We certainly had a bit of inconsistent weather during the week; pouring rain one day, clear skies the next! The heavy rain we encountered has no doubt kept a few people indoors this week, as reports haven’t been coming through as regularly as normal. Those that have ventured out amongst the weather breaks have been reporting good fishing. Spanish mackerel and dolphin fish have kept those trolling lures along the back of reef at Tantabiddi busy, with hook ups a common occurrence. 

Bottom fishing has been productive too, with boats coming in with good catches consisting of red emperor, rankin cod, coral trout and spangled emperor. Fishing west of the islands has been the most productive area with some boats reporting catching the red emperor in as shallow as 20m of water.

Exmouth resident Aaron Rampling had an excellent day of fishing out near the islands during the week. Aaron has recently taking up fly fishing, and had a great introduction into this challenging form of fishing with some notable captures taken on his new 10wt outfit. Aaron and his mate Ben had set up a berley trail, and were casting flies right out the back and stripping them back up through the trail. First fish to hit the decks were a couple of quality spangled emperor, followed up when Aaron hooked on to what was a decent Spanish mackerel. Aaron carefully played the mackerel out only to lose the fish at the side of the boat when a mob of sharks decided that they wanted the fish more than him.

After re-rigging with new leader and a new fly, Aaron was once again in the thick of the action hooking into a mystery fish amongst a big pack of sharks. Convinced he was just fighting a shark, Aaron was trying pretty hard not to give it an inch and to get it as close to the boat as possible in quick time. It wasn’t until it was at the boat that he realised that it was in fact a quality fish he was fighting. The fish turned out to be a big green jobfish, a spectacular catch on the fly rod especially considering it was one of the first times he had picked up the gear. The boys continued to fish, dropping baits down to the bottom on conventional gear resulting in a few rankin cod, cobia and more spangled emperor.

Aaron Rampling with his fly-caught green jobfish.

Squid and spangled emperor are keeping the dinghy fishers content with plenty being taken not far from the ramp at Tantabiddi. For the shore based fisherman there has been northern salmon, queenfish and small trevally being caught at the various access roads south of Lighthouse Bay.