Flattery

[Nathanrb4]

Turns out tonight is the night that the guys next door are trying to get us back for the bender we had here over new years. Anyway rather than ring the cops like they did I decided to put together this. Sorry I don`t have more pics i`ll try and get more when i`m up there next but here goes.
Just afew pics of my trips up north on here. My dad works for a silica mine on Cape flattery which is about 90km north of Cooktown and because of his job I`m lucky enough to have access to what has to be one of the best fishing grounds in Australia.

To get up there i`ve gotta drive up to cairns and then catch the companys 14 seater plane to the actual mine site. It can be a beautiful flight out over the Barrier Reef and Daintree rainforest if it’s a clear day but i`ve also had some of the scariest flights of my life trying to get throu big electric storms. This first lot of photos are of the reef as seen from on the fight up there.

[Nathanrb4]

and another

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and another

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On occaisions the plane lands at Cooktown to pick up guys that live there so i`ve also put in a picture of Cooktown harbour.

[Nathanrb4]

After leaving Cooktown its only a 20 min flight to Cape Flattery and as you get closer you come to the Mugiver (spelling) river. From here on in the land scape starts to look more like one of snow fields than sand dunes as the silica sand is so white.

[Nathanrb4]

The actual township of Cape Flattery is situated on the north side of Cape Flattery in Flattery bay. It¡¦s very small township with one 12 houses, a barraks, and a wet and dry mess. Oh and a 25m pool and gym ƒº.

[Nathanrb4]

the town

[Nathanrb4]

Mum and Dad have an awesome house up there and by far the best thing about it is the view from the balcony.

[Nathanrb4]

It’s a great place to have a coldie and notice the Hibachi BBQ up the end, many a fish cooked on it.

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The view also make cleaning and servicing my gear a fun!

[Nathanrb4]

Anyway on to the fishing.

Not 500m from the front stairs of the house is a reef in about 5m of water. It runs pretty much all the way up the bay (about 20km in all) and has lots of holes and bommies to fish. I`ve only just started fishing the reef as we`ve only just got a tinnie up there but its produced a lot of nice Parrots, Sweeties and the odd trout. Not to mention the thousands of strippies, reef sharks and cod.

[Nathanrb4]

This lot came from came from about 30min out there with a mate I took up.
I keep the strippies (the smallest of these was 26cm) from trout bait. I was told by a couple of guys who were working up there that if you fillet them and take a chunk of the bright yellow tail or fin with it you have an irasistable bait for trout and let me tell you it hasn`t failed me to often since i`ve been using this technique. Has anyone else heard of this? Might be worth a try if you haven`t.

[Nathanrb4]

About 15km north of the township is Blackwater Ck. it has a sandy mouth but as you work your way up there are some nice deep (10m) holes and a lot of snags which hold a lot of barra and jacks.

[Nathanrb4]

As you work your way around the bay to the south east there is an old jetty which is used to tie up the to line boats. During the day you catch everything from big flatheads, spangled empior and golden trevs, to Spaniards and big Queenies. Oh and Remoras.

[Nathanrb4]

But its at night when the 5 halogen “squid” lights mounted on the jetty attract huge schools of bait fish that the fun really starts!

My mate Paul got this monster got while flicking slugs at a school of Queenies.