Daintreeboy
18-08-2012, 08:14 PM
I just had a very frustrating but also very enjoyable trip. The frustrating part was that we planned a trip to head out from the Daintree to chase some big Fingermark but the weather didn't play the game. Locals would have seen the steady downward trend at Arlington which looked great but the obs from Lowe were not quite as good. Wind was funnelling into the Daintree valley and it had to be 15 knots around the mouth. We even got rain!!
This meant we had to stick in the river. On the first spot my little nephew Ryan got a small Fingermark and a Queenie then something big smashed his little rod and straight away his dad said "You're not going to stop this one" as the Nanofil screamed off the little Penn Conquer. Sure enough it bricked him after a massive first run and had to be a huge Fingermark. We'd lost some monsters at this spot a few times now so I had an 80lb rig out with a live Sard just like Ryan's bait and even closer. It must have swum straight past it to take his!! We never got another bite there after that.
A quick move saw us pull up on a Grunter spot and soon after a steady stream of nice fish came in. Then Micks Line got a tap and he said it felt like a good fish. When he struck it took off like a freight train and had big fish written all over it. Ever the pessimist Mick called it for a Shovel nose or very active Stingray as it was too big for anything else but we all agreed it looked like a fish the whole time. It took a fair while and eventually a massive Fingermark came into the light. It went 70cm. Not bad for a River fish. We tried to get Ryan to hold it up but as you can see from the dorsal spikes we decided against getting him to hold it up for too long for a good pic.
Not long after Erica hooked up to another beauty and this time we were pretty sure of it's ID. Yep, 69 cm of prime Fingermark hit the deck after another great fight. Added to a healthy haul of good Grunter with the biggest going 57 cm it was a great second option for a few hours of fishing but we all left wondering what might have bee if the weather gods were a little kinder.
Maybe next new Moon......
This meant we had to stick in the river. On the first spot my little nephew Ryan got a small Fingermark and a Queenie then something big smashed his little rod and straight away his dad said "You're not going to stop this one" as the Nanofil screamed off the little Penn Conquer. Sure enough it bricked him after a massive first run and had to be a huge Fingermark. We'd lost some monsters at this spot a few times now so I had an 80lb rig out with a live Sard just like Ryan's bait and even closer. It must have swum straight past it to take his!! We never got another bite there after that.
A quick move saw us pull up on a Grunter spot and soon after a steady stream of nice fish came in. Then Micks Line got a tap and he said it felt like a good fish. When he struck it took off like a freight train and had big fish written all over it. Ever the pessimist Mick called it for a Shovel nose or very active Stingray as it was too big for anything else but we all agreed it looked like a fish the whole time. It took a fair while and eventually a massive Fingermark came into the light. It went 70cm. Not bad for a River fish. We tried to get Ryan to hold it up but as you can see from the dorsal spikes we decided against getting him to hold it up for too long for a good pic.
Not long after Erica hooked up to another beauty and this time we were pretty sure of it's ID. Yep, 69 cm of prime Fingermark hit the deck after another great fight. Added to a healthy haul of good Grunter with the biggest going 57 cm it was a great second option for a few hours of fishing but we all left wondering what might have bee if the weather gods were a little kinder.
Maybe next new Moon......