Did someone say Rain Forest!

The pre wet season built up can be a fabulous time to fish our tropical rainforest rivers and even though the tides were not the best (a low at 6:00am and a slow run in until 3:00pm) Kevin and I decided to head to the mighty Daintree anyway.

Daintree Boat Ramp - A beauty!

Our plan was to head downstream from the boat ramp and toss lures under the overhanging mangrove trees before the making tide pushed up too far and disbursed the bait. It was a good plan and before long we hand glided to a standstill, clipped on my favorite Lead’s highjacker and dropped the bow mounted electric into the briny.

It was Kevin’s turn to take his boat this day, a beautifully finished off 4.3m Cairns Custom Craft punt, and as his electric is mounted on the bow, I still had my favorite stern position to cast from. Its not often that I get a chance to be the “client”……..being an ex guide and a fussy angler, I usually take my own boat and gladly guide my fiends / guests. Kevin is an expert river fisherman, we share the same fishing philosophies, have the same preferred angling styles etc so it was indeed a pleasure to be towed along this way.

Note – The bow mounted electric worked a treat. I was constantly amazed at the increased efficiency of the motor being in this position as the energy needed to “pull” an object through the water – pointy bit first – rather that “push” it from the stern, was dramatically shown in a positive light throughout the day. Food for thought there, maybe I should make some modifications to my punt as well.

Back to the fishing.

We were greeted by conditions that were not ideal. You see, we had had heaps of rain this past few weeks and the water was the color of black tea. Thankfully it wasn’t like tomato soup so we were fairly optimistic. It was warm, it was humid, it was as still as could be and the sun was sucking up the moisture making for uncomfortable conditions. Even at this early hour the sweat was dribbling down my back – it was going to be a hot day.

We had just settled into fishing and had no more than a few cast each when a flash zoomed up from the gutter…….barra we exclaimed excitedly. Back in went to Leads…….. boof………. and I was on to a feisty little barra around the 50cm mark. Kevin landed an archer fish and a couple more barra came from this one section. Hmmmmm, maybe we would have a good day after all.

Barra from mangroves - check that water color!

Archer Fish

Drifting further downstream we worked the thick horizontal mangrove trunks that jutted out from the heavily timbered bank. Quite a few barra were laying on the downstream side of these structures and a well presented lure brought instant results. We also worked the edge of the “prickles”…….at half tide these aerial roots of the humble mangrove tree provide shelter for skittish baitfish and guess what. Where the food swims the predators follow. The tally was mounting.

Barra - note dark coloring, a fresh water fish

About 10:00am we entered a small side creek. There was a snag sitting in about 2m of water so we clipped on deep diving lures to get down to the structure. On my first cast there was another barra flash……missed it. Next cast I let the lure sink a few feet first, twitch, twitch and bang…..I was on to a nice fish. But the hooks pulled after a brief encounter so we left the snag to get back into the river proper, away from the mozzies and have a cupper.

By now the tide had pushed in too far for this “under mangrove” approach so a journey upstream past the main ramp was the order of the hour. It was now time to work the “prickles” and again we found more willing fish however the bite had definitely slowed from the mornings peak. Drifting along on the electric we cast right up to the bank, slowly twitching our lures past the swaying mangrove roots and occasionally catching a barra. This was fun.

Man it was still, it was as hot as hell and the trickle of sweat had become a torrent down my back………lets head upstream and turn on the air-conditioning I mused. We pulled up near a bend and started to work a nice weed bed.

What the hell was that?

About 100 metres further upstream there was a real commotion going on up under the cotton wood trees. We could hear the splashing of a large animal near the rivers edge and the actual breaking of branches. And then we saw it, a huge croc of well over 5 metres glided out from under the trees. Its head was massive, almost a metre and a half from the nose to its eyes. Next came a huge hump that was the main body of this beast followed well behind by a trailing tail. I could feel fear swelling up inside me, the sheer size of this living dinosaur made the senses sharpen and the pulse quicken………we were far enough away to feel relatively safe in the boat BUT would not want to hang around that location for much longer. The beast made a 180 degree turn and crashed back under the trees.

Whether this monster was mating or defending its territory, we are well into the croc's mating season, we did not want to hang around to find out and a hasty decision was made to give that area a wide berth.

Up around the next bend we could see quite heavy rainfall blanketing the valley, the skies were as black as and thunder started to crack above the hills. Time to put on the wet weather gear just in case.

Just in case………within a few minutes the heavens opened up, the skies closed over, thunder rumbled around and through us so we quickly took cover in Barrett’s Creek to ponder our next move. It was lunch time anyway so we were quite happy for the relief from the heat and humidity while we ate a hearty meal.

It took about 1.5 hours for the storm to move further north-east and clear our way to continue fishing. Next stop was the weed beds where we encountered more juvenile barra and we both landed another each.

Juvenile barra - from the prickles

Barra from weeb beds

Further upstream we travelled, past the Daintree township , past Stewarts Creek that was spewing coffee colored water from the recent downpour and up to a nice backwater. I pulled another barra from the weeds here too. It was my lucky day.

The further upstream and the further into the tide, the barra activity was definitely on the decline, time to pack it up and head off home.


The tally for the day:

• Barramundi x 16

• Jacks x 4

• Flathead x 1

• Archerfish x 1

Two very happy anglers made our way back along the Coral Coast to Cairns that evening and conversations turned to next week’s adventure. WE ARE HEADING OFF TO THE HINCHINBROOK FOR A FEW DAYS………..hope to have a great weekend!



MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL MY FRIENDS AND READERS.

Good Fishing, Les Marsh

http://www.fishingcairns.com.au/