The New Year period was a particularly busy time in Exmouth, with many families with boats making the trip up from Perth after Christmas festivities and as a whole, the weather has been sensational with the daily temperatures hovering around 38 degrees and the winds being kind.

Billfish are plentiful along the west side with everything from small black marlin and sailfish right through to a couple of big blue marlin being encountered in the past week. Spanish mackerel and wahoo have been taking minnow lures trolled along the back of the reef in depths of 20-40m. According to a couple of groups the lures of choice at present are the Halco Laser Pro in either Chrome Pink (colour 15) or Chrome Red Head (62).

The majority of the mackerel activity has occurred first thing in the morning, with the macks seemingly going off the bite when the sun gets high, although odd fish can still be caught with the use of deeper diving lures (7-10m).

There has been a group of seven keen fly fishermen from Perth in town on one of their annual trips to Exmouth over the past fortnight, enjoying both a run of excellent weather and plenty of fish. With three boats between the anglers, there has been many options for the group to explore, with some boats preferring to fish gulf waters for catches including queenfish, tuna, trevally and mackerel whilst other boats have fished the west side of the Cape, fishing both inside the reef among the flats sight fishing for permit, bonefish and trevally and also outside the reef chasing the many pelagic fish around at the moment including some big mahi mahi and mackerel. A couple of notable captures to come from the group include a six kilo permit to Ross Italiano, and an estimated 14kg giant trevally which Steve Bradbury caught on a 10wt.

The shore based scene has been excellent too; Kevin D’urbano from Perth is a regular visitor to Exmouth and has been fishing off the Marina rock wall for a wide range of lure taking species including queenfish, small mackerel, various trevally species and giant herring. Kevin has been using a combination of soft plastics, small poppers and metal lures with most success coming from out at the end tip of rock wall, with the outgoing tide.

Local residents Michael Jacob and John Morley have been fishing along the Bundegi stretch and encountered heaps of queenfish with the sizes ranging from as little as under a kilo right thru to some six-kilo models. Michael also made mention of the huge numbers of big milkfish currently hanging around on the Bundegi flats in the afternoons.