The Mackerel Islands has really lived up to its name this past week, the Spanish Mackerel have been going off – with 18-20kg Mackies attacking lures and floating mulies as soon as they hit the water, leaving fishermen with sore arms, broken gear and stories of double and triple hook ups!

Chris Grech and his crew had a close encounter with a Stripy Marlin just west of Rosily in about 60m of water, they’d been trawling with 5 lines out the back and stopped to pull in the lures, and the marlin appeared right at the back of the boat…quick as they could they got the lines in the water again and started moving, only no one got a hit. So they stopped again and pulled their lines in only to have the marlin reappear at the back of the boat. After playing this game a couple more times the marlin finally hit a line and ran, after fighting for a bit, unfortunately the marlin got off the line (but its all about the adventure right?)

The charter boat saw its fair share of action this week. One charter had a great day catching nice sized Spangled Emperor, Honeycomb Cod and Painted Sweetlips all day, and right at the end hit a patch of huge Rankin Cod, bringing in 5 nice cod ranging from 7 -9kg each!

The action on the bottom has not disappointed either, good catches of Spangled and Red Emperor can still be found in 20-30m of water. The squid are still to be found hanging around the moorings and jetty at night – entertaining the kids and adults alike with a couple of monster sized squids proving to be good action on the light gear.

Mackerel Islands
(08) 9271 0560