Ep11 So many barra, too many crocs! What it's really like Kimberley Fishing + crabbing in Cone Bay

‪@Hookedonwildventures‬ We anchored and slept on a small island in Cone Bay in the Kimberley region, Western Australia for three nights. It seemed like the perfect island to be camping on for the week that we were in that area. There are lots of untouched creek in the area with lots of barramundi, lots of mud crabs but also a lot of salt-water crocodiles. We didn't see any other boat try and catch fish the creeks at the same time as us.

Tides are super important!
It's a shallow creek that nearly dries out at low tide. There are also lots of sandbanks that get exposed. We only have a few hours to fish and crab before we have to head back out of the creek. Otherwise, you get stuck in the creek til the next high tide which could be ten hours later! So getting the tides right when going in and out of the creek is super important.

Mud crabs at the first and second push of the incoming tide
Mud crab hunting and cooking is an important and an exciting part of our trip. We find that we get the most number of mud crabs in our dilly pots by targeting and dropping pots in time for the first and second push of the incoming tide. We only have four dilly pots on board with us whilst regulation in WA allows up to ten dilly pots (or drop nets) per person/boat and the individual limit is five mud crabs per person.

Margie really enjoys the thrill of dropping dilly pots and checking for mud crabs. It can get pretty hot inside the creeks so being able to take the polycraft in the shade or catching a bit of wind between checking pots is a god-send.


The small (not big as Margie puts it) island where we camped
It was good to have the island to camp at, allowing us to set up and set down our camp stretchers and chairs just once. The island is flat, no bugs, looks pre-historic and old with the big rocks you can sit on to watch the sunset. It's big enough for anyone to take a walk around for a bit of a leg-stretch without getting annihilated with sandflies (as one would if walking on the beach) in this area.


The anchorage for our bigger boat
We had to anchor in enough water as the tide dropped 7-8 metres at the time that we were there. We anchored too close to the island and because we have the small polycraft, we figured it was better to anchor much further out in the deeper channel with a front and a rear anchor.


Fuel and water
We travelled with 1,700 L of fuel onboard though we didn't end up using it all (1,100L in the tanks of our boat and an extra 3 x 200L fuel bladders). The fuel bladders collapse and fold away in the kill tank (that is now used as a storage compartment and not for fish, lol). We launched our boats about 150 km from Cone Bay so we travel up the coast and use most of our fuel getting there and back. We hardly use any fuel whilst we are in the area.

If you want to do the same trip of island catch and cook, wilderness cooking make the food seem to make food even tastier! contact us and we'll share all our safety tips with you. Or if you have other ideas on how your trip was better, let's connect and leave us a message in the comments section.

See you in the water!


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