I have for many years wanted to fish the waters around Exmouth, Western Australia.  I listened to many stories as a child from my parents who professionally fished the area in the 70’s.  Tales of bare hooks with strips of cloth functioning as the lure with mackerel well over six foot and thirty plus kilo’s continuously coming aboard until the bite stopped.

Back then a professional fishing license cost $1, which we still have locked away in a fishing chest down south.  At one stage the viability of professional fishing became difficult and another source of income needed to be found.  Conveniently the U.S naval station housed thousands of sailors who used to pay big dollars for tiger shark teeth.  Stories of 44 gallon drums used as floats, old Holden engines as sinkers and half a sheep as bait resulted in monster tiger sharks the size of 18ft boats towing drums miles down the Ningaloo reef at rapid speeds.  To professional fisherman back then, sharks were as much a nuisance as blowfish are to recreational anglers today.

There was little consideration of what impact this may have on the reef as it was a way to make a living.  Many people still find this a difficult concept to grasp, the differentiation between fishing for a living (professionals) and fishing as a recreation.  The notion of catch and release is something which may have been done back then, but certainly wouldn’t have been practiced or preached as religiously as today’s fisherman.  The save Ningaloo campaign has gathered a lot of momentum over the last couple of years and with strong labor government backing, the increase in marine parks to over 30 percent is planned to reduce the impact of fishing on the system.

We did a bit of study before our recent trip to ensure that we were not fishing in the restricted zones and found that there is still an enormous amount of ocean that is open to anglers.  Fishing from Tantabiddi is the best option for a short trip to deep water and the monsters of the deep.  When we left north passage there was a boat within 50 meters of the breakers and within casting distance that landed a giant coral trout that easily would have pushed 6kg.  We had been excited by the prospect of the 100 meter mark where tales of big marlin, dolphinfish, all varieties of tuna and sailfish were standard catches.  This was without even considering the plethora of bottom fish that we didn’t even get a chance to target due to the strong winds and fast moving currents. Unfortunately we didn’t take a 4wd on the trip and had to rely on a 2wd, which severely restricted our launching options.  Bundegi ramp requires a 4wd and is very difficult to retrieve from on a low tide with strong winds as the ramp becomes covered in soft sand.  We witnessed on a few occasions people retrieving with their tyres fully inflated and not locked into 4wd, which cut up the sand and made it extremely tricky for the next person to come in. 
This is a similar situation to the Tantabiddi ramp where there are metal racks which need to be placed under the car tyres to ensure the sand doesn’t wash away and your car becomes bogged.  Now we decided to learn this the hard way.  After borrowing an old mates car from back in the Nornalup days, we decided that it wasn't going to be a problem to get the boat out on a relatively low tide and we should be fine. 
The 4by had its back cabin extended, tinted and lined with curtains and reversing down the ramp should have made us realise what was next to come.  Not being able to see a thing, I jumped out a let the captain back her up and after a couple of goes we finally reached the water.  It was 5pm and there was hardly trailer in the carpark and only a few tourists rocking up, we started wondering why.  Advice was to the captain, don't put the front tyres on the sand, something he argued with, and decided he knew better.  After winching the boat on, which took considerable time as there was a little sand bar which had built up and was near impossible to get the big fibreglass hull over.  By this stage the wheels had started sinking and the urgency had kicked in and twenty seconds after trying to move her, we knew we were in some serious trouble. 
At this point a New discovery was waiting in line to get its little tinny out and knowing that we weren't going anywhere we asked him to try and retreive us.  After doubling ropes and setting it up for him to pull us out we started to feel like things were turning back in our favour.  He turned the discovery over and began to try get us out, all four wheels started spinning and there was no movement, 20 seconds later, SNAP, the ropes went loose and our hopes died again.  We decided that the boat was too heavy and it needed to come off, rocks went under the tyres and the ropes were tied only to hear another snap 10 seconds later this time.  By this stage I was feeling near hopeless and the thoughts of the changing tide we fresh on my mind, along with the $25,000 loan we were going to have to take out to buy my mate another car. 
Desperation had set in and nearly everything at our disposal had been tried and with a small crowd watching on, hopes shrunk even further.  It was time to set someone off to the local yardie creek caravan park to find a winch or a tractor or something which could save us, and with it being 5.45 and the tide changing at 6, time was our enemy.  Off the captain went on his way in a brand new audi covered in salt and sand to find someone to rescue us.  In the time that he left a couple of German tourists on their way around Australia stopped in to look at the sunset and I made the effort to go and ask them if they had a winch. 
Luckily enough they were pretty professional at getting themselves out of strife and made quick work of our mess and told us how it should be done.  5 minutes later the car was out and the skipper rocked up with a local guy to help us out, not much good now, but atleast we knew we had help.  Down went the metal tracks, on came the boat, successful retreival an hour and half later and some seriously painful and doubtful moments.  We decided to give the guys the rankin cod we had caught for the day as thanks and after we had cleaned up a bit and washed some sand out of the tires we were about to leave.  Next thing we hear is, STOP STOP, as a young lady with a child ran accross screaming.  What do you know but the car behind us had done what we did but even worse and was nearly upto the doors.  Off to yardie creek we went and dropped her off to find their saviour.  We then spent the day cleaning rear drum brakes in the pouring Exmouth rain, luckily enough the weather had closed in and boating wasn't an option.

Several shoals in the Exmouth gulf are well worth exploring if the conditions aren’t suitable to head out wide.  We only tried one shoal and caught 3 just undersize coral trout in five meters of water and tried anchoring on a large school of fish but kept missing them due to the current which rips through on the tide.  We tried trolling deep divers over shallow ground for twenty minutes but had to leave without giving it a serious go as the weather closed in for the next two days.  We had heard that there were plenty of sailfish and big mackerel lumps out in the gulf that are worth trying if things aren’t firing elsewhere, another of the potential spots that we didn’t even get to try.
Fishing from the marina wall is an option that shouldn’t be ruled out if you don’t have a boat.  We witnessed large queenies crashing big bait schools at the end of the rock wall and a scan with the echo sounder past the closest boating marker (within casting distance) showed promising ground.  A few of the locals say that big spangled emperor often come in when it rains, along with mangrove jacks and big estuary cod.  They come in to pick up the scraps that flow out of the marina and from the prawning boats cleaning their nets. Fishing the Murion Islands was one of the highlights of our trip with spectacular fishing in shallow waters.  We decided to troll from the first breaker on the Island all the way to the protected zone, marking anything of interest on the GPS and going back and checking them out later on.  We caught a variety of fish being rankin cod, red emperor, spangled emperor, cobia, school sharks, school mackerel and trevally along with numerous fish that managed to fight themselves to another day.  Most of our fishing was done between fifteen and twenty five meters and soon as the hits slowed down it was to the next spot to see what it had on it.

Trolling around and between the Islands with an assortment of deep divers and surface lures saw many mackerel boated in less than 8 meters of water, with the occasional rankin cod being caught on the deep divers.  The crystal clear shallow waters are a piscatorial paradise and when the mackerel start to bite they put on an awesome show and are often followed by their mates which provide a spectacle under the boat.  After having our fun with the mackerel we decided to see what was going out back out at the 25 meter mark where 3 massive bait schools were circling.  After running a few different lures around the school with little success, we decided to call it a day and run a few surface skirts for a slow and relaxing trip home with a beer in hand, little did we know what was about to happen next… After 10 minutes of trolling and getting close to opening it up for the ride home I witnessed a huge hit from the close in skirt and a bill rise from the water.  Unable to contain my excitement I screamed to stop as the captains rod turned in its holder was about to be ripped out of the boat.  Luckily he dropped the engine into neutral and had enough time to grab his rod before it left the boat to join the ocean.  Unfortunately the hook had pulled and we had lost a big capture.  Just when we thought it was all over he came back to take a skirt which was being retrieved at a slow pace and after a thirty second run we thought we had him hooked up.  Soon as the pressure went on he decided that he was over this and proceeded to drop the other skirt and swam past the back of the boat revealing an angry eight foot black marlin fully lit up in all its magnificence.  We decided that we would give it another five minutes just incase he came back again and we would be given a second chance.  Five minutes later a huge hit came on the Tiagra and we thought we had got him on, only to reveal a small stripey tuna which had struck harder than the marlin two days before and ended up breaking the handle on a brand new $800 reel.  We decided to call it quits and celebrate an amazing day by having a nice cold beer on the way home and even thou we missed a big capture we weren’t too worried and the story of the one that got away lived on.

We headed over to the Murion’s for one final day of fishing and with a strong 12-15 knot easterly blowing a little concern arose about how comfortable the trip home was going to be.  Once over there we found the little lumps we had been on from the days before and managed to pick up a couple of nice sized red emperor and a big double header of spangled emperor.  On the second drift we caught a fine rankin cod and a couple more spangled emperor along with a school mackerel.  We decided to turn the school mackerel into bait, which was a great decision as the bite picked up and a couple more rankin cod were landed along with another superb red and spangled emperor.  After two hours fishing we decided that we had caught enough and as the picked up a few more knots we knew it was time to get out of there before we were blown to South Africa.  Another concern was on the second drift the engine only just started and the decision to not turn off the engine for the third was one that I am extremely pleased about, in hindsight.

The trip back at 8 knots was slow and painful, yet satisfying as some good fish were caught and the engine was still going after initial fears.  I felt some sorrow for the numerous aluminum boats we passed between the headland and the island that were in for an arduous trip back with bruised and battered bodies from the rising seas and swell.  After an hour and a half of traveling we finally made it back to the marina and decided to turn off the engine once fastened securely.  Just to see how lucky we really were, we tried to turn the engine back on with both batteries to hear a dull whining sound and nearly no kick to the engine.  I’m not a religious type, but I said a quick thank you to someone upstairs as the wind picked up once again and rattled the empty rescue station windows.  The trip was nearly at an end and with the cleaning procedure well and truly streamlined, we went back to the room, cleaned up and prepared for the journey home after a wonderful experience in Exmouth.