KB’s Fishing Trip (Sat 7/11/98)
Friends who came along : Hieu, Mohan, Behrooz, and Unsal. Another good
friend Robert couldn't make it that day.
Location : The town of Cungulla, a small fishing community about 40
minutes drive south of Townsville city which is where I live. And
Townsville city is in North Queensland, Australia (top right hand side of
Australia).
Summary of fish story : Get up at 5 am and get fishing gear ready. Then
go to pick up my friends Behrooz and Mohan from their house (they live about 5
minutes away from my place). Then to meet up with two other friends Hieu and Unsal
outside department of Electrical and Computer engineering at James Cook Uni -
which is only 5 mins from my place too. We decided that Behrooz and Mohan were
going to stay in my car, even though I asked Mohan if he wanted to go in Hieu’s
car instead because Mohan was crammed up in the back of my tiny car. But Mohan
said that he wanted to stick with me and Behrooz so that was fine. Then after
that, we went to WalkAbout Service station to pick up lots of chips, chocolate
biscuits, softdrink, and ice. To be exact, we got two cans of Pringles Chips
(the ones you pop top), big bag of Samboy salt and vinegar chips, two packs of
Arnott’s Tim Tams, 3 bottles of 2 litre softdrinks - Sprite, Solo, and Kirk’s
Lemonade (we had more in the car anyway).
I had to buy a pair of sunnies at the Servo too because I couldn’t find mine
anywhere at home. The ones I bought I thought were pretty cool, except I later
tested them out and they weren’t polaroid. Oh well.
After filling up petrol as well, we were ready to roll out and headed south
along the Bruce Highway towards Cungulla. To beat the boredom along the way, we
listened to radio station and I started explaining what kind of fishing gear we
use to Mohan, who had never been fishing before. The drive itself is very nice
and smooth, with the usual tropical north Queensland vegetation of eucalyptus
trees and things like that. And after the recent rains, things were quite
green. Many years ago, when I first went to Cungulla, not that many people
wanted to go there because a long stretch towards that town was just bumpy dirt
road and strictly 40-50 km/hr zone. But now, the whole stretch is smooth
bitumen and everyone can access that community. Except the problem with easy
access is overfishing, and I’ve seen the decline in the number of fish caught
these days. It is also because the council ripped out all the trees in the
water to ‘beautify’ the area. So they basically ripped out some feeding places
of fish.
Ok...we got safely to Cungulla around 8 am or so, parking in some sandy bit
close to the beach. It was a beautiful morning. Very relaxing atmosphere there.
It was Unsal and Mohan’s first time to the place, and they were already
pleased. After unloading all the fishing gear from the cars, we took a couple
of photos then headed down the beach to get set up to fish.
It looked like a great day to get some fish, with quite a high tide of around 3
metres by 11 am. However, we found that the fish weren’t on the bite...maybe
because of the recent rains and they were hanging out in the deeper parts
because they don’t like the freshwater from the rain up close to the beach.
Anyway, the lack of fish was made up by an abundance of North Queensland
mudcrab, which can sometimes be caught using fishing line and dead prawn as
bait. In fact the crabs were everywhere that day and we caught around 6 of
them, pretty big ones too. I think if we used crab pots that day, we would have
gotten many for a very big feast. But 6 was quite good and we cooked them up on
the spot for the most tasty beach barbeque you can have. Behrooz was prepared
this time as well, bringing salt, pepper and lemon!! Lots of credit goes to
Behrooz because he has been chief cook for this trip as well as for the
previous one. Top stuff! We also managed to catch a couple of fish and that
went nicely towards the barbeque too. The way we cook the catch is just by
collecting up a whole heap of firewood and then burning it over rocks - nice
and natural, and fun. The crab was absolutely delicious! In fact, my mouth is
watering now even just thinking about it again.
Ok...here’s some pics for all to see. The pics aren't too large in file size so
it doesn't take too long to load anymore. And turn up brightness and contrast
too please. Please note that unusual objects in the sky observed in some photos
are not UFO's but most likely due to dirty glass on my scanner.
Pic 1 is me and the guys at the carpark. Meet my friends. From left to right are Unsal,
Behrooz, and Hieu. Mohan is taking the photo.
Pic 2 is a shot of the guys getting ready to do some
fishing. I'm taking the photo, sort of looking ahead out to the beach in front.
The tide at the time was still very low. And it's a very nice view all around,
and there's nobody else here yet but us guys.
Pic 3 is a shot of Unsal by himself. At the time, my
camera is pointed to the right side now. You can see part of the nice North
Queensland coastline!
In pic 4 , we have a picture of Hieu who had just
caught a crab. But the crab was being very naughty and tried to get away after
it temporarily escaped and was trying to run away. Hieu managed to put a foot
on the crab (very flukey hehehe) and the crab decided to give him a bit of a
surprise on his foot...using it’s claw! As you can see...one claw is biting on
his towel, and if you look closely at his shoe...you can see where the other
claw is! The claw just latched onto his shoe and did not let go. But the claw
broke off and remained in that locked position! Ouch!!!
Pic 5 is a close up of the crab claw latched onto
Hieu’s shoe.
Pic 6 is Mohan taking it very easy on a beautiful day
out on the beach. His shirt underneath has somehow gathered together around his
belly - just to clear up any misconceptions :))
In Pic 7, we have Unsal, Behrooz, and Hieu cooking up
the catch.
Pic 8 is a nice pic of us having the tastiest BBQ of
fresh crabs and fish you can get.
Pic 9 is a group shot of me and my mates just before
going home. The camera was resting on an esky with 10 second delay but it
wasn’t focused properly for some reason.
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Kenny's homepage.
Burdekin River Bridge Trip (22/5/99)
Pic 1 Close up of our catch
Pic 2 Cooking up
Alva Beach Trip (27/6/99)
Pic 3 Mohan, Unsal, and me pumping yabbies for bait
the day before trip. Live yabbies are one of the best baits for bream, whiting,
and flathead.
Pic 4 Me just after catching a flathead
Pic 5 Displaying the catch. Behrooz holding a big
bream, Unsal with flathead, me with two sand whiting
Pic 6 Close up of the catch - whiting, and bream,
surrounded by flathead. Can you spot the two toes?
Pic 7 Cooking time!
Aplin's Weir saltwater side (Sun 15/8/99)
Pic 1 Tilapia caught by KB, using Shakespear Ugly
Stik, and Ambassadeur 6500-C. The tilapia is silvery when it is fresh out of
the water, but soon changes to a dark colour (this one here is changing
already). It is a noxious fish, an introduced species, and should not be
released when caught. In fact, there is a large fine of thousands of dollars
imposed for releasing tilapia. Can you see that the fish here is looking
towards the camera?
Crabbing Trip in south Townsville (Sun 24/10/99)
While today's trip was not so successful in the way of catching fish and crabs,
we managed to catch one nice legal sized male mudcrab. Unsal caught it in the
crab dilly. It was quite a good one. The crab was cooked on an open fire. It
was delicious. Later, we drove to another location in South Townsville but the
tide was too low to go crabbing. But along the rocks, we found some of the
largest oysters that I had ever seen..and they were very tasty, and filling due
to their large size. Unfortunately, the camera was left in the car so we can
only get some pictures of these in future trip. But here's some nice pics of
our trip to south Townsville.
Pic 1 Getting set up. Left to right - Mohan,
Krishna, and Unsal.
Pic 2 Unsal with the mudcrab. Left to right -
Krishna, Unsal, and Mohan. Unsal is well protected from the intense sun (good
idea). Krishna's head is partly blocking Castle Hill, which is a hill made out
of granite, and it is a landmark of Townsville city.
Pic 3 Unsal and me with our crab! (just before
cooking time). Those dark rings are not due to lack of sleep, but is due to the
black felt on the shades of my sunglasses heheh.
Another Alva Beach Trip (Last trip for the year) (Sat 6/11/99)
This trip was a good one, even though no flathead and bream were caught. We
caught 8 good size grunter, a snubnose dart, jewfish, a catfish, a shovel nose
ray, and a mudcrab. Many 'rubbish' fish were also caught, which are those ones
not considered as table fish. They can be especially a nuisance when they hang
around in large numbers.
Pic 1Some of our catch is on the barbeque - at a
park at Alva Beach
Pic 2Unsal (left), and Behrooz cooking up some the
fish we caught
Pic 3From left to right : Me, Unsal, Mohan, Behrooz.
While my face is well protected by sunscreen, it would have been a good idea to
have some on the neck too!
Pic 4The tasty fish barbeque prepared by Behrooz.
Thanks!
Pic 5The fish on the barbeque again, with a mudcrab
caught by Mohan
Lure fishing trip to Townsville breakwall (Sun 11/2/01)
I caught a nice barramundi. It was a couple of centimetres under-size, so
it was released again after some photos were taken
Me and the barramundi I caught using a blue Killalure minnow lure with white
underside and a pink throat
Saban (Unsal's father in law) holding up the barra