Cape York Tackle/ Tidewater reels.

[nev-e]

Hi All,
Heading to Cape York end June and was wondering if anybody has any tips on what gear to take. I'm thinking Barra Outfit, Spin outfit and maybe a Bottom Bashing set up.
What are peoples suggestions lure wise?
Will be mostly land based but probably do a charter or two and hire a tinnny where we can.
Also has anyone had anything to do with Shakespeare Tidewater Reels - think its a 30L overhead that I have seen pretty cheap. Would they be ok for a trip to Swains for example.

[nickstock]

For a base budget bottom bashing set up you can't go past a TLD 20 with say 60 pound braid. A great avlue for money rod is the Berkley dropshot 15-24 kgs overhead Jig rod. I own one and paid about $130 when they first came out.

With this out fit you could pull most things of the bottom of Cape York's reefs and also use it to troll for Spaniards, Wahoo, Dollies and small marlin .

I have been having better sucess on Barra and Jacks lately on plastics. I like the 3'' berkley mullets for Barra. They absolutley love the things in pumpkin seed colour. My second favourite is the 3'' Squidgy slick rig in the blue colour (not sure of exact name). Tjhe third must have are the 5'' gulp in Nuc chook colour. Not a typical Barra lure but the 'Big Girls' love them when worked at a medium speed

With hard body lures the following are a must for Cape York:

For Jacks, Cod, Salmon -
75mm Pink 'C' lures minnow. (favourite Jack Hard body)
75 mm Gold Bomber,
65mm Barra Classic ,
Killalure Flatz Rat- blue and yellow (my favourite Cod lure)

For Barra:
75mm Killalure Flatz Rat in yellow/blue and a gold and black stripes (my favourite)
125mm Gold Bomber,
125mm Killalure Barra Bait in Gold colour,
120mm Barra Classic in Guns and Roses colour
150mm Predatek Viper in Black and silver

Also handy to have a few fizzers and Poppers for any Lagoon Barra
Bill's Bug 100mm in yellow and black spots.

You will also catch Queenies, trevally and Barracuda on any of the above. In Cooktown at the moment (Annan River) Queenies upto 9kgs are smashing anything that moves ! A good spin outfit in the 4000 - 500 size is a winner

Nick

[Flex]

Dont buy cheap, Unless you really have to.
Where about are you going exactly?

I made the mistake one year of taking a cheap overhead up cape york. 3rd day in it blew up. Lots big fish doing hard runs with heavy line will destroy a cheap reel.

Plus cheaper reels aren't anywhere near as fun/comfy to use. If most of your fishing is for barra/lure casting off the shore. then spend most of your money on a decent bait caster/spinner. If your only gunna do 1-2 trips to the reef, then a cheaper overhead would probably be ok.

heres a link you may find handy.

http://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/showthread.php?t=144211

[nev-e]

Thanks for that info guys. Will be a big help I'm sure. We are going from NSW right to Cape and then back down to Cooktown/Cairns for a week or so and then just wandering down coast until we run out of time /money or both lol. Be away about 6-7 weeks altogether.
The Tidewater reel I was looking at is an end of model runout - price reduced by abt 1/3 so thought it might be ok. Shakespeare make them.
Have a good baitcasting outfit - Abu Morrum rod and abu reel , spinning reel is an older daiwa - which should be ok . Got plenty of rods so will stock up on lures etc as sugggested.
Thanks again
Nev