Large Cobia
Up the Cape
Our most recent fishing/filming adventure was in the middle of winter, and while the southern states were shivering, we were hard at work sweating it out at the most northern point of Australia (shooting Hook, Line and Sinker really is hard to take sometimes!).
Our Cape York Adventure meant a 7 day mother ship trip from Bamaga, the very top of Cape York, down the western side of the cape to isolated, fish rich waters.
We flew to the Cape from Cairns, you really do realise just how big Queensland is when you do this – the flight in a dodgy, but fast 20 seater takes two hours – that’s a hell of a lot of country between the tip of Australia and Cairns.
When we arrived we talked to some tourists who had driven to the Cape – a near 1000km journey through some of the most unforgiving country on earth. The road has apparently improved out of sight in the past few years, and you could pretty much get most cars in – I’d recommend either a rental or a Triton! You can do the drive in about 14 hours if you wanted to rush - or 3 months if you want to fish your way up!
We’d been to the Cape before so we knew what to expect fishing-wise – it’s nothing short of sensational. The trip starts with a 10 to 12 hour steam down the west coast, our destination was the Skardon River, which we reached under the cover of darkness. We did stop once along the way – to catch one of the millions of Bluefin Tuna which were busting up the water all around us for sushi that night.
We fished offshore on day one, catching Tuna and Mackerel. The highlight came when we spotted a massive turtle – we believed it was a Leatherback Turtle. It must have been 10 foot long and we got close enough for some great footage. While we were busy filming it, Nick noticed the six or seven large fish swimming along side the giant turtle. They were Cobia or Black Kingfish and we both pulled out rods and hooked up straight away. We fought the fish for a long time in shallow water on light line while the turtle just sat on top eating jelly fish! Not even our guide had ever witnessed this, so we were pretty confident no one had ever filmed such a bizarre fishing situation.
It’s these sort of experiences that can happen at the Cape. You should just never put away your camera because you never know what might happen next. Whether it’s spotting pigs and dingos on the beach, crocs in the rivers or giant turtles offshore, there’s always something to see.
The fishing for the next 5 days all sort of blurs into one amazing adventure. I enjoyed catching Golden Trevally off the beach and poloroiding and catching the elusive Permit. I really did most of the my fishing this time around with the fly rod, and it was very rewarding.
We are well through our season of Hook, Line and Sinker now – remember though, we are giving away a brand new Mitsubishi Triton on our last program, all you need to do to enter is visit
www.hooklinesinker.tv and follow the links to the Classic Catch page.
