PLENTY TO CATCH IN THE FRESH
ESTUARY and river fishing has been excellent again this week, with barramundi, mangrove jacks, fingermark and blue salmon all featuring in catches from various locations.
Locally, the Cairns Inlet has seen an early run of quality fingermark, with several of the local charter boats catching numbers of these prime eating fish on live sardines. Jigged vibes have also been successful on the fingermark while the Family Group Islands off Tully have seen plenty of fish caught on freshly caught squid.
Jason Swan enjoyed a hot inlet session on barra casting lures over the laid down timber in Smiths Creek last Sunday while several fish have also been caught on live baits along with mangrove jacks.
The local Cairns jetties and structure are also seeing barras caught on jigged vibes and soft plastics.
The southern rivers, including the Russell/Mulgrave, Johnstone, Maria Creek and Liverpool Creek, have all seen plenty of barra and mangrove jack action with both hardbodied lures and soft plastics working well.
Hinchinbrook Channel is also fishing well for barramundi, with live mullet and garfish producing fish on the pressure points, while Missionary Bay has seen good numbers of fish caught casting the snags and gutters with soft plastics and prawn imitation lures.
Carla Grieve and her niece, Nakita, 9, (pictured above) caught several nice barramundi fishing Hinchinbrook last weekend. Carla said: “Fishing was quiet until the clean water moved in, then there was a flurry of barra bites on the live mullet and garfish.” Nakita’s fish, measuring 78cm, was her first ever barramundi capture.
Late last week on the big tides, excellent numbers of grunter were also caught on the flats of Missionary Bay on fresh fillet baits of mullet and garfish. Mud crabs have been running on the big tides in most of the estuaries and should continue in numbers on this set of building tides.
Reef fishing as for most of the year continues to see excellent numbers of nannygai caught on the deep rubble, with Grafton Passage and Trinity Opening fishing well in the gutters.
Coral trout have also been biting well on the bommies edges with Sudbury and Pixie Reefs producing good fish.
Big barramundi have been caught again this week in Tinaroo Dam and should continue to bite with the building New Moon through to next Thursday.
With SE winds around the 15-20 knots forecast for the weekend, river and estuary fishing will be on the agenda.
Barramundi, fingermark and mangrove jacks will all be worth targeting on both live baits and lures with the sheltered areas of the Cairns Inlet, Russell/Mulgrave River, and Hinchinbrook Channel all worth a fish. It will also be an ideal weekend to set a few pots chasing a feed of mud crabs.