BIT HARDER IN COOLER CONDITIONS
WITH cool mornings and a drop in water temperature, fishing has been a little tougher as we head into a seasonal transition phase.
The summer species will slowly adjust to the conditions and fishing should start to improve again.
As the cooler months take hold, we will see an increase in winter species catches, such as pikey bream, flathead, trevally, queenfish and spanish mackerel.
The Cairns Inlet has definitely slowed but reasonable numbers of small fingermark, trevally, queenfish, mangrove jacks and the occasional barra have been caught. The low tide is still productive for chasing small live prawns, which have been the premium bait.
The Daintree River, despite the cooling water, is still producing a few small barramundi on lures and fly casting the upper freshwater weed beds.
To the south, the Mulgrave River is fishing well in the fresh with barramundi, mangrove jacks, tarpon, sooty grunter and jungle perch caught on small diving minnows and soft plastics.
The Johnstone River (Innisfail) has produced mangrove jacks and sooty grunter in reasonable numbers on lures.
Barramundi are being caught in the brackish sections of the Tully River and some bigger fish have been taken on live baits such as mud cod.
Hinchinbrook Channel is seeing a few barras and jacks caught on lures while the flats of Missionary Bay are fishing well on the big tides for grunter on fresh strip baits of mullet.
All the systems have continued to see a run of mud crabs during the poor weather and big tides, which has seen crabbing a popular activity. Best baits include fresh fish and chicken frames.
A few of the bigger boats snuck out during the week and caught some quality largemouth nannygai.
The wind is set to intensify today before starting to ease again into Sunday and drop off early next week.
With the long weekend, reef fishing looks good for Monday and with the smaller tides the deep water chasing largemouth nannygai, red emperor and big bar-check coral trout on the rubble and rocks looks the best option.
If the weather holds into late next week, spanish mackerel will become a definite target, especially with the falling water temperatures as they school up thicker on the reef edges and the tides build.
Fingermark and trevally will be the prime candidates fishing the deep estuary holes.