Exmouth Fishing Report #11 - Courtesy of Scott Forbes

Peak Season is not far away now with the town filling up rapidly with tourists and regulars in the caravan parks over the last week. The Whaleshark boats are in full swing and the fishing charter boats have also been busy. The fishing peaked before cyclone Hubert arrived on the scene and anglers all around Exmouth were faced with hungry fish in a feeding frenzy.

Bait balls are scattered along the west side from Lighthouse Bay south to Jacobs access with every imaginable predator feasting on the activity. There have been reports of everything from a 6kg mack tuna, to many 7-8kg Spanish mackerel and loads of queenfish, spangled emperor, salmon and broadbar mackerel. There's even the whisper of an 18kg yellowfin that was caught from the shore. Hopefully we will have a pic of that next week.

Off shore the action has been just as hot with plenty of sailfish cruising the back of the reef and those small black marlin are starting to finally gain a bit of weight with 50-60kg models being tagged and released. Danny from Rockingham who is staying at Yardie Creek Caravan Park landed his first marlin on his first trip out within just ten minutes! Now that's what I call lucky!! He was on the way to a reef fishing spot with a friend and pleaded to put out a Pakula pusher on the way, which certainly proved to be worth it. Once at the reef fishing grounds the anglers caught various gold band job fish and red throat emperor using squid as bait on circle hooks.

Norm Hart, father of Ken from Home Hardware, was fishing from the shore catching spangled emperor and various other species when he had a tumble. Luckily he only ended up with a few bruises and scratches, but it is a good reminder to those on the rocks to make sure you have the safe footwear such as Rockhopper Boots to prevent you from slipping over.

Again.......Thanx Jen