Mackerel island & Exmouth
Submitted by Brutas on Mon, 2010-02-01 18:27
At the end of May a mate from Victoria is flying over and we are heading up to Mackerel Island for 4 nights followed by another 4 nights in Exmouth fingers crossed the weather and fishing is on our side 
Any heads up from members who have been to Mackerel Island before
STEVE231
Posts: 1443
Date Joined: 05/01/10
Mackerel Islands
The Mackies really depend upon whether you are shore based, using their dinghies or taking your own boat. Over the years I have had a lot of fun fishing there with all these methods. Back in the early days a dinghy would be included in your tariff, things have changed somewhat since then. The last time I was up there was about 2 years ago with my own boat. From what I understood the dinghies were hired out on an hourly basis and it seemed as though not many people used them.
When I first started going up there ,maybe mid 90's, all we ever used to do is fish in the dinghies, fishing the shallow corals at the back of the island for spangles, coral trout and golden trevally etc. Other places that were easily accessible to the dinghies were sandy cay (big queenfish) Saladin B (unmanned oil platform that holds a crazy amount of golden trev's) and a place called the Black Flag (good for mackies) We would normally mess around doing this for 5 days and charter a boat for 2 days, this would at least guarantee we took home some good eating fish.I can say that Saladin B and Black Flag still fish prety well as I fished them last time I was there in my own boat.(bear in mind that you aren't supposed to get too close to the oil rigs, exercise a little bit of digression)
Personally I would not go there for the shore based fishing alone as I don't think the rewards would out weigh the effort. I have had fun catching small queenies and trevally of the beach, but that has been about it.
Offshore, places like Rosily Cay and beyond have provided some great fishing over the years.
Brutas
Posts: 47
Date Joined: 27/03/09
Thanks Steve 231 for the
Thanks Steve 231 for the info will be checking out some of those spots for shore. Plus we will be draging my 5.6 plate boat up there
Thanks Brutas
Bones76
Posts: 476
Date Joined: 03/11/08
Hey Brutas - Mackie Islands
Hey Brutas - Mackie Islands are great.
5.6m boat is more than enough (weather dependent).
Few spots - Airlie Island for light sportfishing (queenies, small golden trev's etc), Rosily Cay for huge queenfish, GT's and Spaniards (well we got biiiig spaniards on poppers in August on the western sand of the reef), Rosily Shoals for bottom fish and Penguin Bank for sail's/small marlin.