20th July 2021Forty Mile Beach

This morning is one of the most lovely mornings in quite awhile, gentle NW wind predicted to drop so it was definitely a fishing day, packed up a picnic lunch and headed off for the day.

Merv had found some spots that looked like could be good fishing areas so we set our sights on them, they were approximately 20kms away, when we got out that far in the open there was a bit of swell running with the wind but wasn't too bad.

We hadn't been fishing too long and I caught a sizable very pretty fish that we didn't know what it was, certainly more than big enough to keep but I thought it was too pretty and we really didn't need it, so it was safely released then I caught another smaller pretty one, different type but it went back also.

While we were fishing I started hearing weird sounds, it wasn't long before I realized that it was whales calling, with all the many whales we have been around, we have never heard the noise they were making, it was so loud and everywhere.

They were getting closer and very active, there was dozens of them, since my two bad experiences in Exmouth gulf being around whales there is no way I wanted to be there.

We headed in about 8kms to fish but it wasn't long before a whale surfaced approximately 

50 yrds away so we moved again.

We saw a lot of small tuna busting up so we tried with a lure to get one with out any success, we spent the rest of the afternoon fishing, I caught a nice black snapper along with a lot of other fish that went back.

The breeze dropped completely and we had a glass off no movement at all and the tide wasn't running so the bites stopped, it became very hot so around 4o'clock we decided to call it a day.

After cleaning the fish we were talking to Ash, a young man who was there with his family, Ash goes spear fishing, he told us he was in the water and saw two whales, he said it looked as though they may be mating, he got out of the water into his rubber boat to watch them but the big male saw him and charged, Ash said the whale was leaving quite a wake it was going so fast, so he started his motor and took off, the whale chased him for quite a distance, meanwhile the female left.

Ash also showed us anornate tropical crayfish he caught it was almost 3kg, later that evening one of his sons brought us some cray and some fish wings to try.

It was another warm magnificent night.