Outlook fine for boaties
WITH a strong wind warning and very rough seas, fishing has been hampered significantly for most of this week.
The heavy blow has even had a major effect on inshore fishing, with little result for long hours spent on the water.
However, yesterday the winds dropped out below 10 knots and conditions are expected to remain good through to tomorrow.
This will see plenty of activity around local boat ramps with eager fishermen heading to the Reef, islands and wrecks chasing bottom fish.
Several quality fish were caught by the charter boats yesterday with large-mouth nannygai in good numbers around the inshore isolated rocks and wrecks, and the deep rubble patches between reefs.
Red emperor and coral trout also made up mixed bags along with a variety of other reef species.
The heavy-tackle black marlin season has kicked off with a couple of fish around 300kg-plus caught around the Ribbon Reefs along with a few smaller fish inside the Reef.
The Cairns Inlet during the strong winds still produced a few mangrove jacks, trevally and bream while the rivers have been relatively quiet.
The Russell River has been quiet but aerobatic tarpon have been caught on soft plastics. With the calm conditions and small tides, the river systems will clean up significantly and should see both queenfish and giant trevally taking poppers and surface lures.
The inlet should also see a few fingermark and trevally caught on live sardines in the deep holes including in front of the bulk sugar terminal.
Hinchinbrook Channel was firing on both barramundi and mangrove jacks before the poor weather and should fire up again on the building tides mid-next week.
The town reaches of the Johnstone River have seen nice barramundi caught live baiting around schooled bait. A few mangrove jacks and queenfish have also been caught around the bait.
The clean water over this set of smaller tides should see more predators like trevally, queenfish, fingermark, barra and jacks all attracted to these bait schools.
With variable winds around 10 knots forecast for today and into tomorrow, an early start will be essential to avoid boat ramp delays.
The deep water should fish best with the small tides on nannygai, red emperor and spangled emperor in the open paddocks between reefs and trout on the shoals.