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Exmouth 2014
Topic Started: Apr 18 2014, 05:28 PM (709 Views)
TravGrundy
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Black Bass
Well in 24hours we will be starting our adventure to Coral bay and Exmouth, cars packed and I cant wait to go.
Should have the first line in the water by around 230pm Sunday.
Hopefully Ive packed enough gear haha
Anyway report and pics to follow
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SnappaDan
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Black Bass
Good luck, just do what you do normally and you'll do alright.
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Goodie
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Freshwater Fanatic

Good luck Trav. I also am venturing north to Kalbarri should be good
Oh its on!
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Wookiee
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jelly as Trav. Have a great time mate and i hope you get your arms stretched.
Carpe Pisces

The walking carpet disaster.
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SnappaDan
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Black Bass
Goodie
Apr 18 2014, 08:51 PM
Good luck Trav. I also am venturing north to Kalbarri should be good
Looking forward to the reports, good luck to you to.
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mighty bronco
Trout
Good luck, nice time to be up there.
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TravGrundy
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Black Bass
Good luck Goodie,
11 hrs in and we're going strong ( well i am, mrs has been asleep since Williams)
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ChilliBeer
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ChilliBeer
Good luck to all you going on your trips. Enjoy
Give a man a beer and he'll waste an hour. Teach him to brew and he'll waste a lifetime.

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James cohen
Dhufish
TravGrundy
Apr 20 2014, 04:10 AM
Good luck Goodie,
11 hrs in and we're going strong ( well i am, mrs has been asleep since Williams)
hahaha. typical
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TravGrundy
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Black Bass
All set up in coral bay for two nights, had a quick fish and scored a........... Bloody wrasse haha
Also lost a little trev and seen two big buggers cruising on by
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TravGrundy
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Black Bass
Righto been in Exmouth for three hours and have decided I dont want to go home.
The place is unreal, spent a hour flicking lures at the marina, only picked up a baby gt but saw about 5 bigger 10kg trevs, a bunch of queenies, mrs lost a little mackeral and seen someone score a decent jack on bait.
Just got to turn fish following into strikes.
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jugglerman
Snapper
Fish the incoming tide near the boat ramp-all sorts seem to turn up there as the tide comes in.
Some decent bluebone too.
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Lefty
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Your a fish magnet Trav.
Fish, Brag & Post Pics
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TravGrundy
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Black Bass
Hit up bundegi late this avo, few longtom and random cod things. Might try walking from there back to town tomorrow avo.
Going to cheat a little in the morning and buy some bait for the marina as there is some good fish there (and not many seem to fish it)

Also any suggestions on a good place for a feed?
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SnappaDan
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Black Bass
Bet you're wishing you brought the tinny along.
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Wookiee
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if youre taking the missus go to the mexican (i think) place with the statues out the front. i think its towards the towers from the petrol staton on the main road. pinoccios?????

if youre not taking the missus go to the pub and enjoy the backpackers :P


also i hate you and your fishing awesomenessness. have a blast mate.
Carpe Pisces

The walking carpet disaster.
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TravGrundy
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Black Bass
Haha seeing massive splashes a few hundred metres out over dead calm water makes me wish i brought the tinny up. Looking back we should of ditched the 2 nights in coral bay and added them to our exmouth stay.
Still got to try and head to the west side but theres so much to see and not enough time
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TravGrundy
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Cheers Wookie
Yep taking the mrs along so that place sounds good, walking distance from us too
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jugglerman
Snapper
Whalers is a decent feed too. Basically the two best places in town from what I've heard.
Try Heron point as well for a bit of a different fishin spot. Can get a bit boggy at times getting out though.
Edited by jugglerman, Apr 23 2014, 12:39 AM.
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rob dulson
Rob dulson ,the anchor man .
You should be banned !!! not satisfied with wiping out our southern stocks now your decimating the northern stocks .hope you and the family have a blast ,as Dan said do what you normally do and you will be fine good luck mate .
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TravGrundy
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Black Bass
Haha all catch release so far.
Any hints on the local jacks? Sly little buggers
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TravGrundy
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Black Bass
Well after 21 hours of driving we are back home, just had a coffee so figure I might as well get cracking on the trip report.

Day 1
Hit the road on the 19th just after 4pm with fuel stops in Perth and Geraldton before pulling into a very windy Carnavon just before 7am. With some time to kill before the shops opened we walked the 1 mile jetty (without falling thru it) couple of people fishing at the end but hadn't caught anything, did spy a couple of mud crab holes in near the start of the jetty amongst the mangroves.
After refueling and stocking up with food from woolworths we hit the road again and pulled into Coral Bay around lunch time. Don't think you could squeeze another person into the town, couldn't believe how busy it was. Anyway after a quick stop at the dec to find out the no fish zones and with a couple of hours spare before we could book in to the park, we hit the beach to wet a line.
Hooked up to a little trev but the 8lb leader didn't hold up to the task, with the wind and waves making things hard we packed up and headed of to the boat ramp for a look. Saw two big gts cruising around but weren't interested in lures so we let them be.

After setting up camp I headed back out to the reef south of the boat ramp but had no luck (seen a couple of guys score two spangled emps in the channel on bait)
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TravGrundy
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Black Bass
Day 2

After a terrible sleep (bloody kids playing hide and seak around tents all night) and a late start we hit up the beach again as the wind had died off, picked up a little queenie which i'm counting as the first fish of the trip (wrasse didn't count) spied a few bigger fish but didn't have any more luck.
Went back to the camp for a swim in the pool and relax before I treked off south to five fingers. Very fishy looking water and had a group of queenies follow but no luck (long walk too)
Was starting to have had enough of Coral bay and couldn't wait for Exmouth
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TravGrundy
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Black Bass
Day 3

Another night of kids playing games all night so we packed up and headed north.
Reached exmouth just before lunch so after a quick look around town we headed off to the marina.
Fished the sea side of it with soft plastics and metals, picked up a little gt, mrs lost a little mackie and spied a bunch of other gts and queenies. Headed to our unit and for the first time in three days we were able to relax, after cooling down with the aircon on for a few hours I headed off to Bundegi in the afternoon, picked up a couple of little cod things a lost a few long toms.
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TravGrundy
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Black Bass
Day 4

Another late start before picking up some bait and heading into the marina.
Fished the marina side of the wall after seeing a bait ball get smashed by something, caught a few gardies which quickly got smashed by queenies and a cuda. Ended up landing two queenies and a cuda, had 4 miss hookups and two unstoppables on 30lb. Mrs got a happy moment of all things.
I headed back out there in the late avo and picked up what i think is a spotted sweetlips and lost a big spangled emperor (wrapped me around oysters meters away from me)
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TravGrundy
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Day 5

Headed out early to the marina with the 10lb gear and lures, had a ball playing with little gts on stick baits and queenies on poppers and soft plastics.
Ended up with 5 gts and one queenie. Lost a big queenie and the rocks (managed a quick pic tho) and had a biggish gt follow but wouldn't strike.
Had a single throw with the cast net on the way home for bait for the evening and ended up with half a bucket of hardyheads (took nearly a hour to clean them out of the net)

Headed back out to the spot i lost the emperor at that evening and picked up a cuda on a popper along with little gts, just legal jacks (released) and undersized spangles. Missed a good hookup on the bigger rod (fillet of gt) too
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TravGrundy
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More pics from day 5
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TravGrundy
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Day 6

Thought I'd better do something touristy up there so booked a hour tour on the glass bottom boat off Tantatbiddi (also an excuse to check out that side of town)
Cost us 50 bucks each but was a bloody good tour, took us into the marine park zone a few hundred metres offshore as well as a big bombie outside the zone, saw big fingermark, sharks, turtles, cod, bunch of random reef fish and a humphead wrasse to name a few.
The weather didn't want to play along so we didn't fish. Dropped the mrs back at the unit instead and I headed back to bundegi to use up the bait. Picked up a few yellowfin bream before i decided to head out to the Mildura wreck to throw some lures around. Got smashed on a soft plastic (no chance of stopping it) and some more cod things. Bucketed down with rain the whole time and the turtles were a little friendly.

Went out to Whalers for dinner (food wasn't all that flash) then did one last solo trip out to the marina in the rain. Lots of smaller jacks, fingermark, gts and bream around which was good fun. Had a couple of light runs on the 30lb gear with strips of gt as bait. Had something big take the light rod pulling it from the rock and into the water (followed by me going for a skid down the oysters to grab it back as its the mrs rod)
Finally the shimano baitrunner took off and upon clicking it into gear i knew it was a good fish, after a tense 5min battle the bugger took me into a snag out in the marina. Managed to work it free but this fish had other ideas and took me into the oysters along the rock wall (very colourful language not suitable for online forums was then used)
With the rain and now wind picking up i gave in around midnight.
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TravGrundy
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Day 7

Had planned for one last lure session at the marina but with heavy rain falling when my alarm went off at 5am I decided a sleepin sounded better.
Checked the local radar to see a heavy storm system had settled over the area and since we have to be at work tomorrow we left a couple of hours earlier than planned.
Lucky we did as floodways were already going under (top of the wheels on our falcon) and just before coral bay we got a text from ray white saying the road was now closed to all traffic. Exmouth ended up with over 150mm of rain which would of made things very interesting up there.

With time to kill we decided to head home via Kalbarri and then Port Gregory, (I wanted to fish but the mrs said no haha)

Anyway we ended up doing just under 4000km, averaged 8litres per 100 and had a heap of fun. No real monster fish but still a very very good holiday (bringing the tinny next time)
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Fish
homebrewer not fishmonger

That's what it's all about trav. My mate is in Exmouth also building houses I think.

Looks like you had a ball
4 kids, no beer and lots of mullet
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Goodie
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Great report Trav. Looks like you had fun! You learn heaps from trips like that
Oh its on!
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Spence
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Dhu Executioner

That last pic would have been mint with a decent camera.
Good report mate
-Spence



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TravGrundy
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Black Bass
Haha yeah the iphone doesnt like the dark.
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Lefty
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Well done mate.
Heaps of variety.
Not a bad result considering you barely scratched the surface of spots to fish and you did it all LB.
I'm sure a return trip one day is already being planned.
Fish, Brag & Post Pics
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TravGrundy
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Another trip (or move) is in our plans for sure.
What I decided to do was to learn how one area fishes and then focus my efforts there instead of spending a few hours at every spot up there.
Overall I think it worked out pretty well
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SnappaDan
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Black Bass
Great report, shame about the weather making it a bit difficult. Only ime I actually got a boat 6m Trailcraft (brother in-laws) up there to fish we got caught in a storm. We were lucky to make it back in. We did see huge schools of fish on the sounder the whole time, so would love to get up there again in better conditions.
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Wookiee
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bloody ripper trip Trav.
glad you got stuck in. You are obviously blessed when Exmouth cries itself to flood when you leave.
Carpe Pisces

The walking carpet disaster.
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K1W1
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Black Jew
Great reports mate.
They say "the early bird gets the worm"... Not a problem, worms all yours birdy. I'll get up around noon and fish a dry fly - Hank Patterson
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Boots
Dhufish
Top read Trav
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Moohan
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Cool writeup Trav, Exmouth is an epic spot. Those Cod thingies are 'Charlie Courts". Pests that love soft placcy's, but the grey nomads froth on them, good eating.
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TravGrundy
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Cheers everyone and for the fish id Moohan.
A longer trip back up there is already in the planning stage, with 4x4 and tinny this time.
Exmouth 2016 here we come haha
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