


Russ and I have really been enjoying the mild weather-around 22c of a day and about 14c of a night (it was much colder of a night at Coral Bay!). We've been doing a bit of fishing and crabbing but not having much success at either. We caught 15 crabs on our first attempt and were very pleased with that, then 12, 4 and today 7.

We had a lovely day fishing off Fowler's Camp and Eagle Bluff last Thursday-we caught around 40 undersized pink salmon each, and nothing of size to bring home but it was still a wonderful day out there. It's such a pretty place, such and easy beach to launch the boat off and we wonder why we haven't done it before. The only reason we did it this time was the many many boats putting in here at the boat ramp in town-it's always a pain to come back in when the ramp is busy.

Eagle Bluff


Coming Back to the Car After Fishing


Today we went out to Monkey Mia to crab. It was a still morning with the water like glass. I spotted a couple of whales on the horizon-too far away for us to go look. It was great when they moved closer though and we could motor up a few minutes to get a closer look at them. We stopped the hundred metres away we're supposed to and watched in awe (it is awesome from a tinny!) as the waved tails and fins in the air, rolled over and just generally played around. We watched for about 20 minutes before going on with oour crabbing, but they hung around for about another hour! We only brought home 7 crabs, but our whale encounter made it all worth while.

Monkey Mia

The Pearl Farm Monkey Mia


Looking the Other Way as We Fished by the Pearl Farm


The rain cleared and we woke to a gorgeous, still day. Russ went down town and bought us a couple of new crab nets, then we headed out to Monkey Mia.We had a great day catching 10 crabs (so not quite as good as Tuesday), were excited when 3 dolphins swam under the boat then surfed in our wake, and anngry when giraffe-necked pearl farmer Jamie of The Farmer Wants a Wife fame, PUSHED in front of us on the boat ramp. He's creepy and rude!

My Favourite Sand Dune on the Monkey Mia Road


Brought our crabs home, cooked them, vacuum sealed and froze a couple of packs but kept all the big chunks of claw meat to put through a spicy nasi goreng I made. We had that along with a ginger, soy, chilli steamed fish dish. Super, super yummy dinner.

In Denham and Russ and I have Crabs

After not getting crabs last year, we certainly made up for it this year.

It's been pouring here at Denham, but weatherman Russ assured me it wouldn't be raining at Moneky Mia. He was right. We went out and caught ourselves 15 crabs in just over an hour. 11were the biggest we've ever caught there, and 4 were over size-just. Crab sandwiches for lunch tomorrow, Chilli Crab for dinner tomorrow night and a packet of meat for the freezer for Thai crab cakes when we get to Perth! Yummmmm.