Cairns Fishing Report - September 12th

Harry Owens with a quality barramundi caught on a recent remote fishing adventure

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Tackle World Cairns Weekly Fishing Report.

Strong winds have kept most boats inshore, but fishing has remained productive across the estuaries, rivers, and sheltered reefs.Coral trout and Spanish mackerel have been the standouts when weather allowed access offshore, while barra, mangrove jacks, queenfish, and GTs have provided plenty of action in the creeks and along the headlands.Add in some quality fingermark, grunter, mud crabs, and freshwater sooties, and there’s no shortage of options for anglers this week.

Reef Fishing

When the weather allowed a mid-week window, the reefs produced in style. Coral trout were taken in good numbers from Batt, Michaelmas, Pixie, and Sudbury Reefs along with most inshore reefs off the FNQ coast.

Deeper waters turned up mixed bags of large and small-mouth nannygai, spangled emperor, painted sweet lip, cobia, and trevally. Spanish mackerel have continued to fire, with both trolled lures & rigged garfish along reef edges along with floated pilchards or live fusiliers over bait-holding bommies delivering results. School, grey, and spotted mackerel have also been active, with anglers finding success trolling small spoons, jigging metals, and fishing live sardines.

Spotty mackerel numbers were responsible for many anglers being snipped off trolling baits & lures on mono while targeting billfish in the Innisfail Tournament last week. Billfish season is underway locally, with the Cairns Bluewater Billfish Light Tackle Tournament featuring 17 boats chasing marlin and sailfish on the local grounds to the north of Cairns & East from Fitzroy Island to the reef. All fish are tagged and released for competition points towards champion Boat & anglers. Two marlin were tagged on the first morning of fishing on Thursday.

Islands & Headlands

Cooktown Wharf has been a hotspot with dense bait schools drawing in barra, queenfish, trevally, and the odd mackerel. Barramundi have been super switched onto live pike that are being caught on site on jigs. Various Harbour flats have also produced grunter on fresh prawns and strip baits of mullet & garfish on the run-out draining tides.

Along the southern beaches and islands, Spanish mackerel have been hooked trolling lures, though sharks continue to be a worrying problem destroying catch rates and the viability of targeting them. It doesn’t make sense targeting fish to feed the sharks with little chance of landing fish a decent size fish.

Rivers & Estuaries

Mangrove jacks have been in great form, many over the 45cm mark, with live mullet and herring accounting for plenty of fish. Soft plastic prawns are also working well on both jacks and barra, the latter reaching up to 80cm in some systems were dredging the deep heavy timber is producing results.

Queenfish and GTs are active at river mouths such as the Russell, Johnstone, and Daintree, smashing surface poppers, walk-the-dog styles and metal lures along with saltwater flies, providing exciting sport fishing action.

Fingermark have been another quality estuary target, coming from the deeper holes on live bait. Grunter have also featured on the flats and sandbars.

Crabbing has been strong, with solid mud crabs and blue swimmers caught in sheltered bays and creeks of Hinchinbrook Channel and other estuary systems.

Freshwater

Sooty grunter and jungle perch are still providing great sport, with surface lures and small diving minnows accounting for plenty of strikes in the upper reaches of rivers and freshwater creeks including the Russell, Johnstone and Tully Rivers.

Some big tarpons are screaming light tackle gear along with solid barramundis. Caution is needed if the tarpon & barra are around as light leaders meant of sooty’s and JPs are easily abraded resulting in lost lures and fish.

Weekend Outlook

After a stretch of favourable mid-week weather, conditions are set to toughen for small boats this weekend with winds pushing up into the 15 to 20 knot range, keeping most inshore. Larger reef boats may still find opportunities fishing the sheltered reefs, with the neap tides seeing better fishing in the deep-water locations, where nannygai and emperors are prime targets. Light tackle anglers will be hoping for plenty of action on small black marlin & sailfish during the Cairns Bluewater Billfish Tournament with fishing continuing today & Saturday.

Inshore anglers, fishing the deeper estuary and river holes will be targeting fingermark responding well to live baits like herring and prawns along with jigged soft plastics. Key hotspots to target include the Cairns Inlet, Daintree and Russell Rivers, Mourilyan Harbour, and the Hinchinbrook Channel.

The smaller tides and cleaner water will be ideal barramundi fishing, particularly in the Daintree and similar river systems, where working soft plastic prawns through deep heavy timber is a proven tactic. Ensure a slow retrieve with weedless presentations bumping along their timber homes. Queenfish and trevally are another excellent option around the river mouths, where the neaps create prime conditions to tempt them with surface lures or live baits in the estuaries.

With multiple options to wet a line this weekend hopefully you get out on the water and catch a fish.

Need gear, bait or just a bit of local advice?

Swing by Cairns Tackle World at 172 Aumuller Street, Bungalow to chat with your local independent fishing experts.