beautiful Ningaloo reef

[basto]

I had the opportunity to fish this part of Western Australia a few years ago.  I caught a couple of species I have never seen before on the east coast.

One is the tomato cod at top and the other is the rankin cod, second from bottom.
The Ningaloo reef is 300kms long and hugs the central coast of WA.
My wife went swimming with the whale sharks there.
My gear was a Penn Senator 50lb rod and a TLD 20/40 with 30lb mono.
The other 2 fish are the mangrove jack second from top and the spangled emperor at bottom.
There are many places you can cast to this reef from the beach.
I had a great time there recently with my 9ft Penn Prevail rod and 6500ss.

[Darin Crofton]

Cool pic, bet that made some great dinner!

[basto]

Cool pic, bet that made some great dinner!

Yes Darin, They are all delicious!

[Benni3]

That's some very nice looking fish 

[Tiddlerbasher]

Yep lovely fish

[Dominick]

Good work Basto.  It is good to see fish from the other side of the globe.  Dominick

[Cor]

I had the privilege to fish the coast from Carnarvon to Exmouth W.A. on two occasions, mainly in the area of Quabba Station.
Ningaloo is in the same area.

Some astounding fishing of all sorts, but mainly Tropical game fish.   Very rugged and dangerous coast with high cliffs and hard fishing.

At one point everything we hooked got taken by very large sharks, was impossible to get the fish away from them.

Was a great experience but don't think I would go there again, the body won't handle it too well.

Queen-fish we caught by the dozens, despite pulling our lures away from them.

[basto]

Yes, I fished Quobba too.,very difficult place to fish. I could happily retire at Exmouth but my wife says no.
Greg

[mhc]

Nice fish Greg, I haven't been to Ningaloo but they reckon it's magic, a few friends have dived with the whale sharks there.
Is tomato cod the name of the fish or a recipe? 

Mike

[basto]

Nice fish Greg, I haven't been to Ningaloo but they reckon it's magic, a few friends have dived with the whale sharks there.
Is tomato cod the name of the fish or a recipe? 

Mike

Hi Mike
You will have to go to the Ningaloo reef some time. I think it is fishing heaven. On one of our trips over there, I was casting to the reef edge from the shore just north of Exmouth and caught a very nice flathead and golden trevally in about 20 minutes.
Have you ever heard of a tomato cod on the Great Barrier Reef?  Those rankin cod are great fighters and great to eat too.
cheers
Greg

[mhc]

I haven't heard of them on this side either Greg but according to Grant's guide to fish the distribution is North WA, Torres Straight and the inner Barrier Reef - maybe they're further north than we are.
I'd like to get over there someday - I'll have to stop dreaming and start planning I think.

Mike

[Donnyboat]

yes good spot Ningaloo reef, is pretty flat area, not many cliffs, the sharks love spangled ,emperor commonly known as North West snapper, there is about 5 species,  Greg & Cor, did you try ballooning for mackeral of the cliffs @ Quobba, they get them up to 25Kg, but hard to land, as the cliffs are dangerous, you can also get black king fish, a northern mullaway, possibly called Dew fish in the eastern states, nothing to get 10 or 15 when there on, they caught lots when you could fish of off the Canarvon Jetty, some times they would get up to Ninety is an evening,, & of cause, Exmouth is renown for the Marlin & sail fish, I sent Mike, a clipping from the paper, the exmouth classic that is held about March, April for a week, I think they razed 194 marlin, mike you maybe able to give us the correct figures they also caught a Marlin @ Exmouth in December that was over 1000LBS, cheers Don.

[Cor]

.........Greg & Cor, did you try ballooning for mackeral of the cliffs @ Quobba, they get them up to 25Kg, but hard to land, .........

I went with a friend and we were out to get Tuna from shore (can't remember the name of the species) like a slender tuna but got a wide variety of different fish.    We saw plenty Tuna but just could not get them on to our hooks or when we did they would not hold on     We only fish with artificial lures, no balloons or bait.

Nearly died from heat and flies, still got my fly hat!!

A photo of my buddy casting from the High ledges.

[jurelometer]

.........Greg & Cor, did you try ballooning for mackeral of the cliffs @ Quobba, they get them up to 25Kg, but hard to land, .........

I went with a friend and we were out to get Tuna from shore (can't remember the name of the species) like a slender tuna but got a wide variety of different fish.   We saw plenty Tuna but just could not get them on to our hooks or when we did they would not hold on     We only fish with artificial lures, no balloons or bait.

Nearly died from heat and flies, still got my fly hat!!

A photo of my buddy casting from the High ledges.

Thunnus tonggol,  AKA longtail tuna,  AKA Northern bluefin.  A nice tuna for fly and light tackle.     The narrow barred mackerel (Scomberomorus commerson) are an amazing fish,  sort of an inshore wahoo.

I also remember the flies on the beaches  around Ningaloo.    I pulled my cap down, and my buff up, so they settled with crawling all over my sunglasses while I tried to cast.  Half a dozen on each lens.  I think there was a waiting list.

-J

[mhc]

I prefer Greg's report - fishing the high ledge looks pretty scary Cor, and yours and jurelometer's recollection of the heat and flies does't sound too appealing, although the fishing sounds like it was good  . I'm pretty used to the heat but I could never get the hang of those fly veils, luckily I haven't needed one for years but I always seemed to end up with more flies on the inside than the outside - the small hole I made in the front for cigarettes probably didn't help!
I found the newspaper clipping about the tournament in Exmouth that Don had mentioned (see below) 797 billfish raised, 594 hooked and 307 tagged for 56 boats over four days.

Mike