Cape Range National Park, Exmouth, WA

Well of the whole 6 month trip Cape Range National Park near Exmouth, WA would have to have been my favourite place to fish. With crystal clear water and a huge range of species willing to chomp on flies and lures the possibilities were endless.

Camping within Cape range is great, with it being right on the beaches which offer great fishing and snorkelling straight from camp, depending on which time of the year you go it can get very busy and can be hard to get a camp spot, so keep this in mind.

I fished both from the boat and land based and did not find one particularly better than the other, walking along these pristine white beaches sight casting to emperors, bream, permit etc was truly amazing.

While out past the shelter of the reef in the open water all the game and reef species can be caught that you would like if you have a slightly larger boat to handle larger swells. Inside the reef where I did all my fishing, I was catching spangled, grass and blueline emperor, Estuary cod, Permit, snub-nosed salmon, dart, trevally and more, all on fly and lure.

I mainly fly fished here but did also throw a few lures around when it was really windy, best fly I found was a white clouser in size 1. the emperor loved this! Also poppers were great fun with the emperor, but most plastics and hard bodies would not have a problem getting fish.

my most memeorable fish from this area was a 60cm spangled emperor which smashed my white clouser fly, it gave one hell of a fight taking me into the backing, luckily for me there was not too much reef around for him to run too.

If fishing from shore just remember to be persistent and clock up some km’s, the coast is always changing the further you walk, with rocky ledges and reef with emperor and cod in one spot only to find a beautiful sandy beach round the next bend with salmon, trevally and bonefish, so just enjoy the area and get out for a wander.