Few fishing missions punch above their weight like a deep-drop run out of a 3.5 m tinny - and Cal and Kate's two-day assault on the 100 m to 250 m line off South Lefroy on Western Australia's Ningaloo Coast is the latest case in point. The pair stitched together a mixed bag of pearl perch, gold band snapper, a manually wound ruby snapper and a Robinson seabream before a shark turned a hard-earned yellowfin into half a fish.
The plan was simple. Catch live squid for bait, push out four miles to the 260 m mark, and see what came up. "Here we're along the Ningaloo Coast and we are going to get into some deep sea tinny missions," Cal told the camera as the tinny cleared the swell.
Things opened with comedy. After hand-bombing four small squid into the bag, the fifth bit Cal across his "brand new shorts and shirt" and inked him from chest to thigh. The squid still went down on the jig in 100 m of water - and the first fish to find it was a baited rat that ate the squid tentacles off the head without committing. Cal vented at the camera and reset.
The second drop produced a fish Cal initially called a fox-coloured species before identifying it as a Robinson seabream - a fish locals call big-eye - which both anglers agreed was "premium grade eating out here." An amberjack followed soon after, with double-headers tangling the braids in the wash. "That's a new one for you. That's an amberjack, babe," Cal said as Kate landed her first.
Then Kate's drop on the heavy gear went gold. The line came up with a fat gold band snapper - the headline target for the trip. "That's a good fat gold band there," Cal said at the unhooking mat. Kate doubled down with two more in the same drift. "Three for three. Third gold band," Cal said, both jealous and laughing. "What pretty fish."
The real workout came on day two on the manual reel. Out on the 200 m mark with a 350 g Vexed jig and a squid flap, Cal hand-wound through 160 m of braid for a fish he was already convinced was a pearl perch - and he was right. "Pearl perch. Wow. Wicked. Yeah. I never thought I'd get one of these," he said. "Northern Jewey. That's awesome. That's a good eating fish, that one."
A second drop to 250 m on the heavy outfit produced his target species. A baby ruby snapper hit the deck after another long manual wind through what looked like 500 metres of braid by the time the fish surfaced. "It's a little ruby. Little baby. It's not the size we're after, but it's a ruby nonetheless. It's the species," Cal said. "Manually, man. You do the hard work."
The day's only real disaster came topside. A yellowfin tuna that had finally come to the boat after a school surfaced under the hull was hit clean in half by a shark right at the leader. Cal called the offender the "tax man" before rigging a single garfish as a switch bait and pushing on. A fouled prop wrapped in melted mono almost ended the trip early, but Cal pulled the prop off with fishing pliers and reset.
With the marlin and sailfish a no-show, the deep-drop tape held its own. Three gold band snapper to Kate, a pearl perch and a manual-wind ruby to Cal, a Robinson seabream, two amberjack and a handful of mystery species - all out of a 3.5 m aluminium tinny in 100 to 250 m of water off a remote stretch of Western Australian coastline.