The Hemo's Big Adventure: To fish or not to fish that is the question

Here are what kept us busy over the weekend & for the few days before we headed back into Town.

The little sand bar out the front of camp on low tide. Mullet would get land locked & make it a lot easier to target

The one outlet from the tidal lagoon above would be the exit & entry points for the schools of bait fish that would head into the safety of the lagoon to escape the predators.

A good size mud crab scoots past headed for the mangroves

This day we decided to head to the eastern end of Honeymoon bay. A few days before on an incoming tide we had a croc sit about 200 mtrs off shore & take a good look at us for over half an hour. He was the only bit of debris that didn't drift in with the incoming tide. I thought I would break up the routine a bit & fish at a different spot. This end of the beach was meant to be good for Mangrove Jack but all we got was the jack without the mangrove!

We had one of our workmates from Broome flew past us in a chopper on Wednesday only 500 mtrs off shore headed to the communications tower on the far left of the photo. Turned out the Solar site had a few issues & need some manual assistance with a generator. It would have been less than 1km away from me . If only I could have helped but the fishing was far to good... Bummer

I managed to catch my best tally of bait fish in one cast of the throw net at the mangroves to the east of the beach. I nailed about 25 of these herring but they didn't enjoy it much. After 10 minutes most where belly up in the bucket. I tried my best to keep them going & threw them back but they all floated to the surface & washed up on the beach with the incoming tide. Mullet can last several hours so I was quite surprised when this happened. I like to think I try and fish for the future and my kids . I hate to kill fish unnecessarily. The crabs had a feast care of my slip up.

Another impressive Boab tree in a spectacular setting.

Yet another hazard in the water. A Box jelly fish.

I first came across one of these early in the week when I was out wading for bait in the shallows. It would have been only a foot away from my calf muscle. At first I thought it was 4 small fish swimming in a school and then I lent down for a closer look & got the hell out of the water QUICKLY. They are yet another nasty from northern Australia that can kill.

One of the aboriginal guys in town got stung as a teenager. He still has deep scars decades later.
The water was so inviting that I almost contemplated going for a sit in the little lagoon a few days before. After that I would only go to the waters edge & no further.

After a few casts I gave up on getting any more bait for the afternoon. The tentacles can extend for up to a meter behind them. lucky I was up wind of the last one I had a run in with

The last mullet goes out for the day...He doesn't look to disappointed. The water in the ocean is far cooler than that in the bucket. If you hook them correctly just under the rear dorsal fin you can let them go when your finished & they will still be alive & fairly healthy despite the experience.

Ok it was small but it was our lunch 30 minutes later & it tasted great!

Troy was the shark charmer. He has a fear of sharks & maybe they sensed it as he managed to catch quite a few while on Honeymoon

What its it? dunno but at first it put up a good fight

Generator repair 101. I was totally fished out on this particular day so I hung about camp for the afternoon. Last season Frenchy was away in Kunanurra for a few days & let the place run itself. On of the tourists had a dispute with some of the other campers and on leaving he thought he would get his own back and jam a crowbar into the generator windings to stuff the power for the other campers. He was successful and in addition cost Les about $2000 in damage to the generator. In the end couldn't be fixed. Here we are trying to get the keyway off to allow an adaptor from the old generator to be bolted in place & then transferred onto the old motor.

His Nephews lend a hand. It ain't going anywhere.

After a can of Inox it still wasn't going to budge

A gas axe would have to be plan B but that would be another day.

On the Western side of the beach we had some resident eagles. One sea eagle even came for a closer look at the bait bucket from only a few meters over head. In the end I was leaving them out any live bait that was a bit worse for ware & wouldn't survive back in the water.