| Exmouth News 2007 10 11 |
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The gulf is full of baitfish at present and whilst the predators have been a bit hard to locate on some days, others have been quite the opposite with the water being alive with baitfish being smashed by all manners of pelagics including shark mackerel, longtail tuna, mackerel tuna and queenfish.
Paul Smith was fishing a bait-ball near the tip of the Cape, catching mostly tuna and shark mackerel and was pleasantly surprised to catch a 64cm spangled emperor on a soft plastic lure cast in to the mass of feeding fish. The spangled emperor was obviously amongst all the feeding fish trying to clean up the scraps when it spotted Paul’s chartreuse paddletail lure which he had allowed to sink just beneath the surface.
Barry Taylor with one of Exmouth Gulf's finer shark mackerel With the school holidays being on, there have been a few keen anglers out braving the wind at Tantabiddi. Spanish mackerel have been the main target, and those trolling the back of the reef with deep divers have managed a few decent spaniards. One crew of anglers caught spanish mackerel of 16kg and 19kg. Those who have been dropping baits to the bottom have mostly reported spangled emperor and the odd rankin cod. Barry Seader was up from Perth for a holiday with the family and enjoyed good success fishing with his two sons, Zac aged 7, and Chris aged 9. Barry took the kids down to Learmonth jetty on a couple of occasions in the afternoons, and was thrilled to encounter tasty squid there and some big fat whiting which were right in close to shore. It was Zac and Chris’s first attempt at fishing and both now reckon they are hooked for life.
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