airlie beach/ayr

[MickEddy]

g'day

heading to airlie beach next saturday for a week and then a spot near ayr for the week after. at airlie we'll be fishing around the islands in a 6m yellow poly craft, and at ayr we'll be mostly fishing plantation creek in either a explorer trophy or a 4.2 stacer hire boat. if you see us give us a wave.

ps anyone know whats bitting at the moment, or any other tips.

cheers mick

[skippa]

G'Day Mick,

Just came back from the whitties, damn I love that place. Plenty of Mackerel on offer as well as Cobia along with the usual reef species.

We fished around North Molle with the drop offs on the Northern end/point working the best. Get them up quick tho, we pulled more than a couple of 'heads' up. Boys in the grey suites are working there too. The local charter operator regularly worked Langford Reef and the reef at the entrance to Nara Inlet. We worked north of Hayman Island too past Dolphin point for some nice Sweetlip and trout. The larger boats where working out wide of Hayman Is for Marlin or Sailfish?

Best ramp to use is the Abel Point Marina one. No parking at Shute Harbour, when we where there some trailers where parked up to a K away. The new Shingle Beach? (one near the cop shop) ramp is deadly for glass boats with rocks both sides and the current races thru too.

Anyway good luck and I wish I was still up there.


Cheers,
Tony 8)
PS when using Abel Point Marina ramp get there early, there's plenty of 'cars only' parked in the trailer spots. Bloody frustrating.

[MickEddy]

thanks tony
we hire our boat so it's already in the water for us at shute harbour. nth molle has treated us well in the past for macks. what tactics did you use to catch the mackerel? swim baits, lures, etc? we always struggle to get a good feed of reefies(although we do go for macks more), any suggestions on depths, etc.

thanks again
mick

[Mick]

Mick, I was talking to some Bowen (smack in the middle of Whitties and Burdekin) guys yesterday and they said this uncharacteristic warm weather is making fish go loopy
One day the mackerel are biting like there lives depend on it and the next day they cant get a single hit. Creeks were actualy (surprising for winter) working well with reports of the big 3 (Jacks, fingers and Barra) being caught.
Although it is a bit cold this morning, the last week we have averaged high 20's through out the day.
Anyhow, don't give up if your not getting hits, they may just come on the chew when you decide to give up.
Oh, btw, they were trolling ribbon fish and wolf herring with 6 ganged hooks and all different coloured skirts.
Good Luck.
Mick as well,

PS The view is VERY good in Arlie at the moment!

[skippa]

G'Day Mick,

We used whole gar which caught a good range of fish. Some days mackerel where down deep, around the 50+ foot mark; but mind you so are the sharks. So get 'em up quick. Others they were on the surface along the reef edges, even swimming past the boat one day, couldn't get a slug away quick enough.

Reef fish we caught were Red Emperor, Coral trout and some nice Red throat emperor. All along the drop offs and as I said the 50+ foot mark worked best. There is a couple of pics in the tackle section under Lowrance 107c heading (page 5). this was at North Molle on the northern point ( even tho my other post says Hook, it's North Molle Is). Change of tide was the best, didn't matter which, just the tide change for first couple of hours.

Rest of the time was spent just cruisin'. Weather was great for the week, we were lucky, rained and blew all previous week at Mission Beach tho.....bugger looked a good spot too.

Have fun.
Tony 8)
PS bloke one day back at the ramp showed me a Cobia, a good 5 footer, said he caught it at South Molle. Trolled spoons.

[MickEddy]

thanks for the tips guys, i'll let you know how we went when we get back.
mick