Flow disturbance around headlands and islands has the potential to create patchiness in pre-settlement fish, and thereby influence patchiness in settlement. Surface larval fish assemblages within and outside the wake of North Solitary Island off northern New South Wales (29° 55′ S, 153° 23′ E) were investigated during September 2004 to determine the effect of flow disturbance on the short term abundance and composition of continental shelf larval fish communities. A distinctive wake was apparent in the flow-field of the poleward East Australian Current (~0.5 ms^-1), evident from the vessel’s Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler. Three replicate 10 km long transects, each comprising 24 surface plankton tows (average volume filtered; 150 m^-3), were made across the island wake using a 500 µm mesh net. Change in temperature between the surface and 40 m depth at each sample location indicated a lateral mixing of coastal and oceanic water masses within the wake. Possible vertical mixing was indicated by an increase in abundance ratios calculated between abundant coastal and oceanic taxa within the wake. Abundances of clupeid, carangid, pomacentrid, scomberesocid, scombrid, gobiid, triglid, and platycephalid larvae were greater, either within the wake, or near wake fronts, however trends varied among transects. Our results suggest island wakes may be associated with local peaks in larval abundance of numerous taxa and could potentially increase the spatial complexity of larval fish assemblages through induced mixing of different water masses.