Weipa Fishing Report
June 2006.
Barramundi, Mangrove Jacks, King & Blue salmon continued to bite well though out the month of June with the best fishing taken place an hour either side of the low tide.
June blue water fishing is always great but this year it seemed better than ever. On most days Long tail schools would stretched as fair as the eye could see, under the schools of Tuna would be Giant Trevally, Queenfish, Cobia, Spanish and Grey Mackerel. Once clients decided they had caught enough Tuna it was a matter of letting their lures and flies sink thought the Tuna and down to the other hungry fish below.
Weather:
Well the winter South easterlies are here 15 to 30 knots for most of the month, temperature 18 to 31c. As we are situated on the Western side of Cape York southeast winds blow off shore so the water is relatively calm.
Fishing:
On the Beach
With the lower tides this time of the year beach fishing was limited to only a few days of the month. Fishing rocky headlands around Rainforest & Red Cliffs produced Barramundi, Queenfish, Giant Herring & the odd Tarpon to 3kg’s. Fish where caught on both lures & Flies, hard body lures included gold bombers, Lead’s Jack, Halco scorpions & other similar shallow running lures. Faster moving tides caused poor water clarity to intice strikes in the dirty water we fished bulky flies that pushed water including Gold Bombers, DK Dancers & Double bunny’s. The disadvantage on using such flies around rocks is snagging, mono or wire weed grads can decrease snags but also decrease your catch. I perfure to use floating lines, matching leader length to the depth of water being fished, fine tuning fly depth by altering your stripping speed.
Blue Water
Tuna schools extended from Red Cliffs down past False Pera, as close in as a few hundred metres from shore, which was great on those windy days. Tuna’s in such numbers make them easier to approach not disappearing as the boat comes into casting range like they are known to do. Mackerel, Queenfish, Cobia & Giant Trevally where under most of the Tuna Schools we found the problem was trying to get a lure or a fly to them with-out a Tuna hooking up on the surface. Sharks are also in on the action and unfortunately they where chasing what we were after, so we lost quite a few fish to hungry 6 to 8 foot Whalers & Bull Sharks.
Spotted a lot of Manta Rays on some of the calmer days of the month, we counted 28 in area the size of two football fields. Cobia are well know to follow these amazing creatchers so we would go from Ray to Ray looking for their travel companions.
We did manage to find a couple of Cobia but they were few and far between.
Rivers
June is fast becoming my favorite month of the year to fish the river, I’m not sure why that is, maybe it’s a change in the weather pattern the seasons seem to be around a month later the last couple of years.
The prawns started to move out of the rivers the fish returned to eating baitfish like mullet and herring so we changed our lures to bigger hard bodies and larger flies like deceivers and gold bombers worked well. The best time to produce fish seamed to be an hour either side of the low tide with the start of the run in being productive. Just find a creek month with a snag at the entrance, anchor up, drop back your lures & flies to the hungry fish.
Craig Jenkins,
Strikezone Fly & Sportsfishing
www.############.com
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One of the many Jacks to be caught in June
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Henry's Barramundi. We enjoyed great Barra fishing in June.
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Blue water fishing was crazy.
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A school of Manta's
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that’s about 30 years away... that's why we called "born to fish and forced to work"
