Weipa Mission 2014

So back in 2005, me and Martin (a mate and regular fishing buddy) hit Weipa in early June, and we had a ball. We fished with Dave Donald's guiding operation, and caught hell out of the tuna. 

I was dead keen for round 2, and I convinced my mate Adam (aka Haystack) it would be a good idea. Dave had shut the doors on his business, so we decided to fish with Alan Philliskirk's operation, Weipa Fly Fishing.

Now initially we planned the trip for 2013, but I kinda stuffed that up by being hospitalised at the time (in a coma no less). That could have been the end of the trip right there, but thankfully I'd recovered well enough to travel and fish come 2014, and Alan was good enough to refund our deposit when I initially was hospitalised (so fair play to Alan- he was entitled to keep the deposit given my accident was only a few weeks out from the trip). So we were back in the frame this year.

After plenty of planning and gear preparations, the date finally rolled round and we jumped a plane to Weipa (via Cairns). Nice thing about Weipa in April-May is the weather is ultra-predictable. The same constant SE Winds that make the East Coast a pain to fish at this time of year are your friend in Weipa. You are still hoping for light breezes and clear skies, but you know the wind direction will be offshore at the very least. That's a massive edge Weipa has on other fisheries.

Weipa accom has become much more upmarket. 9 years ago we were in the on site van at the Camp Ground. Fine but scuzzy. This time we were in the Fishing Lodge. Still at the camp ground, but heaps more comfy, secure, pleasant & well appointed (think air con & flat screens). There's also great balconies, a damn good view (sunsets over the water), but best of all a private chef who cooks all your meals. Sweet.

So the first couple of days were forecast to be the pick of the week. Lighter winds and clearer skies. Clear skies are critical for success on the flats, and lighter winds are better for just about all the fishing, but especially going wider and chasing pelagics (like tuna). Even an offshore will chop up the water if it's strong enough.

We discussed our plans & expectations for the trip on the flights north. 2005 had been a complete tuna fest (which was exactly what we wanted). This trip we were definitely hoping for a couple of good tuna sessions but wanted the experience the flats and the creeks an maybe even sneak in a dredge with sinking lines on deep water.

Day 1: Run to Boyd

Weipa sits at the Eastern corner of Albatross Bay, with Boyd Pt marking the Southern headland of the bay, and Duyfken Pt the Northern headland. Both headlands fish well, but Boyd and the Southern reach gets better protection from the SE wind. So we set sail south with guide Jason Owey and his awesome boat Wasabi, a 6.2 metre fibreglass Hooker running a 115 Yamaha: 

We didn't get halfway to Boyd and we ran into a sizeable school of tuna. First cast I was on. 15 minute fight later my first tuna was in the boat. Tuna never disappoint. A searing first run, loads of backing out, a hard fought battle to get the fish back into close quarters and a slugfest to get it netting range.

So 1 cast, 1 fish. 1st day of the trip. Feeling rather clever to be honest.

The next hour put me back in my place. Hooking up was relatively easy. Landing them wasn't. The sharks weren't helping, neither were the cheap flies I'd bought which were straightening mid fight.

This was Adam's first experience of tuna, and the mayhem they can create. My first tuna session was a procession of botched casts, fish lost mid fight, sharkings, losing fish to poor line management, and zero tuna in the boat. Adam's first session was similar. Still if you've not hooked tuna on fly before, it's hard to be upset - they are an epic experience even to hook. And this was in the first couple of hours of day one. Plenty of time to land that first tuna yet.

So we continued the run south, dropping in at One Tree beach to look for Manta Rays (or as they are known in Weipa, Flappers). One doesn't try catch the Mantas, rather one of the entourage of fish that tend to trail them around while the Mantas scoff jelly prawns. The Mantas often stir up baitfish so any trailing fish get an easy feed. Idea being you cast a baitfish fly at the Mantas, and one of the entourage fish peel off and scoff it. All very cool and visual.

Adam's first efforts worked a treat. After a couple of casts a rather respectable cobia ate his fly. Problem being the fish was again lost next to the boat. 

I was getting a little worried that perhaps Adam's luck was out. As much as it was early doors for the trip, you don't want losing fish to become a pattern.

Haystack though responded in great fashion, hooking an even bigger cobe that after a great battle came to hand. It was a great cobe that topped the meter mark. So much for being snakebit. 

Made the Cobia I caught 20 minutes later look like a baitfish.

So we did finally get to the Flats at Boyd. I opened the batting, but I'll freely admit I'm crap at spotting fish on the flats. I did get off one rather good shot at a Tuskfish, but I blew the shot by focusing more on my loose line getting wrapped around the electric rather than hooking the tuskie. Soon after that effort, I got the hook and Adam had a crack. 

Adam was a flats rookie, but seemed to have a better flair for spotting. He put in a series of good shots at Blue Bastards and Tuskies. One particular BB lingered so Adam got 8 shots in, and the BB eyeballed Haystack's shrimp pattern every time. And the 8th time it ate it. 

BBs aren't massive fish but fight suspiciously like a tractor. And this particular bluey was also healthy specimen, but Adam kept it out of the rubble, and it eventually yielded. Haystack was stoked. As he should have been - this was an epic fish.

Yeah, the cobe was bigger, but the way one catches BBs and the difficulty of fishing the flats made this a more meritorious catch.

We then headed back to Weipa running into big Queenies on way back. I hooked up first on a creasie that was utterly monstered. It didn't give me the scrap a tuna offers. Far less long powerful runs, a lot more acrobatics. All came to nought though when I lost him boatside, my 20lb leader chaffing through. 

I continued with the creasie, while Adam followed Jason's advice and went the subsurface clouser option. Pays to listen to the guide. Adam nailed a couple of big queenies while my creasie went untouched. And by big, I again mean over the 100cm. 

So not a bad day for the guy I was worried was snakebit.

Day 2 dawned nicely, so we thought we'd try replicate Day 1 

Again we got on to tuna 1st up. Same area but more spread and patchy. Tougher to hook, but we thought the lack of density would mean less sharks.

Bzzzzzt. Wrong.

If anything there were more sharks and they seemed pissed off at the lack of tuna to eat. Based on the 12 footer that headbutted the engine, they held us responsible.

We did though both manage to get a tuna past the sharks. No small effort given the late slugfest tuna offer up (and that's when most sharkings occur - at the end of the fight). Having a 40lb leader really helps at these moments. It's allows the guide to approach landing that bit more aggressively. 

Adam's 1st ever Tuna:

My Longie:

My day was about to get better though

Having landed a tuna each, we set sail for One Tree to again hopefully see Mantas. I had first shot, and Jase called one of the Manta wingmen as a big trevally. And that was exactly what peeled off the Manta to chase my pink surf candy. And having eaten, it gave me one hell of a close range battle. In the flats shallows the risk of sharking is low, but nonetheless there was much whooping in the boat when the trev was in the net. Most of it from me.

It was one hell of a big Golden Trevally. 92cm. Hard to gauge weight, but I'd say at least 9 kilos (edit: turns out my Goldy weight estimations might be a little awry, 7.5 or 8kg might be more the mark).

So before lunch on Tuesday, and we'd ticked most of the trip's boxes.

We set sail for flats. I was still feeling euphoric so kept the cue racked and gave Adam first shot. He used the time well, hooking a very sold tuskie. Annoyingly the tuskie bricked him, but between that and yesterday's BB, that's a hell of a flats debut.

After another 30 min or so we headed back to One Tree & manta town. I picked up a couple of cobia (including my best of trip but nothing to rival Adam's monster). There were some big fish in there though.

With about 30 minutes left on the water, we again tried to find queenies, but instead found tuna. And (sigh) sharks. The hand cramp I got after the first tuna I hooked made me decide my race was run for the day. Adam had no joy getting one past the sharks anyhow.

Wed: beaches and creeks

The wind kicked, and the cloud was thick. So neither the flats or out wide would fly.

So we shuffled south to Thud and around to Norman Creek. The plan was to snag bash for barra, and if the wind dropped or cloud dispersed we'd walk the flats at the mouth of the Norman.

It's very different fishing to either the flats or chasing tuna. It's close range fishing, but your cast needs to be tight to the snags. Seriously tight. Our first efforts were clumsy, but I started to get my groove back, and Adam too started getting his fly in right spots. 

He was rewarded with the first barra, follow by respectable jack. We also saw some mid river commotion - a queenie running amok. Indeed a 70 cm version ate my fly. Rather good for river specimen.

I added two barra soon including a (legal) 60+ cm fish after thanks to some improved casting.

The wind backed off a little and the skies cleared. So we walked the beach at the creek mouth and did some sightcasting. Good fun but the fish we ran into didn't set any records - small queenies, goldies, brassies all came to hand. Last week that same spot yielded a 105 cm queenie.

The run back to Weipa underlined how big Weipa is. T'was a 65 minute run back from the Norman, keeping in mind Jason's boat (Wasabi) is a beast. 6.2m Hooker with 115 Yamaha. 

Thursday: Bad Moon Rising

Thursday dawned much like Wednesday. Breezy and overcast. We also had the new moon to contend with. 

New moons bring big tides and dark nights, so the bait can get very spread out. The big tides also mean the window to fish certain locations is far narrower.

Well that was the theory.

So when we ran into busting Longtail tuna at the harbour mouth we thought the theory might have been utter bollocks. Adam landed his, I lost mine to a dodgy knot (d'oh).

The tuna thinned out so we went in search of greener pastures. In retrospect, we should have stuck with them.

We tried the flats. We tried out wide. We looked for Mantas. No dice. Between the wind, the cloud and the tides, the fish seemed to have gone off the chew.

We were fishing with Alan today, and he's racked more time on Weipa waterways than just about anyone, period.  If we couldn't find fish with him, we wouldn't find them with anyone.

We did have a short flurry of action on a beach laden with jelly prawns. Nothing to do cartwheels about, but a few blue salmon, smallish trevs and queenies came to hand.

A decent blue salmon:

We did run into a small patch of tuna running back to the harbour, but I dropped him mid fight.

This was definitely our slowest day.

Friday: Unfinished business

The weather was kinda similar to Thursday. The only good news was we were 24 hours further away from the New Moon tides, giving the predators a bit more time to get their house in order.

We asked Alan to get us on to either Tuna or big queenies (with who I had unfinished business with from Monday).

Tuna were no dice. We looked long and hard but didn't see either birds or splashes.

So all of our remaining chips were stacked on big queenies. No pressure Alan.

Al felt the best shot at a big queenie would come at the bottom of the tide at the mouth of Weipa harbour. So we took up residence on a big sand spit at the Harbour mouth and fished into the channel.

There were a few big slashes in the water, so there were definitely queenies about. The question was would one eat our fly.

10 minutes of casting later we got our answer when I came tight. Another 5 minutes on, my queenie was on the beach. I was rather chuffed.

Adam added one himself soon after.

Rather nice way to round out the trip that.

We'd exceeded our expectations. We both landed a couple of tuna and had a couple of fun tuna sessions, we both got a big other critter off the flats (my Goldy, Adam's BB), both nailed some good queenies and cobia, had the fun of not only seeing but fishing mantas. We'll take that.

In retrospect coming over a full or new moon was a little risky, but we had a limited window of dates. This is the busiest time of year for the guides. In fact April/May of 2015 is already littered with bookings.

This is my 2nd Weipa trip (Adam's first), and this was the better trip. There were more tuna first trip but less variety on offer. I'd also say the guides, their boats and the accom were a notch up this time.

Fish of the trip? For Adam, his Blue Bastard, for me the Goldy. Hard to pick a winner from that lot. The BB is the more revered flats species (at least infly fishing circles), and they are tougher to hook, but that Goldy was an absolute ripper, and when they get big they don't need to be given any explanation or context to impress.

So for anyone toying with the idea of a Weipa Trip, here are my tips:

Book Alan and Weipa Fly Fishing , even if you are bait fishos. They had a couple of people fishing bait that same week and they cleaned up. Great guys who know their stuff. We fished with Jason and Alan, but also met Notso one evening. I'd happily fish with any of them.




Avoid the full & new moon if possible. If you can't c'est la vie,




Don't fret about camera gear. The guides have great cameras and even better camera skills. Its not worth dragging your gear up here (baggage is very restricted on the flights into Weipa)

And for the fly fishos:



The Rio Outbound line (basically an integrated intermediate shooting head) is awesome for the bluewater but not for flats. It's too dumpy on the flats.




A 9 weight is ideal, but bring two combos. It minimises the amount you need to chop & change when moving from the bluewater to flats.




Fish 40lb leader straight through in the blue water. It helps when landing fish if sharks are about, and gives you a bit of protection from the raspy mouths of some species 




Cheap flies are rubbish. They might seem a way to save cash, but you have zero confidence in them especially when the hooks start bending. I'd far prefer to have 2-3 decent flies from Beechy than 12 rubbish flies that won't hold a fish. False economy. Beechy ties a mean fly, his crabs and shrimp patterns were awesome on the flats, and his big pink candies undid tuna, barra, queenies, that goldy and jacks. Give him a yell before your next mission, be it to Weipa or elsewhere. He's a font of both information and quality flies.