Montebello Islands Expedition

Embarking on another thrilling West Coast salt expedition, we find ourselves setting course for the breathtaking Montebello Islands. Our vessel of choice is none other than Rex's meticulously refurbished Yaltacraft, a testament to craftsmanship and reliability.

Our journey begins at Fortescue Roadhouse, where we diligently fill up not only the 140-liter tank but also an additional 20 jerry cans, amassing an impressive 540 liters of fuel. This abundance of fuel is our ticket to extended exploration, and our itinerary is designed to accommodate 5 to 7 days of island-hopping, contingent upon the ever-shifting whims of weather conditions and fuel consumption.

Not by choice but rather by weather windows our trip has coincided with spring tides, we arrive at the fortescue river crossing around a low tide of approx 1m, there was still water in the crossing around 100-200mm because of the high tide of around 3.0m~ meters. We prep the boat and camp the night at the boat ramp, waking in the morning waiting for the high tide, we launch on the high of around 2.5m and do the trip over on the outgoing tide.

launching at fortescue

We send straight for the bottom of Hermite island, aiming to set up camp on the beach to the left of Claret bay. We're greeted with winds from the north east of around 12-15knots, the trip over takes around 2.5 hours doing a distance of 80km. The yaltacraft sat on around 20 -23 knots with a fuel burn of 1.1 - 1.2km per litre, we ended up burning a total of 70 litres for the trip over, which was not bad considering how loaded up the boat was with extra fuel & camping gear.

Home beach for the next 7 days

Upon our arrival at the island, our first order of business was to efficiently unload the boat, refuel it in preparation for the next morning's fishing expedition, and then establish our campsite. Mindful of our weight restrictions, we meticulously curated our camping equipment, resulting in a minimalist yet highly functional campsite which consisted of 2 swags, i ran the oztent bunker swag, a flooring mat, 2 tables, a butaine gas cooker for food prep. For our fridge freezer setup we were very minimalistic, running only one 70l fridge on the boat & on shore having one 40l ARB freezer which would be for our fillets. This freezer was powered on a 12v setup, using a nomad 100 AH lithium battery powered by a Hardkorr 200 watt solar blanket.

The unload

Our next crucial task was anchoring the boat. Given the substantial tides we were dealing with, anchoring it correctly was absolutely essential., the bay we were camped in does have a few small bommies and rocks so we didnt want the boat sitting dry at any time, during our stay we experienced lows of around 0.6 and highs over 3m. We used a front anchor and a stern anchor, setting as deep at we could to avoid touching anything on the extreme lows.

The Yaltacraft anchored in the bay

Day 1 of fishing we concertrated in the 40's, we found some fish but found the day super sharky with a high tax rate, still managing to slip a few through, vexed dhu drops & dhu slows getting the bite. The day was a bit breezy so heavier jigs around the 200 grams were utilized plus we used the sea anchor.

Vexed Dhu drop

Day 2 we get to experience one of if not the best spanish mackerel bites of all time, it started when we got snipped on multiple jigs, knowing the spanish armarta was around all it took was one cast of a stickbait to get the first bite, and a huge arial bite at that, boating a fish of around 13-14 kilo. From here it was me behind the lens & rexy on the cast, using an arangement of the vexed girls best friend and the nomad riptide, it was a bite of every cast, we could see a few big fish sitting under the boat, however it was hard to get past the smaller bars of under 12kg's.

ariel bites

The next 2 days consisted of the same day plan, the winds were up in the mornings so we stayed on the inside diving for trout and crays & as it glassed off around 11-12 we sent it wide. With the big spring tides the diving was hard work with so much water movement it was hard to stay on the fish, with trout in abundance it was easy to find them but hard to line them up, we still managed a few.

When it came to fishing the outside we stayed in the 30 - 40m range and tried fishing the smaller soundings rather than the bigger, however being honest some of the smaler soundings were just as sharky as those big soundings. We both mainly fished 50lb outfits, Rex stuck with the standard paternoster twin hook rig using mustard taiwana hooks & small fish baits from what we could catch (spanish flag seemed the most productive). I used mainly either the vexed Dhu slow or Inchiku in 180 - 250 grmas depending on drift speed. We caught Red emperor to 7.5kg, chinaman & plenty of XOS long nose emperor (that trick you into thinking youve got a big red). Suprisingly we only caught one trout line fishing despite seeing so many on the dives we did.

With the bottom fish and fillets expertly handled, our focus seamlessly transitioned to topwater fishing. We eagerly cast our lines towards any rocky outcrop or reef edge along the exterior of the reef, the GT's were off the chew and we struggled to get the bite, but the spanish armarda were out in full force with the biggest going 25 kilo taking an ocean legacy keeling stickbait. These beasts stripped our lure collections as the loved to miss the lures and snip the leaders, (shoulda gone to spec savers)

25 kilo beast

We stayed at the islands for a total of 7 days, doing 5 full days fishing and one half day. The mercury 200hp was super econmical, we budgeted 70l per day but used on average only 50l for a days fishing. The run home from the islands we had 50/50 weather, the first 40k was quiet rough with strong winds from the east the yalta was sitting under 20 knots, with the last 40k to go the wind eased, with fuel to burn we sat on 30 knots for the last run home, with the boat now significantly lighter on the run home the fuel burn at 30 knots was at 1.1km per litre. For the 7 day trip we totaled 580km and used 460 litres

Fortescue river on the way in , low tide 0.6m, but after a high of 3m

We pulled back into the fortescue ramp with around 1 hour until the high, it was at around 2m when we put the boat back on the trailer, we loaded up and left straight away, hitting the river crossing on high tide, as it had now moved into the lesser neap tides, at a 2m high tide the river crossing was pretty much bone dry, with less water in it then when we passed at the start of the week on a low tide.

Setups :

Light jigging -

saltiga bj 4000 ( 40lb tasline)

assassin pitchmaster 1.5 - 3

heavy jigging -

torsa 30 (50lb grinder)

murasame 50125

casting light

saltiga dogfight 8000 (50lb tasline)

saltiga dogfight bg85

casting heavy

saltiga dogfight 8000 (80lb)

saltiga BG85s