Courtesy of Scott Forbes - EGFC

Andrew Burton and his wife Natasha made a quick trip to Exmouth from their home town of Newman and experienced an unforgettable day aboard Terry Maxwell’s charter boat Osso Blue. Andrew was lucky enough to be on the end of the rod when they hooked up to a giant Spanish mackerel. The big mackerel which took a Halco Laser Pro 190DD in the pink multi colour was taken on 24kg line and could have been a potential world record had it been brought in and weighed straight away. As it turned out the mackerel later weighed in at 42kg, just shy of the world mark but easily beating the current Australian record, however as Andrew isn’t a current member of a game fishing club, he is not eligible to claim the Australian record. The existing record was 38.75kg from back in 1978. Andrew and Natasha will be joining up to the Exmouth Game Fishing Club before their next trip out fishing. The mackerel wasn’t the only good catch for the day as the boat managed to find some nice red emperor, spangled emperor and rankin cod to ensure that everybody took home some nice fish at the end of the day.

Tantabiddi reef has been productive for those trolling deep diving lures. Both the coral and coronation trout as well as Spanish mackerel are being caught by anglers working the 15-20m contour line with the 8m deep diving lures. Most of the mackerel being taken have averaged 13kg however there has been the odd 20kg+ plus specimen mixed in as well.

Dorothy Kostera who has been enjoying the past 6 months whilst staying at the Lighthouse Caravan park was the envy of everybody at the park last week when she brought back a beautiful 15 and ½ pd Bluebone which she caught across the road from the caravan park in lighthouse bay on 30lb line on her secret bait which she isn’t willing to divulge to anybody.

Queenfish have been making early morning raids on the hardyhead schools at Trisel Access. For an hour or so at the top of the tide each morning the queenfish which have been averaging 4-5kg in size are being taken by anglers throwing around small poppers and soft plastics in a size which imitates the hardyheads which is naturally what the queenfish are chasing.