Welcome to FNQ’s barra-dise
MANY anglers will be keen to chase a big barra this weekend with the forecast of strong winds keeping small boats inshore and cancelling any planned reef trips.
The building tides should also see the estuaries continue to improve with grunter an option on flats with slab baits of fresh garfish, mullet or squid ideal.
Fingermark, mangrove jacks and trevally will be target species in the creeks on live baits and lures.
With the rain around and bigger tides there should also be a few mud crabs on the move and worth setting a few pots baited with fresh fish or chicken frames.
With unpredictable storms each day this week reef fishermen have had to play dodge ball to avoid their impact.
Night time fishing at this time of the year is a definite no go as any approaching storm that can whip up dangerous seas and blinding rain that can’t be seen and change conditions from flat calm to life threatening rough in minutes.
I ventured out reef fishing on Monday and while we missed most of the storms we still caught the tail end of one that where flat calm conditions turn into 20 knot rough conditions in an instant.
Luckily the coral trout didn’t mind the stormy weather as they bit pretty well in several locations and we came home with a nice catch of these fine eating specimens fishing the Pixie Reef region.
A pleasant surprise was catching a couple of tomato cod including a 45cm fish, certainly not a species you often catch. In general the trout have been in good numbers along the inshore reefs along with a mix of painted sweet lip, cattle dog cod, trevally and cobia.
The charter boats continue to land several Spanish mackerel on floated pilchards and garfish while targeting trout.
Nannygai have been a little fickle but some big quality fish have been caught on the small rocks over the tide changes and the beginning of the run out tides along with the occasional red emperor.
Many sports fishing anglers have been targeting big giant trevally casting the shallow reef bommies in current on poppers and stick baits with Oyster and Sudbury Reefs two prime locations.
GT’ popper fishing is best on the bommies holding good schools of fusiliers that are rippling up on the surface. Coral trout and various other reef species are often a by-catch when popper fishing.
Inshore the Cairns Inlet has improved with a few fingermark, trevally and mangrove jacks being caught on live baits and lures.
To the south of Cairns the rivers like the Johnstone and Tully are fishing well in the freshwater sections with plenty of sooty grunter, jungle perch and several mangrove jacks being caught on small minnows and soft plastics.
Both Tinaroo Dam and Lake Morris have featured active barramundi during the storms with some big metre plus fish caught in Tinaroo and with the full moon building fishing should be red hot into the weekend and early next week.