Pete and I decided to do a quick trip up to Exxy between Christmas and the new year for a bit of landbased fishing and diving. Neither of us had been there at this time of year and didn't know what to expect weather wise - we know now, wind!

We left bright and early on boxing day and got up to the lighthouse caravan park by about 4:30 to be greeted by 45 degrees and strong winds. We were both pretty tired from the drive and crashed pretty early after a quick snorkle to cool off. The next morning we woke up early and went for a drive to see if we could find a bay that was protected from the howling winds at all. We found one place where the water wasn't too murky and jumped in. There were plenty of parrots and a few spangleds around, though all fish were very flighty and as a result we didn't spear anything. We did find a ledge with a few westerns under it and Pete managed to coax one out. We were just about to head in as the wind had picked up when Pete found an ornate/tropical cray with nowhere to hide, neither of us had seen or caught one before so it made up for the lack of fish!

After a quick bite to eat we went for a quick fish at the Mildura wreck and first cast Pete got onto a nice spangly.

The fish was caught just on the turn of the tide and after that things went quiet. While retrieving a lure I'd snagged on a bomby not far out from shore I noticed a couple of decent bluebone hanging around, so we tried to entice them out from their hiding place without any luck.

Day 2 began with another dive at the same place where Pete got his crays the day before, and again vis was pretty crappy an no fish were speared. I did manage to find another tropical cray in a tiny hole which made it pretty easy to pry out :)

After lunch we went back to the Mildura wreck to try and get the bluebone from the day before. After catching a few rats I finally got a decet hit, was using my PE5 casting outfit so the fish didn't really stand a chance and soon had landed my first ever bluebone!

Apologies for having my hands all over the fish, but it jad just bitten me and I didn't want a repeat dose!

On the final day we went up to the marina to dive the rock wall, as a bloke we'd met had been shooting a few decent parrots there. The vis was much better than on the west side, and we managed to finally shoot a few decent parrots. I hadn't done much spearing before so took a while to get used to aiming/reloading etc but got the hang of it after a while. My gun (Freedivers Evo 90) was excellent and would recommend them for anyone looking for a gun in that size range.

All in all a pretty good trip, with no incidents on the drive there and back.

Cheers, Tim.

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