Lorella Springs Fishing; some of the best in Australia
I’ve done a fair bit of fishing in WA, and absolutely love it when the fish are biting. Problem is, often the fish don’t bite, and my patience level (which was never good) is getting worse as I get older.
If there’s no biting within 20 minutes, I’m done, and I’ll go and do something else. I’ll grab the drone, or the camera, or go for a walk with the kids. Today’s post though, eliminates the need to be patient waiting for fish!
In this post, I bring to you a truly amazing place not only for fishing, but for 4WD tracks, camping, amazing gorges and hot springs.
Lorella Springs is in the Northern Territory, and about as remote as you can get. Its over a million acres, and is well known for its incredible fishing. Like Steep Point, people come here from all over the country to experience the incredible fishing.
From creeks and rivers which house barramundi, black bream and mangrove jack to the more coastal waters with your pelagic, barracuda, queen fish and the like.
There are only two other places that I’ve fished at that come anywhere near the fishing experience we had at Lorella. One is accessible off the Ningaloo Coast in WA by boat, and the other is on private property in the Shark Bay region.
Lorella has such a diverse range of places you can fish that you could spend a very, very long time out there and not see it all.
Rosie Creek Fishing Camp
One of the main places people head to for a remote fishing experience is Rosies Fishing hut, located about 85km from the homestead.
To get there, head north from the homestead, onto the abandoned haul road and then turn onto the Rosie track. It will take you anywhere from 2 hours – 2.5 hours, so camping out there is one of the preferred options.
We did it in a day trip, and don’t regret it at all. First cast and I can see colour everywhere, chasing the basic silver slice in, and then big splashes, and the next minute line is screaming off the reel.
We’d been told by a bloke that he had 18 casts, and landed 15 fish, and those camping at Fish Creek had caught 60 queenies the night before, so I was expecting some fun, but not this fast.
Lorella Station has a catch and release policy, where you can take what you will eat that day, and they ask you throw the rest of the fish back. Of course no one needs (or would want to) keep that much fish, so you can just have a ball fishing and releasing them back.
Both Sarah and I fished on and off over about 3 hours, hooking heaps of fish, and landing about 15 in total. We’d picked a spot off a cliff, which was about a 4 metre drop down, but it had some rock at the bottom that often caught the lines and damaged them, so we lost a few lures from fish that ran straight to the rocks.
The reason for the cliff was simple; to make it impossible for the big crocs to get near us. We saw plenty of people fishing on the flats at the boat ramp, and you can do that too, but the risk of a croc coming out of the water at lightening speed to have you for dinner is pretty high!
As it was, one of the fish we were bringing in fell off at the bottom, and failed to flick back into the water, so it sat there for a few hours until a croc came along, slid up the small embankment and had him for lunch.
Secret fishing camp
The other main location people go to fish is the secret fishing camp, which we ran out of time to see. It would be also around 80km from the homestead, and has a great reputation. You can get right to the coast on this (you can at Rosies too, but you need to walk the last section).
If you are chasing some mental fishing, Lorella Springs in the Northern Territory is the place to go!
