Albany's river secrets
- jclarkey990
- Feb 6, 2016
- 4 min read
Unknown by most and kept a secret by some, Albany's Kalgan and King rivers hold an extraordinary river system filled with fish that are known to be hard-to-come by in other parts of WA.
The mighty (sometimes mythic) Mulloway is a Southern Australian icon. Mainly found around inshore areas, the specie gives a great opportunity for land based anglers to catch a fish bigger than the usual
"Pan sized” finessed species that frustrate land base anglers who dream of something larger. Thousands of mulla-hungry fisho’s will make their way down to local beaches from across the west coast every year, in hope of snagging a monster from the surf. However others, who are stuck in bream infested river systems, continually dream of one day snagging that small 50-80cm river gold, also referred to as a 'mythoway' by some.
Estuarine monster mulloway can be hard to come by, even finding yourself with one small "soapie" in most southern WA river systems can be somewhat rare. But, at the very bottom of our great state, the Kalgan and King rivers make the odd "bream by catch" an easily targeted species on the light gear.
Staying along the river from the Kalgan River Caravan Park on a family holiday, gave an irresistible opportunity to fish hard and explore the estuary. An idea was laid beforehand that we would take the yaks down with us on the back of the camper trailer. Getting a frame made up for the kayaks a week earlier, the trailer looked like some beast creation capable of holding to PA's on top of each other. Not only for the present trip, the amped up trailer be a useful tool in the months to come.
I own my own Hobie Outback, although I haven’t found the money to afford my own sounder for the rig yet and as a replacement I have been taking dad's Hobie PA12 in new locations. This is solely to explore what lies beneath and have a better idea of the area before taking out my own yak. After unloading the kayaks from the trailer we were set to explore.
Using the PA for the first time in the Kalgan River, I set out mid-afternoon from the caravan park, exploring both down and upstream. It wasn’t long before a common location of where groups of soapies where on the afternoon prowl was pin-pointed, after getting a fair line peeling from a small 50-60cm fish on the trawl.
The first of many in the Kalgan.
Finding my line on the straight again, i was back on the trawl. Two more cracking hook ups sparked to more "soapie" mulloway guided into the net. Three fish in total under an hour’s period, i had good feelings about this place and i was left dreaming into the future as the day ended with a warm-glowing sunset over calm waters.
The sun set's on the Kalgan.
After yesterday's common success, I settled with a precise stretch of river holding fish on the decline of flats, pushing off Kalgan's banks. With a Cranka deep-minnow buzzing through the water, i was in the zone for some juvenile river king action once again.
Smaller fish were confident in taking longer and deep-diving minnows, such as Yo-Zuri's crystal minnow range.
Time and time again, fish around the 50cm mark were crashing lures randomly throughout my marked stretch. The river was packed with what seemed to be small fish around the "soapie" sized length (40-70cm). This became the common story for the first few days fishing and i began to look elsewhere in search of something more.
i was keen on getting some bigger fish (although that did not happen in the end), local advice from Albany's Rods and Tackle they suggested that the bigger fish were downstream from where i was fishing and were harder to come by. So again i set off from the caravan park this time travelling further upstream for that slight hope of a bigger mulloway or large bream ( as reports suggested they were also in the area). Yet I couldn’t escape the soapies, and besides a few small bream it was all I could manage!
Even using the more bream-fashioned lures i was sill crashed by the ever hungry soap.
Taking a break from mulloway mayhem, I changed to the surface in hunt of a slob of black gold. I set out to a particular area of flats I had seen fish on a few days ago just before dusk. Working the Berkeley K9 in a rather fast motion for chasing bream (due to lack of interest from previous fish that day), turned the rest of the day into one of those fun-packed sessions on average sized fish. Large numbers of small 20-25 cm fish were giving it a ripper shot at taking the lure down with them, making for a lot of the action and yet another cracker way to end a kalgan day.
Was a cracker way to fish the dusk, gliding stickbaits across calm water, randomly being interupted by a solid slurp that sends the small reels buzzing
I decided to spend my last session doing the Mulla thing one last time, and couldn’t loose that awesome feeling of catching soapies on light gear from the yak. The way a good sized fish would bob around the vessel, showing a never giving-up attitude reminded me of something you would get from tuna or trevally up north.
Last session on the kalgan.
In short, with hours of fish-packed entertainment available from both mulloway and bream at Albany’s doorstep. No West Aus river can compare to the beautifully scenic and mulla-packed Kalgan/king Rivers. The bizarre fishery that only sees fish caught from inside the estuary and never further downstream then the mouth of both rivers connected to Oyster harbour, signals there is a lot of unknown and barely touched water in the area to be fished.
It is always a special feeling venturing into an unknown fishing spot and coming through with great numbers of fish whom were planned to catch but not completely expected.
Cheers for reading!
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