DATELINE: MAY 17, 2025 – FREMANTLE, AUSTRALIA
For as many times as I have been to Australia – roughly 50 – I had spent very little time in the western part of the country. Indeed, my only excursion there was last year’s adventure to Perth and Exmouth. Epic fishing to be sure, but I left without encountering my main obsession in the region – the Samson Fish. These freakishly-strong amberjack relatives inhabit the reefs of Western Australia, and I have longed for one since the first time Steve Baty told me about them over a beer in 1997. They are a common jigging target, but alas, my days in Perth last year were far too windy to give them a proper shot. As you of course recall, I vowed at the end of that blog to come back for a rematch.
So here I was, a year later, heading to Australia for a business trip. I scheduled a long weekend before the meetings to try again. The weather looked great, and I set up two full days with guide Allan Bevan, a local superstar who excels at both samsons and dhufish, another local gamefish I hadn’t gotten last year.
It’s a long, long way from Alamo, California to Fremantle, Australia. Fourteen hours from San Francisco to Sydney, a layover, and then five more hours to Perth. I landed on a Friday afternoon, hired a car to run me around for bait and Red Bull, then to my hotel – Be Fremantle – which is right on the water to facilitate shore-based fishing. (The same spot where I added the elusive tommyrough to my species list in 2024.)
The weather continued to look outstanding. I grabbed my gear, walked all of 100 feet to the jetty, and started baiting hooks. It is always such a satisfying feeling to fly that far and have it all work out. 26 hours after I walked out my front door in California, I sat down on the rocks and started fishing. First, I cast a big slab bait – there just had to be some unusual rays out there. Then I tossed some smaller baits. Plenty of the usual suspects showed up – puffers, butterfish, gobbleguts, bream, and tarwhine were there in numbers. Oddly, there were no trumpeters, which did not break my heart – perhaps the 9000 of them I caught last year had gotten the message and had moved elsewhere.
Around 6pm, I got a small strike on a sabiki tight to the rocks, and pulled up a cardinalfish that got my immediate attention, because, well, I had never seen one quite like it.
A quick look at Hutchins’ Sea Fishes of Southern Australia verified it was a Western Striped Cardinalfish, and I was on the scoreboard.
Moments later, I got a whiting that looked slightly different from the dozens of others I had already gotten.
Thanks to Dr. Jeff Johnson, it was identified as a yellow-finned whiting, species two of the trip. I had been on the water less than 90 minutes.
This was also my 11th whiting species, caught mostly in Australia, but also in places as diverse as Thailand, Japan, and Israel. I think this is the last one that can be identified without a team of scientists present.
It was a pleasant evening, and the slight breeze had dropped off to almost complete stillness – boding very well for the next two days offshore. I was considering getting some sleep when the larger rod sagged and started paying out line. I carefully picked it up and opened the bail – something was chomping on my squid and moving off toward the harbor entrance. I let it swim a few yards, then reeled into the circle hook. Whatever it was pumped hard a few times and tried to swim back into the harbor, but it wasn’t big enough to take any line off the Thunnus 10000. I prayed silently that it wasn’t an eagle ray. Moments later, a familiar but unfamiliar face came out of the depths – it was a fiddler ray, but the southern version, so a new species and likely a world record. It was barely hooked and just out of reach, so without hesitation, I jumped onto a submerged rock and landed the fish. My low hikers could dry.
Three species and a world record in one short evening. And the main event was yet to come.
A gorgeous night in Fremantle harbor. Or harbour.
Dinner, by a coincidence I’ll call happy, was with old buddy David, who happened to be in town.
There we are, saying hello to a co-worker.
The Tourist Wheel on the Esplanade, one of Fremantle’s nighttime sights, and an excellent navigational marker for the overserved.
When I got back to the hotel, I marveled at the perfect weather and gorgeous forecast. The big game was in play for tomorrow, and Allan texted and said “All systems go, see you 6am at the wharf.” I went to sleep content with a good day and looking forward to a better one.
It is usually at these times, when all seems right with the world, that disaster strikes. I got up early and walked down to the landing. There was Allan, but his face told me that something was terribly wrong. “Oh #@%$” I thought. The situation was indeed dire. The drive train on his boat had blown, but might be fixable during the day. In the meantime, he had arranged for me to go on another boat with local skipper George and a small fishing club group. We would mostly focus inshore, but there was still some chance at a dhufish and certainly a shot at whatever oddball might be swimming around. It was better than nothing, and I was grateful that George and company welcomed me along. But I was dying to know how we could work out a big game trip the next day.
I set my jigging stuff aside and rigged for lighter reef fish. Things started well – I got a strong hit on a #4 hook and whatever it was ran hard on my ten pound braid. When it finally surfaced, I was surprised to see a very large damselfish – well over a pound. Swinging it on board, I could see it was a scalyfin, cousin to a species that I had gotten in Sydney years ago.
It turned out to be McCullough’s scalyfin, species four and record two of the trip.
I settled in for what I hoped would be a species bonanza, but the Fish Gods, unsatisfied with destroying Allan’s boat, shut me down. I caught plenty of stuff – there were flathead, whiting, and wrasses everywhere, but these were repeat customers. I kept in constant touch with Allan, hoping with all my might that his boat could be seaworthy for Sunday. I snooped around Google a bit, and it didn’t seem like there any charter alternatives for deep jigging, so I tried not to consider that I might have flown an extra ten hours to miss my targets a second time. I knew I could stick it out on the shore, but it dawned on me that I might need a third trip to get the Samson, and I wasn’t sure I would ever get weather this perfect again.
As we got to lunchtime, Allan’s texts took a dark turn. There was no way his boat would be ready. I asked about alternatives; he said he would call around and get with me if he could find something, but he had his doubts. In the meantime, I kept fishing. While the species weren’t happening, I had plenty of fun and managed to land two fairly large wrasses – a brown that broke my record from last year, and a western king that qualified for an all-tackle.
The brown, four ounces bigger than last year’s fish.
And the western king, one of the best-looking wrasses in the region.
I had been fishing less than 24 hours, and had four species and four records. But all I could worry about was how in the world I was going to get on the water Sunday. I needed that Samson. There was no news from Allan, which could have been good or bad, but for now, I was in purgatory. In Perth. So Perthatory. (This was Marta’s idea, so blame her. There’s also a Sylvester the cat joke in there someplace, but I’ll leave that alone.)
Steve and George at the end of a solid day.
We got into harbor late afternoon, and I should have been thrilled with the species and the records. But as I said goodbye to George and crew, I was heartsick at the idea of not getting out the next day. I had searched far and wide, a hundred miles in each direction, and found nothing. I spoke to a couple of IGFA guys, but both were offshore trolling specialists. Allan had gone silent, and I bravely prepared my gear for the evening session, not accepting defeat but having no idea what I was going to do. Thise fish were out there, perhaps 20 miles out, so close, but so far. Allan was really my only chance at a connection, and it wasn’t sounding positive from him.
Just after 5pm, I was back at my hotel, mournfully planning out a long night and day of shore fishing, when my phone rang. Prepared for what would either be tremendous news or a crushing blow, I picked it up to answer.
Steve
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