DID I ROB ALAN BARKER OF A 41KG SPANISH MACKEREL

I wrote this piece in 2021, however, the series of events which led to this mind-blowing Quobba season occurred way back in 2014. I remember every detail like it was yesterday. It’s not just the epic captures that resonate in my mind, but also the blood, sweat and tears I endured in the process.

WAITING FOR WINTER

I'd just come off the regular summer Steep Point season with multiple trips producing the standard run of school sized Spanish mackerel around the 12-15kg mark. These fish can certainly boost an anglers confidence and test out the tackle, but they weren’t the calibre of fish I was after.

steep point scupper bars

I was pumped for the Quobba winter season, with one thing on my mind, big pelagic fish over the 50lb mark. To add fuel to the fire this was the first season The Gman had decided to stay home on the east coast, I knew I had to produce a big fish to make him regret this decision!

I packed the Holden Colorado and headed up to Quobba with no return date in mind, thinking I’ll come home once the jobs done! (50lber on the deck). When I drove in, I quickly scoped out the water quality and then I met up with the boys camping at the Station for a few frothies. I got the usual run down on how the last few days of fishing had been, assessing the situation and with a desire to mainly gas balloon I made a plan to fish boundary for the next few days.

A WAVE OF DESTRUCTION

The first couple of days were difficult, with bigger swells making landing fish a challenging task, and on top of this there were a couple of ferocious sharks taking 50% of our catch, the usual quobba standard.

On this particular day the swell was up to around 2m again. At first light the seas weren’t too bad and the ledge was fishable, I sent out my first bait before the sun cracked and it got the bite straight up a respectable Spanish at around 15kg, not the target 50lber but il take it.

With a rising swell I hooked up again. Just as I go to wash another mackerel up, a resident shark snips it in half (cheers mate). Not overly ecstatic about my half fish, I still get my mate to bring down my camera for a few shots of what could have been.

At this stage I’m observing the water watching more water coming over the top, and it’s not even high tide, I made the management decision to call it, we both agree to shut the session down. We had 3 items on the ledge, half a dead mack, my digital SLR camera and tackle bag. I walked back to the car to drop off my rod, as we returned to the water’s edge to retrieve the last of our things we see a wall of water coming at us. The wave comes in hard and fast like a Mike Tyson uppercut and submerges the rest of our gear, as the water recedes, I can see all 3 items flowing down to the waters edge.

We see a gap in the sets, giving us enough time to potentially save at least 2 of the items. I see is the digital SLR camera in its case, the boys are on. While scurrying back to safety and pretty impressed with my save, I look up at Mario, thinking, this bloke has definitely had enough time to recover the valuable tackle bag. To my disgust I look up to see the bloke holding half a mackerel that’s already disappointed me once. I call out “mate you’re kidding right?”, Mario replies “I dunno, I just panicked and grabbed the first thing I saw” he reckons.

We packed up our gear while thanking our lucky stars. I had one of those little moments thinking, I can buy a new tackle bag, and lets face it, I could probably get half a mack from the Carnarvon fish markets but I couldn’t replace my mate Mario.

WAAAAAHHHHHOOOOO

At Quobba the alarm bells ring at around 3am, the next morning Mario had decided to sleep in. This was no issue as I teed up my good mate Justin Anthony and his offsider to come down and continue fishing the Boundary with me.

The swell had dropped totally and as the sun came up the water looked mint, clear blue water clarity, birds and bait working, all the boxes were ticked, I sent out the usual rigged gar on a gas balloon about 200m.

As we were sitting on the ledge looking out to sea, all three of us saw the bait get smashed, a big splash right out of the water. Being too far away we couldn’t ID the fish straight up, after a big initial 200m run on the Tiagra 30 it slowed down. I’m not going to lie this thing came in like a wet sock, as I steered the fish straight to the gaffman. It was on the surface and as it came into our sights this beast was lit up like the Mandurah canal houses at Xmas, with iridescent colours.

There were only 3 blokes on the ledge that day, but I swear at least 10 blokes yelled WAAAAAHHHHHOOOOO! As the gaffman landed a textbook gaff shot and pulled it straight up the cliff it was bittersweet, the fish instantly bled out and lost all its vibrant colours. It went from looking electric blue to looking like it just came out of a bush fire, nonetheless I’d just landed a dream fish and it was high and dry!

We photographed the fish and weighed it in at 32kg, after that I packed my gear and took the whole fish back to the homestead with two things on my mind first show Mario what he had missed out on and then to show the late Alan Barker what I’d just captured, Alan had played a big part in my Quobba fishing journey, giving me the time of day to share his knowledge and explain the subtle intricacies on how to get the most out of each gas ballooning ledge.

As I rolled in, Alan and Sniper were still doing the bin run, not being able to hide my excitement, he knew I’d gotten up to something special. I showed him the fish, and his exact words were “I’ve fished this coastline for over 40 years and that’s the speciest fish I’ve ever seen”. It was like getting a compliment from the king himself!

We cleaned the fish up and that night we enjoyed some wahoo sashimi and then some more on the BBQ, it was the first time Id eaten wahoo and it lived up to the hype being a lot tastier than Spanish mackerel.

I could hardly sleep that night thinking over and over what I’d just achieved, I was ecstatic, a wahoo is really not something you can target land based in Australia, being more of an anomaly capture, it’s something I may never be able to accomplish again in my LBG career, but I’ll live with that.

THE WINDS OF FOURTUNE

The next day I hit the Boundary again but the water had turned over to a murky green colour. I had to move further north to find bluer waters, I went to have a yarn with Alan to discuss a gameplan, he said I’m thinking of heading to the Monument in the morning, we all used to work in with each other, so I said “ok, if you want it tomorrow I’ll take it the day after”, deal he says.

As it got to later in the afternoon I went and saw Alan for the latest weather report (yeah this was before we all had reception at the homested) Alan says to me “its blowing south-east in the morning but forecasted for less than 10 knots, it’s not worth the drive up north”. “Ok no worries I replied, as the night goes on its about 8pm, the temperature suddenly drops, this means one thing to me, the easterly will be stronger and possibly straighter than forecasted (cold nights = strong east winds). As I don the jumpers I head straight to Alan’s to tell him my thoughts, he agrees but goes on to say “I’m not rigged up, you have it tomorrow I’ll take it the next day”, deal I say.

MEGA MACK ATTACK

We arrive at the Monument before light, as the sun cracks we are met with an eery sight, there’s high fog and you literally cannot see a metre in front of you. Within an hour the fog clears and once again we are met with blue waters, and the strong easterly I predicted was blowing at my back.

The morning starts off good with Mario securing an 11kg Spanish. I had my gar out skipping like a champ on a long drift when we both witnessed one of the biggest aerial strikes we had ever seen. My rod immediately buckled over, and the fish went for two 200m runs. These long sustaining runs almost seemed too big to be a fish, even though I thought it may have become a shark, I kept fighting it like a fish. As I gained enough line to gain a visual, we both said the same thing “yeah it’s a shark”, looking in the water we could see a big shark... and then to our surprise in front of that was a Spanish mackerel that looked even bigger than the shark tailing it. I could not believe my eyes, No waaaay, this...this is THE FISH I’m thinking to myself.

This location is 20 metres above the water so a cliff gaff is the only option. Once the fish is steered to the base of the cliff, I hand Mario the rod and lower the cliff gaff myself. At this stage the fish is surrounded by 3-4 sharks, but they are all hesitant to eat it because of its sheer size. The cliff gaff lands straight on the target and instantly pins the fish, I go to pull back with all my strength and realise It’s too heavy to lift. Mario comes over to give me a hand and together we slowly lift the fish up, this takes us over ten minutes to pull up. As we reach the top, it’s prehistoric head gets stuck on a protruding rock. I had to hold the rope solo while Mario used the pole gaff as an assist hook to pull the fish out of the crevasse and swing it out. As we drag the fish onto the ledge we both lay there next to it with rope burnt hands in disbelief, did we really just catch this fish?

Honestly I’d never seen a 40kg Spanish mackerel but in my head I knew it would have to go close to this magical mark, after we photographed it I weighed it on my digital scales that only went to 40kg. It maxed them out, BOOM I’d done it! Pack her up boyyys! We loaded up and boosted back to the homestead absolutely frothin (all speed limits adhered to).

Once back at the homestead there was only one person I wanted to see and that was Alan, he looked in the back of my ute and after a few swear words, we agree to get it on the official Quobba Station scales to see if it cracks the official forty. Just before we put it on he goes “I dunno if it’ll go the 40” we lift it up and it goes 41!, I know he’s thinking fxck I should have committed to the Monument, Alan says to me, “that wahoo was pretty specy but this mack is specy too”, haha I’ll take it.

Sometimes everything just goes your way on a trip, a 32kg wahoo and then two days later a 41kg Spanish mackerel, these two fish meant the world to me. I’d worked so hard for these two fish, booking trip after trip putting in the days on the ledges and taking in any information any experienced angler would give me. After this there was only one thing to do and that was get on the tins to celebrate.

The next few days I took part as a spectator and gaffman, thinking my luck was almost up this was confirmed when days later fishing North Two Mile the first bait I sent out after decking the 41kg bar-ee was tended to with a double header of nor-west blowfish, it was at this point I knew Huey had cut me off!