You may have left it about 2 months too late to get accommodation in Coral Bay and in Exmouth, the word we have been getting from people, dropping in to the roadhouse heading back south is that its all booked out till after Christmas.

For Exmouth the gulf is usually the place to fish when the southerlies are in with a glass off most afternoons

 Were all sorted for accommodation had it booked for a while now just have been looking at the weather and seeing if its worth while lugging the boat all that way 

I’ve fished coral bay in average conditions many times, if the swell is 2m or under it is doable. Depends on how hardcore you are. You can always fish inside the reef if you don't want to go wide.

I would always take the boat if going north.

Hope it goes good for you. 

 You'll be fine mate with the swell down, just punch out south and drift with it.

 As andy said above 

in my view you have several options depending on how much you want fish

1. stay inside the reef north or south and fish for little fish or squid

2. go out south passage and troll towards north, lots of people have luck about 2-4km south of north passage marker in 18-25m

3. head out through south passage, head for marks anywhere from a west direction to north west of the passage and drive side on to the wind, then come back in north again driving side on to the wind 

we have taken option 3 many many times over the past years in our 5.5m ally boat

good luck  

Legends all much appreciated were up there for 2 weeks so I'm sure we're gonna atleast get out for a few days hopefully be able to do a report in a few days if we have some good luck 

 I'm at Yardie right now and the winds died off. Was bad at the beginning of the week but it's lovely now

cheers

sails should be around in the gulf now as well

get yourself a throw net to collect some livies  for when the wind drops down in the arvos 

 Update guys got out today wasnt the best but do able boat handle beautifully one of the guys had a few to many last night so had a good burly trail going found some working birds and flicked a little chrome lure at them and it exploded with some massive runs for a good 10 minutes but unfortunately broke off managed to get a small Mackie but just under size and lost a larger model shortly after before the wind picked up and we called it still had a great day lots of wildlife and still have 13 days to go 

 simon any rough idea on where to look for sails in the gulf with the weather the way it looks think the gulf will have to be the go for the next few trips 

 Like Robpado says Caza find the birds find the fish

good starting point is launch from Bundegi and head east

good luck