Isn't nature amazing ???

The annual Easter camping trip to a beach just east of Albany WA had just begun on Good Friday and after setting up camp and catching up with the usual lot that we camp with at the private salmon fishing license camp, my brother in law and I along with our kids decided to drive a couple of k's up the beach for a quick fish and a look.

While he and one of his daughters were getting a couple of rods sorted to try and catch a salmon or two the rest of us started to walk along further up the beach. A short way along I noticed quite a few salmon in the clear waves heading towards where they were and decided to go back and give them the hurry up.

A line was thrown out and within seconds she had a salmon hooked but as it it turns out my brother in laws (who has the professional license) fishing gear doesn't get cared for as well as his nets and boats do so of course the line snapped. But no worries because there were quite a few salmon and plenty of lures and bait.

While those two were trying to catch fish with a line the rest of us noticed quite a few small finned fish surging up and down the shore with each wave and as it turns out there were thousands of herring getting forced into the shallows by the salmon. Quite a few of the herring were struggling to get back into deeper water so we decided to try and catch some by hand.

For the next hour we had a blast trying to grab slippery (and spikey) herring by hand and also the many salmon that kept on partially beaching themselves. The rods were left (only one salmon caught on a rod due to rotten line out of about ten hook ups) and there were two 50 odd year old blokes with our 4 daughters aged 9 through to 27 getting washed around in the shorebreak having the time of our lives trying to catch fish with our bare hands.

The catch ended up being more than a dozen herring, one salmon caught by line and another picked up stranded on the beach on the way back to camp. I managed to grab 4 salmon by hand but hanging onto the slippery suckers is near on impossible in the surf.

The feeding frenzy was reported at 3 of the local beaches and there were many happy anglers with quite a few salmon caught. There's also a report of a well know fishing family member sitting in his front yard at Cheynes Beach and catching a salmon on his rod from his lawn (been a bit of erosion there lately).

My brother in law has been going to that beach for the past 45 years from when his old man had the license and I've been going for more than 25 Easters and he hasn't seen fish so close to shore like that and we all reckoned it was the best fun we've had in a long time......

Living down here i know some crew that did the same.
Epic.



I Headed west of Albany and had a good time myself . After catching some salmon ( on a rod ), i nailed this sucker ( also on a rod ).