Bucket-list species ticked off and PBs smashed! Anglers have spread out all across FNQ and the Great Barrier Reef this past week. From the tip top of Australia down to Hinchinbrook Island and all the honey holes in between, it's been an exceptionally action-packed week! The reef was red hot over the beginning of the week, with the winds dropping off and building tides turning the fish on, plus the Innisfail Game Fishing Club held the billfish competition, getting lucky with the great weather to kick off the successful comp. Large barra have been hungry. From the Gulf to local estuaries and dams, the big girls have been chewing, and some lucky anglers even managed to land their first meterie. On foot around Cape York, saratoga and sooty grunter have been ticked off more anglers' bucket lists, and in the local freshwater rivers, sooty grunter and barra have been hungry too, but so have the bull sharks right up the fresh!
Local Estuaries and Beaches
Barra, grunter, fingermark, queenfish and mangrove jacks have all been hot topics in the locals, with the building tides firing them all up. Barramundi kept anglers busy with many methods proving to be effective. Fishing the snake drains with live prawns produced many fish for some anglers over the bigger tides. Snag bashing saw many mangrove jacks and the occasional barra coming out of the timber for a chew on a mix of hardbody and soft plastic lures.
Young gun Jack managed to wrangle this solid mangrove jack from the structure.
Staff member Brayden convinced this fat barra to have a chew on a 10-inch Berkley Chop Block swimbait, only just touching the metre mark on the mat!
Grunter schools were thick across the Hospital Flats, caught mostly on fresh strip baits and prawns, but the bigger models, plus some barra in the mix too, took more of an interest in live baits. Fingermark have been causing some havoc for the baitfish around the wrecks through the inlet and out and around Kings Point, where some cracking fish were caught as well. Down at Hinchinbrook, the fingers have been hungry around the jetty and through some marks along the channel, taking an interest in vibes hopped through the schools.
Alice found this nice fingermark down in Hinchinbrook Channel.
Gronkus with a nice queenie off the Northern Beaches.
Freshwater Rivers and Dams
Tinaroo has been the go-to hotspot over the new moon period for the avid and eager barra fishermen. The big girls certainly put on a show over the week with some cracking fish caught, and even the number of fish caught has exploded compared to previous weeks. LiveScope has been an effective tool for many anglers fishing through the deeper timber reaches of the dam or finding fish travelling across the points and bays. One lucky angler fishing off the bank was targeting sooties, flicking surface lures along the weed edges, getting a big barra boof instead!
Young Banjo got super lucky with this barra. Flicking the light sooty gear, it's wrapped him in the weeds and he's had to swim out to get the fish unstuck. Lucky it was Tinaroo and a safe spot to swim. Great fish, mate!
Banjo again, getting stuck into this cracker sooty. Super dark fish, this one.
In the freshwater rivers, sooty grunter have been prolific, and anglers walking the miles into these systems have been finding plenty of hungry fish. Natural lure profiles replicating cherabin have fooled the larger fish into having a bite. But now that the temperatures are finally starting to warm up again, cicadas are starting to come out from their hidey-holes and make some noise again. A perfect opportunity to throw surface lures that replicate these noisy insects and get that topwater bite from a sooty or even a jungle perch!
Ryan certainly puts the Ks behind him on his adventures. Walking for miles into some of these systems, he ends up finding some quality fish and sees some pretty cool things. Unfortunately, on this adventure he got sharked! Right up in a freshwater river, miles from the ocean, a bully managed to get to the sooty before he had the chance!
One whole sooty from Ryan, caught flicking cicada lures through the pools. Luckily no sharks on this one!
Reef Fishing
We finally had another weather window open up for a few days there, and even better, it lined up over a weekend, seeing many anglers spend their days off wisely. Various critters from the blue were caught this week on both line and spear. Anglers bottom bashing have found themselves plenty of coral trout and the occasional small-mouth nannygai taking the bait too. Off the deep edges, anglers sending their electric reels down have pulled up some very desirable table fish consisting of green jobfish, flametail snapper and goldband snapper.
How good is this proper jobby from the depths Brent managed to pull from Linden Bank!
A bright red small-mouth nannygai from Alice.
Some delicious coral trout caught by Chae.
Abijah with a cracker trout from the reef.
Jack put the wettie on for a dive and shot a nice trout, blue bone and spangled emperor.
Game Fishing
The Innisfail Billfish Competition was a great and successful event, with more numbers of marlin and sailfish caught than the previous Townsville comp. Over 20 marlin were caught over the whole three days of fishing, leaving placing positions open for any boat if they tagged a billfish. Mostly juvenile fish were captured, but there were reports of a few 300-400lb fish raised in the spread, and some were hooked and snapped off during the fight. As it's only a light-tackle competition, hooking a fish of that calibre on light line class would be a long, drawn-out fight, so most anglers would snap them off and try to continue to chase the smaller billies, as the scores don't come from size but from numbers. Unfortunately, the long-range forecast is looking to be quite windy for the Bluewater Billfish comp, but hopefully the numbers of fish will increase over the time frame between now and then.
The game boat fleet parked up at the Innisfail comp, shot by Ella.
A nice juvenile black marlin on board Sublime Sport Fishing.
Spanish mackerel were thick, with anglers getting their bag limit quickly trolling over ground. Wog heads have been effective and produced plenty of fish this week. They're quick and easy to rig, plus run at most speeds without blowing out.
Alice managed to tick off her first Spanish mackerel from the bucket list!
Chae with a nice maccy on the troll.
Junior angler Nash reeled in this cracker mackerel. So good to see the young kids getting into their fishing!
Jack with a big maccy and a nice sunset backdrop.
The Gulf of Carpentaria and Cape York
In the Gulf, barramundi and threadfin salmon have been thick leading into the new moon. One lucky angler has cracked the barra code and managed to tick off his first meterie, and another one to follow up!
Ollie finally plucked a meterie from the salt, measuring 103cm.
Then, to follow it up, he topped it off with a 104cm barra to make for a bigger PB. You'd be stoked, mate, well done!
Up in the Cape, in the remote freshwater rivers, saratoga and sooty grunter have been keeping the keen anglers on foot occupied. Some solid footy-sized sooties have been taking the lures, but the prized possession is a saratoga from these rivers. Casting small paddle-tail profiles has convinced many to bite, but the surface lures are where it's at. Watching as these prehistoric fish mow down the lures as they rocket out from the timber, often creating a wake as they boost through, then boofing the lure as they hit. One of the best ways to chase this species.
Nathan with a proper sooty on surface, popping a Nomad Chug Norris through the zone.
A quality shot of a toga on the release from Nathan.
Mikaela managed to tick her first saratoga off the bucket list. What an accomplishment, and a quality-sized fish for a first!
Mikaela following up with another saratoga, convinced to eat on a weedless BKK hook and, most importantly, a natural-profile plastic, the Nomad Spectre Minnow.
Nathan throwing the Spectre Minnow, convincing this cracker sooty to bite.
To top off his trip up north, Nathan managed to get this cracker toga on a surface wake bait. A cool fish as it is, but on surface is even better!
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