Make the most of conditions
WITH great conditions on the water and hot fishing on the reef, in the estuaries and impoundments make sure you get out on the water and enjoy this special time.
Coral trout and spanish mackerel will be the main target on the reef, king salmon along the northern beaches and barramundi in the Cairns Inlet and Tinaroo Dam.
With light winds and calm seas reef fishing has been highly popular again for Far North Queensland anglers.
The great run of weather looks set to last with Friday and Saturday seeing winds below 10 knots each morning. Boat ramps will again be super busy and early starts will again be essential to avoid the congested launching and long delays for your planned blue water fishing adventure.
Those fishing the reef will be excited about the hot bite on coral trout that have been in great numbers on the shallow bommies and drop-offs in the 20m range.
Some ripper spanish mackerel have also been caught on the same bommies in good current and covered in bait.
Fishing mate Jason Swan and I enjoyed a super-hot session on trout late last week along with several nice spaniards, with Jason landing this impressive 20kg fish (above) on a floated garfish.
It was a hectic session continually landing trout being buried in the reef by big fish and regularly re-rigging.
Surprisingly we only lost one fish to sharks during the hot session which certainly isn’t the norm especially leading to summer.
After shifting to the deeper bommies the men in grey suits made their presence felt stealing several hooked fish.
On the Saturday the spanish mackerel really fired up on
the same shallow trout bommies with multiple strikes on floated pilchards.
Most of the local inshore reefs including Oyster, Moore, Sudbury and Arlington are all fishing well.
Offshore there have been several yellowfin tuna caught on trolled skirted lures and while the giant black marlin season has been relatively quiet, in the calm weather, it fired up this week with several 450kg-plus fish hooked along with a gang of smaller fish.
Barramundi are being caught in good numbers in the Cairns Inlet on live baits including mud herring and prawns. Some big fish in the 80cm plus range have also been caught around the jetties and structure on soft plastics. Those fishing the Cooktown Wharf have been hooking multiple big barra schooled up on the bait with live pike the killer weapon.
Local anglers have been excited by king salmon showing up along the northern beaches with several quality fish caught casting a variety of lures including soft plastic vibes.
Tinaroo Dam has been on fire, which is good news for those fishing the annual Tinaroo Barra Bash which kicks off on Friday afternoon with some amazing prizes up for grabs. Enter online or at the venue.