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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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