Surrounded by sea: that is the exciting experience that is extreme fishing on Rottnest.
The fishing scenes on the beautiful island are varied. You can wet a line from a jetty, or rocks, a beach - or at Henrietta you can wade out on the reef and have the beach behind you.
But for water all around there is the natural jetty. You're so far out at low tide it seems like just a hop and a skip to Phillip Rock (but watch out for the ferries!).
The tide surges around you, the water is that deep Rotto blue, there's nowhere to put your bait and you have to be mindful of balance and footing - it is a satisfyingly extreme fishing experience.
We weren't disappointed today: herring, skipjack and a cod or two were landed.
At 1700 we also dropped in to our regular perch at the end of Geordie Bay: more herring and skippy were plucked from the water.
And we saw a snake on the just before the Geordie hill, the alarm went off at the (closed) Aristos, we had a (luke warm) coffee at Dome, the leftover roast from last night was still marvellous.
For lunch today we fired up the smoker. We spread a small amount of mallee sawdust/chips on the inside tray, laid our fillets on the rack above, lit the meths cup below - and left it alone.
After 60 seconds it was smoking like a thousand joss sticks. Eight minutes with the flame - then whip out the flame and let the fillets sit for five minutes, absorbing more smoky goodness.
It was the best smoked stuff we'd ever had: delicate, flavoursome, a hint of honey and spice. And not too fishy. You can even do vegetables in it.
We'll have smoked herring for breakfast, but tonight it's gently fried skipjack and garfish with baked potato and an apple crumble for dessert. And a few German beers.
How about writing a Rottnest poem?
ReplyDeleteSounds divine. Yum gardies :)
ReplyDeleteWe have just returned from 2 wonderful nights on the island. The weather was brilliant and had all the boaties vying for morring spaces in Thompson Bay, where we stayed.
ReplyDeleteHighlights - the weather, the food (for a change), the unit, the wildlife (we had pelicans, stingrays and snakes all within touching distance at various times.)
Lowlights - The pub not serving anything more than chips and pizza between 3-5pm (with no signage to indicate this) The Dome not opening til 8am.
WE were told by the Ferry company on the way over that there would be people roaming Rotto with customer feedback forms, and were asked to take the time to complete them. I was hoping to have the opportunity to do this however sadly did not see one questionnaire.
AS to earlier posts complaining about extensive motor vehicle traffic. I can't say I noticed, however residing at South Thompson meant we didn't wander very far.