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This was the first group I'd led with the new travel arrangements and it went off without a hitch. This week was dogged by some heavy weather but like Australia, rain is always welcome out on this desert island. An el Nino period in Australia means a la Nina in the eastern Pacific and heavy rain fell on a few days. But we had little wind. Wind and rain is a disaster for bone fishing but a slicked off water surface under heavy clouds makes it easy to spot tailing fish and we had some outstanding sessions on tailers. Most memorable was an afternoon on a falling tide with a glassed off ocean and bigger than average bones sitting on pressure waves on the flats tailing in the current - it was superb. We also had enough brilliant blue sky days to really make it a memorable trip. The Korean Wreck end fired up for a few great days of fishing as well, but the backcountry fishing was the highlight with a couple of 10lb fish landed and many larger fish seen and cast to - they were tough. A few of the guys - Charles Barrett Jnr and Rob Nicholson, took along some serious spin tackle to chuck poppers off the reef edge into the deep blue waters of the Pacific Ocean. They were destroyed on countless occasions and their few remaining poppers became prized possessions. The Charles Barretts, jnr and snr, entertained us each evening tossing poppers in the surf right out in front of the hotel. They copped a kicking from the fish and lost dozens of poppers (my groups are allowed a 30 kilo luggage allowance) and landed bugger all. Red bass and GT's were the most frequently encountered species but goodness knows what else hit those poppers and took them into the reef. Good mates Mark Joseph and John Clark, avowed big fish enthusiasts, brought along some heavy duty gear and planned to fish a day on bones just to say they'd done it and then spend the rest of the week chasing big fish on spin and fly gear. I think its pretty safe to say that they fell in a big way for the bones and spent the rest of the week doing nothing but bonefishing!!!! They are very addictive. The total number of bones caught during the week of 8 fishing days was somewhere around 1,400 by 13 anglers. A great success rate considering the weather we had but as usual the team of guides I work with were just superb. DATES AND DETAILS FOR THE 2007 TRIPI'll be back in 2007 and the dates are 17 - 26th July - this includes your travel days in and out of Sydney so we're on the island 18 - 25th. The cost has not gone up and includes everything except your booze, tips, and other miscellaneous personal expenses. Au $4,490 (INCLUDES ALL TAXES - THERE ARE NO HIDDEN OR UNMENTIONED TAXES HERE!!!!!).
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