Fishing Cairns

Now That's A Lure!

2011-12-08T14:47:00.000-08:00

My fishing buddy, Keith Graham, of Bransfords Tackle Shop has always been an innovative thinker as far as fishing tackle goes. Over the years he has worked with the likes of Shimano, Daiwa, Rapala and co and many of his suggestions (subtle little tweaks to product lines etc.) have made all the difference to the end performance and subsequent angler satisfaction.

One of our joint passions is obviously lure fishing our magnificent tropical waterways – targets include the iconic barramundi, mangrove jacks, trevally, cod, tarpon, sooty grunter, jungle perch etc………….and if your really lucky, flathead. (This is an in joke, sorry Keith!).

We are always striving to find that perfect lure, the one that will obviously catch fish, but also have many other qualities that make it a real gem in the minefield of tackle available on the market these days. Sometimes necessity is the mother of invention, and the very real unavailability of various lures for many reasons makes the search even more important. We get desperate sometimes if our favourite lure is not available for months on end. You just gotta buy a new one!

Over the years Keith and I have field tested many new offerings from lure manufacturers with varying success. But we have always strived to source that “just what the doctor ordered” lure, the one that is a stand out from the crowd. Bransfords range of Stealth, F111 and Tropical Rogue lures are now legendary and have accounted for literally thousands of fish over many years of proven reliability.

WE NOW HAVE THE GRAND DADDY OF THEM ALL!

Last Sunday, Keith and I headed up to the Daintree to field test his brand new range of………wait, we don’t even have a name for them as yet! They are a beautifully finished lure, looking every bit the perfect barra lure for use in relatively shallow waters. They come in a variety of approx. 10 colours, all hand picked by us to work in our tropical streams, we were like kids in a lolly shop – which one do we put on first.

Not a gold Bamber!

Being a fan of the legendary “Gold Bomber”……I just had to try this colour first and guess what. On my third cast of the day I hooked up and landed a lovely little 50cm barra. Well they do work we mused. But “one swallow does not a spring make” as they say, the proof would be in the pudding oh er CATCHING!

How good does that look!

A nice barra on the new lure

Keith snapped on a beautifully looking bright yellow sided / orange back model – the flash from this lure as it worked through the waters was amazing. It just said come and eat me fish. And eat it they did. It wasn’t long and Keith had landed a couple of juveniles as well and we were on our way.

This article is not supposed to be about the fishing experience on this day, it is all about the lure. So I won’t go into a blow by blow description of where we travelled, what we landed and what lure we used. But suffice to say that we worked the system from way above the boat ramp to down to the river mouth. We caught fish all over the place and the images hereabouts are testament to our (the lures) success.

In all we hooked up to an impressive tally of;

• 28 barra

• 2 jacks

• 1 flathead (sorry Keith)

A jack attack

At one stage, working a back water near the river mouth, Keith had tired of the success of his pink coloured lure and casually asked what should he try next……these lures are all so darn good looking its really was a hard choice. Clip on the green one I said, it will work well in this dirty water.

I love a man brave enough to go pink!

Barra on "pink"

Green does work!

Well two casts later Keith was hooked up to the best barra of the trip. It was a spectacular fight, the salt water barra jumped all over the place and we were stoked. He landed another of similar size a few casts later……..man these lures were good.

And work they do.

At about 3:30pm we decided to pull the pin, we had seen enough. To say we were ecstatic is an understatement.

We came, we saw, we tested and we conquered – well, on this day anyway. I am not as fickle to suggest that these new lures will work under all conditions, on all tides, in all locations. But I am prepared to state that these lures are one of the absolute best barra lures I have ever hooked up to my Loomis………and that’s a big statement coming from me.

• They are slightly heavier that a Highjacker making them very easy to cast accurately

• They are more buoyant than a B52 but not as much as a gold bomber

• They have a superb finish – some models are painted while others are laser etched with prismatic tape inside

• They come with quality VMC hooks

• They have an excellent high impact plastic bib that did not budge

• They can be worked vigorously in the “boof” style so popular in the tropics

• They hardly ever hooked up to the trace on casting – weight & hook placement near perfect

• They come is a great range of proven colours

• THEY ARE DARN GOOD LURES

Check out that finnish!

Check out the images, check out the range, get to Bransfords Tackle Shop at Clifton Beach……….its now even more “Well worth the drive”

PS - I was in Bransfords yesterday purchasing some of these new lures for a friend. Young Mathew Graham had been fishing off the rocks near Clifton and you guessed it - he had landed a very nice barra on these new lures!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL MY READERS..........hope you have a wonderful New Year and happy fishing.

Kind regards, Les
http://www.fishingcairns.com.au/

A Day to Remember!

2011-11-09T00:55:00.000-08:00

Now I have fished all over northern Australia...........from Darwin to Arnhem Land......from the Kimberley's to the NT border, remote Cape York to Mission Beach, and the rivers near Cairns are known like the back of my hand. I have witnessed some amazing sights and experienced some truly magical fishing. I have memories that are etched into my mind and I can recall them like it was just yesterday.

Fresh Water Barra

Well, last Saturday, in a little river just south of Cairns, my partner Debbie & I had such a moment: a moment that lasted for almost 2 hours of constant action on quality barra like I have not seem before in local river systems. But before I tell you about this, I'll set the scene for the day.

It was a high tide at approx. 6:00 am that morning and I wanted to use the backed up waters to cruise as far up the system as my little 4m Cairns Custom Craft would allow. We fish skinny water most days Deb & I, we just love flying upstream as far as we can go and there are various reasons for this.

Skinny water fishing

Not many people venture that far up our waterways, most vessels (or skippers) just can't manage it.......and the scenery can be awesomely beautiful surrounded by mountainous peaks and lush green rainforest. Oh!....the fishing can be great too. Targets are often sooties and JP's, tarpon and jacks as well as "ol’ bucket mouth" when conditions are right.

On this day I was quite surprised to find that the river was so low. We had had plenty of rain the previous week but, being the very start of our rainy season, I guess most of the rain had just soaked up OR flushed out to sea very quickly. But you have to make the most of prevailing conditions so we pushed on as far as I dared and called it a halt at one of the drains that I regularly fish. Sure enough there were a couple of rats hanging around and it wasn't long before Debbie & I had landed, photographed and carefully released a few little barra.

Check out that rainforest backdrop

We drifted slowly down on the falling tide, casting to bank side structure, stopping occasionally at more promising looking weed beds and landed a few more juveniles. The day was just perfect, a little overcast which kept conditions a little cooler but still quite humid......tropical fish just love this scenario. Coffee / late breakfast was had anchored up beneath some beautiful rainforest cover. We were truly in a tropical paradise.

What a coffee spot

My lady is a sailor / an ex prawn trawler skipper and she just loves being in "salt water".

And why do I mention this? Well, on most fishing outings I have my way and tend to fish the fresh (refer above) but today Debbie pestered me to go down to the mouth and try our luck in the salt on the incoming tide. Remembering that it was a low at approx. 12 noon and a gentle 1m run in, I reluctantly agreed to give it a go (well actually it was my hidden plan all along but I'll let her have the credit this time). And credit indeed it must be.

Drifting along on the incoming tide, occasionally using the electric to keep us positioned parallel to the bank, we cast to likely looking structure - we had switched lures to smaller 3" jack baits hoping to find a few mangrove jacks and GT's hiding amongst the snags. I was the first to hook up, but it was not what I had expected. A nice 60cm flathead had taken my lure from the mud and was quickly placed into the live well.

Lizard from the salt

Next cast Debbie had a "flash" from a nice looking barra. "Put the lead down darling" I shouted with excitement, there just might be a few barra hanging around here I thought.

The very next cast Debbie was hooked up to a nice 65cm silver streak........these feisty salt water barra are a lot fitter than their river cousins and the barra started jumping all over the place. Deb was having a bit of trouble coming to terms with the "pump & wind" technique but with my coaxing (read shouting instructions - sorry Deb) she soon had the fish under control, photographed and gently released.

Silver / salt water barra - great!

Just a little digression here. I have owned a Boga Grip for years now, having bought one many years ago when they first hit the scene as the next new “must have” toy. But it had hidden itself in the bottom of my tinny and not used for years.....something about not wanting to "hang" big fish like barra from the lip for that photo. In recent times however, I have had a change of tactics and now I use them to land almost every fish.

They are an excellent tool, offer more security that nets etc and correctly handled and used to "control" a fish while de-hooking, can actually improve the release process with a less stressed fish and a lot less damage. It is always a pleasure to see a quality fish revive and swim rapidly away.

Correct use of Boga

Back to the fishing.

On my very next cast the same scenario happened. A quality silver barra crunched my lure and launched herself into the air throwing the hooks in the process. Darn I thought, I had missed an opportunity. But I needn't have worried. Over the next couple of hours Deb & I had non stop fishing action.

Women (and blue lures) catch more fish

We even switched lures to try and stay connected to these feisty critters, they were so acrobatic. But whatever we tossed in their direction was seized upon with gusto.

There were hidden dangers in these waters however. On a couple of occasions our hooked barra would scream off in all directions followed by an almighty swirl the size of half a cricket pitch. All I got back was a lure with straightened hooks and a broken bib. We never did see what was lurking there.

Our second lure of choice was the beaut little Leads deep diving shad, as rare as hens teeth I might add, but boy oh boy, do they work in the right conditions. And on this day they wanted the blue one! (See above image)

We occasionally hooked up on the snags and reluctantly had to go in and retrieve our lures.......on most occasions this would be the end of the bite but not this day. We quietly motored back off the structure, repositioned the lead blob and cast away. We were into them again.

We actually lost count of the number of fish we had hooked and lost, probably a dozen or 15 or so. Now days we try to photograph every fish, just to keep score, so to speak, and on this day (at this spot) we landed at least 17 barra, lost another 4 at the boat (that's technically landed isn't it - we are fiercely competitive remember) and had the above win their freedom.

We left them biting - had to beat the rain

While all of this fishing action was happening and we were mesmerised to the targets at our feet, the skies out to sea were as black as !!!!!!! and the clouds were banking up on the mountains. A few drops of rain started to fall and we decided to call it a day. We scurried out of there before the heavens really opened up and made it to the safety of the ramp before a couple of drowned rats had to skulk home.

As we pulled away from the boat ramp we were still a bit shell shocked at what we had just experienced. We had landed over 20 barra, witnessed quality barra fishing that rivals anything that this great land can offer, and all within less than an hours drive from home.

Wouldn't it be fantastic if this was the norm.........and not just the occasional freak experience.

Happy fishing, regards Les

www.fishingcairns.com.au

Liverpool Lady on the Mend

2011-05-15T20:41:00.000-07:00

Liverpool Lady on the Mend

It’s a week past, I offered to do the fishing report…got tied up with a 7 day work week..and the weekend is gone but for the memory (and the Jack in the freezer!) It’s now a Wednesday night, 4 long meetings today with a 5am start. It is now 9.30pm and once again, I am drawn back to realize this great obsession some of us have with fishing! I’ve got the urge to write you a little story. Man, I love fishing.

Up here in Cairns, the big wet is finally over…I had the day off from my game of real estate. Les asks, “So Babe…where do you want to go?” My choice, you bewdy! Liverpool Creek’s my pick for poison. Les & I have snuck down for a peek at this beautiful little river a few times this year, only to be disappointed by bright orange waters as the river banks & hillsides have bled mud for months, Cyclone Yasi has absolutely devastated the place. It has been kind of like looking in to see if your old friend is still breathing..her heart beat is still there, her beauty gone. The trees have been stripped of any dignity, old, crooked hands reach up into the sky, dotted over the bald heads of the hills. Very sad. We had been reminiscing only 2 months ago about how wonderful it was to see everything finally recovering, lush & green after Cyclone Larry in 2006 had wrecked the place. Liverpool is smashed up badly this time.

Crooked Hands reaching for the sky!

Badly eroded bank side

What a thrill to drive over the hill & see the river running crystal clear! We were feeling lucky, the sun was shining bright, barely a cloud in the sky. An esky full of kiwi cooking, the water was dead flat & the local Council had even spread a new layer of gravel down the boat ramp, usually skid row with bare clay and a rock drop off. Gently slipping into the water, rig the rods, slap on the sunscreen & you turn around to survey the scene. Breathtakingly beautiful, steam rising from clear water. Like a cancer patient, her hair is recovering. Green tuffs of ferns & fresh green leaves are popping out of the the slender trunks forming a guard of honour along this little piece of paradise, Liverpool Creek.

At the ramp!

Tidal Mangrove Zone

For those of you that don’t know, Les & I are fiercely competitive…he is the official Fish Whisperer, I, the apprentice. It is still a bloody good competition. (I LOVE it when I win, he is still the best) The lures of choice first up are Leads High Jackers. Les is into his flavour of the month- an orange/brown colour. I’m into green today. Don’t worry, I have a small plastic bucket with 4 more different colours in case this one doesn’t work. I need a quick change in case Les starts beating me! He laughs at me. He will use 2 lures all day, generally a High Jacker or a deep diver. He has experience on his side you see.

A quick run up the river literally brings tears to your eyes, the river banks are exposed with old junk from years gone by…kind of interesting though. Old cart wheels, bits & and pieces of old sugar cane equipment, roofs swept into the trees by Yasi, grand old trees slipping to their death after a hundred years of pride. Oh so sad…almost as sad as the two boats we pass. Dads & sons in their little punts out to conker the mighty barra.

“There’s nothin’here mate!” they holler. Poor buggers.

Old tin iron from someones roof

Our favourite spot looms, it is so hard to recognize! The structure is all different, the weed beds vanished, trees broken. Les casts once, he casts twice. He’s on! The best barra of the day! A 55cm beauty. Always nerve racking to get such a good fish so early…sometimes the rest of the day can seem disappointing. It takes us 100+ casts to get the next one. Only 50 metres of river bank left intact on the entire river. Another blast up the river on the high tide, the plan was to drift back on the out. Did we have a ball!

First (and biggest barra)

Note how healthy and shiny the juveniles are

Not an easy day, but a steady day of total excitement, excellent fun & tough competition between ourselves ( I still maintain that Sooty’s should not be counted Les) No fish on the banks at all. 100% of what we scored was on the creek run outs or on structure nearby. The tally mounted. We lost count of our numbers. I took photos of each one caught…that makes the counting fair. Besides that, I am Les Marshes official photographer so pardon me if we go overboard with the photos sometimes. It’s my fault. I love my camera almost as much as the fishing. Les has lost his favourite 3” Jack Lure. (Okay, he used 3 lures today!) He jumps about like Rumplestiltskin, swearing like a bogan. I’m onto my 4th lure of choice, but I’ve nailed it. I’m onto them-I’m 5 ahead of Les. The fish are loving brown today. Funny how sometimes they go for the red lures (when the berries are falling off the trees) or they are into blues & greens. (Is that when frogs are attempting to cross the rivers?) Les studies his 5 tier tackle box full of lures & gleefully squints at a replacement pale green one in the sunlight. He’s cranking again & back in the race.

Old "fill" exposed by the floods

Nice jack Debbie!

The only bit of bankside weed bed left in the river!

The total tally? 37 BARRA! None (surprise, surprise) legal. 1 fat Sooty, 8 Mangrove Jacks & 12 Jungle Perch. What a blast! The score ended up 27-30 to Les. Not bad considering he has to drive the boat as well.

The only sooty of the trip

Its getting late now - where are those lights?

What an absolutely wonderful day, one of the best I have ever had in my short 4 years of barra fishing & judging by the look on Les’s face, he would agree. Some of these rivers may look pretty ragged but I guess Mother nature will always recover. The cyclone has given the barra more structure on the river beds, the system is very much alive and well. I’m buying Les a set of navigation lights…why should we stop fishing at 6.30pm? Rest well my beauty…we’ll be back!

Kind regards, Debbie (for Les Ha ha!)

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

I've Been Busy OK!

2011-04-29T01:53:00.000-07:00

Well the last three weeks have gone like a blurr!!!!

A change in business, Ray White On Mulgrave is no longer, but Management Excellence has taken its place. And then we have had the rush of Easter, Anzac Day and now the May day long weekend is upon us. But I did manage to get a few well planned fishing trips in so here is the story. Due to time constraints, its Friday night and I need a beer before the big wedding / footy / Taipans NBL play off etc so I'm going to be a bit slack here and "Let a picture, or two, tell a thousands words".

I trust this is all OK with my followers so here goes.

Daintree River - Saturday 16th April - the last trip to the high country before the dry season sets in.

Daintree - Just after launching

Now this is a calm day

Typical fresh water juvenile barra

And another!

And another - boys will be boys!

Just one more

Warren enjoying the ride upstream

Why would you need this much Roundup......makes you fee a bit sick to see this!

A pair of juveniles - fish I mean (sorry Terry)

That's better - just under legal

Best of the trip - 63cm

Happy anglers returning to the ramp

A great day spent with a couple of mates

30 barra
2 jacks
5 jungle perch

Mulgrave River - Good Friday - Debbie & I tried our luck in the upper fresh water reaches.

Here we go again - juvenile barra

Magnificent river / rainforest / mountain scenery

Heading upstream

Wet season debris

Mulgrave Sooty

Just part of my sooty lure selection

Best barra - 59cm on Rapala SR5 shad

And here she is in the boat

Nice dark sooty

They come in pairs too!

Beautiful silver tarpon - great sport on light tackle

Sometimes they come upside down?

Now that's a nice jungle perch

Deb with barra from the snags

You can't get much better than this

Last barra for the day

happy jack!

Another wonderful day for Debbie & I

6 barra
5 tarpon
10 JP's
15 sooties

North Johnstone - Sunday 24th April (Easter Sunday - the day of the rabbit!)

First barra right in town

Sooty from the sticks - check out that structure

Juvenile fresh water barra

And another

Now that's a small barra - the camera is playing tricks too!

Nice sooty

Good size jack from the fresh

Monster sooty on popper - went 5lb

Terry with nice sooty

Best jack of the day

That's a nice sooty

And the tally for the day

About 30 barra
15 sooties
3 jacks
10 jungle perch

Terry and I had an absolute blast - he is one of the best guides in North Queensland so this day I let him cast from the from the front of my boat and gave him first cast to all the best spots - bugger beat me too!

Happy fishing, regards Les
www.fishingcairns.com.au

Return to the Daintree

2011-03-24T00:57:00.000-07:00

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/

Mulgrave - the Top End!

2011-03-14T02:06:00.000-07:00

Now, without complaining, man its been a big "WET". Our region has received over 2,200mm (yes that's 2.2 metres) of rainfall since December and there's more to come.

Having survived the ravages of cyclone Yasi, the Cairns region sure dodged a bullet there, and then the more recent flooding suffered by the region immediately south of us (Innisfail / Tully and Cardwell received almost 800mm last week).....we are still finding life is almost normal up here.

Sure it can be a little inconvenient, but this is part of living in the tropics, so we must be grateful and get on with our lives wherever possible.

As I write this Japan has been devastated by the horrific 8.9 earthquake and the subsequent tsunami which has destroyed many lives, property, homes and industry.......our region warmly welcomes many Japanese visitors annually (many of whom are keen anglers and repeat clients). Our thoughts and prayers go out to them in their time of need.

When conditions are tough and the rivers high and flooding, one saving grace can be the Mulgrave River situated a short 45 minutes drive south of Cairns. This river is not that big by even Aussie standards, but it does flow from the mountains near Gordonvale / Walsh's Pyramid and having passed swiftly over granite rock and sand, tends to be the cleanest in trying conditions - i.e. after a big flood it usually fishes well before the others start to clear up. So with this strategy in mind, Debbie and I headed south to Gordonvale and launched our tinny at the well maintained (joke!) mud ramp under the new highway bridge.

Mulgrave Boat Ramp (Sick)

Now this trip is not for the faint hearted, nor for the inexperienced as there are many dangers lurking in the swirling waters of the upper Mulgrave. There are old railway bridges and submerged pylons, rocky rapids and gravel bars, sunken trees and fallen logs to contend with and stream craft is very important - as is having the right vessel for the job. I would not even attempt this exercise if I had not been "shown the ropes" on several occasions by my good mate, Terry Holman of Fish Hunter fame.

Old Railway Bridge - seen better days!

There are also big crocodiles in this river so don't be fooled into thinking big crocks live in salt water only - we saw three on this day and the biggest was well over 3 metres.

The secret to successful fishing in these conditions is to understand your target species, adapt your approach and target specific areas.

Barra for instance don't like to be in fast flowing water - they will however sit just out of the main current and wait for easy pickings to flush past (they are lazy buggers after all). But they will set up station at any drain or gutter bringing food into the system.

Average barra

Jungle Perch are a little more adventurous - my "WordWeb" dictionary states - "Willing to undertake or seeking out new and daring enterprises" and that just about sums it up for these plucky little fighters. Look for them in rapids, trailing sections, under overhanging fig trees etc.

Typical JP

Sooty Grunter's, although tough swimmers and occasionally coming from the faster sections, will still prefer a more sedentary lie so look for their habitat too.

Swirling waters - be prepared

Mangrove jacks - well these top line predators will amaze you at where they get and from where they can be caught. From gutters & drains, rapids and snags....just be prepared if using light tackle in fast flowing water.

Jack from the rapids

Drifting down on the fast flowing current Debbie & I deliberately left the light spin gear on the deck most of the time. You see we were primarily after old bucket mouth (barra to you) and even though I know our catch rate would have been much higher if we had picked up the light rod more often, we were also exploring relatively new territory and were hell bent on "seeing where the barra were hiding".

Beautiful old tree

The river in these parts wanders through ever changing terrain. One moment we are drifting along sodden cane paddocks, then the next we are in pristine rain forest with towering trees and swaying palms. The constant change in river depth and width also affects the velocity of the water so you need to keep your wits about you and take evasive / navigation action as the challenges present themselves.

Debbie and I had an absolute ball. The catch rates were not that great but considering the terrain we covered, the new experience we had and the exploration of new territory - we had had a blast.

4 barra landed
2 JP's
1 sooty
1 38cm jack

Deb with barra

Nice juvenile barra - 54cm put back

As we powered up the Yammy for the trip back to the bridge, the heavens finally opened up again and it was pelting down all the way back to the ramp.

NOTE:
Tropical North Queensland needs your tourism dollars. Parts of our region have been battered by the elements but (touch wood) Cairns is virtually unscathed and its business as usual up here. Some of the best fishing of the season is just around the corner so come on up, we have the experienced guides who will put you onto quality fishing. The adventure and thrills will live with you forever.

Happy Fishing,
Les Marsh

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

Always Have a BACKUP Plan!

2011-01-16T17:06:00.000-08:00

With nothing better to do, Debbie & I headed south last Sunday, just to check out the rivers (Yeah Right!) The Mulgrave was OK as we crossed the highway bridge but we decided that we should try something different today so a Russell River trip was the order.

I could have driven past Babinda to check it out, then backtracked to launch at either Bellenden Ker OR Babinda Creek..........BUT at the last minute I decided to go down to the Russell ramp. As the tide was still rising there might be some cleaner / salt water pushing in I thought.

First sight of the river and the hopes sank a little, not too bad though, still fishable provided we could find some drains flowing or clear patches amongst some weed beds. But after heading upstream, the tide was suppose to be coming in remember, the water flowing down was becoming redder and dirtier with every passing bend.

Back to plan B!
We tried the bank just down from the ramp for a couple of small jacks........still too dirty I advised.

Plan C!
We zoomed down to Russell Heads and tried our luck amongst the mangrove roots. At least the water was relatively clean down there and we had several quality barra around the 70cm mark lazily swipe at our lures but fail to hook up. Four of the buggers in fact........soooo frustrating.

Plan D!
Head upstream on the Mulgrave, fish the gutters and weed beds and hope "old bucket mouth" was on the chew up there.

In hindsight we should have just launched at the Mulgrave, as the pictures attached show the results of a great days fishing.

It sure was a strange day apart from the varying water quality and the miles travelled - even the drains in the upper Mulgrave were working in 'reverse' with the river rising and the water draining back into the side drains and not coming out of them as is normal / expected.

I was bitterly disappointed when I first noticed this after several fruitless casts to one of my favorite spots........nothing, not a follow a flash or anything. But a long cast right up the drain and a few short cranks of the rod to make the lure 'boof' on the surface and the best barra of the day crashed my hand painted Leads Highjacker - Just check out that lure in the photo, it's a Les Marsh special. (Well it had to be that way as all the standard paint had worn off and the lure was just too darn good to throw away, so I painted it myself). Worked a treat too.

We were also drenched to the bone when a severe tropical storm descended down the valley and dumped about 50mm in an hour - but 5 minutes later and it was all gone with clearing skies and a pleasant trip downstream.

It was a fairly long boat trip back to the ramp in the Russell but upon reflection........Debbie & I had had an absolute ball. Landing 4 jacks, a gold spot estuary cod and 8 barra.

NOTE - During the downpour my electrics must have become waterlogged.

When I tried to activate the bilge pump I blew a fuse. Guess what......here we were sitting up a river, 10cm of water sloshing under the floor, unable to get up on the plane due to the dead weight of all that water and having to pull over on the bank and hand bail the tinny.

And all because I hadn't kept a 10c fuse in my tackle box - I had about a dozen of them in the glove box of my Colorado 4WD, but what's the good of that?

Happy Fishing, Les

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

The Russell in Flood!

2010-12-28T23:00:00.000-08:00

With the Christmas / New Year holidays upon us and a slight break in the weather, what does any keen angler do?

Plan a trip up one of the flooded rivers of course.

This can be a very exciting time to fish the top sweet water sections of our fast flowing tropical streams so Terry and I decided to meet at his place at approx 6:30am on Tuesday morning and decide then on which direction to travel, taking overnight rainfall into consideration. Like all well planned fishing decisions we um’d & ah’d for minutes as we drove away from Terry’s house, my 4m Cairns Custom Craft in tow and before long we settled on the “tried and tested” course and headed south.

Readers will be more than familiar with my assessment here, better to go south with various options rather than head all the way north to the Daintree to find it’s the color of tomato soup.

NOTE – Please be aware that we are not being frivolous here. There is no way that either of us would venture into flood swollen rivers just to have a fishing fix if there was too much danger and every river trip is carefully undertaken and planned taking the prevailing conditions into consideration. My heart and thoughts go out to those further south who are suffering so badly with the flooding that is gripping the East coast of Australia at present.

Barron Falls

You see, the day before I had taken a trip up to Kuranda to view the spectacular Barron Falls in all her glory as millions of litres of water plunged over the gorge. This is something that locals and tourist alike must see, hear and feel - the power of the water when nature provides. Then it was west to Davies Creek to check out this popular camping / swimming spot to see this beautiful stream in full flow. Although nothing like the Barron River Falls, this stream sure was pretty and the falls spectacular in their own right.

Davies Creek

Davies Creek Falls

Then it was off to Atherton, down the Gillies Highway and along the Mulgrave Valley………this was a recon trip to check the water levels of the Mulgrave. Two nights before a mini cyclone had crossed the coastal range just south of Cairns and dumped 100’s of mm of rainfall. You could see where the swirling waters had been at their peak, crossing both sides of the highway but she had settled back down into the river bed proper by now and most importantly from my point of view, the water color indicated that fishing would be productive provided we did not get too much overnight rain.

Back to our journey!

Crossing the Mulgrave bridge slowly, making special note of the water depth and clarity, we easily calculated that it was quite fishable and if necessary, was just a matter of deciding at which point in the river we wished to launch my punt. There are considerations as to water height and bridge crossings when the river is up – anglers can be “trapped” between two flooded bridges at times which obviously restrict your fishing zone and its not an ideal situation. Its that compromise thing again.

Mulgrave River - Low Level Bridge

Mulgrave River - Downstream

Lets push on to the Johnstone I advised, we can check the Russell / Babinda Creek area and if its no good, we know we will have other options as backup. The Russell was looking good………and every little stream, gutter and drain was flowing clean as we headed south.

As soon as we approached the North Johnstone bridge our hearts sank. It was putrid and certainly not fishable in those conditions. Turning right at the Palmerstone Highway, we did a u turn and headed back north.

What about the Russell I exclaimed! We had not fished this river for ages, over 12 months for me, and in these conditions we could get way upstream, even under the highway bridge and up into rarely fished waters. Terry, being a local, has fished this water numerous times but personally I had only been this far upstream once before and that was with Terry several years ago. Why not!..........at least it would be an adventure.

But that same “bridge” problem would occur should we take the normal course and launch at the main boat ramp so it was decided to put the boat in via Babinda. Approx. 1k back from the main river there was water right across the road, the Russell sure was high. We proceeded very carefully until we reached the bridge and all we had to do was back the trailer to the side of the road and push the boat off………..easy!

Launching - That's the main road benind the boat

On the highway - truly!

You just don’t catch fish in red water – I’ve alluded to this many times – so it was going to be a big trip upstream, past the swamps (where most of the discolored water was spewing from), past the highway, up rocky rapids and into virgin country.

Nice JP

Babinda Creek Sooty

Beautiful backdrop

We had a few casts in Babinda Creek and landed a few nice sooties and JP’s. We headed up the Babinda drain to check out some overflows but it soon became apparent that the water was just too high to fish the flats. So out we came and prepared for the long haul up into fresh, clean mountain water evident from the highway bridge. We had not travelled more than 200 metres when I noticed what I thought was a half submerged log. As I was not quite up on the plane I eased back a little and then the realization hit me. This was not a log but the bloody big fat tail of a huge saltwater croc. We estimated that the total animal would have been over 4m long…………we quickly zoomed out of there and headed upstream.

Fancy a cooling swim in a tropical stream………..not likely mate.

The trip up was a real BUZZ. The contrast in water clarity once we passed the Eubenangee Swamp was amazing and our spirits rose in anticipation of a great days fishing ahead. Past red earth cliffs, rainforest and fern lined banks we zoomed, behind stands of trees and up rocky rapids. It was exhilarating and luckily Terry knew the waters like the back of his hand – er um well almost – we did come to grief at one particularly shallow rapid and the grinding of metal on rock is not a pretty sound. I always carry a spare prop and we were going to have to use it on the long journey back to the exit point. Not to worry.

Red Bank cliffs

Grassy verges

Drifting back down with the fast flowing waters we cast our surface poppers to back eddies / up under overhanging fig trees and along grassy edges. The JP’s and sooties were willing participants in our fun. The images hereabouts testament to our success.

We even found some barra to boot and working larger lures at the mouth of the drains produced the goods.

66cm Barra

One particular spot will be permanently etched into my brain and for various reasons. Santa had been particularly kind to me this year and I was blessed to receive all sorts of fishing goodies for Christmas. Bright shiny lures, deep diving Leads and poppers, sun glass straps, a new hat and even a hook sharpener and I was going to try a few of them on this trip.

Terry had just plonked the lead blob down to position the boat mid stream, I clipped on my brand new red deep diver and cast to the drain………..BOOF! On my very first cast, with my brand new lure, in a brand new spot I hooked up to a barra of around 70cm. But the fight was short lived. She drilled me in the grass and de hooked herself. Even though I did not land the fish, it did not matter. I was stoked to have the strike, the hook up and the brief fight. Barra can do that to you.

73cm Barra - Largest of trip

Terry and barra

To cut a long story short we came back to this drain later in the afternoon. We pulled another 4 barra from the junction and they were all quality fish. Terry landed a couple in the 60’s while I landed the biggest fish at just on 73cm. Being “closed season” all the barra were quickly photographed and gently released.

By mid afternoon the skies had turned dark grey, lightning and thunder could be heard rumbling up in the mountains and it was decided that we should head back to the vehicle and extract ourselves just in case. As it was we had to pull out the seats, take off the electric and remove the rod holder so that we could get under a railway bridge – if there was a huge dump upstream and the river rose a few feet we could have been in a bit of bother.

Remember that rocky rapid that we hit on the way up – well we pulled into a backwater and changed the prop – my little 20hp Yamaha certainly liked the symmetry of the new propeller and it was a comfortable trip back downstream to the extraction point…………apart from the stinging rain as it pelted into my face.

Back at the "ramp" - vehicle in left hand background

It was two very happy anglers that winched the punt back onto the trailer, the water had actually dropped a few inches during the day and there was no problems driving back to the highway and home for a beer.

I had had a wonderful day, fishing new waters, using new tackle that actually produced the goods and most of all, it was a real adventure.

Great fishing, Les Marsh
http://www.fishingcairns.com.au/

The Mighty Hinchinbrook

2010-12-22T19:16:00.000-08:00

My good mate, and arguably one of the finest fishing guides in North Queensland, Terry Holman, had asked Debbie and myself to accompany him to Port Hinchinbrook for the weekend. You see Terry had a repeat client, Toshi from Japan, plus another fishing “guru” Kevin (refer my previous Daintree blog) to entertain and it was an opportunity too good to miss.

Debbie works in Real Estate, it’s a 7 day a week commitment and to have the opportunity to fish the Hinchinbrook region during the pre Christmas period, be guided by not one but three “experienced guides”, stay in a modern fully air-conditioned three bedroom town house right on the Marina, with our very own floating pontoon to boot – well, we just could not say no.

Terry, Kevin & Toshi left town early on Friday morning, they were to fish the channel that day and suss out the situation. Debbie & I had to work until mid afternoon, she is the boss after all, and we departed Cairns around 4pm. The drive down was uneventful apart from having to wait at the Aumuller St / Southern Access Rd intersection for over 15 minutes – it took 5 sets of lights before we went through…………Grrrrrrr, man I was cranky.

We arrived at approx. 7pm with all the excitement of a couple of school kids on vacation, checked out the fabulous apartment and helped Terry set up the BBQ for dinner. Our home for the next couple of days was to be the magnificent “Ripples on the Marina”. It had much more to offer than we expected, our very own floating pontoon with running fresh water to wash down our boat & gear, electricity to plug in our battery charger each evening, fully carpeted, only 5 minutes boat ride from the huge ramp and right outside our door. Oh, the inside was very comfortable too.

Ripples on the Marina

Sunrise from our bedroom

The alarm went off at 5:30am, we jumped out of bed, had a hearty but hurried breakfast of bacon & eggs and scrambled down to the boats and headed off. Terry, Kevin & Toshi in his 5m Cairns Custom Craft punt, Debbie and myself in our little 4m twin.

Terry, Kevin & Toshi

Leaving the Marina

The channel was as flat as a pancake and the trip across to the top of the island a breeze in the conditions. Terry had fished the rocky shoreline on the falling tide the day before and was quite successful, why not give it another go. It was decided that Terry, having the larger more comfortable boat, would fish the far bay while Debbie & I concentrated on the near shore.

No joke, on Debbie’s very first cast of the trip, a feisty 60cm barra crashed her lure amongst the stunted mangroves but failed to hook up – if we weren’t excited beforehand we sure were now. Conditions were ideal for lure tossing but we sensed that it was going to be a very hot humid day by mid afternoon.

Things became a stale mate for the next hour or so with no real fishing action at all, we were waiting on the morning high tide to start to drop, knowing full well that that would ring the dinner bell.

Juvenile barra

Fishing the rocky points

Estuary cod

Typical barra

Using shallow running Leads highjackers we started to account for a few small estuary cod, then a juvenile barra, then another……….more cod and the pattern was set. By mid morning we could feel the heat, the water was 34.8C, almost hot enough to cook in and that, as Kevin explained, was the reason for a lack of mangrove jacks. Too warm for them. We persisted around the rocks and it started to fire up and by lunch time the tally had mounted to about a dozen cod and 9 barra.

Turtle

Barra

What really surprised us was the number of sea turtles……..they were everywhere gliding through the shallow waters. Sometimes surfacing right alongside the boat and scaring the wits out of us……….they confused us too…….was that a fish swirl or just another one of these magnificent creatures.

It was too hot to stop fishing, and we couldn’t find a shady spot on this side of the island anyway, so we ate egg and bacon pie (with tomato sauce of course) on the run and got straight back into it.

By mid afternoon the north easterly was in……..man was it hot, and humid but the fishing had slowed anyway so we worked our way back to the channel side of the island. We found a rocky outcrop in about a metre of choppy water and began to cast our lures around the slop. I landed my best barra of the trip here and at 63cm it wasn’t a big fish but sure gave a good account of herself amongst the oyster covered rocks. I also lost two lures here, busted off on those very same oysters.

63cm barra - my best

Barra

Back to the channel and we worked our way along the mangrove lined shore. By now the tide was making and the window of opportunity would not last long. Casting amongst the heavily timbered bank, amongst the tangle of mangrove roots and fallen trees we found active fish again. It was Debbie’s turn to have some good luck and she out fished me three to one that afternoon.

Not to worry, it was two very happy and weary anglers that headed back across the channel to the Marina entrance that afternoon. We must have landed about 30 fish that day but not a jack in sight.

A hearty meal, the exchange of fish tales tall and not so true, a few beers and the swapping of lures amongst friends soon had us seeking the comfort of our huge queen size bed. I was asleep in no time.

Here in the tropics you get to know a few things about how nature works. During the day old sol shines brightly, sucking up all that moisture from the warm seas and taking it high into those puffy dark clouds. Sure its hot and sticky, the sweat runs down your backside and you reach for another ice cold beer or six – and that’s why we love it up here. But we also know that after the sun goes down, the air temperature drops a few degrees and guess what – all that moisture just can’t be suspended anymore and with the crack of lightning, the heavy roll of thunder, the heavens open up and down she comes.

Well at 1.20am I was rudely awaken but one the most spectacular “light” shows I had ever seen. Lightning flashed across the dark threatening sky, thunder rolled right through you and the rain pelted down. My poor little tinny……….she was safely tied up to the Marina pontoon BUT what about the electrics. I had the 240V battery charger connected, what would happen if my boat filled up with water just enough to short the whole thing out?

Climbing out of my comfortable bed I quickly dressed, went out back to my vehicle to find my umbrella and gingerly walked down to my boat. I had better disconnect all power first I calculated, then I could safely disconnect the leads, check the water proofing cover that I had rigged over the charger and even run the battery powered bilge pump. No dramas, it was over in a few minutes, all was safe and I went back to bed to watch the light show.

But guess what, my mate Terry awoke a while after me and had the same idea. He found my umbrella, scurried down to the pontoon and RECONNECTED the power to my charger. Thankfully all was well and by morning I awoke to clearing skies and a boat and electrics all intact and a fully charged battery to boot. Thanks Terry!

Happy anglers

Flat out fishing!

This second day saw the trip across the channel even calmer, the water was like glass and the mountainous backdrop of Hinchinbrook Island was a real treasure to behold. This is the largest Island National Park in Australia and offers truly stunning scenery, superb camping, fishing and even an Island resort for those so inclined.

We decided to fish the inside channel on the last of the making tide, it was too high to fish the rocks anyway and we really intended to kill some time for a while. If we landed a fish or two it would be a bonus. Terry cast his deep diving shad towards the mangrove stand at the mouth of a small creek, bait fish were scattering everywhere when BOOF!..........he was on to a barra of well over 90cm. It was sheer pandemonium as he tried desperately to control her direction but she charged back into the structure, around a stand of drowned timber and back out again. All Terry could do was glide on the electric to the dead tree, have Kevin position the boat and gingerly he tried to untangle his stretched line. It was so comical to watch him pass his baitcaster round the first trunk, then the second and oops…….almost lost the rod and then Terry into the drink. I did say almost and eventually the line was free of this obstruction and they headed back into open water.

But wait, there’s more…………the monster had found another drowned snag right out where the boat was first stationed. She crashed the surface and made a resounding BOOF. Man I love that sound. And it was all over, she had managed to snag the lure on a thin twig of a branch and swam to freedom.

Barra are amazing creatures. They are a magnificent looking animal, hit lures with gusto and offer a spirited fight on the right tackle. Their take can be spectacular and put grown men into a quivering mess……….they are as adapt at self release as they are at hooking up and many angler is left mouth agape at how they free themselves. How they found that hidden snag, rock or weed bed. You’ve got to admire them and remember the challenge. This is what fishing is all about, its not catching.

At this stage Terry and his band had decided to head back to the rocks. Debbie & I decide to stay and try our luck along the mangrove bank.

Did I tell you that just after the boys left Debbie had an almighty strike in the same spot…….unfortunately her drag was just not set for a monster of this size and she was free in a moment. But the memories remain and she will be back.

We decided to bolt up the channel and fish the island on the falling tide, casting lures to the mangrove forest and occasionally hooking up to hungry barra. It was great fishing but it had its frustrating moments too. Like the 200th time that I hooked up to the tree roots, like the time a metre long barra materialized under my shad but did not take that extra step to strike, like the lack of action on other species. There is not wall to wall barra anywhere, you have to take them when they come, find them where they are at various stages of the tide cycle and be thankful for being able to fish in such wonderful places like far North Queensland has to offer.

My only jack - nice one!

I don’t know how many fish we landed, we were too absorbed in our surroundings to seriously take a count but suffice to say that we had an absolute blast. If I had to have a calculated guess I would say that we landed about 30 barra for the 2 days, about 15 cod, 1 jack and a flathead. And I sure can remember that one lone jack……that’s another story.

Flathead

So if you ever get the chance to get to Port Hinchinbrook, want a quality stay in fabulous self contained accommodation look no further than "Ripples on the Marina". And if you want spectacular fishing, with a great guide, do I have a deal for you.

I trust all my readers have a truly WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR.

There are strange things happening up here in FNQ, our economy is in pretty bad shape and a lot of people and families are struggling big time. Christmas can be a joyous time for many…………it can also be a trying time for the sad, broken and downhearted. Share a thought for them too an pray for better things to come in 2011.

Good fishing, Les

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

Did someone say Rain Forest!

2010-12-12T23:18:00.000-08:00

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/

Last Day For Barra!

2010-11-01T01:32:00.000-07:00

Can you believe that its November already........its almost Christmas, and that the barra season has closed for another year.

Grrrrrrr!..........all I want is a legal barra to take home to my family.

It was with much anticipation that my mate Keith Graham and I headed north to the Daintree River. We had not fished these waters for several months now and seeing as the weather God's were smiling and we had actually had some beautiful sunny weather for almost a week......expectations were high for a great day on this magnificent tropical waterway.

Launching at the public ramp near the ferry crossing is an absolute breeze these days. There is even a floating pontoon to assist with the launch / retrieve process and we were soon on the river, readying our tackle and applying the sun block / insect repellent / gloves / broad rimmed hat and sunnies. No sooner had we putted out into the middle of the river when bait and fish exploded all around us. G.T.'s we shouted and it was a mad panic to open our tackle boxes, sift through the hundred or so lures that we tend to carry (just in case) and searched for that favorite popper.

Trevors just love surface lures and when they are smashing bait like that, are relatively easy targets with a small 3" popper worked erratically across the surface. No sooner had we had our gear ready (should have clipped on a popper at the outset to the 4kg spin outfit) and the trevors had all disappeared. BUT WAIT..........there's more. Another feisty school soon erupted 20 metres away so we motored over on the electric and cast in the direction of the surface action.

In no time we were both hooked up and after a spirited fight the G.T.'s were quickly photographed and sent on their way back downstream.

It was a low tide at approx 11am that day, so we decided to have a cast around some mangrove prickles before the water became too low. We landed a small barra, had a couple of half hearted follows and a flash from a jack but not a lot was happening.

Time for a cuppa........head upstream to the weed beds and see what old bucket mouth was up to.

We began our drift, fighting the elements and trying to work out which was the dominant force - the wind or the tide. We usually use the tide to slowly push us downstream, using the electric to position us within casting distance of the swaying ribbon grass. But sometimes up here the south east "breeze" is a bit too strong and you sort of get stuck in the one zone having to fight for territory all the way down – today was one of those days. It was a bit slow but a few juvenile barras were being landed on the leads and F1-11's (One of Keith's special lures imported by Bransfords Tackle Shop).

Let's head upstream I stated, I want to see how much water is coming down and we were soon zooming up past Barrett’s Creek, past the township and into a shallow sandy straight. Shallow........did someone say SHALLOW!

Luckily I could see the skinny water but even after powering down we came to an abrupt stop / Keith crashed to the forward casting deck and landed firmly on the fleshy part of the anatomy called your "rear end". Man was he going to have a big bruise tomorrow I mused. Just goes to show how careful and well prepared you must be at all times........you see, we always stow our rods carefully next to the gunnels when travelling, all spare lures are put out of harms way and the deck in orgaised with esky, tackle bags, knife, pliers and boga's in their place. A sudden stop like that could easily have resulted in broken tackle, hooked anglers or much worse. Thankfully it was only bruised pride (sorry Keith).

The real problem however is that small outboards can't propel you through sand, they can't plow on and tend to suck up the "hard stuff" when the prop is revved in this fashion. Hmmmmm.....the tell tail is supposed to squirt water, not steam. We did manage to clear the tubing but there must have still been an obstruction (read dirty big lumps of sand) further up the cooling system so it was decided to head back downstream on the electric, fishing on our way and think of plan "B" to get home.

We did manage a few more barra however and the pictures hereabouts attest to our success;

• 8 barra in total

• 2 river G.T.'s

• 1 jack

But time was ticking by and who knows how long it would take to get way back down to the ferry / ramp. So it was two "slightly" unsatisfied anglers that packed up the gear and putted slowly down stream on the outboard. My neck was crooked to the right every 30 seconds to ensure that some H2O was trickling out of the tell-tale...........I kept a constant watch on the water temp too, I didn't want to cook the motor and thought that a damaged impeller would be a lot less expensive that a new outboard - agreed!

By about 4pm we had made it back to the Daintree township........how about we pull in here?

I could get a ride with "someone" from here to the ferry, drive the car and trailer back and it would not only be quicker, it could save the engine. What a great idea we mused.

It wasn't long before a very generous Mexican (Victorian) offered to take me back and I was more than grateful for their assistance. In only a half hour or so I had been dropped off at the ferry, driven back to the town ramp, loaded the boat and off we headed home. Probably saved me a couple of hours and a few dollars to boot.

And I still didn't have that last legal sized barra for the season, what would the family eat from now until February next year? Mangrove jacks / fingermark / queenfish / mackerel / tuna / emperor / trout.......OK, we'll survive.

Great fishing, regards Les

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

A Picture Tells a Thousand Words!

2010-10-27T15:17:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

I thought I'd let the following pics tell the story of my last trip to the Johnstone River at Innisfail.
I took my partner's son Sam, for a lure fishing day to the fresh and we had a ball landing;

3 barra
12 monster sooties
3 jacks
5 jungle perch
1 trevally

(Note - double click to enlarge images)

Check them again - I even landed a double header!

The lure of choice for the day was a Leads 3" Jack Lure - and they worked a treat.

I also lost a big barra of well over 80cm..........had it on for well over 2 minutes so was dead lucky to loose her in the end.

Great Fishing!
Les Marsh
http://www.fishingcairns.com.au/

A River Somewhere!

2010-10-18T18:41:00.000-07:00

My good mate Keith Graham (Bransfords Tackle Shop) hasn’t been fishing much lately……..you see he had a total knee reconstruction several moths ago and it has been giving him hell on the rehabilitation trail ever since. No point in taking him out in my 4m tinny if he can’t stand up and cast for hours at a time / pull up the lead blob used to position the boat / reach down and get his lure out of the cotton wood tree, mangrove root etc etc…………well, is it!

Last Sunday however was going to be a new adventure for us. Keith’s knee had “come good” – about 85% anyway and the persistent rain had eased off for a few days. We decided to head south and see what happened.

You see, within about a 2 hours drive south of Cairns lies some of the prettiest sweet water fishing available in these parts. There are literally a dozen rivers / creeks to fish if conditions are right and this is the main positive – there is nearly always a back- up plan should your chosen destination be unfishable due to dirty water conditions. It’s a simple matter of taking note of the water conditions as you cross the rivers on the highway and back track if necessary.

We arrived at our preferred location at approx. 8:00am and were pleasantly surprised to see the water clarity was quite good. The high tide at 6:00am had long gone and with a low at midday, but a high low of just on a metre, it should give us plenty of water to travel way upstream without fear of being left stranded in the shallow reaches so prevalent upstream from the ramp.

Like intrepid explorers we pushed on and upwards, past mangroves and cottonwood trees, past swaying ribbon grass, under bridges and over drowned log piles – I had never seen the river so high without being in flood – and after a morning cuppa under a beautiful overhanging rainforest tree, we decided to explore this new territory.

Keith and I are seasoned anglers, we have fished our local rivers for many years and know some of them like the back of our hands. But this was different, I have never been able to access this river “zone” before and it was two very excited anglers that decided to keep pushing upstream just a few more k’s……….just to see what lay behind the next bend. When we decided that we had come far enough, we knew that there was a lot of water between us and the boat ramp some several hours downstream. It would not matter how many fish we caught, it was such a buzz to “just be in the moment”………..at a new destination exploring new waters.

As we drifted downstream we both realized quite quickly that this would be a difficult trip and for a strange reason for this time of year.

Our region has had heaps of rainfall this past few weeks / months. In fact I don’t think that we have had more than a few days break from nightly rain all year. The ground is saturated, the run off is constant and our rivers are running much higher than normal for a “pre” went season period. This meant that even though there was only about a metre tidal drop, the fresh was pushing constantly downstream making our passage quite a fast one and therefore casting to likely looking spots, quite challenging.

We soon realized that a slow measured drift, casting to likely barra holding backwaters and eddies was not going to be possible but for the few wider / shallower reaches. Not to worry, adjust your thinking, switch to smaller lures and target what might be there instead of singularly focusing on the barra.

This approach brought fairly instant results as Keith latched on to a feisty little JP from the grassy edges. They are such a pretty little fish and offer a spirited fight in the fast flowing water. Drifting along we had a couple of half hearted boofs from juvenile barra but our lures were swept away from the strike zone far too quickly. Not to worry, the jacks and JP’s were cooperating quite nicely thank you and the tally was slowly mounting.

These offer great sport on light spin or baitcaster tackle and in the terrain are quite challenging. We had lunch under a shady tree and were happy to sit back and take it all in………what a beautiful little river.

By now we were back downstream to where I was more familiar with the rivers course, snag piles and grassy verges which usually held barra, I advised Keith. We drifted along and cast to the “spots”, but again the journey was all too fast to really do it justice so we accepted the inevitable and just kept catching jacks. Not that there was anything wrong with that.

By mid afternoon we were back in the tidal zone, the tide had actually started to push back in and slow the “flood” and it was here that we landed a couple of small barras from the snags. And the tally for the day;

• 10 mangrove jacks

• 8 Jungle Perch

• 3 tarpon

• 2 barra

Two very contented anglers decided to “pull the pin” early and head back to Cairns………..not only content with the days catch but more satisfied that we had been to new waters and fished, what was for us, a brand new experience. There is something in this that is good for the soul don’t you think?

Good fishing, Kind regards Les
http://www.fishingcairns.com.au/

PS – Closed season for barra commences at midday on 1st November. Only a couple of weeks left this year to land a legal barra!

Closer to Home!

2010-09-27T01:13:00.000-07:00

For those who follow Fishing Cairns, I'm sorry for not posting for a couple of weeks - the reason is quite simple. I haven't had any images of fish to show you guys. Not for a lack of trying mind you as last week I fished the Johnstone River at Innisfail but got blown away by thirteen (yes 13) barra.

Now when your supposed to be a gun ex guide, this is not good.........I know, so don't rub it in. But that's another story that will have to wait for another time.

Closer to Home!

There is a little waterway just on the northern outskirts of town that I only fish at certain times of the year and that is just prior to our traditional "wet" season. The reasons being as follows

At this time of year the waters are at their optimum as far as clarity and temperature goes
There is a mix of summer and winter species patrolling the river
On good tides you can travel quite a way upstream as well as right down to the mouth
On some days (especially if it is quite warm) there is not too much boat traffic

The Barron River is much maligned and I must admit that being a guide for many years, I too am guilty of this "adverse" publicity. I did not like to fish this water often and preferred to travel the hour or so to either the Johnstone River system or even further away to the mighty Daintree. However, only having limited time to fish this past weekend, my lady Debbie, suggested we give the Barron a go.

Launching at the highway boat ramp is a breeze these days, its wide and stable with plenty of sealed parking for the vehicle and trailer - there's even a handy wash down facility if you bring along your own hose and connections. Something that I do more often these days and its good to clean the boat, remove the salt and head home knowing that you can just back the boat in.

Debbie and I pushed upstream as far as the rock bar at Freshwater Creek, just shy of the train line and the Kamerunga bridge and started to cast our lures to likely looking snags. The river is full of fallen logs and tangled timber and we were quite confident of hooking up to a few barra and jacks. I was using my favorite Leeds deep diving shad in cherry red, Debbie was using a green pattern. We cast and cast for about an hour, had a flash or two but nothing exciting was happening.

I was becoming a little frustrated by now, the tide was right (last of the run out), the water looked good and was a comfortable 26.7C - perfect for old bucket mouth.

Like all thinking anglers should do, if its not working for you, try something else. So we switched to the Leeds highjackers - Deb was using her favourte fluro green and I snapped on a gold metallic pattern with a shiny olive back. I had not had more than a few casts when Boof! I was on to a fiesty little barra. Deb missed one and all of a sudden we felt that maybe things were starting to happen for us. As we drifted slowly down on the falling tide I used the electric to keep us in the right position to cast to bankside vegetation / log piles and likely looking weedy edges.

Some places just look so fishy - you know you're going to hook up, and it was at one such weedy bank that Debbie dropped the lead blob and we cast to the edge. In quick succession I was on, I was off, Debbie was on, I landed one, Debbie landed two and I had another couple. Even though the fish were only rats, it was so much fun and after extracting 5 fish we decided to move on.

It was a magic afternoon. We were so close to the city but we might as well have been a hundred miles away. The sounds of nature, the calls of the many birds - sounds that you just don't get to hear even in the suburbs - it was pure pleasure as we drifted silently along. And every now and again we hooked up to more little fiesty fish. At 5:00pm we decided to pull the pin and head home for a Sunday roast - no joke!

As we zoomed back to the ramp we reflected on what had been a wondeful afternoon, in all we had landed 9 barra, a jack, 1 GT, a cattie and a cuda. Not too shabby for a waterway so close to a city suffering the growing pains of development / tourism / traffic and airplanes. It was a great decision and the only one little regret; that time had prevented us from travelling downstream to the mangrove structure areas where we just might have tangled with larger fish.

Now there is a lot of info in this little article for you keen anglers out there - read it again and take note, maybe you too will discover little treasures so close to home.

Great fishing........Regards, Les

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

A rainy Sunday!

2010-08-30T00:54:00.000-07:00

Well the weekend came around again and it was time to plan my next fishing trip. My work buddy, Lance, is also a very keen fisho so it was decided that we could fit in a half day's fishing on the Mulgrave River on Sunday.

Late on Friday night it started to drizzle - it wouldn't come to much I thought, after all its August which is suppose to be the "dry" season......right!

Saturday was my day for book-keeping, house cleaning, a bit of footy watching etc and as it was still raining, I had to forgo cutting the lawns. Darn.

Lance was a little concerned about my "keeness" to fish the following day so he rung me that afternoon just to make sure - hell I'm keen I replied, it was all systems go for the following day.

It rained all night, and when I awoke the skies were completely grey - Oh well, at least a few gutters might be flowing I mused. Lance picked me up at 12 noon as planned, we had a small diversion as we headed south and it was still raining. I actually decided to put my wet weather gear on while travelling in the car...........it wasn't going to let up and am I glad that I did.

We launched Lance's boat at Deeral and decided to head upstream as far as possible. If you remember my last post you will note that my upstream passage was restricted somewhat by shallow waters and the fact that there was a fairly low tide as well. This day was different, there was a bit of fresh coming down but the big influencing factor was the fact that low tide was still above 1m. We went as far as we dared, cut the main motor and drifted to a small gutter aided by the bow mounted electric thruster.

Lance was the first to cast and soon raised a small barra from the edge of the discoloured water, but it failed to hook up and after sever fruitless casts we began our slow journey back downstream. I just love these small tides but with relatively high lows - get it? There is just enough run to keep the fish in feeding mode but the drift can be controlled much better and actually increases your fishing time.

It was going to be a tough day though......the fish just weren't co-operating and even the sooties and JP's were missing from the sunken snags. AND IT WAS STILL RAINING.

We cast to bankside weed beds, behind fallen logs and rocks, to back eddies and overhanging rainforest, to ribbon grass and lilly pads........but it certainkly was s..l..o..w and still raining. We covered some fantastic looking territory, drop offs and snags that just screamed fish but things had shut down. At one massive fallen log we both had about a dozen casts, drifting off I looked back and had one last cast.

Boof!.........and I was on, but only briefly........this legal sized barra bolted downstream and pulled the hooks. I then cast to a weedy bank, it was relatively shallow but the darker waters gave the hint of a deeper gutter and a cut back under the floating grass. Boof!.........and I was on again, but after two spirited jumps in the shallow water she was free again. It just wasn't going to be my day.

Lance had similar luck and to this stage he had lost three small barra in similar fashion but had managed to land a silver tarpon that gyrated all over the place before being hauled into the boat.

At one of my favourite weed beds, Lance finally nailed a little 45cm barra which was quickly released. I was becoming a little frustrated at this stage but hell, this was better than working or gardening or watching the AFL (maybe) and then my luck changed.

I cast right along a deep gutter and worked my leeds shad back underneath the floating grass verge - I felt a little bump at first - was that a hit? Oh yes it was and finally I'd hooked up to a respectable 56cm barra which was brought boatside, landed, photographed and placed gently back into the river.

We didn't see another fish after that but it was getting late anyway so time to pull the pin and get home for the Sunday lamb roast. And as we pulled into my driveway back in Cairns it was still raining. Its still raining now and I think we have had well over 60mm this past 2 days - AND ITS THE DRY SEASON!

Happy fishing, regards Les

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

A break from the office!

2010-08-22T22:18:00.000-07:00

This past three weeks has seen me very much in work mode – heaps to do in the office / a quick trip to Brisbane for real estate training and a hectic week in New Zealand visiting my ladies mum had left no time for fishing unfortunately.

I spent most of the last weekend in the office, both here at Ray White and at home on Fishing Cairns book work catching-up. At About 11am on Sunday I got so annoyed and frustrated that I decided to just quit the book work and go fishing by myself.

I packed the boat and headed south to the Mulgrave River – I hadn’t been fishing for 3 weeks so was quite pumped to make the decision to “just do it”.

The weather was perfect, the water was a surprisingly warm 26+ C so maybe I could catch a few. With a low tide at approx. 2:00pm I decided to head upstream as far as my little 4 metre punt would allow. This tactic would enable me to drift back down with the still falling tide and fish the weed beds for barra. This time of year (dry season) the river was very shallow with little fresh to top it up – I carefully chose my upstream path but had to concede defeat well short of my intended target zone.

Beautiful Mulgrave River - Sunday 23rd August 10

Not to worry, I still had several kilometers of waterway to prospect.

I was again using the brilliant Leads hijackers and diving shads – these lures are just fantastic for tropical conditions and worked correctly with a stop / start / jerky rod tip retrieve are just dynamite. You can dig the shad down a few metres if required or work it with the rod tip up to stay away from shallow weeds and snags. The shallow running hijacker is the best surface "boofing" lure that I have found and worked correctly rings the dinner bell on old bucket mouth around the weeds. Take a dozen to Cape York if you can.

And the results speak for themselves - not bad for a few hours fishing.

Juvenile Barra on shad

Barra on Hijacker

4 barra landed, biggest at 56cm

Lost one approx. 80cm after 2 jumps – looked spectacular

Landed one jungle perch

Lost 2 jacks – biggest approx. 40cm

Barra & Shad

JP on Halco

And if I wasn’t so focused on barra, I should have switched to a smaller spin outfit occasionally and had a go at the many black shapes that I saw on the snags – sooty grunter.

I pulled the pin at 5:00pm and headed home quite pleased with myself.

WHEN DID YOU SAY THAT YOU WERE COMING UP?

Regards, Les

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

Daintree Raining!

2010-07-25T00:27:00.000-07:00

Well you could be forgiven for thinking that its the "wet" season up here in Cairns. It hasn't stopped raining (drizzling really) for weeks and weeks. Not good for us keen angler types and the urge to toss a few lures was just too strong.

I hadn't lure fished since the Queen's birthday weekend, way back in early June, so hang the weather.......Debbie and I were just going to do it anyway.

So on Friday morning, it was a public holiday here in Cairns for the annual show day (Just hate it!), Debbie and I headed north to fish the Daintree. The weather God's hadn't been too kind to us of late, with plenty of "strong wind warnings" to completely shut down the offshore scene. It was our plan to fish the "river bends" out of the prevailing 25 - 30 kn winds and just hope for a fish or two. Expectations were not high but that didn't matter as we were on the water after many weeks of self enforced exile!

We fished a small backwater not far from the boat ramp and had a couple of near misses - the barra would obviously be sluggish in the cool conditions we mused, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that the water was an acceptable 23.7C.........well within the barra's active range so, just maybe, there would be a bit of action after all.

Not long after and Debbie hooked up to a small 45cm barra which was photographed and quickly put back to grow. And then I landed a similar sized fish from the mangrove prickles - the aerial roots of the river lined mangrove trees, one of my favourite fishing "zones" in our tropical rivers.

Keeping to our plan to fish "out of the wind" was paying dividends; we ventured up a few small side creeks and found more willing barra and a couple of fiesty jacks to boot. The tally was mounting.

With a low tide at approx. 1:30pm we headed downstream as far as we dared in the sloppy conditions (the exposed river mouth was just too windy for my 4m barra punt) and we started to work our way back using the incoming tide and wind to push us upstream. We found more willing barra and jacks on the snags and even landed a nice river GT off the prickles.

The tally for the day was very respectable; way above what we would have thought at the outset.

Barra x 12
Jacks x 5
Trevally x 1

Debbie and I were using similar tackle, and what I arguably believe are the best lures on the market - Leads 6" highjackers (for shallow conditions) and the relatively new 3" deep diving shad. I just love these lures and if I had to come north to fish and only had a choice of a few lures to bring - I'd beg / borrow / steal as many of these beauties in any colour that I could get my hands on. We both used green lures this day!

It was two very happy, but wet, anglers that sought the comfort of the Colorado 4x4 as we headed back to Cairns late that afternoon - it really was one of the most memorable fishing trips that we had encountered. Not for the number of fish landed, nor for the fact that none of the barra were of legal size (again - refer previous gripes) BUT the fact that we had well surpassed pre concieved angling expectations considering the conditions. We were both very pleased with ourselves.

Offshore scene:

Without stating the bleeding obvious, not many charters have ventured to the blue water due to this lousy weather were having, when conditions do ease however and the larger vessels have been able to get out to the reef, catches have been quite outstanding.

Quality reds are the order of the day with large and small mouth nannygai on the favourite marks along with good numbers of coral trout being caught. This cool weather will bring the spaniards on the chew as well so its always a good idea to have a floating pillie out the back while bottom bouncing or trolling diving lures between marks.

Good fishing, regards, Les

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

Bransfords Kids Clinic a Success!

2010-07-12T13:36:00.000-07:00

On Saturday 10th July, Keith Graham of Bransfords Tackle Shop, held the 15th annual "Kids Clinic" on the Palm Cove jetty. Once agin over 150 keen junior anglers packed the jetty to have some fun and learn the art of fishing from local experts. The kids and their parents braved the elements to register captures of 148 fish with a total of 14 different species. Being a catch and release event all fish were returned to fight another day with many junior fishers notching up their first ever captures.

Even though the weather was not kind to us, the attendance was testiment to the number of keen young anglers out there and showed the support of the many mums and dads who came to help and encourage.

The idea of the Kids Clinic is to teach the kids, in a normal fishing environment, how to tie knots, do rigs, cut and present baits so they take an interest and catch more fish. Local fishing guru’s Terry Holman, Les Marsh, Brazakka, Matt Graham, Bruno Vucas and Ron Gallo patrolled the jetty giving out such information and generally encouraging the kids.

Following the weigh in prizes were handed out in various categories including champion female and male anglers…( see results below)….and a sausage sizzle was held for all the participants and their friends / family members. Vicky Graham reckons they cooked over 420 snags and half a bag of onions, fair to say all worked up an appetite!

Attendance certificates were handed out with the ‘Goody Bags’ which contained 29 items of fishing tackle & accessories, the kids also received an embroidered hat to mark the event. We hope to see all our keen Bransfords Junior Anglers at next years event….who knows, by then they may be able to teach our experts a thing or two!

RESULTS.

Champion Female………Kylie Slack……..weighed in 14 fish.

Champion Male…………Luke Purcell…… Best fish a Spanish Mackeral 55cms long.

Most Unusual Capture…Ava Bramham….An eel & a 1250 gms. Puffer Fish

Biggest Crab……………Keiran French…. 650 gms.

Biggest Ray……………. Kai Mc.Farlane… 650 gms.

Encouragement Award….Rebecca Carrington.

We must sincerely thank our sponsors for their generosity……….Joe Vella Insurance..( who organised the public liability cover)…Daiwa Australia..( Who have been our partner since the first Kids Clinic)……Channel 7…….Bransfords Tackle……Tropic City T Shirts & Caps..( Best embroidered caps ever)…Coca Cola….Mars Bars…Brumbies Bread…..McDonalds Smithfield…Sno Bonneau & Margaret Cochrane..( who supplied Porta Loo)….Barra Classic Lures…Halco…Abu Reels..L.Wilson & Co….Platypus Fishing Lines…John MacKenzie & Locco from 4CA….Brothers Leauges Club….Shimano Tackle… and to all our helpers, cooks, assistants and young JR from Ch. 7 and Vicky Graham for their dedication.

A very huge thank you to all involved - to see the smiling faces on so many children was a warming sight. I had a dozen kids come up to thank me for helping them with their fishing - it was a very rewarding experince and a credit to all who participated / helped / organised.

See you next year!

Cairns OR Cape York (The difference)

2010-07-04T14:25:00.000-07:00

This little article is going to explain some of the differences of fishing in Tropical North Queensland during "winter". Now as a southern tourist you might be saying that Cairns is lovely and warm - so true when you compare it with temps down south / 6C in Melbourne, -2 in Canberra only 18 max. on the Gold Coast.

It sure does feel nice with these 26C days - but what you must realise is that its the night time temperature that dictates the water temperatrure and this is what controls the activity of our fish and the target species available.

A variation of 10C is all it takes to make a huge difference - Cairns has gone from 32 to 22, Sydney from 26 to 16 and so on. You feel it and certainly the fish feel it. Barra don't like cold water pure and simple. They become lethargic and sulk in comfort zones making it much harder to entice a strike. Sure they must feed to survive, but if your not as active you need less fuel right!

That's why we subtly change out approach when fishing the rivers at this time of year and concentrate more on the likes of GT's, queenfish, grunter and bream.

I had a lovely session with young Jett down at Russell Heads yesterday. It was blowing, it was drizzling but we still managed to catch over 30 fish. Heaps of bream (we left them biting to try something different) a couple of grunter but the best was the 5 GT's we landed - great sport on light 4-6kg line.

Now for something completely different, and I'll explain why.

My good mate, and arguably one of the best fishing guides in FNQ, Terry Holman, has just returned from a trip to Aurukun (northern Cape York near Weipa). He had one of the best fishing trips of his long career. His clients landed dozens of barra, good quality barra in the 70 - 90cm range. They had a ball catching high spirited queenies and GT's on lures and flies. Throw in flathead, king and blue salmon and you have a mix of quality fish to satisfy any angler.

Now Aurukun is a remote location and you would expect the place to fish better than say Cairns - but the main reason for such consistent quality fishing is the fact that the temperature of the place is still in the 30's during the day and the mid 20's at night. THE WATER IS STILL RELATIVELY WARM!

GET IT? - Great stuff if you do so use this in your fishing and plan accordingly.

If you want a fishing trip of a lifetime and it must be over the next few "winter" months - get north man, as far north as time and money will permit. But if your a local and just have that inner need to go fishing in these conditions (like I do), then change your tactics, scale down your tackle and have a ball on what's swimming around and stop trying to be unrealistic for the conditions.

Happy fishing, kind regards Les

Cowley Beach

2010-06-07T01:21:00.000-07:00

Hi guys,

Well on Saturday Debbie & I headed south to the little known Creek, approx. 30 minutes south of Innisfail (which is 85 ks south of Cairns).

With a low tide at approx. 11.30am we decided to try a few different things (fishing wise I mean) so stop thinking like that!

We headed downstream to the mouth where I landed a nice 53 cm barra.
Time to move on before we were trapped for the day I suggested so a decision was made to travel as far upstream as we dared. The "wet" season is long gone so tidal considerations are paramount for venturing upstream in our tropical rivers at this time of the year.

We broke up the journey with infrequent stops, using the electric to push against the falling tide in the shallower parts and cast to fallen timber and overhanging cotton wood trees. We caught a few small barra and continued.

On a large deep water bend Debbie had the fright of her angling life (to date that is).........a monster barra about a metre long flashed from a snag and engulfed her 3 inch jack lure. Her scream said it all, I just turned my head in time to see this beauty bust off and swim quietly away. She was just pricked in the lip so was free to fight another day. Better luck next time girl!

We had an early morning tea, an early lunch and an early exit from the rapidly shallowing river.

And out of the barra, none were legal (again) but four of them were in the size range from 53 - 55 cm (legal size is 58)..........the story continues in this regard and we are pressing on with Fisheries and local MP's to get a better deal. Funny that most legal fish are caught in nets!

Catch you later, Les

North Johnstone River

2010-05-23T23:37:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Not such a great day yesterday on the North Johnstone river.

Only a couple of small barra and 2 flathead. A sure sign that "winter" is upon us - the water was down to a cool 22.7. Last Sunday on the Daintree the water was over 2 degrees warmer.

It was still a lovely day but we pulled the pin early to go home and watch the footy.

Regards, Les

Fishing Cairns

2010-05-20T23:40:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Debbie & I had a wonderful day on the Daintree yesterday.

Weather was fantastic (although the wind did pick up to about 20 knots mid morning), clear blue skies and the water temps was about 24 - 25 C. Still warm enough for barra.

The only problem was that Debbie "kicked my ass"...........she had landed 5 fish before I had a score on the board. You see, in my kind, considerate, helpful way, I ALLOWED Debbie to use that bright shiny new Leads highjacker lure - I should have known better.

Check it out, its green - its bright - its shiny - and it works!

And before all you guys say that it's just "sour grapes" - your darn right it is. Hell I know barra and how to catch them. You could say that I was a very good guide and put Debbie onto the fish but that would be stretching the truth too much.

It was just one of those days where
- she had most of the luck,
- she was up the front of the boat,
- I let her have first cast (most of the time)
- and she was using MY recently acquired favourite lure

I had to chastise myself very severely during our belated lunch break (pull your finger out Les or suffer the consequences) and after that I managed to land 3 small barra, but the damage to my pride had already been done.

WELL DONE GIRL!

Kind regards, Les