Anglers’ happy holiday
WHILE hot and sultry conditions have invited many experienced anglers to reconsider their summer fishing ambitions, the young and hardy have embraced the heat and humidity to claim excellent holiday catches.
Magnetic Island waters have been giving up plenty of pelagic species including mackerel, tuna, queenfish and trevally during recent weeks and that trend continues when anglers chance their casts with either lures or bait.
Young Ethan Swan used a hard body style lure rather than a soft plastic offering to fool a near metre long northern bluefin or longtail tuna close to the island, while Dave Johnson opted for fur and feather to hook a similar size tuna.
Johnson, a fly fishing enthusiast from the Sunshine Coast, said he and a local mate chased schools of queenfish and tuna wide of Horseshoe Bay early this week.
“They were really touchy,” Johnson said.
“We couldn’t motor up to them … they were so shy, so we had to wait until they came to us,” the teenager said of the fish.
Johnson explained that he and his mate would just sit and watch the schools of fish for a while, in an attempt to understand their feeding pattern.
“Then we’d guess where they were going to bust up next, position the boat, cut the motor and wait.”
Johnson said he measured a 95cm longtail tuna before letting it swim free while a pair of 80cm queenfish were slipped into the icebox.
Brody hauls them in
PLASTERER Brody Eves hasn’t let the heat bother him too much, the super keen angler finding plenty of fish throughout the festive break.
He sent me a bunch of photographs showing off big freshwater barras pinned with soft plastic lures and leaping from impoundment waters, but the pic that caught my eye was one of a fine mangrove jack.
The fish was all lit up and had just been fooled by Eves with a green paddle- tail soft plastic lure.
“Yeah, mate. That was in the freshwater creek behind my grandparents’ place,” Eves said.
He told me of their Cardwell home and how it backs onto a popular creek brimming with jungle perch, barra and jacks.
Check out new rules
THE Federal Government is considering listing the scalloped and great hammerhead shark as endangered species, a decision expected by March.
In the meantime, new rules which began on January 1 apply to Queensland’s commercial shark fishers restricting them to a statewide catch of 150 tonnes – a maximum 50 tonnes from the Gulf of Carpentaria; 78 tonnes from within Great Barrier Reef waters and a maximum 22 tonnes from the southeast coast.
This new total allowable of commercial catch ( TACC) is in addition to tougher reporting requirements, trip limits and hammerhead shark carcasses to be retained in whole form once 75 per cent of the quota or TACC has been reached. sponsored by
Fisheries Queensland deputy director- general Scott Spencer said the new regulations were designed to strengthen the management controls around hammerhead sharks and avoid the species being listed as endangered.
“These changes do not affect recreational fishers,” Mr Spencer said.
Queensland’s recreational anglers enjoy a maximum “in possession” bag limit of one shark per person with the shark to be no longer than 1.5m.
This regulation is applicable to all shark and ray species with the exception of great white, grey nurse and speartooth sharks, sawfish and manta ray which are all strictly notake species.
For more information regarding recreational fishing rules and regulations check out www. daf. qld. gov. au/ fisheries
Barra fans hope for rain
THE Queensland East Coast and Gulf of Carpentaria barramundi seasons are set to open at midday February 1, and although anglers will be keen to hook a prize catch, many will be hoping for substantial rains before the end of the month – flooding freshwaters considered key to maximum recruitment during the species spawning process.
Ideally, heavy rains coinciding with summertime full moon periods is just the recipe to make baby barras and it’s been a few years since those events have come together when the big girl barras are in the mood.
Consequently, many anglers have made observations of poorer barramundi catches throughout recent years.
Popular long- range forecast models, however, do little to prop up hopes of any sort of significant rain event prior to the barra opening, yet they currently predict a high chance of rain in the greater Townsville area on February 1.
The forecast models I’m admiring don’t stretch beyond 28 days and fingers crossed, the “high chance” of rain extends well beyond barra opening day.