I’ve spent many years chasing mulloway. Like a lot of fishermen, that’s mostly been unsuccessful. It took years to finally land my first legal mulloway (down at the Coorong). South Australia’s far west coast Mulloway are something of a holy grail for surf fishers and we’d made a few attempts and came up with nothing. It was in 2010, and on our fourth attempt, that we finally cracked the code. This was the story I wrote at the time.
The Story As Told
This trip will be remembered as one of a few things. Maybe “Will’s Fishing 101”. Or “Will’s Fishing Masterclass”. Or maybe just “The Trip Will Caught Basically Everything”. Either way, one thing should be clear; Will dominated this trip.
With Andre’s late pull out due to an injured back/hip/old body falling apart – it was down to 5 people on the biggest trip of 2010. Will, Matt (returning to the FWC after previously announcing himself never to return), Kym, Harry, and myself.
Scotts Beach
After the long 10 hour drive, we arrived in Fowlers Bay, and proceeded to let the tyres down before taking the 4wd’s across the huge sand dunes over to the fabled Scotts Beach. Upon arrival on the beach, we immediately sighted a huge school of Salmon out the back of the breakers. We pulled up and quickly tied on lures, but with a strong wind in our face, were unable to to cast far enough to reach them. It wasn’t long however, before the school moved in close and we were on in a big way. 4kg Salmon were being hauled up the beach. We needed to get quite a few for bait, and things were looking very very nice, instantly.
We made a fine adjustment to our location, moving 100 metres down the beach to where the gutter looked some what deeper. The wind was down, so we set up right there on the beach for the night. The schools were hanging out of casting distance for the most part, but every now and then they’d come in close and we’d get a couple. We changed from lures to baits which proved effective in catching the Salmon that left the school. As we got out the chairs to settle in for a sunset fish, Will’s rod bucked over in a massive way – and an amazing day one session just got even better.
Unfortunately, it didn’t take too long to realise he didn’t have a fish of any sort on his line, but instead a huge eagle ray taking a lot of line away from him. After a long battle, and Will with a now very sore back – I managed to get the gaff into the Eagle Ray’s wing and slide it up the beach. 30 minutes later, and with a half broken back, Will’s Rod buckles over again, and he is set for another huge battle against a monster Eagle Ray. We thought it may have been the same one just screwing with us – but it turned out to be a slightly larger one. This one was again landed and released – and with night fall not far away, we set up some wire traces and got the glow sticks ready!
There was plenty of action once it became dark. A lot of bust offs on those who didn’t put a wire on, and even those that did – my line was bitten off above the wire trace. Note for next time: make wire longer. Of course there was one person who didn’t get bitten off though – Will. He hooked on and brought in a massive Gummy Shark. Biggest Gummy I’ve ever seen caught by a long shot.
We all arose the next morning, and found a school of salmon right in close, directly in front of our campsite. It was one of probably 5 or 6 large schools all along Scotts Beach. We again got the lures out proceeded to catch fish after fish of monster Salmon. They went off like freight trains when hooked. We chased the school as it moved down the beach lobbing salmon high up the beach as we caught them and recasting immediately. The worst bit was walking back to camp holding 10kgs of salmon each. It was one of the finest Salmon fishing session’s we’ve ever had, and after 4 Far West Coast trips, Scotts Beach finally lived up to its reputation as one of the best Salmon beaches in South Australia.
Next Stop : Dog Fence Beach
With a large esky full of salmon fillets, we headed off towards the Dog Fence. The initial plan was to check out the beaches on the eastern side, as I’d heard some recent good reports there. There were a surprising amount of campers tucked away in the dunes as we traversed our way through the sand dunes.
We pulled up to the beach at one of the access points and sighted a large gutter about 1.5 kilometres down the beach. Will went down on to the beach and immediately got into trouble. The sand was undriven on and very soft. He managed to do about a 300 point turn and get the car pointing back up onto the track but couldn’t make it up the small hill. Surf to the rescue! The snatch strap was hooked up and after a number of attempts, we got the Hilux up on to safe ground. We then took the opportunity to have a cold beer and grab a group photo.
Since we couldn’t find a decent gutter with a nearby area to camp at – we opted to go over to the western side of the fence instead. We found a decent gutter adjacent to some reefy structure, and set up camp there. Will immediately got his rod holder out and planted it right near the reef – a move that would later pay off in a big way. But daylight was running low this day, and no action was had.
First Morning at The Dog Fence Beach
On Day 3, most were up around 7am and a few extra Salmon were caught early. Given the amount we had for bait, all were released except one kept for lunch. Soon after, Will’s rod looked to have a bit of interest – and soon he was battling a big fish. Fingers were crossed for a big Mulloway, but Will was still excited to get a nice bronze whaler shark up onto the beach. It had a weird cut in its gills – perhaps been gaffed in the past. A few photos were taken and it was released.
An hour and a half later, and again Will is onto a decent fish. As it came into the wash, I could see it was a Mulloway and called it: “its legal!”. But Will couldn’t see it as well as me and thought it was undersized. It didn’t truly sink in for him until Harry ran down with the brag mat, and showed it to be 83cm. Will let out a massive cheer for his first ever legal mulloway. After years of catching undersizers, it’s a great feeling! There was a round of high fives and plenty of photos taken – then the first was dispatched and fillets put into the fridge. Catching fish to eat was necessary this trip to avoid having to live solely on canned food. We had enough meat to only last us about half the trip.
Around 6pm, I had my first taste of some Dog Fence action – my rod bending over onto a nice fish. As always when you get a big bite out west, you hope like hell that there is a big fat mulloway on the end of your line. No such luck on this occasion, but I was still absolutely stoked to land my first ever Shark – a nice Bronze Whaler. He was released to swim another day.
An hour later, and Will is onto another big fish. This one is going really hard though. When he pulled in a 112cm Mulloway, the cheers and high fives were even more jubilant than the first. This fish looked really massive laying on the sand, we estimated it to be around 30-35lbs. With one Mulloway already in the fridge, and us still 6 days away from a freezer – Will decided to let it go. After a photo or 5, of course. What an amazing days fishing.
Things Heat Up
We awoke the next day to a northerly breeze as the hot weather rolled in. Matt seized the opportunity to set up a balloon in hope that the wind would drag it far out to sea. It worked to some extent, but still couldn’t get past the breakers on the first sand bar. It must have had the bait in a good spot though, as he was bitten off by a Shark soon after. A new balloon was setup, this time with wire trace – unfortunately it didn’t get any more bites and he soon changed back to his usual paternoster rig.
Kym also “got sharked” shortly before Matt again had a big run on his line. He had a battle for about 2 minutes before the fish spat the hooks – a suspected Mulloway lost there! With no actual fish landed, it was a quiet mornings fishing, but after lunch Will landed a small Gummy Shark, and this one was kept to eat up later.
Sitting around camp eating lunch all our ears pricked up as we heard the sound of a drag going off. But before we could get too excited, we realised it was just a big blow fly stuck in the garbage bag! That disappointment didn’t last long as Matt was again hooked onto something large. We were convinced this one must be a big Mully, as it took off sideways down the beach, following the gutter. It was going hard and after a long battle, Matt had it in close to reveal it was actually a big sting ray – disappointing, but a bit of fun anyway. His line snapped as the ray came into the wash, saving him the task of getting it back into the water. He re-rigged and caught a nice Salmon shortly after. Another fresh bait.
With sunset approaching, Will hooked onto, and landed his third legal mulloway of the trip – which at this stage left the rest of us shaking our heads wondering what the hell we had to do to make them take our baits! With his first Mulloway mostly consumed already, he kept this one. It went about 103-105cm in length and weighed 10.5kgs (23 pounds).
Will caught his fourth legal Mully shortly after that one, but at ‘only’ 76cm (note: legal size back in 2010!), it was thrown back. If anyone else landed it, there would have been a lot more excitement I suspect. As nightfall set in, Matt had his third big run of the day and again, he pulled a big sting ray into the surf. I made an attempt to gaff it, but in the dark proved too hard to see where it actually was. It snapped off and again saved the task of releasing it. I think Matt was actually pleased with that one snapping off. A swinging sting ray barb in the night probably isn’t a good thing. Certainly not after 12 beers!
Back to Fowlers Bay
Disaster struck on on Day 5. I got out of my swag and peered over to the fridge thermometer to read ’13 degrees’. Sure enough, the fridge battery was flat. We’d neglected to have a rotation system going when it came to getting beers out the fridge, which meant loading in around 60 warm cans before going to sleep. The fridge in an attempt to cool them all down chewed through the battery power quickly. I got the car going so that the fridge would cool. And then, someone opened the bait esky. The worst smell you could possibly imagine came wafting out. The realisation that our bait supply had gone very bad hit us. We dug a big hole down in the surf and poured all the remaining fillets in to it. Even covered up the smell was amazingly bad – I came extremely close to throwing up on the beach.
With no fresh salmon fillets for bait, the food icebox ice getting low, and the fridge without cold beer, we decided we’d have to pack up and head back to Fowlers Bay for a night to get the fridge going again, and restock our ice supplies. We didn’t want to risk a fresh 11kg Mulloway going bad either.
We stopped off at Nundroo for some ice and put half of the bag in the fridge to try and help it get down to a cooler temperature where it could start operating more efficiently. This worked quite well, and we set up in the caravan park before heading out to the ledge for a look.
The ledge looked real fishy, but we couldn’t resist the allure of Scotts Beach and all its salmon schools. We headed back to Scotts but the schools were out of casting range. After a small amount of time, we went back to the caravan park to have a shower, clean up a bit, and cook some dinner. We had a plan to hit the jetty that night, which we did. It was very windy out on the jetty and not even a single squid was caught.
The Third Act
The following morning, after a quick trip to Scotts to restock the bait supply (it was that easy!), we debated about whether to stay another day in the Caravan Park, and spent the day out at Cabbots Beach, or pack up immediately and head out to a Beach called Tuckamore. I spoke to one of the locals who told me that Cabbots rarely has mulloway come through, and Tuckamore, whilst quiet this year, has seen plenty in the past. Given that we were here to catch mulloway – we opted for Tuckamore, even though I didn’t really know where to go.
We dropped into Penong for Will to top up on fuel, and grab some ’emergency’ beers, and then headed off into Chadinga Conservation Park. I followed the only track on my GPS that lead somewhat close to the coast line and after 45 minutes of winding through what looked to be a fairly unused track, we met the ocean once more.
The beach appeared really soft and we didn’t wish to drive down it to check for more gutters, but luckily there was one right out front of the beach access point. A real deep and long gutter – it looked prime. We parked the cars close together and again assembled a big shelter with my 6×6 metre tarp (which now has a severe lack of eyelets). This time we made one entire side go down to the ground to stop the northerly wind howling through our shelter – worked well until the wind changed direction!
After cooking up lunch, I ducked around the back of camp for a nature visit when I heard the others screaming out that I had a bite. I quickly ran back around to see my rod sitting in its holder, lifeless. I wound in and rebaited, and then not long after I had another bite – this time I was on to it and after a brief fight, wound in my first ever Snapper – and a good size too. Finally, I join Matt & Will in the Snapper Club! Unfortunately, the video camera and the brag mat were still packed away in the car, so we didn’t have time to get a measure on it or any footage before returning it to the water (November being Snapper ban month)
This catch also brought me one fish away from ‘The Trifecta’. The Trifecta is when you catch 3 prize species (in this case, Shark, Mulloway and Snapper) all in one trip. I just needed to land a legal Mulloway now. Just a few hours later, Will completed his very own Trifecta. He landed a legal Snapper of his own, continuing his dream run this trip.
Will had literally just released his Snapper when his other rod started shaking about and he was immediately on to something else. Not content with already having the Trifecta, he was now upgrading on sizes previously caught, landing a beauty of a bronze whaler. It was released to fight another day.
Despite it being a very hot day (the thermometer sitting around 38 in the shade most of the day), it was clear the there was a storm brewing as the day wore on. We could see showers in the distance and the clouds were ominous. Incoming storms seem to be synonymous with Snapper biting inshore.
As night fell, we were treated to some awesome lightning storm action off on the horizon, but as we slept at night, that storm got worse and worse. I awoke in the middle of the night to the wind howling through our shelter, which instead of blocking the northerly wind, was now catching the southerly entirely. I’m surprised it held up. Credit goes to Harry for putting more support beams and guy ropes onto that thing than you could poke a stick at (Although Matt wasn’t as impressed when he went arse over tit, tripping over a seemingly pointless rope tied 10 cm above the ground. It made things worse (read: funnier) when he brought down a heavy cast iron pot onto the back of his foot, resulting in a blackened heel). The frequency of lightning strikes during the night was unreal.
Seaweed Spoils the Party
On the Friday, we woke up to see masses of seaweed floating around in our once pristine gutter. It would make fishing near impossible. We just sat and looked out in dismay, mostly. We did however notice that the majority of the weed was lumping together in what Matt dubbed Weed Island. It would slowly shift up and down the gutter all day long, but never actually move out of the gutter. We all had small attempts at fishing in ‘clear’ spots, but they were short lived as the weed soon came and made a mess of things. Will persisted for hours, trudging up the beach from one end of the gutter to the other in attempts to avoid Weed Island. His persistence paid off after lunch as he landed two gummies in quick succession. Both were dispatched for a post FWC BBQ.
Despite Wills success, we decided that if the following day (our last full day) was going to be full of seaweed, we may as well pull the pin a day early and head home. There wasn’t much point staring out at sea weed all day long. Luckily, as we awoke for our final day, we noticed the weed was visibly less. Still there, but not bad enough to send us home (possibly to Kym’s disappointment, who looked to be sick of watching Will catch all the fish – excuse me.. I caught two!).
The day fined up nicely and we sat down, enjoyed the last of the emergency beers, and watched Will make another upgrade on his Trifecta. This time an absolute horse of a snapper pulled from the gutter. People in boats would be envious of this one! It measured 92cm, which wasn’t much longer than the others we caught, but just looked so much bigger overall.
With a lot of bacon and eggs left over, our last days diet consisted completely of those ingredients, and I must say – it was awesome. We consumed 1.5kg of bacon that day, and probably over a dozen eggs. But, with the day getting later, we thought it would be best to pull down our magnificent shelter, and get everything besides the swags packed away in the car. It would help to make for a quick and easy get away the next morning. Chadinga/Tuckamore had been quite successful, and I reckon we’ll make another visit there some day. We were hoping to get a legal mully in the final days to take home and freeze up, but we can’t complain with three awesome snapper off the beach – usually such a rare catch.
Conclusion
It was our best trip by far at the time and we felt like we’d finally cracked the code on Far West Coast mulloway. We haven’t missed since (despite some fairly lean trips). The big difference was having the fresh salmon baits on board, and the ability to keep them as fresh as possible. That’s something we’re still working on, but it gets easier over time with more elaborate 12 volt setups. Just catching the salmon has proved the hard bit.
Years later, with many years of gathering experience and picking the right tides under our belt, it culminated in what I call our Greatest Mulloway Trip.
