Whale Shark Day – Best day ever!
Episode 9 of our Princess Charlotte bay trip sees us swimming with a friendly whale shark, having a manic fishing session and relaxing on a superb sand cay.
I’d have to say, beside the helifish adventure, one of the best days of our lives.
To see the trip from Episode 1 >> click here.
Swimming with a whale shark has been on Karen’s bucket list for many years.
She was even planning a trip to Western Australia to swim with them.
Little did we know a friendly one would swim right up to the boat when we departed from Lizard Island.
But despite their size, there’s no need to be worried. These 10 metre long giants only eat plankton.
Although they do look like a big tiger shark from a distance.
So we were sure to make sure we saw spots instead of stripes before letting Karen jump in.
She and Evatt swam with the whale shark for around 20 minutes. It just kept circling around and checking them out.
It was an amazing experience.
Whale Shark Day
This gentle giant circles around and swam beside us for about 20 minutes before slowly sinking down into the deep.
The shark was very curious and majestically swam close to the surface and circled around while the guys were in the water with it.
South Direction Island
South Direction Island is a nice place to snorkel just outside the green Zone surrounding Lizard Island.
Watson's Bay Lizard Island is a great anchorage south east to north east winds. On this day we've never seen so many boats.
The best anchorage from westerly winds is the Blue Lagoon, nestled between Lizard and the surrounding islands.
Martin Reef
After our amazing encounter with the whale shark, we decided to do a spot of fishing wide of Martin Reef. It was a pretty hot session with some good fish coming aboard.
After the whale shark swim, we went... fishing! Nice red taken off Martin Reef using our Levitator jig > buy here.
Our Pillager lure did the damage on this nice red fish. We were mostly fishing between 20 and 25 metres so we could use both Pillagers and Levitator jigs. >> RMF Lure shop.
Another nice fish in the hot fishing session. This was one of several cod caught. Many captures didn't make it into the video.
Linnet Cay
Linnet cay Great Barrier Reef is one of those delightful places you'll never forget - and yearn to return to.
What a way to end the day after the whale shark encounter.
Gear and Tackle used
We have prepared a cheat sheet with >> Ryan's favourite gear and tackle.
Although this gear is not specific to on particular species, it is what he uses to fish tropical north Australia for most species.
On this trip we used our own lures almost exclusively because after years of testing they have been found to be so effective.
You can purchase using the following links.
And the custom rod mentioned in the video was made by Ron Farren of Salty Dog custom rods.
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More Episodes
I hope you enjoyed our video on the whale shark encounter and our trip to Martin Reef and Linnet Cay.
Stay tuned for the next episode as we have exciting fishing sessions on our last days of the trip.
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2 Comments
Boat Detailing
March 31, 2022Must have been a fantastic experience swimming with a whaleshark. The closest I had was when we went for a deep fishing after a mobile boat detailing gig. We had an encounter with a huge shark. It was a shark, so we didn’t really go for a swim.
Karen Rudkin
April 6, 2022haha. Yeah we made sure it had spots not stripes before jumping in – as they look a bit like a huge tiger shark from afar. And certainly don’t want to be swimming with that!
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