Nearly every week there seems to be someone new moving into town lately, with new teachers, hospital staff, electricians and hospitality workers apart of this transition. Many others who have lived here for years are leaving and starting fresh elsewhere. Ian Huxter is one of the lucky people who has moved in to town and is working for Kailis.

Ian’s introduction to fishing as a full-time resident began along the tip of the cape, where he hooked a cobia on a popper. During the fight the cobia spat the hook, but Ian was quick to grab a mulie and try again. This time he stayed connected and managed to land the fish that was an estimated 20kg; not a bad start!

Ian also caught queenfish, spangled emperor and trevally using poppers with barbless hooks along the coast. All these fish were carefully released. It’s good to see more people like Ian up here that enjoy and respect the environment in our back yard.

Christian Akerstrom and his partner Nikki Wilkins have also moved up from Perth, and Christian has been working with Morgan Pearls at the Monte Bellos. He has been catching everything from coral trout, to cobia, spanglies, GT and squid, while poor Nikki says she has only caught a cold! Hopefully Nikki will be able to get stuck into some more fishing when she returns from a trip overseas.  

Unfortunately the Tantabiddi camp out was cancelled due to the strong winds and around 15 club members and friends challenged each other at minigolf instead, on the Saturday night. The bbq was sensational, despite the lack of seafood and a fun time was had by all. Now committee members are gearing up for Gamex 2007, which should be a big one according to the amount of enquiries.

Ross Marriott, a Research Scientist of the Department of Fisheries WA, will be in Exmouth on the evening of Friday 9th Feb at the Sport and Rec room near the main oval to talk about the Research Angler Program (RAP). Ross is looking for local anglers who might be interested in helping gather information for this research by recording their catch in RAP logbook diaries. The purpose of using RAP logbook diaries is to record information on the catches (species, numbers and sizes of fish that are caught and released) and fishing activity (location, time and duration fished and gear/tackle used) for Research Scientists to use in monitoring the health of fish populations.

Anglers can complete their details in the book and keep a personal record of their catches, whilst helping to maintain the health of their fishery by submitting the carbon-copies of their completed logbook entries to researchers at the Department. Remember the absence of information means more precaution. We don’t want more areas shut down in the future by people in offices in Perth who have no idea of how our fishery is throughout the whole year. If you are concerned about “giving away your secret spots” then at least come along and talk with Ross about how you can help to sustain this fishery. Let’s show that we care and that we want to be apart of decisions made in the future about the areas we love to visit so much.

Bryce Robins, aged 13 years, was out fishing with his family in their boat in the gulf this week.  The prized catch of their trip was a whopping six kilo coral trout. Friend Anthony Allen onboard also caught a large cobia.

Meanwhile five-year-old Ryan Teeuwissen from Joondalup has been fishing with his dad and family in the gulf.  The two adults thought they would just have a fun day with the kids and forgot to take the landing net.  Matt, Ryan’s dad, hooked up to a big coral trout to their surprise, but landing it was not going to be easy.  His friend got a hold of the tail, but the cheeky trout spat the hook and escaped the grip to return to his rock ledge. Ryan managed to catch some other smaller species, and the crew brought home one nice big cobia to feed the nine family members for dinner: the wives were very happy!  Since then the two adult men have been out again and landed many trevally, mackerel and tuna using both baits and laser pro lures.

The Exmouth Game Fishing club is holding a major raffle which will be drawn at Gamex in March, tickets are just $2 each and first prize is return flights from Perth to Exmouth (or Exmouth to Perth), two nights accommodation at the Ningaloo Novotel Resort and dinner to the value of $200 at the Resort’s Manta Ray’s restaurant. Second prize is a large colour television thanks to Betta Electrical and third prize is $500 worth of boat hire from Bluewater Boat Hire.  The club is raising funds to begin building the clubhouse, which will be situated at the marina near the floating pens.

The winds have kept most of us inside doing repairs and maintenance for the last week as they have reached high into the 30-knot range.  However, there is some reprieve ahead for the boating enthusiasts.  The winds didn’t stop the shore based anglers getting a fish or two as you will see below.

Chris Jones has moved here from Perth for a year to do a study on human activity within the marine park for Murdoch University.  Chris enjoys fishing and kayaking and hooked some mackerel on his kayak outside the marina this week.  He has also been getting into the trevally along Bundegi beach using poppers rigged with barbless hooks.  The trevally landed so far have been small, although he has managed to hook a few big sharks.

Kiara Gregory, aged four, was fishing with her dad Grant in the Exmouth marina.  She already outfishes her dad: catching a big mangrove jack on her brand new Pink Shakespeare rod, using prawn for bait.  Luck was certainly with her as she was using a tiny hook to target bream, but managed to land the big red fish, which she proudly took home to show off to the rest of the family, before Grandma cooked it up for dinner.

Meanwhile Mark Forester has sold up his house in Geraldton, come to Exmouth for a holiday and is taking off to the UK soon.  He has been enjoying the time off work and managed to land some flathead off the beaches in front of the new Novotel Resort and off Mildura Wreck road.  He was using a small Penn Applause 1000 reel with 8lb braid on a Shimano Nexave rod and small soft plastic lures.

The Tanatabiddi Camp-out fishing comp weekend had to be cancelled due to the weather, but the Exmouth Game Fishing Club hope to hold it this coming week-end.  There is a $15 entry which includes a barbecue dinner at Tantabiddi on the Saturday night.  There are $500 worth of prizes thanks to Dave at Exmouth Dive.  For further information on this and other competitions call in and see us or ring 9949 1315.

Jarrah McMillen and Beatrix Borsos, a young couple on holiday from Perth, have been doing well fishing from one of the local hire dinghies out in Exmouth Gulf. Beatrix is pictured this week with one of the queenfish the pair encountered fishing along the back of Bundegi reef.  They also caught various mackerel, longtom and Jarrah landed a huge barracuda.

 

Tantabiddi has been firing for spanish mackerel. One group of keen anglers reported catching over 20 spaniards in a single day with all but one released. The one mackerel the group kept was a solid fish too, somewhere in the 20-25kg range. The group were fishing from a pair of small boats and had most success for the mackerel by trolling the back of the reef with deep diving minnow lures, although the anchoring and berley process brought about the majority of the larger mackerel encountered. The group also encountered a couple of dolphin fish and a huge cobia which was estimated at over 30kg.

Matt and Jeni from the shop fished last weekend out of “In Deep” with Halco Lures’ Neil Patrick chasing billfish.  Whilst the marlin fishing was a little slow, possibly due to the moon phase, the group did run into some huge schools of yellowfin tuna, with one fish that Neil caught weighing in at 101lbs (46kg). Mahi mahi were also prolific, and a couple of big sailfish were tagged and released.

The prevailing southerly winds have kept the majority of the shore based anglers limited to fishing the tip of the Cape where the wind has been to their advantage. Giant herring and queenfish have been willing takers of metal lures and poppers that have been cast and retrieved off the oysters reef stretch.  Those preferring to throw out a strip of mullet, especially around dusk, have been faring well on some big spangled emperor with many more unseen fish lost to the various bombies in the area. The low tide period has fished best for the queenfish as the vast schools of hardyhead baitfish have no safe option to hide, unlike the high tide which has seen the baitfish all sheltered up on top of the oysters reef and in the various rock pools around the area.

Exmouth has been enjoying slightly cooler weather for the first week of January, which has been a pleasant change although the persisting winds have kept most of the tourists shore based.

Anthony Gosstray from Dianella is up with the family for a ten-day holiday break and has been enjoying some good shore based action around the west side at night. Spangled emperor have been the main target, and while they've been abundant with many fish up to 65cm, the real highlight for Anthony was the three-kilo 60cm mangrove jack, which was caught at 2am on a squid bait whilst fishing a shallow reef ledge. Anthony’s jack was the second report of the week of a decent mangrove jack caught from the west side, with both fish caught after dark, when the jacks seem to come out from the cover and look for prey.

Kale Crafter and his father Wade have been making the most of the windy conditions by fishing down the Marina after dark. Kale has been catching a few reasonable spangled emperor most nights as well the occasional trevally and mangrove jack.

Brian and Robyn Foley enjoyed an exciting introduction to Exmouth fishing during the week, when they launched there five-metre boat out of from the marina. A few diving birds only a couple of hundred metres off the marina rock wall caught Brian’s eye, so a couple of Laser Pro lures were dispensed out the back, and within a couple of minutes trolling a howling strike and run produced a superb 1.5m spanish mackerel. All this took place with in the ten minutes of putting their boat in for the first time in Exmouth.

When conditions have allowed, boats have still been encountering billfish out from Tantabiddi. Small black marlin averaging 50kg as well the usual bycatch of wahoo and dolphin fish have been caught by those trolling pushers along the 100m line. Bigger blue and black marlin have been seen and caught by those venturing a little further afield, fishing the various canyons ranging in depths of 200-600m of water. Matt and Jeni from the shop are out all weekend on “In Deep” with WA billfish identity Neil Patrick fishing for that elusive record fish. A very early report from the crew on “In Deep” was of a couple of big yellowfin tuna with one fish reportedly over 50kg – More next week.

Late addition: here's a better pic of one of those marlin from last week's newsletter - Bluewater Exmouth's Ben Knight was the angler.... go on, lift it up for a few pics Ben...

Stewart Newnham, from Isle of Wight in England, is in Exmouth with his wife on holiday for a few weeks. Stewart is an extremely keen fisherman who has travelled the globe fishing in all different locations, but rates the day out he had with local charter boat Aqua C as one of his best days fishing he has experienced. With a perfect day, weather wise, Stewart got to experience the huge variety of species on offer in Exmouth waters. From cobia, longtail tuna, three different forms of trevally right through to a host of bottom fish, Stewart caught them all. However it was the 30kg spanish mackerel, which is pictured this week, which put up the best fight of the day, doing a series of scorching runs across the surface and certainly made the drag on his spinning reel work overtime.

Robert Bosnjak and his partner Sofia Castillo, from Perth, have been a having a great time fishing down in the local Marina. Using nothing more than their usual bream outfits from back home, all sorts of northern species from bonito , mangrove jacks and a heap of trevally have all fallen victim to the small soft plastics they have been throwing around. Among all the different varieties of trevally they have been encountering, it was a good size diamond trevally that provided the biggest thrill, putting up a ten-minute struggle on the light gear before finally being subdued. All fish that Robert and Sofia have been catching in the Marina have been released, which is great to see as the Marina really is a sanctuary for all manner of juvenile species.

Tim Woodland and his father towed their boat up all the way from Perth to chase sailfish in the Gulf. Whilst it is definitely getting late in the season for the Gulf sailfish run, they still encountered a few sails as well longtail tuna and spanish mackerel, all within close proximity of the Exmouth reef region. Tim was ecstatic to finally catch his first sailfish, which fell to a live bait fished on 6kg line.

Earlier in the week huge schools of hardyhead baitfish were schooled up along the shoreline of town beach in the run out tide in the morning. Every variety of pelagic species was in there feeding on the schools of the hapless baitfish, with the diving birds also getting amongst the action cleaning up all the scraps.

Text and pics © Bluewater Tackle World

Regular visitor to Exmouth James Heath and his mate John Digiovanni had a couple of fantastic mornings last week out of Tantabiddi, when the weather obliged. Fishing out of a 4.2m dinghy they encountered sailfish, yellowfin tuna and spanish mackerel up to 25kg. The pair trolled all sorts of lures but had most success with the Williamson Ballyhoo Combo lure, which accounted for the biggest mackerel of the trip as well as a pair of sailfish.

It's this lure - this isn't one of their fish, but it shows the effectiveness anyway:

The Watson’s leaping bonito continue to wreak havoc on the hapless baitfish in the marina at present. The bonito have been making raids up and down all the various canals and rock walls erupting into a foaming mass when they locate the baitfish schools. Casting small metal lures or flies into the eruptions has resulted into instant hookups on the bonito.  A good indication of where the bonito schools are located is the seagulls, which have been quick on the scene of any baitfish activity.

Lighthouse bay has been home to small schools of northern salmon. These tough little fighters provide great fun on light gear and are willing takers of small lures such as small metals and soft plastics. These particular salmon are delicious when eaten fresh, however there flesh changes drastically after being frozen so are definitely a fish that you should only take home what you can eat that evening.

Along the Oysters reef to Mildura Wreck stretch there has been the occasional large queenfish showing up, with a few small schools of golden trevally also spotted cruising along. Spangled emperor have been a target in the evenings with the late afternoon high tides proving an ideal time to target these fish.

The EGFC held its annual Christmas end of year presentations last weekend at Graces Tavern in town. With a good turnout from local members it was a nice way to unwind from what has been a very successful year for the local club. There was a small casting competition held which Des Ryan picked up the prize for being the first to hit the target spot on with the small baitcast reel. Congratulations go out to the members who won annual awards for the various categories on offer.