QUOIN HEADS always been a fxcking SHARK PIT
In 2017, I was fired up to make an impact in the land-based game fishing scene. My sights were set on the ledges of Dirk Hartog Island, where I knew my best shot lay at cracking my 2 goals, 50lber on spin & billfish on gas. To increase my odds, I booked two trips, eager to capitalize on favourable weather and a strong current.
Both trips delivered exactly what I hoped for: great weather, strong currents, and plenty of feeding fish.
Trip one was booked in April, to Quion head over the new moon phase (arrive 6 days before new moon) for 14 days. I've always been a believer of if you want big fish, your going to need time on the water to maximise chances, you cant really expect too much if your only going to go for 4-5 days, in that small time window there's a high chance you could even get blown out with winds or swell and barley even be able to fish. These longer trips enable you to ride out bad weather & maximise your chances of scoring favourable conditions.
April weather patterns
Doing multiple trips over April-May to DHI, its one of my preferred times to lock in. Its when the wind patterns are still southerly but start moving east a little bit, so you get a mixture of southerly's and morning easterlies, generally the swells are lower, but like any months big swell can rock up, just a little more un likely. water temps are high 24-25 +
Quion Heads a fucking shark pit
This trip all I had on my mind was big pelagic fish, demersal fish were not on my radar !
Our plan was to fish the main ledge hard & we had opted out of moving around too much, we'd had good reports of big fish in the area so stuck to it, as usual sharks were hot to trot & ready to dice anything. On previous trips id already had a few good fish on gas under my belt, so went into this trip planning to extract something over the 50lb mark on spin, any good land based angler knows one on the spin is worth 10 on the gas, especially when it comes to 50lbers.
Outfit of choice a saltiga 6500H loaded with 60lb paired with a Saltiga Bg85s and casting 85gram surecatch knights in what ever colour I can get my hands on. I don't get too caught up in lure choices, don't confuse your self, 1-2 lure choices and stick to it, so long as they can be casted far and work the full water column, bottom to top. Knights, mackbaits & plugs is all I really use, back in 2017 & current days.
The sharks giving us an absolute schooling on days 1 & 2 our tax rate was at 100% trying the light approach didn't seem to work, so it was time to tighten things up, the drag was wound up to about as tight as I could handle, the next fish that piled onto the lure was to be my biggest to date. Biting at the textbook, far cast, hit the bottom, two winds bang! (this is the normal scenario as fish hang close to the bottom and are right out on the casting edge.) After multiple big runs on heavy drag the fish was steered away from sharks & came ledge side to be pole gaffed. my PB 25kg Spanish Mackerel.
25KG Spanish Mackerel (note the slenderness of this fish, known as a summer fish)
Time to get on the gas
With the spin fishing complete, it was time to tackle the next challenge: catching a billfish from the rocks. I set my sights on the gas, ready to make it happen.
The fishing was a lot quieter on the gas with less bites than the spin, but as excepted the catch rate was higher with less fish lost to sharks and reef. When the strike rate is quiet on the gas, its a great time to target Billfish and maximise results as baits aren't lost to hungry mackerel.
Last full day of the trip, 6 days after the new moon, late afternoon, 2 hours past high tide, I have a big gar skipping on a wide drift. Majority of the trip we had scored low swell, but today the swell had started to rise, around 2.2-2.6M. When this fish strikes, I'm about 100m away from the rod, by the time I run to my rod the hooks are already set as I run a tight drag in the holder for this exact reason that I don't have to be with the rod and the fish will set the hooks its self.
What happens next is the distinct grey hounding jumping of a black marlin rather than a sailfish. With quite a tight drag I managed to steer the fish to the ledge really quickly, it worked on this occasion but its not really a technique I would use in current days fishing, I believe a bit lighter drag will help assist in keeping the fish up high rather than making it dive deep when it comes to billfish, with the lighter drag they will stay on top and try and throw the hooks. As the fish was bought to the reef edge it was timed perfectly with a wave and a gaffman was on the lower ledge waiting, however another wave came up and the gaffman had to retreat back to safety, after this the fish was washed by an even bigger wave back along the reef when the WCS (worst case scenario) happened, the leader hitting the reef and snapping off !
Pete with a 30 plus on the gas (going to war in a big swell)
Everything happens for a reason
I believe in a few things with fishing & life in general, "everything happens for a reason" & "your always right where your supposed to be"
Nothing worth having comes easy, in again both life and fishing, so to tick off my two goals in one trip would have been all too easy. Huey gave me the 50lber on spin but he wasn't going to give up the billfish just yet. Loosing this billfish gave me so much drive to continue my land based quest for a billfish & made me even more hungry to get out amongst it. With the second trip already booked for dirk Hartog island in July, I had only a few months to begin prepping and rigging ready to slay the bill
part II next week….
Smaller model spanish mackerel
On the chrome mackbait
Sunrise Mack on the gas
