Glassed Out in Cardwell

Sunday Morning over Hinchonbrook Island (background) at Cardwell

Les Marsh's other half reporting in! I haven't had time to go fishing for a few weeks but his ex, Pam Marsh, enticed me with an invitation to join her and her fellow members of the newly formed Cairns Social Fishing Club to a bash down at Cardwell this past weekend. The social part of the word got me, but fond memories of the crystal clear ocean waters of the Hinchinbrook got me excited too! Yes, quiet boys...I can hear you all getting excited about me, (the girl) getting excited about fishing...you know I love it!

Les and I scuttled covertly out of the office at 3 pm Friday night and headed for Cardwell. I was so delighted about finally going fishing again, I merrily downed 3 rum and cokes on the way while giving Les, what I thought, was interesting narrative about how beautiful the sunset and skies were shining over the rivers and cane fields on the way. It was going to be a glorious night, and I am sure, a glorious day on the water tomorrow. For those of you who like to stay in air conditioned comfort after a long hot day in the tropics, the Cardwell Beach Motel is perfect and affordable with the hospitality fantastic thanks to the hosts, Steve & Janet. We parked our boat out the front of the Motel..."prime position" - check out the photo.
 

 

Cyclone Yasi did a real job on the town but it did clear the beachfront for outstanding views all the way out to the Islands....just breathtaking! A few beers and a quick meal in town, we walked back to the motel to dream about the next day.  

 

Next morning we found ourselves lined up (5 deep!) at the Port Hinchinbrook boat ramp with dozens of fellow utes and boats....the weather was perfect.There are acres of great fishing spots in this area, no one was fazed by the numbers. If this was the Daintree ramp, I'd be feeling rather depressed at this point!

  

You are all familiar with Les's little 4 metre Custom Craft..Les is not a great fan of getting salt water on her. I'm Miss Adventure...crank her up Les, let's see some action! Zoom, zoom! And so we did! Glassed Out conditions with low clouds protecting us from the harsh sun. The water was sitting at 31.6 degrees, high tide, a bit warm for our targets but nevertheless, a splendid sight out on the water.

 

We clamped on our favourite Flat Jac's. Les is like an old father...have you got your sunscreen on, have you sharpened your hooks, check your leader, check the drag....hmmm...how long have we been doing this for Les?? Flick, flick, God that feels good! Flick, flick.....Holy Geesus ( girl shrieking!) A Barracuda attacked as I brought my lure to the surface, nearly landing in the boat. Those giant teeth would give you nightmares. First one for the day, zippppppp....! A 35 cm barra. Undersized is better than zilch.
 

 

Les pulled up a nice cod...where are the big barra? We were on the north side of Hinchinbrook Island. Yasi ripped and ravaged this place up. The vast majority of the mangroves were dead. Was the water too hot? Or were they sitting under shady trees around the corner where there were leaves on the trees? It is shallow throughout this fishery, lots of rocks and there was a 3 metre tide running. Les caught another nice size cod, they look like fun to catch but I'm not into the scraps. Les loves to catch and release all fish. We joked about how I would only be catching barra today; he can get his thrills with the little stuff.
 

 

We moved the boat around to the next bay, zippppppppp........! I was on again, this is where they were sitting. A 55cm. Nothing to complain about! At this stage I was 4 barra up on Les. Cool. And he's on, and he's on again, and again. Then I'm on, on again. Were we having a ball? 50cm, 35 cm, 56cm...lost a few, Les caught a couple of nice little Grunters. The tide was dropping, we were running out of water. We turned off into the deep to go for a spin around the other side of the island. You never get tired of seeing the incredibly beautiful turtles in this place, they come up alongside the boat gasping for a breath, spin off twirling in the clear waters...Gods country for sure. Amazing, crystal clear water, rugged cliffs and mountains, rain storms scuttling through the valleys, barra ramming lures!.....Hinchinbrook Heaven.

 

 Last time I was down here, the famous Terry Holman showed me a secret spot..sorry, I can't tell you about it, he'd kill me...but it involved a rock. Where's the rock Les? My big barra is waiting for me, I can feel it! I clamped on a Leads Highjacker.I know, we were only in just over a metre of water, but what the hell, it seemed appropriate at the time. Second cast...BANG! Whooooaaaa! I'm on! What a beauty, what a thrill! Up she went ( of course it's a "she") shimmering in the sunlight, peeling off the line, trying to get back into the rocks. Les reversed out, a beautifully coordinated retrieve let's say! I still freak out that I'm going to lose the big ones close to the boat. Les's soothing voice was in my ear. "Let her play Debbie, tire her out, hold your rod up, face the fish, relax...enjoy the fight, enjoy the moment" "Get the boga grips Les!!!! Oh my God, help me get it on board....quickly, quickly!"  I'm screaming. Cool cat makes me do it myself. I'd die missing that one...it's an 80cm, I 'm sure it was a metre long in the water! What a load of fun that was..I'm rapt. We're eating it too! To be flogging Les is one thing, to catch the biggest one on the day is another. We are fiercely competitive when we are fishing together....well I am! I'm a real estate agent, what do you think?

THE BEST - Deb & 80cm of prime saltwater barra!

 The other side of the island was a little disappointing at first. The water was far too low for any action so we dropped the pick, had lunch...and had a sleep for an hour in the middle of the channel...now that's a first. The weather was delightfully overcast with storms booming all around us. Les woke himself up snoring actually! (can I write that?) We wandered over to one of our favourite little islands seeking some deep water to fish in. How terribly sad to see so much of it in such a mess post cyclone. It looked like an atomic bomb had blown up our island. Gone were the lush forest branches reaching over the sea. Gone were the flowers and birds. It's a mangled mess with no hope of recovery for many, many years. Funny how one bank of a river can be pristine and perfect, the other destroyed. That's nature I guess, like it or lump it.

The tide turned, we were on again, more barra, but all undersized. They definitely favoured the shade of the trees that still had leaves on them. The water was more shady, and cooler. we searched for structure. By end of day, we'd totalled a catch of 23 with 15 barra, 6 cod and 2 grunters (thanks Les :)) nothing flash, but a ton of fishing fun. We forgot we were supposed to be in a competition...honestly, we don't even know who won it! I believe Pam is seeking new members for the club though.

 

We had to leave at 9.30am next morning because we had a swag of appointments involving selling real estate from Bramston Beach north...the only real estate chick to turn up at Open Homes with a full fishing rig in tow! I'm ever so lucky to live with a fish whisperer, we never run out of conversation! (Oh, he did flog me by 3 fish in the end but I caught 9 barra, he caught 6) YESSSSS!!!!!!! I'm on!

See you on the water, Debbie
www.fishingcairns.com.au

 

 

Check out some more pics taken just before we left this paradise!

SOFTIES!.......do rubbers really work!

I have been very reluctant to embrace this "new, new wave" of interest in soft plastic lures. You see, I have been around a while and can remember way back to my early Darwin fishing days (1978 - 84)...hell that's a long time ago! When Blue Fox Vibrotails were the brand new thing.

Then came Mr Twister lures and a myriad of similar inventions. Move forward a few more years and other lot of "new" soft plastic / rubber-tails were all the rage. You know, there are literally dozens of them from Bozo's to Bingo's to Zongo's or Shimano's.........I must confess, I haven't tried them all but have certainly given them a fair go and due respect.

Yes!.......they do catch a lot of fish and under the right conditions will absolutely brain them, out fish a hard body lure 5 - 1.

BUT NOT ALWAYS!.........I am very fussy with my fishing and the Yo Yo effect of "jigging" softies along the bottom, in the deep holes etc. just does not excite me the way a hard bodied lure does. Cast to likely looking cover, twitch your lure tantalizingly, crank it down and pause, twitch and BOOF!

Man I love it. Its a very personal thing I know but that's how I am. Often my fishing involves drifting quite quickly down rain swollen tropical rivers and you just don't have the time to wait for a plastic to "do its thing".

Leave me alone, don't try to change my mind, I'm pretty set in my ways mate...........BUT what's that lure Keith. What the hell is a ZEREK?

Morning tea on the Johnstone

Anyway, last Sunday week, Keith Graham and I headed south to fish the Johnstone. There was reason for this choice. There were neap tides on this day with only .3m of movement. I deduced that with the amount of rainfall that we had had at the time, there should be a least some river flow to give us some movement. "No run, No fun" is the motto here and so it was decided.

I was quite surprised that we were able to get up to the old South Johnstone road bridge, the shallow sandy bottom stopped our upstream movement but we still had heaps of water to traverse back downstream.

Nice sooty on that SR5

I clipped on my favourite Rapala SR5 in gold.....I can't even remember what Keith tried first and we were away. Casting to bankside vegetation, grass overhangs and snags, we soon found a few willing sooties and JP's. But the fish just seemed a bit disinterested with our offerings and even though we were catching, it was a bit slow. We changed lures a few times, switched to the heavier barra gear when conditions looked right and back again. Was it the clear conditions, the extreme heat and humidity or just the lack of good water flow.

My first sooty on a Zerek

I have a surprise for you Mr Marsh, Keith explained.....and out of his secret tackle bag Keith produced a couple of these new Zerek soft plastic prawns. They looked good!

Keith and a rare Silver Grunter

Juvenile tarpon

These lures are quite unique in the soft plastic department. They have one single hook passing through the main body and with a simple push of the fingers, can be fished with the hook point either exposed or embedded into a groove on the top of the main body...ingenious I though. I can cast right into the structure and weed and not have the lure hang up. The tail part is segmented for flexible life like action but here too, modern materials sees these sections connected via a subtle but strong  Kevlar strap. Very lifelike indeed and the colour scheme was impressive.

Spotties (archer fish)

JP's just loved em!

We drifted along and cast.....these things were amazing. All manner of fish were finding them extremely attractive and I think Keith registered half a dozen "hits" from small fish before he finally hooked up to a quality sooty...or was it a jack...or a JP....who knows, who cares.

Now that's a sooty!

 

These things were working where the hard bodies were just hard work!

We cast to back eddies and landed quality sooties.......we cast under overhanging trees and caught heaps of hungry JP's....we cast to deep banks and caught tarpon and every now and again a nice little barra would engulf the Zerek.

Even the barra go into the act

Stop smiling Keith - nice Zerek

In these conditions, with little water movement and heaps of time to let the lures slowly float naturally down before we twitched them on the rod tip, they were dynamite.

Ah!...a sooty on a hard body, Flat Jack!



A quality jack on a Zerek

See....he wanted this one.

Man I was so impressed.........we landed some quality fish too as the images hereabouts attest to our luck on the day. Am I convinced....will I use the Zerek prawns again......YOU BET I WILL!

I can't wait to try them again this weekend and if I can make it to Bransford's Tackle Shop in time, I'll stock up on the whole darn range. They are that good.

Catch you on the water, regards Les
www.fishingcairns.com.au

The Things You Catch While "barra" Fishing!

Well readers, its been a while..........not since I've been fishing. Hell I go almost every weekend barring trips to Adelaide, home renovations etc. But to find something different and interesting to write about can sometimes be a bit difficult.

In fact several weeks ago I almost penned an article titled "The Things You Catch While "Sooty" Fishing". I even posted a few pics on my Facebook page but it created a bit of controversy (great to see readers are passionate) and I did not get around to it.

That article was going to be about how my good mate, Terry Holman and I, fished the upper reaches of the Johnston using light 4kg spin outfits armed with the mighty little lure, the Rapala SR5 (now fast becoming my favourite fresh water lure).....of how we genuinely targeted sooties in the rapids....and landed a fantastic "mixed bag" consisting of;

• Sooties
• Jungle Perch (J.P.'s)
• Trevally
• Mangrove Jacks
• Archer fish
• Silver grunter & of course
• Some beautiful barramundi

A magnificent fresh water barra - on sooty gear too!

Quality sooty mate!

And a good jack too!

Last weekend however, was the opening of the barra season and I was determined to get my legit barra fix after the frustration of several months of smaller targets!

I was also taking my daughter, Kirby and her partner, Schaefy out together for the very first time. Kirby and I had conspired at Christmas time and bought him a brand new baitcaster outfit and lures...he was keen to christen it!

If you can remember back that far, that Sunday was the day that Telstra "pulled the plug" on North Queensland (along with channel 7 the evening before....no Aussie Open final Grrrrrrr!) so I could not confirm with them the night before. I just rocked up at approx. 7:30 am and hoped they would be ready. Well not quite....they just got out of bed and quickly dressed. We'll get breakfast on the way I explained.

So off we went to the Johnstone again and for a very good reason.

The high tide in the morning would give me access way upstream, and with a low late afternoon of approx. 1.3 m, still plenty of depth to come home on.

We actually made it! Way up to the South Johnstone township; even though we had to take it slowly over some rocky bars and have Schaefy perch himself way up the bow for ballast. Thanks mate!

I clipped on my favourite gold SR5 and suggested my guests do likewise....we began our drift. Casting to bankside grass and snags it wasn't long before we started to catch a few. Kirby was first with a lovely little JP caught from under an overhanging tree. They just love the shade during the hot summer months and a well placed lure can see up to half a dozen JP's tear after the little offering.

Kirby and her very first JP

It was my turn next and a lovely little sooty crashed my lure near a grassy overhang. The secret to success here is, to cast as close as you can to the bank, twitch the lure and "BANG" your on! Now read that again?..........Cast as close as you can........as close as you can!

And so it was that yours truly had hooked up to about 20 fish before Schaefy had raised a scale. Kirby, being a girl (ladies always have some luck) was on the board with 5 fish too. But to his great credit he did not wavier, in fact he made a decision to swap outfits. Schaefy put down the light spin gear and picked up his brand new weapon, a lovely Shimano baitcaster and hooked on a bright purple Classic shallow runner. Being a much heavier lure, it was much easier for him to cast but on the first couple of attempts he had not found his range and was casting way behind the boat...back to where we had already fished.

You're wasting your time back there I advised.......and right on cue, Schaefy hooked up to one of the best sooties of the trip. I'd better shut my mouth before I have to eat more "humble pie" I thought.

Is he happy......darn right he is!

Following was an endless procession of sooties / JP's / mangrove jacks / archer fish and the occasional juvenile barra. We had a blast!

It became quite hot and humid during the middle part of the day and I stopped in the shade to give my guests some respite from the heat on more than a couple of occasions. Mid-afternoon however, saw a great big thundercloud build up behind us and block out the sun. There were cracks of lightening towards the hills and I was sure that we would soon be drenched. Not to be.........the rain stayed away, the cloud blocked out the sun and the temperature dropped markedly. Conditions were very pleasant indeed.

So pleasant that Kirby and her mate found new-found enthusiasm. I could not get then off the water now and it was a late retrieve of the tinny back at the ramp.

We had had a magic day, with my daughter encompassing her new found passion for lure fishing; with her man stoked with his new outfit and the number of fish we landed. It was three very tired  but satisfied anglers that hit the bitumen back to Cairns that evening.

Later that week I received a text from Kirby...........dad, is there any chance you could take Schaefy and I fishing again this Sunday?

Unfortunately I was already booked.......a trip that had already been postponed by Keith the week before so I could not let him down. And Keith had a very special surprise waiting for me......we were going to field test these brand new soft plastic prawn lures that everyone was raving about, the Zerek Prawn lure............now that's another story so watch for my next post!

Catch you on the water, regards Les
www.fishingcairs.com.au