Well, another year, another boys trip to Exmouth has been and come, and this one was by far the best so far. This year had the boys coming from all over the place, Nick from Melbourne, and Ben from Queensland 5 of us local Perth boys. Plenty of beer, plenty of food and enough fishing gear to stock a tackle store!

After last years trip, we decided a few upgrades were in order for this year (Also known as Hard Mod's), mainly being the accommodation. The past 2 years we have stayed at the Light house caravan park, firstly in the standard chalets then last year in the lookout chalets. But for the price (we needed 2 chalets) it worked out better value to look at a Holiday house in town.

We decided on a house in the Marina with its own jetty, and for those who have ever considered this but not done it, i would highly recommend it. It's worth the extra $$ Not only is the acommocation much bigger, but the Jetty just makes things easier with loading and unloading boats. Also the Jetty provides some fun light gear fishing as well. The only down side is refueling, which requires you to take the boat out every 3rd day. Spoke to a local who was building next door and he said an unleaded fueling station will be available in the Marina soon.

View from the house of the boats tied up.

We couldnt have asked for better conditions weather wise, almost every day glassed off at some stage during the day, which generally made the rides out pretty comfortable, and it was 30+ knots pretty much everywhere.

Typical conditions. (20-30 mile out)

First couple of days on the water was spent looking around for new ground, rather than hitting the same spots as last year. Sharks last year were insane, so the plan was to move wider to get away from them, which had mixed results.

The First day looking out past peak resulted in us playing with HUGE schools of big eye and striped tuna for a couple of hours. The boys loved this catching a fish a cast and with the tuna being as thick as they were (atleast a couple football fields worth) the fish were practically jumping out of the water for the slices. There was also a few school and shark macks hanging around as well.

We collected a bit of bait and moved out wide for the rising tide.... After about an hour and a half of searching, we couldnt find any ground worth fishing on, so we decided to move in a little shallow and continue to look. By this time the tide had changed and we didnt expect much. We found a very small school of fish on the sounder and decided a hail mary drift was in order.... (we had had a few beers by then!) and after about 30 seconds the first few fish started to show up, with spangles and saddle tail making their way on board. After  a couple drifts we had 6 fish in the esky which was enough and it was getting late so we cruised back in and made the plan to hit the same area tomorrow for the high tide.

Next day, Same process, a few tuna and surface fish for some fun, then out to the deeper water...This time a little more sounding around found a couple lumps of coral which rose about 1 - 1.5m and held good fish...after a couple drifts and a couple spangles, old mate Laurie finally hooks up to something substantial, and did he let us know about it...the other boat was only 50m away and they were green with envy as they knew he was onto a good fish.. And a good fish it was, being the fish of the trip, and mayube a Photo of the month contender?? this red tipped the scales at over 11 kilos.

Next drift resulted in Scano with a nice red

Nick with a nice Saddle Tail

In the coming days, we did spend some time playing around in the shallows out near the islands and having a couple of really hot sessions on plastics, slices and other lures. In about 10 metres of water we water was just bubbling with Queenies, GT's, goldens, Spangles, Cobia you name it... every cast resulted in fish either smashing the lure or following it al the way to the boat. We would have tied at least 100 leaders that day!! some lost to sharks others just getting smashed! 5-10 kilo GT's and goldens on 10-20LB gear doesnt end well! Didnt get any photos of this as the fishing was just that hot it was litterally 2 or 3 people hooked at every cast! Some blistering runs as well, i almost got spooled on a suspected big GT on the Stella 4k running 30lb!

During the week we continued to fish far north, venturing up past flat island and as the conditions allowed it fished many different locations and depths. Plenty of rankin, Saddle Tail, spangles and Reds about.

My first good Rankin

Scano on a good rankin

Scano on another good rankin

Frank with a good saddle tail

We went all out on the food, ordering a heap of meat from the butcher before we left, taking up Scotch fillet, Pork belly rolls, rolled Marinated beef etc, as well as Fresh S ashimi most nights with home made sauce!

Coral Trout Sashimi!

Big Eye Tuna Sashimi

Scano built a new spit for the trip, and it worked  a treat!

Frank on the BBQ,

Nick with a solid Chinaman..didnt this fish let him know about it. Biggest fish he had ever caught

Carl had an argument with a Shark and his Asuza came out 2nd best!

Scano loves casting a lure into a bait school with birds diving into it!!! well done Scano!

Ben with a solid mack tuna which gave his light gear an absolute work out for about 15 minutes

Saltiga over head and demon blood getting a work out

A couple nice fillets

Frank on the filleting

Carl with the biggest red of the trip for him.

Carl with his reds

 Result from the last days fishing on one boat

This is what happens when one boat runs out of beer and the other still has plenty!!! and your 20 odd mile out so sea!

Loading the boats before a day out

The Bling... Everyone had either Stella's or saltiga's

The boys and their toys

Having a flick off the jetty, this resulted in quite a few Mangrove jack and a 50cm trout!

A Few boat / Sunset shots

Never too early for a beer!

On the way home refueling from the purpose built fuel cell for the trip

All in All, a bloody awesome trip, with a bloody top bunch of blokes, a heap of laughs and shit stirring and a heap of beer consumed! Catching a few fish is just a bonus on trips like this.

Bring on Exmouth 2014!

Thanks for reading

Bodie