Doggies bite for fishos
IT has been described by locals as an invasion of epic proportions.
They’re referring to an influx of doggie or Queensland school mackerel.
Bag limit hauls of the tasty and popular table fish were commonplace last weekend and anglers rejoiced as they compared catches at local boat ramps.
The most- recognised hotspots yielded fish consistently throughout the weekend, however, many anglers told of fish found, seemingly, in the middle of nowhere .
Halifax Bay’s Bay Rock was well fished as was West Point and several nearby features including shallow reef and well- known wrecks – all giving up top quality doggie mackerel to a whopping 70cm.
Local jeweller Nick Galati and fiancee Alison Denoux had little chance of enticing fingermark or golden snapper detected at a Cleveland Bay hotspot when their lures were also relished by the mackerel.
A first- time fisher, Denoux was hardly troubled though by the hungry mackerel, instead delighting at the ferocity at which the speedy pelagic species ate the lures.
Denoux claimed a handful of mackerel before she watched as an enormous gold spot cod tried to eat one of her hooked fish just metres from the boat.
Awesome catch
May Townsville Bulletin/ Old Dog Lures Fish of the Month competition winner Craig Allen has spent little time idle since receiving his handcrafted timber lure prizes.
Allen probed Bohle River snags with the Barra Snax model lure to fool a plucky little 65cm barramundi last weekend.
The avid Mt Low angler described his day as “awesome” when he added a quartet of sizable black spot or estuary cod and a lonely mangrove jack to his bag.
And one of this week’s outstanding entries is a fish caught by local man Clint Colledge.
Colledge described the fight as “awesome on light gear” after hooking this fine tripletail or jumping cod close to shipping channel pylons last weekend.
Queenies on the go
Local painter Ronnie Neill and brother Gary invested time searching for spanish mackerel when fishing beyond Cape Cleveland on Saturday afternoon.
The pair trolled meticulously rigged wolf herring baits but failed to draw a strike.
All was not lost, however, when each dropped soft plastic vibe style lures and metal jigs close to fish detected on their sonar.
“With a fast jigging retrieve we got smashed by hungry queenies sponsored by and golden trevally,” Ronnie Neill said. “What a sight ( it was) to watch several big queenies fighting over our offerings… and there were some huge ones amongst them,” he added.
Get on the reefs
Reefs wide of Townsville have been fishing well, according to Craig Davies of Scorpion Charters.
He tells me of plentiful fish – in particular coral trout and red throat emperor – while spanish mackerel can be counted on to eat a floating bait and cobia a regular capture close to the bottom.
“Every fish I gutted was full and they were feeding well,” Davies said of a recent trip with the lads from Spinifex Pest Control.
Miles Stanford and mates let their jigs and soft plastics dance enticingly along the deepest reef edges of Brittomart and Bramble reefs last weekend for exciting results.
Common leopard or passionfruit trout were an easy catch but not so an occasional blue spot or footballer trout.
Stanford wrestled one 105cm trout to the boat where it was unhooked and subsequently released – the catch well over the 80cm maximum legal size for the species.
It is expected that the mackerel fest will continue again this weekend with the new or dark moon peaking on Saturday evening.
Anglers will have to carefully consider the mid- afternoon low tide periods should they be launching or retrieving vessels during that time.
Extreme low tide predictions of 0.26m and 0.3m tomorrow and Sunday respectively will leave many boat ramps inaccessible and even dangerous to use during these times.