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.