Richard
05-05-2011, 10:48 AM
Gday everyone,
Thought I'd post up a bit of a report of my three day effort last week around the bottom end of Hinchinbrook Island.
I had enough forethought to take off the three days betwene the easter/anzac day weekend and the may day long weekend so though I'd take that opportunity to go have a fish down Hinchinbrook way to get in between the crowds from both weekends.
Travelling down from Cairns, I got there at around lunch time on the first day just about on low tide. Dropped the boat in and figuring I was only going to fish for an hour or so, headed upstream from the Dungeness boat ramp. I was keen to check out all my old spots after the latest wet season and see what had changed. I found that although individual snags had moved or changed, the overall hotspots hadn't moved and were still firing.
Now I've been fishing Hinchinbrook for about 11 years and I've never seen it fire like this. In an hour or so of fishing, I managed to land 10 fish and hooked quite a few more. You could almost pick the snags they were going to be sitting on and you just kept up the casts until you drew them out of their little hidy holes.
Second day saw an earlier start with some bottom bouncing at the Bluff and lure casting around the rocky headlands but I was really only passing time to that golden time of a couple of hours of runout left. I then hedaed over to the mouth of the Herbert River where the fish were willing to play the game again. Once again it was amazing to get fish off of every second or third snag.
I came up to a creek/drain mouth that had a back eddie right in the mouth. Inside the mouth were thousands of jelly prawns being harrassed by little fish and then the odd big flash of barra cutting through all of this gorging themselves. I just sat there and watched it fora little while while I tied on one of the new Threadybuster 95 lures. First cast didn't even make it to the bottom before a solid hookup and a 65cm fish came into the boat. After a few more unsuccessful retrieves I then got onto an incredbile session where I caught 14 barra from 14 consecutive casts, all on the threadybuster. The 15th cast was a met with a bit of dissapointment but also with a certain sense of relief as I was getting a bit buggered being on my own. About half of the fish would have been legal with a couple pushing the 70cm mark. I lost count after about 30 fish for the day..
The third day was much of the same but this day I had a mate of a mate on the boat with me from SA. He'd travelled up to try and catch a saltwater barra and after a bit of persistance, he was getting into some barra as well. He thoroughy enjoyed the day and went on to catch more barra later that week after I left. Between the two of us we ended up with over 20 fish for the boat.
In the three days I was there I only used two lures. One was a Rapala Xrap SXR12, a truly amazingly effective lure for barra. The suspending part is the key here. Put a cast in close to the snag, have a couple of quick twitches to make it flash in the strike zone and then just let it sit for a few seconds. The barra just couldn't resist.
The other lure that I eluded to earlier was the new threadybuster 95 lures. The beauty of these lures is they are so easy to use. You just cast them in, let them sink to the bottom (if there are no snags, bring it in a little bit earlier if there is), and then just lift your rod tip fast enough to feel the vibration of the lure. Then just drop your rod tip and slowly wind up the slack as the lure drops to the bottom again. 9/10 the lures get engulfed by barra (and jacks) on the drop. In this case, a lot of the time they didn't even make it to the bottom on the first drop.
Anyway, was a great three days and I can't wait to get back dow nthere at the end of the month. Here's a couple of photos of two of the more interesting captures..
Richard
Thought I'd post up a bit of a report of my three day effort last week around the bottom end of Hinchinbrook Island.
I had enough forethought to take off the three days betwene the easter/anzac day weekend and the may day long weekend so though I'd take that opportunity to go have a fish down Hinchinbrook way to get in between the crowds from both weekends.
Travelling down from Cairns, I got there at around lunch time on the first day just about on low tide. Dropped the boat in and figuring I was only going to fish for an hour or so, headed upstream from the Dungeness boat ramp. I was keen to check out all my old spots after the latest wet season and see what had changed. I found that although individual snags had moved or changed, the overall hotspots hadn't moved and were still firing.
Now I've been fishing Hinchinbrook for about 11 years and I've never seen it fire like this. In an hour or so of fishing, I managed to land 10 fish and hooked quite a few more. You could almost pick the snags they were going to be sitting on and you just kept up the casts until you drew them out of their little hidy holes.
Second day saw an earlier start with some bottom bouncing at the Bluff and lure casting around the rocky headlands but I was really only passing time to that golden time of a couple of hours of runout left. I then hedaed over to the mouth of the Herbert River where the fish were willing to play the game again. Once again it was amazing to get fish off of every second or third snag.
I came up to a creek/drain mouth that had a back eddie right in the mouth. Inside the mouth were thousands of jelly prawns being harrassed by little fish and then the odd big flash of barra cutting through all of this gorging themselves. I just sat there and watched it fora little while while I tied on one of the new Threadybuster 95 lures. First cast didn't even make it to the bottom before a solid hookup and a 65cm fish came into the boat. After a few more unsuccessful retrieves I then got onto an incredbile session where I caught 14 barra from 14 consecutive casts, all on the threadybuster. The 15th cast was a met with a bit of dissapointment but also with a certain sense of relief as I was getting a bit buggered being on my own. About half of the fish would have been legal with a couple pushing the 70cm mark. I lost count after about 30 fish for the day..
The third day was much of the same but this day I had a mate of a mate on the boat with me from SA. He'd travelled up to try and catch a saltwater barra and after a bit of persistance, he was getting into some barra as well. He thoroughy enjoyed the day and went on to catch more barra later that week after I left. Between the two of us we ended up with over 20 fish for the boat.
In the three days I was there I only used two lures. One was a Rapala Xrap SXR12, a truly amazingly effective lure for barra. The suspending part is the key here. Put a cast in close to the snag, have a couple of quick twitches to make it flash in the strike zone and then just let it sit for a few seconds. The barra just couldn't resist.
The other lure that I eluded to earlier was the new threadybuster 95 lures. The beauty of these lures is they are so easy to use. You just cast them in, let them sink to the bottom (if there are no snags, bring it in a little bit earlier if there is), and then just lift your rod tip fast enough to feel the vibration of the lure. Then just drop your rod tip and slowly wind up the slack as the lure drops to the bottom again. 9/10 the lures get engulfed by barra (and jacks) on the drop. In this case, a lot of the time they didn't even make it to the bottom on the first drop.
Anyway, was a great three days and I can't wait to get back dow nthere at the end of the month. Here's a couple of photos of two of the more interesting captures..
Richard