3 Fish for Ilse

The day kicked off very lazy, I filleted last nights catch which always attracts attention as the filleting table is located in prominent spot at the caravan park and everyone walking past wants to know where and how the fish was caught. With all the talking it takes about an hour to fillet a fish.

WA is currently experiencing a real cold snap with daytime temperatures in Broome only 26DegC (instead 30DegC). Here at Kalbarri the temps are in the low twenties during the day and low teens during the night.

After fish cleaning and a quick trip to the shops it was time to do some maintenance on our fishing gear, mainly sharpening of the filleting knifes.
In the afternoon we hired a little tinny and went up the Murchison river for couple of hours which got us one 33cm Sea Mullet. However, the Sea Mullet was not caught on a hook but scooped up from the surface. He was well alive and made a number of escapes but after a little bit of chasing he was too tiered. I'm not sure what was wrong with him to spend so much time on the surface, but the expression "stunned Mullet" comes to mind.

Back on land we read in the fish book that Sea Mullet isn't considered a good table fish, but I filleted him anyway. Tonights dinner, consisting of yesterday's Mulloway (or Jew Fish) and the Sea Mullet, was enjoyed by everyone and the Sea Mullet tasted quite nice, probably because it was fresh.

After dinner, with most of the evening chores done, we decided to do some night fishing at the Kalbarri jetty and this time the girls came along too.
This time with River Prawn as bait, Ilse's reel started to scream almost immediately as a very substantial fish made a run. It took 3 of us to land this fish which, in typical Mulloway fashion, made lots of big runs. With a length of 65cm this was the biggest fish so far on this trip.

Not wanting to be outdone by the rest of the Family, Ilse had got another big one within 20 minutes and just to make sure, she hooked a third fish which gave a really good fight. Lots of long runs and constant high load on the rod which bending 180Deg as the fish went under the jetty. The rod was handed from Ilse to Alexander and then onto me. This was the biggest and heaviest fish of the day, being marginally larger but much fatter than the first.

Catching them was the easy part, but if you look at the photo you can see how disgusted Ilse was with having to put her hand into the cut throat of a Fish - that's all part of being a successful fisherwoman!

Alexander and I caught a Bream each. We ended up giving one big Mulloway to another fisherman who wasn't quite as lucky and took the remaining fish home. By 10pm we were back at the caravan with the night's catch and if Ilse keeps this up we'll have to get a bigger fridge!