Well if the first day was good the second was even better, we woke to a clear day with no wind and after launching the boat we made the 70km journey to the South end of Dorre island in a little over an hour. We had glass smooth conditions the whole way for a pleasant change and watched the whales breaching for most of the trip. When we arrived we discovered a very strong current running from the North, too strong to anchor and dive in. So we changed tactics and drifted along the edge of the reef and off the edge into the deeper water, 1 in the water 1 in the boat. This worked well and we each had a Mackerel in the boat on our first drifts. There were hundreds of Blackfin Barracuda and Milk fish making things a little difficult as they spooked the Mackerel on almost every dive.
I decided to use my Tuna Gun as I needed the practice for an upcoming trip and was very pleased to find I could still place a shot well despite not using it all that often. My first shot with it was a very long one that landed exactly where I wanted and resulted in a second Mackerel for the day. Half way through the fight a large Groper tried to swallow the Mackerel but spat it back out for some reason, maybe the Mack bit it's tongue? My next drift resulted in a somewhat easier shot that once again resulted in a nice Mackerel that put on a bit of a show when first shot almost wrapping me in the float line.
Greg also got himself another very nice Mackerel of around 25kg on his second drift and had the same trouble with the Barracuda as I had, they just would not keep away from us and followed us everywhere.
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| Greg with the biggest Mackerel for the trip at 25kg. |
By this stage the current started to drop a little and the fish got very active, it looked like something special was going to happen but the current changed direction and picked up again and the fish went back to being relatively quiet.
We took the opportunity to have some lunch and change location to a reef up the East side of Dorre Island and dive the shallows and capture some video of the fish and coral. I set Greg up with a new GoPro3 Black and we had a fun time filming the fish life all while listening to the ever present Whales singing in the background.
After an hour or so of this we decided to begin the long trip back to Carnarvon, we had much the same conditions all the way back which made for a pleasant end to a great days diving. We weighed Greg's mackerel at the boat ramp out of curiosity and then made our way back to Andy's house. We quickly parked the boat and disconnected the trailer and headed off to collect some ice.
Once collected we quickly put the fish on ice and washed our gear in preparation for returning Perth in the morning. Andy made a killer salad and I cooked some prawns that Andy had marinating all day, we ate well that night and tumbled into bed with full bellies. We woke to leaden sky's that threatened rain and still conditions that suggested strong winds in the near future, confirming our decision to limit the trip to 2 days as the correct one. We ate a quick breakfast and packed our gear away before saying goodbye to Andy and beginning the long drive home. It had been a short 2 day trip but we had the best 2 day's weather of the last 2 months. We hit the approaching front about 2 hours South of Carnarvon and drove the remainder of the journey through frequent squalls and pouring rain, the water flowing across the road in several locations creating quite a hazard for the unwary.
We however completed our journey without incident and arrived at my house some 9 hours later to a dinner of Pizzas and Herb Bread, a fitting end to a short but enjoyable trip.
