wooli north coast

[tide'n'knots]

gday guys i just got back from a week in wooli on the north coast with a couple of mates and had a ball catching snapper and kingfish on the reefs just outside the river mouth. im sorry but i didnt take a lot of pics and regret it now but the excitment of catching fish and watching majestic whales breaching every day overtook the urge to fiddle with my phone to get photos however i did manage a few. the ocean was a bit messy the first day so i spent a couple of hours pulling blackfish from the river opposite the local tackle shop and fish was on the menu the first night!
Over the next couple of days we caught the odd snapper here and there and on day four we decided to venture further out to solitary islands and a large school of fusileer started schooling around the back of the boat we caught half a dozen in no time flat along with an 80cm cobia which was a first for me and a couple of rat kings. one of the fusileer was 43cm and after checking fishraider records i discovered that no one has claimed to have caught one yet so i guess that is a fishraider record!
on the second last day we were there we were told about a bommie about 2 miles out and decided to head out there and drift bait for some reds.After a little bit of exploring we located the bommie and first drift i was into a snapper not real big but the right species not long after we anchored a licenced fishing boat anchored near us and began to catch quite a few large snapper that needed to be gaffed as well a several good kings around 80cm. upon closer inspection we discovered that they were using cuttlefish for bait and absolutely braining them!! next year we are planning to go back and my mate joe has already purchased 3kg of cuttlefish ! half way through the day a whale glided under our anchor rope and popped up about 15 metres tp the side of our boat......WOW !! the was worth being there just for that. on our last day the guys in the licenced fishing boat were there again and jokingly offered to sell us some cuttlefish for a $150 a kilo!! at one stage they yelled "look at that: and over to our left about 30 metres away a whale breached 4 times and came almost completely out of the water ....awesome! not long after that they ccaught a snapper so big that they took photos of it and we guessed it was around 20lb in weight !
Although we didnt fair as well a s some others we still did ok and managed probably 20 or so snapper as well as other fish such as a very big tailer around 65 cms and a 70cm flathead . all in all a very enjoyable week away and cant wait for next year!
pete

a couple of fusileer

(very pretty fish)

80cm cobia

(sorry i dont know how to rotate the pics maybe a mod could help?

Edited August 22, 2016 by tide'n'knots

[JonD]

Great report, good to hear Wooli is still turning on the big fish.

Jon

[Greyfox]

Sounds a great trip and to add whales in as well, what a trip. Well done

[tyrone07]

Love wooli one of my favourite places to go, those fusilier are very good to eat, we just shallow fry them real nice white flesh.