Today — sit it out — wave, wind and surge pounding.
Sources & confidence
Compiled by the spearo sea-state engine · How it works →
The verdict comes from seven water factors and hard safety gates — not ten tabs. Go or stay.
Our own model
Our own forecast engine — not a third-party widget. It weighs these water factors into one go-or-stay verdict for this coast; the 0–10 dial is that verdict, read out as a number.
Safety gates
It all folds into a single 0–10 score and one verdict: go or stay.
A forecast, not a guarantee — the sea has the last word.
Where to get in, where to hunt
Wind, wave and the swell windows — when to go and the best hours.
The day is picked above, in the hero. Here are that day's windows, the hour-by-hour map and the trends. Tap a window to break down the conditions.
Leave your email — and the moment a window opens at Exmouth (Ningaloo), we'll send the go / no-go verdict. Email is all we need.
What's missing? Tell us what you'd like to see — new spots, species, data or features. We read everything.
Visibility and what drives it — post-storm clearing, river plume, temperature and the thermocline.
spearo.app folds wind, wave, swell period, visibility, tides, water temperature and risk into a single verdict — go to the spot or not. It computes 7 days ahead from open marine models (Open-Meteo, IPMA), with no sign-up and no accounts. Built for solo spearfishing off the rocks, where any mistake costs dearly.
Now live: 3016 spots across 406 stretches of coast — mainland Portugal, Madeira and the Azores.
See all spotsRelief and bottom type, tides, and the depths of each spot.
The models set the window. Whether you go in is read only at the water: count the sets, watch the surge on the entry. If in doubt, you don't get in.
Scouted entries, coloured by today. The colour is the sea state at the spot, not a guarantee: the wash and a slippery entry you judge on site.
Open the seafloor mapSheltered bay at Exmouth: sand with weed and rock patches, 2–6 m. GEBCO 2020 reads about 2 m at 900 m from shore; the band above is inshore water to be confirmed in the water.
Google MapsSheltered lagoon reef at the gulf's tip; 2–6 m, trevally, emperor, cod. Easy entry; Navy Pier nearby is permit-only (no spearing). Closed to spearfishing (see the legal notice).
Google MapsThe full spot briefing is part of the subscription: entry, bottom, hazards, tide window.
Open in the appThe full spot briefing is part of the subscription: entry, bottom, hazards, tide window.
Open in the appBay ground near Exmouth: mostly sand, patched with weed and rock, 2–11 m. Ningaloo Marine Park takes in this pin. Some of that park is open water and some of it takes nothing at all — settle which before the swim, not after.
Google MapsNingaloo lagoon reef by the boat ramp; 2–6 m, coral trout, emperor, spangled emperor. Huntable OUTSIDE sanctuary — check zoning carefully.
Google MapsFamous drift-snorkel reef — Ningaloo MP SANCTUARY, NO-TAKE. Coral and turtles; look only.
Google MapsSOLO is the biggest risk: underwater you can black out from lack of oxygen silently and fatally, with no one around. Solo is never truly «safe». Below are the best weather windows; carry a buoy, tell someone your plan and exit time, and any doubt — don't go.
Cameras, map and reference — to hand as you come up.
Rules as of now — 25.10.2026 12:37 (Australia/Perth)
Spearfishing at Exmouth is a zoning problem before it is a diving problem. Ningaloo Marine Park is closed to spearfishing between Tantabiddi Well and Winderabandi Point, sanctuary zones inside the park take nothing at all, and rockcod and wrasse may not be speared anywhere in the park, so coral trout, estuary cod and tuskfish stay off the list. Bundegi Beach on the gulf side is the sheltered shallow entry, and Turquoise Bay is sanctuary water that stays look-only. Emperor, trevally, queenfish and mangrove jack are what the DPIRD brochure puts on the can-spear side. Confirm every boundary with DPIRD before you load.
The cape has two faces: the sheltered gulf side at Bundegi and the Ningaloo lagoon on the west. What matters is which side of a park boundary you are on, so settle the zone before the swim.
| Spot | Type | Depth | Level | Access | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bundegi Beach | Sheltered lagoon reef at the gulf's tip | 2-6 m | Easy shore entry | Walk-in from the beach | Trevally, emperor and cod are listed here. The Navy Pier nearby is permit-only and carries no spearing, so keep the gun away from that structure. |
| Tantabiddi | Ningaloo lagoon reef by the boat ramp | 2-6 m | Boundary-check dive | Shore or boat ramp, only in water you have confirmed as open | The spearfishing prohibition in Ningaloo Marine Park runs from Tantabiddi Well to Winderabandi Point, so this mark sits on the line. Confirm the zone with DPIRD before loading, and treat an unclear boundary as closed. |
Rules change and vary BY STATE. Before heading out, check with your state's fisheries (NSW DPI, Fisheries QLD, VFA, DPIRD WA, PIRSA, NRE Tas, NT Fisheries) and the marine-park zoning map.
| Turquoise Bay | Ningaloo Marine Park sanctuary reef | Shallow lagoon drift | No-take closure | Snorkel entry only | A famous drift snorkel over coral and turtles, and a sanctuary zone: no fishing of any kind, look only, never a hunting backup. |
| Tent Point | Headland boulders and reef around the tip | 3-7 m | Experienced shore dive | Walked in from the shore | Terrain rather than a reported fishery: only the shape of the bottom is sourced. White sharks belong to this coast and Exmouth is filed at moderate risk, so dive with a partner. |
Exmouth works when the wind is out of the bad sector, which runs from about 30 to 160 degrees and is worst near 100 degrees. The township side faces east into the gulf and is sheltered through most of that range, while Tantabiddi and the Ningaloo lagoon sit west of the cape and can hold shape when the gulf side is chopped up. There is no visibility baseline recorded for the city, so the final call is made standing on the beach, not from a forecast page.
The hard closure is Ningaloo Marine Park between Tantabiddi Well and Winderabandi Point, where spearfishing is prohibited outright. On top of that, sanctuary zones inside the park allow no fishing of any kind, and the closed-water list for Exmouth is dominated by entries named Ningaloo Sanctuary Zone. Turquoise Bay is one of them and stays look-only. Spearfishing while diving under compressed air is also prohibited in Ningaloo Marine Park, and the Navy Pier by Bundegi is permit-only with no spearing. Where a boundary is unclear, treat the water as closed.
The DPIRD and DBCA Ningaloo brochure puts emperors, trevally, mangrove jack and stripey seaperch on the fish-you-can-spear side outside the prohibited areas. Spangled emperor carries a 400 mm minimum and sits in the demersal mixed bag, which drops from 5 to 4 fish per day in the North and Gascoyne bioregions from 1 June 2026. Trevally and queenfish share a nearshore group bag of 8, mangrove jack is 300 mm with a bag of 2, and stripey seaperch is 300 mm with a bag of 4. Spanish mackerel needs 900 mm in WA and sits inside a three-fish large-pelagic bag.
Spearfishing for rockcod, the families Epinephelidae and Serranidae, and for wrasse, the subfamily Labrinae, is prohibited in all waters of Ningaloo Marine Park. That is the classic trap here, because coral trout, estuary cod, blackspot tuskfish and baldchin groper are all legal to line-fish and none of them may be speared inside the park. Separately, potato cod, humphead Maori wrasse and whale sharks are totally protected in Western Australia, and the Ningaloo whale shark aggregation runs roughly March to August.
Shore-based spearfishing in WA needs no recreational fishing licence. A Recreational Fishing from Boat Licence is required for any fishing from a powered boat, spearfishing included, and DPIRD lists it at 40 AUD for 12 months from issue, with half fee for under-16s, Seniors Card holders and listed pensioners. All inland waters are closed to spearfishing, and a hand spear or gidgie is allowed in estuaries only for estuarine cobbler. Ciguatera advice applies to large tropical reef fish: Queensland Health advises avoiding the head, roe and liver.
Only outside the prohibited areas. Spearfishing is prohibited between Tantabiddi Well and Winderabandi Point, and sanctuary zones allow no fishing of any kind.
Not inside Ningaloo Marine Park. Spearfishing for rockcod, which includes coral trout and estuary cod, is prohibited in all waters of the park even though line fishing for them is legal.
No. Turquoise Bay is a Ningaloo Marine Park sanctuary zone, so it is a look-only snorkel and no fishing of any kind is allowed.
Not from the shore. A Recreational Fishing from Boat Licence is needed for spearfishing from a powered boat, listed by DPIRD at 40 AUD.
No. Spearfishing while diving under compressed air is prohibited in Ningaloo Marine Park and in Shark Bay Marine Park.
Spangled emperor has a 400 mm minimum, and the demersal mixed bag in the North and Gascoyne bioregions is 4 fish per day from 1 June 2026.
Exmouth Gulf North buoy: wave 1.9 m · 3 h ago(model: 3.0 m)
