Return to the Daintree

Well after weeks and weeks and weeks of non stop rain........the skies finally cleared and we actually had 3 days of almost sunny weather. I say almost, because we did get a few mills each night but nothing like the 80+mm that had become the norm.

So with the hope that the mighty Daintree, situated approx. 100ks north of Cairns, would possibly have relatively clearing conditions, my mate Greg from Sydney and I headed north.

It had been several months since I had ventured up that way and readers of these blogs will know why!

As we rounded the bend at Humbug Reach, my heart skipped a beat as I surveyed the scene - would the waters be clean enough to fish in, or was it a waste of time so far. Thankfully conditions were OK, sure it was not sparkling clear, but the water was clean enough to lure fish.

We launched my tinny at the Daintree township, it was high tide and we headed upstream. Being a full moon and a high tide of 3.4m, I knew that the waters would be backed up and we would have no trouble cruising way upstream to the mountain rapids. In fact the level was so high that the trip became a little boring for me, part of the adventure is to zoom up the rocky rapids but they were a couple of metres below the surface and it was a cruise, instead of an adventure. Not to worry........I knew that Greg had never been this far upstream before and the jungle clad mountains sure were a picture. With all the rain there had been a huge growth spurt of the many plant and trees species that call this part of the Wet Tropics home. She sure was looking like a sparkling jewel, vivid green and alive with birds, butterflies and insects - I hoped the fish were active too.

Clipping on one of my favorite hijackers we cast to the bank side weed. On about my third cast a feisty 50cm river trevally slammed my offering and put up a great little fight. I knew straight away that it was not a barra, the fish was too active and the fight too dogged. A great start to the day.

This is not a trevally OK!

Five minutes later Greg latched onto his first barra for the trip and his first for quite a few years - he had been so busy with work commitments of late that a trip up north to see his mate (and catch a barra) had been put on the back burner. I was thrilled for him and after a quick photo, the juvenile barra was gently released.

Greg's 1st Barra of the trip

This pattern continued throughout the day, casting to the grassy verges produced the goods and the tally was mounting - s l o w l y !

Strangely though the gutters and drains were not firing. Even though the colour change looked good and some of the small creeks appeared to offer ideal conditions, the barra were absent and we only caught one small barra using this method. In all we landed 9 barra between us and I was really happy for my mate to get his barra fix at last. Unfortunately, as so often expressed in these pages, none were of legal size with the biggest fish being 54cm, still well short of the mark.

The biggest at 54cm

We also landed half a dozen JP's and hooked up to a couple of tarpon, quite impressive considering the fact that we weren't using the smaller lures that would guarantee more of these smaller species, BUT barra were on the menu for us this day.

The Daintree will only fish better and better as the wet season tails off, but a trip way up to the gorge country will be absent for another season as the floods recede. The river peaked at about 8 metres the week before our trip and one of the river cruise operators proudly boasted that the water was half way up the ramp access road only a few days prior to our visit.

Perfect timing I'd suggest!

Happy Fishing, regards Les
http://www.fishingcairns.com.au/