Baird Bay, Eyre Peninsula, South Australia

Baird Bay is special.  It’s just one of a myriad of small bays on the coast of Eyre Peninsula, not particularly well-known at that, and with only a tiny settlement of houses and fishermen’s shacks.  But what it does have in abundance is X-factor; it’s a place where well-worn clichés like pristine and idyllic really mean something.

From Venus Bay we stopped off on the way to see the strangely beautiful Murphy’s Haystacks, a selectively weathered granitic outcrop standing in broad-acre wheat country.  Having decided to end our fishing trip in style, we checked into Baird Bay Ocean Eco Apartments, easily the most salubrious accommodation on the bay (and excellent value for money for the keen fisherman, as each of the two apartments comes with the use of a powered boat moored just a few metres from the front door).  Open the door, step on to the sand, hop in the boat and head down the bay – a fisherman’s dream come true.

The modern, stylish, well-appointed apartments constructed of rammed earth and timber are part of an eco tour business built up over the past 15 years or so by a visionary and tenacious couple.  What they have created in this remote place is impressive.  Each morning during our few days here we could hear different accents on the beach as people from around the world arrived to join a unique and wonderful tour - to swim with sea lions.                   

Having previously been up close and personal with sea lions, we used our time at Baird’s to, surprise surprise, go fishin’.  Baird Bay is a good spot for King George Whiting and Garfish.  We were hoping to catch some of the latter, but down the ocean end of the bay where we were located, it was whiting on the bite at dusk each day, so we concentrated on these with pleasing results.

Dinner doesn’t get much better than savouring King George whiting steamed with ginger while looking across the sand onto another spectacular Baird Bay sunset.  

Mount Camel Beach, Eyre Peninsula, South Australia

Seven days in Venus Bay passed quickly and in what seemed no time at all it was time to move further up the coast.  But not before one last dawn visit to Mount Camel Beach, our favourite fishing beach - it rarely lets us down.  This time we fished with some renewed and new acquaintances we met at the caravan park – Barb and her husband Tom, Peter and his wife Carol, and Annie and her husband Bob.

Our first baits plunged into the cold ocean water before the sun peeped over the horizon to greet the day.  And the fish were waiting.  It wasn’t long before the bags of Australian salmon and ocean mullet began to bulge.  The mullet at this time of year are big, and delicious eaten fresh.  We all caught plenty of these, but none equalled the whopper hauled in by Tom.

The early morning action at the beach doesn’t last long.  By 8.30am it was all over, and time to clean the catch, pack our bags into the car and head north.  Now with garfish on our minds.

Venus Bay, Eyre Peninsula, South Australia

From Cowell we travelled further west across the width of Eyre Peninsula to the coastal town of Elliston, and then north to Venus Bay.  We’ve been coming to Venus Bay for a week or so each year for the past few years; it’s a tiny, peaceful settlement on a large, shallow bay connected to the Southern Ocean through a narrow channel between two rocky headlands.  The bay itself is very protected and safe, but the entrance to the ocean can be hazardous when the run-out tide clashes with the incoming ocean waves, generating large, sometimes perilous, swell at that point.  Only a few weeks ago two young men drowned at the entrance when their boat capsized in the swell after a rope fouled their propeller. 

Not having a boat, our preferred fishing spots were nearby Mt Camel surf beach, and the local jetty.  In a midnight session on the latter we scored three dozen tommy ruff and trevally, and in a dawn session on the beach we hauled in two dozen big mullet and salmon.  The tides are big at this time of year and having neglected to store our gear high enough up on the beach, it was all washed away by a large wave.  It wasn’t a pleasant sight seeing our items racing towards the ocean when the wave receded, particularly our camera.  Needless to say, the dunking rendered its electronics insensible, but surprisingly in the days since, as it has dried out, it has regained all its faculties.  Like us after a big night on the turps.

This morning we were up before dawn again to fish a rocky ledge on the shore of the bay about a 40 minute drive away.  We were hoping to score some large flathead, but never saw one all day.  But we did land some nice salmon, including a monster that we released back into the water, several garfish, a flounder and again a stack of tommy ruff.  Another good day piscatorially speaking.

Of course fish now features big on the menu; crumbed, battered, steamed, stuffed with chilli and ginger and fried.  There’s nothing like fresh fish eaten the day it’s caught.

Cowell, Eyre Peninsula, South Australia

First stop on our fishing trip was the coastal town of Cowell on Eyre Peninsula, about five and a half hours from Adelaide.  We fished from the rocks and beach north of nearby Arno Bay to gather a hard-earned bag of tommy ruffs. Dinner was a very nice tommy ruff linguini.  The following morning we were on the Cowell jetty just after dawn with our crab nets, in pursuit of blue swimmer crabs.

Located on the shore of shallow Franklin Harbour that is bordered in places by mangroves, Cowell is possibly the best place in the state to catch these delicious crustaceans.  We had a good morning, snaring about two dozen of them.  Blue swimmer crabs are beautiful looking creatures, although their powerful claws can be a painful trap for the unwary, as I found when I was silly enough to drop my guard for a moment and rapidly felt one of my fingers being crushed. Ouch!  It was no easy matter to prise the claw off with a pair of pliers.  Blood and Band Aids followed.

Back at our shack, Lee Tuan quickly turned four of the blue swimmers into crab sushi for lunch, and another four into crab soup for dinner last night.  And tonight it was stir fried chilli crab on the menu.