Took a week off recently to travel to the Montebello Islands via Exmouth with a crew of 8 others for what turned out to be some of the most amazing jigging action I have ever encountered.

Departed from Exmouth Saturday and steamed and trolled for quite a few hours north (nothing raised). Ended up staying behind Thevenard Island. Had the lights attracting baitfish to the back of the boat and watched dolphins just metres away teaching a calf (about 60cm long ) to hunt.

Set off the next morning to the 85m -100m mark and dropped some jigs down near Barrow. Huge assortment of fish started hitting the deck. Amongst them goldband, rankin, longnose and Red emperor. Happy to say I landed my first Red on a jig....certainly not as huge as some I’ve caught on bait but still a nice tick on the jigging outfit and went 62cm.
Had a few drifts with outstanding catches at every drop.

Picked up the trolling gear again and within an hour or so the Tiagra 30w screamed with a sail being called. As this fish was being fought, it had two others following but these wouldn’t take anything else offered. The Sail was landed and few pics taken then released and swam off. (pretty happy crew).

Anchored in the Monties group for the night in a calm beautiful protected area.
Next day the crew were chomping to get out and fish. Hit the 60ish m mark and the games began. Never in my life could I imagine jigging to be so easy but expensive with the standard call of “grab us another $30 bucks (....ie jig !) Time after time the jigs “hit bottom” bail arm flicked over only to come up tight. With times of feathering the line thinking “should have hit bottom by now” only to realise the jig’s already been smashed.

About half the guys on board were using bait with some fantastic fish coming up on their lines as well.
Didn’t matter what was being offered jig wise (or bait it seemed) ....something smashed it. Coral Trout galore. fat Rankins coming up thick. Reds, Robbos, longnose, spangled.

Next day we hit a shallow area in 10m -15m. Put the plastics to work and in the first session don’t remember retrieving a single one without it being hit. Absolute chaos with some more good trout and a few others here. Unfortunately the sharks moved in and so we moved.

We hit up some reefy area for GT’s. The poppers came out and away we went. Two smaller model GT’s were boated (not by me ....but I was able to boat a nice size Mackie later which smashed the popper and was aerial just out the back or the boat ...great to see !)
While we were popping off the front of the boat the guys produced a nice coronation off the back....what more could you ask for ???

We also spent a relaxing day cruising through the Islands, trying for mudcrabs with not much luck unfortunately, but it was fun walking the beaches and exploring.
Steam back was easygoing with fantastic weather and a memorable jig and pop on a huge baitball. Trolled for while with a Wahoo and decent bull Mahi mahi. boated. (both released)

Apologies if the crew read this and it’s jumbled or out of order....was a hell of a week and some of this amazing fishing experience just blends ....maybe the amount of beer helped that aswell !

Cheers to all the guys, a top lot with so many laughs and great times and cheers to the crew on Top gun. Ash, Ohhh Devan and Terra for making this a week to remember.

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