STAY WARY AS STORMS STILL BUILD
CONSISTENT storms have again kept blue water fishers nervous when heading to sea and many have opted for early starts and returns before the afternoon storms build.
Those that have fished have enjoyed flat, calm seas and fishing has been fairly good, especially in the deep water on large mouth nannygai.
The deep rubble and small rocks in Grafton Passage has fished well with some thumping fish being caught.
Gold band snapper, trevally, cobia, small mouth nannygai and a few red emperor have also been caught. A few spanish mackerel are still cruising around and being caught.
The light tackle game fishers have recently seen several sailfish caught on trolled lures and rigged garfish along the outer reef edges and paddocks.
Casting shallow bommies continues to see some massive giant trevally hooked and lost due to smashed gear. The shallow bommies of Oyster Reef Sudbury have fished well.
The Cairns Inlet has fished OK with blue salmon, trevally and fingermark, along with several released barramundi.
The northern beaches and local headlands are also seeing numbers of barramundi hooked on cast lures, which is a great sign for the season opening this Saturday, February 1.
The southern islands, headlands and Hinchinbrook Channel have seen fingermark schooling up and taking soft plastics.
Over last weekend’s big tides the grunter were also on the bite in the Hinchinbrook region with plenty of prawns being caught along the Cardwell Beach Foreshore.
This Saturday sees the opening of the barra season that will have anglers whipped up and keen to land their first barra for 2020. The recent rain will have stirred the fish up and fishing should really fire as the tides start to build early next week up to the full moon.
With the recent heavy rain the rocky headlands like the Yorkey’s Knob groin and Cape Grafton and the feeder creeks will be the ideal locations. Tinaroo Dam should also fire on big impoundment barra after Sunday as we build up to the full moon.
With the forecast for the weekend seeing winds E/SE around the 10-15 knots early Saturday and continuing to moderate into Sunday and early next week there will be plenty of boats looking to again fish the reef.
Keep an eye on the storms and fishing with the neap tides will be best in the deep water.