CONDITIONS BLOW AWAY REEF HOPES
WITH moderate winds most of the week it’s been tough for the small boat owners as conditions have prevented them from reef fishing.
Unfortunately, windy conditions look set to continue into the weekend.
The bigger charter boats off Cairns and Port Douglas have managed to continue fishing and bring on board good numbers of mixed reef bottom fish again this week, including small and large mouth nannygai, coral trout, spangled emperor, cobia and various trevally species.
Fishing has mostly been in behind the reefs offering shelter from the south east winds, like Arlington and Sudbury, which both have lagoons, and Oyster Reef off Cairns. Off Port both Pixie and Batt reefs have produced well.
Spanish mackerel have continued to increase in numbers and be caught on floated pilchards and live baits on the reefs while bottom fishing and around the islands on trolled rigged baits like garfish and wolf herring.
A few bigger fish have been hooked around the southern islands on the wolf herring but sharks have been thick and stealing most hooked fish before being landed.
A few small black marlin have also been surprisingly hooked recently with this fish pictured above caught and released by Exceed Sport Fishing off Port Douglas not far off the coast on Wednesday.
The Cairns Inlet has continued to see improved fishing with the occasional barramundi and mangrove jack caught on live sardines and herring along with fingermark, estuary cod and river trevally.
Several decent barra have also been caught jigging the local wharves with soft plastic vibes. Crabbers have been rewarded recently with good numbers of rusty buck mud crabs starting to run consistently. When setting pots ensure fresh fish or chicken frames are used and changed regularly when crabbing over several days.
Most of the southern river systems have cleaned up and are starting to fish well with the upper fresh sections of the Mulgrave, Johnstone, Murray and Tully rivers all producing a variety of species on lures including barramundi, mangrove jacks, tarpon and sooty grunter.
Some bigger barra also continue to be caught on live mud cod in the feeder creek mouths by local anglers.
It looks like winds around the 20 knot mark for the weekend, which will wipe out reef fishing for most, but there are a range of inshore options to catch a fish.
The tides are very neap this weekend so live baiting the deep estuary locations like the Cairns Inlet, Mourilyan Harbour and Hinchinbrook Channel should see some nice fingermark and salmon caught on live baits like large herring.
The major river freshwater sections will also be worth a fish chasing a variety of species on small lures.
Mud crabs will be worth chasing again as the tides start building from Thursday next week.