There's not to many creeks or rivers around Mackay where you can fish from the fresh water reaches through to the estuary in 3.5-4m tinnys; usually rock bars, weirs, a narrow section choked with snags, or some other obstruction gets in the way.
After the recent summer rains gave the region’s waterways a long awaited flushing and with winter slowly starting to take grip some mates and I though it would be a good opportunity to see how one of our favorites faired before things start to slow down.
With six vehicles loaded the seven of us (yeh... we did our bit for earth hour) left Mackay at 5 am on sat and arrived at our camp just after dawn, a quick juggle of the trailers between the 4B's and we had the boats in the water. up river we headed, fishing the old faithful rock bars and freshly scoured banks we managed a dozen or so jacks between the boats and a few small barra. By mid morning we had reached the top of what is usually the upper most pool. Knowing that there is a substantial pool upstream and that the moderate flow coming down the river may provide passage past the barrier, we motored the boats up to the base of a small set of rapids. A quick inspection and a niceish sized jack later (courtesy of a little eddie and mellaluca tree) we pushed the boats up and continued on. We fished to the top of that pool and the next but only managed a couple of jacks and some more small barra. We worked our way back to camp catching some small jacks with Richard's boat picking up a nice flattie, but fishing was relatively slow.
After lunch and a few cold ones we got back to the business at hand, fishing the pool in front of camp and a short distance downstream we picked up another dozen or so jacks and one small barra. Night was creeping in and so were the midgies, back to camp for dinner and to discuss the game plan for the next day. After a few more it was decided that we fish our way downstream to the mouth knowing farewell that there is a number of rapids between here and there and low tide was at noon.
The next morning the boats headed off fishing downstream, several jacks were caught on surface lures early but again things were pretty slow. As the two smaller boats worked their way past the first rapid Matty and his quinny were still fishing in front of the camp. A good number of bream and some reasonable jacks were caught along the rockwall of this pool before we continued past the next rapid. At this stage of the tide the ride was easy going but we were not looking forward to the trip back. Unfortunately all the sand that was washed out of the top pools seemed to have been deposited in the estuary. We worked our way to the mouth with a few more jacks and bream but most of the holes had become quite shallow. working our way back we got another nice jack a few bream and a single barra, we managed to get back to the rapids at the perfect time (dead low) so we pushed the boats up the two smaller sets to find Matty and the quinny at the bottom of the big rapid. It was all hands on deck as we pushed the boats up one by one. Pretty buggered we headed back to camp, packed up and headed home.
All in all the fishing was relatively quite considering there was seven people, but we did get a few good ones and got to fish a new reach of the river, and that’s always a good experience.
The Score (about):
50 jacks (to 40 cm)
10 Barra (to 45 cm)
Over 20 bream (to 35 cm)
2 flatties (to 60 cm)
And a handful of tarpon here and there
The Lures:
Most jacks came on small poppers and stick baits (sure catch 40 and zipp n ziggy) early morn and late arvo, in between small minnows (rippin minnow, fat minnow, flatz rats and some others)
Barra were caught on same minnows and one small one came on a wriggler
Bream were on minnows and a couple on softies
Flatties on softies
Thanks for reading,
Trent
Here’s some photos, Matty and Richard may add some more
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Originally Posted by mattooty
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