Hooked on a day fishing

Last weekend saw glorious conditions on the water along the entire Far North Queensland coast with multitudes of boats hitting their favourite reef marks chasing bottom fish and pelagic.

Coral trout seem to be on a never-ending hot run with plenty of fish caught both in the mid depths around the 25-30m on the bommies and in the deep on rubble in the 50m plus range. Michaelmas reef to the north of Cairns produced some nice trout along with a variety of other reef species. Spanish mackerel were also in excellent numbers on most of the trout locations with Stagg Patches and Thetford Reef stand out locations with floated pilchards, garfish and live baits producing some nice fish.

Several fish were also caught trolling the reef edges and around the islands. Surprisingly, several juvenile black marlins have also been spotted on the bait schools in these locations and striking trolled baits. The nannygai were tougher with the best fishing over the tide changes but certain areas did fire up on these great eating deep water fish along with red emperor, gold band snapper and cobia. Unfortunately, most boats fishing in the deep water were constantly ambushed by ravenous sharks and many location changes were necessary to avoid major fish loss.

Barramundi continued to be caught in good numbers in the Cairns Inlet and along the Cairns Harbour Flats both on lures and live baits. Barra and threadfin (king) salmon have also been landed along the northern beach foreshores both trolling and casting lures. Mangrove jacks have fired up in the inlet too with weedless soft plastics skipped deep into the snags producing good numbers of fish. Mud Crabs continue to increase in numbers in most of the local estuaries and will continue to improve into the cooler months.

The southern rivers and Daintree are all clean and firing again on barramundi again with the brackish to fresh sections fishing best. The upper freshwater sections of the Russell, Johnstone and Tully Rivers are all producing plenty of aggressive sooty grunter and jungle perch.

Young Nate Pritchard (pictured above) had a ball casting small minnows and surface lures on these natives in the upper fresh section of the Tully River last weekend.

This long weekend will again see ideal conditions on the water and boat ramps will be busting capacities as eager reef and estuary fishermen hit the water over the Easter Break. All the usual suspects of coral trout, nannygai, red emperor and Spanish mackerel will be targeted on the reef while barramundi, mangrove jacks, threadfin salmon and fingermark will be estuary and river targets. The bigger tides should see mud crabs moving and worth setting some pots baited with fresh fish or chicken frames. Tinaroo Dam will be a popular location for water sports over the weekend and chasing a big barra at night after the action quietens off. Many campers will head west chasing barra and sooty grunter in the western river systems with the weather looking glamour. Enjoy a great and safe long weekend on the water.