BUSY DAYS AHEAD ON BLUE WATER
AFTER strong winds for months reef fishers will be smiling with light winds forecasted for Friday and Saturday.
Last weekend conditions on the water were horrible, which has been the norm for a long period, but eased during the week and saw several charter boats out fishing the Reef.
Small boat owners will finally be joining them on Friday and Saturday with boat ramps set to be bursting capacities as anglers look to fish the reef, islands and wrecks.
Reef fishing has been red hot with charter boats off Cairns and Port Douglas reporting excellent catches of large and small mouth nannygai.
Areas off Pixie, Oyster and Thetford reefs have fished on red along with coral trout and an assorted mixed bag of reef fish fishing the bommies. Spanish mackerel have also been in good numbers on the trout bommies and taking floated pilchards and garfish.
Plenty of school size spaniards are also being caught trolling the pinnacles holding bait with rigged garfish and lures like the Halco Laser Pros accounting for plenty of fish.
The southern grounds to the NE of Dunk Island and Silver Sands have finally seen decent numbers of spotty and school mackerel.
With calm conditions from Friday these locations will be popular.
Several southern creeks have fired on mangrove jacks this week, while a few nice barra have been caught casting lures in the Hinchinbrook Channel.
Grunter have been reasonable in the channel.
The Cairns Inlet has seen quality barra caught by anglers that have been able to find live prawns that have been a little scarce. Estuary charter operation All Tackle Sport Fishing found local prawns on Wednesday and turned them into the 81cm barra pictured above.
Fingermark, trevally and estuary cod have been caught on live prawns and sardines.
With the forecast for light winds on Friday and Saturday reef fishing will be a priority for most with nannygai, gold band snapper and red emperor the targets in the deep water.
Areas like Grafton Passage and Trinity Opening will be popular. Coral trout will be chased on the shallow to mid depth bommies holding bait along with spanish mackerel.
Pixie, Oyster, Moore and Thetford reefs will be worth a fish. The smaller tides will be ideal for those looking to target a large queenfish or GT in the major river mouths like the Russell River on poppers.