More than 300 billfish tagged, pending fishing records aplenty, more than 50 samples collected for our Fishing for Science Program, a cracking 70-strong kids fishing clinic – it was quite the week at the 58th GAMEX fishing tournament in Exmouth!
This year Recfishwest’s Fishing for Science team, supported by Woodside Energy, returned to the tournament to engage with locals at the daily weigh-ins and collect samples from a huge variety of donated Gascoyne species, including mackerel, trevally, billfish, tuna and more.
Take a dive into our Fishing for Science program at GAMEX 2026 in the video below!
Fishing for Science is a community engagement program that enables local communities to better understand scientifically the prized fish species that underpin the fishing experiences at GAMEX.
Operating mainly through fishing tournaments, it empowers recfishers to play a more informed role in the management of our fisheries by directly donating samples of the fish they catch, with the sex, weight and length of each fish also recorded.
Find out more about the Fishing for Science program here.
The team also helped DPIRD collect otoliths from mackerel, samples that will directly inform their upcoming mackerel stock assessments.
“Fishing for Science has really hit its stride at GAMEX over the years and we’ve managed to collect over 500 samples from various fish species from this competition alone. This tournament really has become a gold mine for this citizen science initiative,” said Recfishwest Operations Officer Levi De Boni.
“It just shows recfishers are not just participants in the fishery, but also proudly acting as stewards by giving back to science. We’re in prime fishing territory for a range of great species in Exmouth, so GAMEX and Fishing for Science go hand in hand.”
Billfish trending and records pending
As always, GAMEX produced an impressive billfish tally: 663 billfish were raised, 490 were hooked, and 310 were tagged.
Of those 310 tagged billfish, 243 were black marlin, 56 were sailfish, nine were blue marlin and three were broadbill swordfish.
Remarkably, 10 pending record catches were weighed in. They include:
- Aaron Scotty (Dark n Stormy) 107.74kg broadbill swordfish on 24kg line (Male Western Australian record).
- Dean Gates (Fatal Attraction) 4.2kg gold spot trevally on 2kg line (Junior Male Australian record), 9.10kg golden trevally on 4kg line (Junior World record), 5.38kg gold spot trevally on 1kg line (Junior Male Australian record), and 9.14kg golden trevally on 2kg line (Junior World record).
- Lorena Hrbut (Fatal Attraction) 8.68kg chinaman fish on 6kg (Female Australian record), 4.16kg gold spot trevally on 1kg line (Female Australian record), and 9.62kg golden trevally on 3kg line (Female World record).
- Luke Mounsey (Awesum) 2.36kg spangled emperor on 1kg (Junior Australian record).
- Bri Bollard (Insalted) 9.84kg golden trevally on 2kg line (Female World record).
Click here to see all results from GAMEX 2026!
Recfishwest were once again involved with the Santos Family Fun Day and the kids’ fishing clinic, where more than 70 kids tried their hand at fishing and enjoyed catching species such as trevally, bream and tuskfish. Check out some of the clinic photos below!
A huge thanks to the Exmouth Game Fishing Club and all GAMEX competitors for hosting us and donating some of their fish. We love being part of GAMEX and are proud to grow our Fishing for Science work year after year.
