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By Steve Hunt |
Wedge Island’s isolation and the lack of decent boat ramps around lower Yorke Peninsula make access difficult, but because of that, when you do get the chance to fish its deep cobalt waters the action can be spectacular.
I first set foot on Wedge Island more than twenty years ago on a three-day landbased fishing charter. For a keen young sixteen-year-old just learning to fish, the experience was mind blowing. To begin with, just to land, our light aircraft had to buzz the runway repeatedly to clear the dirt strip of emus. Once down, my love affair with this remote island began. Our group fished from the beach, the jetty, the rocks and the cliffs, and it didn’t seem to matter where we wet a line, the fishing was sensational.
On the first day, a large school of big, black backed salmon was holed up beneath our cliff-top position and hit everything we could throw at them. It was terrific as salmon erupted from the calm waters of the small bay, desperately trying to throw the hooks that now hobbled
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them. It was a challenge trying to use wave assistance to guide these powerful fish up onto the kelp-covered reef having to lift 4 kg of struggling fish 20 m up a sheer cliff face.
Many fish were lost, but we couldn’t have cared less, as the action continued all day. These images etched themselves into my mind.
There was more to come though. Next day we climbed down to the rocks on the eastern side of the island and had a ball landing small snapper, nannygai, salmon, snook, blue groper, and blue throat parrotfish. All this without a boat! The protected beach on Wedge Island’s northern shore
produced some monster flathead that took a liking to red and white feather jigs cast from the shore. Whilst the jetty provided a swag of huge tommy rough, weighing up to 500 grams. I thought all those years ago ‘this is as good as it gets’ and still think so.
My latest trip to the area was aboard Reef Encounters fishing charters, which operates out of Pondalowie Bay on the southwestern tip of Yorke Peninsula. The morning went well. After only being anchored for an hour or so over some deep reef, skipper Mark Wynbergen called out daily bag limit of thirty nannygai. In that time, we also tangled with two dozen nice snapper, some silver trevally, blue morwong, whiting to 55 cm, harlequin fish, crayfish and some huge sea sweep. We finished the day chasing a huge school of black-backed salmon that were hunting along the island’s northern coast. Ironically, this school was found in exactly the same location we had hooked into those big salmon all those years ago.
About the island
Wedge Island is situated 35 km west of Pondalowie Bay at the base of the Spencer Gulf, and commands the Gambier group of islands. The island completely dominates the horizon, its southern side rising vertically from the ocean to a staggering 204 m before gently sloping down to the northern shore. This spectacular wedge shaped profile gives rise to its name and the place has quite a history. Back in the 1800s the island used to breed horses for the Indian Army, then in the 1900s, it was used as an ostrich farm, principally for the feathers, which were in high demand the for women’s fashion. During World War Two, it became an R.A.A.F base and more recently its cottages have been available for those with a yen to rent their own island.
The offshore waters round here teem with marine life, no doubt due to the lack of fishing pressure normally associated with easy trailer boat
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access. Small boats can be launched from the beach at Pondalowie Bay using a four-wheel drive, but larger trailer boats can only be launched at Marion Bay, entailing a daunting 50 km run out to Wedge Island through inhospitable water.
This rugged exposed strip of the South Australian coast is exposed to winds from every quarter. Add to that a usually relentless groundswell and additional effects kicked up by disturbances in the deep latitudes of the Southern Ocean and its not small boat country. Large charter boats can handle the run with ease though and are an excellent option for fishing this place.
The area is littered with islands, reefs, bommies, shoals and isolated rocks that are all havens to seemingly endless schools of fish. Some sounder bottom readings have to be seen to be believed with underwater lumps and canyons rising and falling precipitously 15 m or more. Deeper water – to 80 m – is not far away from Wedge and all of these factors contribute to huge numbers of a variety fish.
Available species
The main species targeted on Wedge’s offshore reefs is snapper.
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Fish from 40 to 50 cm are prolific and occasionally, larger fish in the 5 to 8 kg class are also encountered, but this is something of a lucky
dip. Nannygai (red snapper) are next most common and it’s not uncommon on the deeper reefs to tangle with specimens between 3 and 4 kilograms. These orange bucket mouths give a good account of themselves and are also tops on the table.
This area is also home to monster King George whiting – often exceeding a kilo apiece. It’s not uncommon in these waters to hook into whiting 60 cm long, especially during winter, when the big fish move inshore to breed. These are the true ‘kidney slappers’ – some of them being as thick as your forearm. Most whiting anglers only ever dream about fish like these.
Blue morwong are another glamour species commonly caught on these reefs. They are highly regarded both for their eating qualities and for their fighting ability. Medium-sized silver trevally are in plague proportions at times and always provide a great scrap in deep water.
Occasionally a 5 kg bruiser will hammer your bait and at this size they pull like a train. Blue groper
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abound on the offshore reefs but are totally protected inside the waters of the Gulfs, Investigator Strait and the Backstairs Passage and must be returned to the water immediately. Harlequin fish, a southern version of the tropical coral trout, are another prized catch from these reefs. Swallowtail, a cousin of the nannygai, are common, and although they don’t reach the size of other nannygai, are much sweeter to eat.
The heavyweights of the deep reefs are the kingfish and Samson fish. Their habits though are unpredictable and they can turn up at any time, usually causing absolute mayhem once hooked. Samsons have been taken here up to 35 kg, while kings average around 15 kilograms. Large kingfish can also be taken by trolling big, robust minnow lures of whole garfish around the cliffs. Schools of big kings also occasionally venture into the island’s calm northern bay and will take large poppers in an extremely exciting form of sight fishing.
Resident schools of salmon patrol the beach and if approached with care, will hit lures and baits all day. They’re usually of a good size too, ranging up to and over 4 kilograms. Besides all that, there are snook, sweep, flathead, barracouta, pike, tommy rough, sergeant baker, leatherjacket and gurnard. Even schools of southern bluefin tuna have been around the island. Sharks are also here, with gummy and school sharks being caught in the deep water, and bronze whalers, makos and hammerheads in good numbers during summer.
Rigs and baits
Most of the fishing around Wedge Island is over deep-water reef. Two-hook paternoster rigs are standard fare, and the mono used should be kept on the heavy side to combat the rasping teeth and gill covers of the nannygai. Using 3/0 Gamakatsu O’Shaughnessy on the bottom dropper will hook any monster whiting that are interested and still be strong enough to handle all the other species. The other hook should be somewhere between a 5/0 and 8/0 in the Octopus style. If you plan to target whiting specifically, a lighter paternoster rig with two 1/0 Octopus long shanks will suffice.
Artificials work well on the reefs and both nannygai and snapper will take small rubber squid style lures jigged near the bottom. Feathered jigs will also take snapper and silver trevally. Heavy metal lures like 200 g Raiders are deadly when jigged for Samsons and kings, whilst big minnows like Rapala CD18 and Yo Zuri Hydro Magnums will take kings on the troll. Good lures in the shallow water for salmon and snook include Rapala CD11, Hawkins Fighting Whiting, Halco Lazer Pro and Nilsmaster Spearheads. Metal baitfish lures also work well in 40 to 60 g sizes. Try Allrounders and Saftas, Spanyrid Raiders and Halco Twistys.
Baits for fishing here need to be tough.
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The number one option is squid, as it will take all of the species mentioned and is durable enough to hang on until a decent fish is hooked. Cuttlefish and octopus baits are held in high regard for the same reasons. The gun bait out here is pilchard, but its downfall is that it is easily stripped from the hooks by the hungry masses that lurk below. Even so, it remains the favourite food of Samson fish and if you are specifically targeting this fish, persevere with pilchard. It is also an upper echelon bait when fished unweighted for inshore species like salmon and snook. Shallow water whiting will take cockles (pipis) but like pilchard, these baits suffer in deep water.
Wedge Island is an enormously exciting place to fish, and I’m sure its fishing potential has not yet been fully realised. Relatively few charter boats visit the place even now and as fish mad Crow Eaters, we’re more than happy about that. I suppose though the lure of 1.5 kg whiting, huge Samsons and kings, countless snapper and salmon and horse sized nannygai could entice interstate fisherman to visit-what do you think?
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