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Through the Deluge
  |  First Published: April 2011



I have just spent the last two weeks on a chainsaw clearing my 7 acres of every major rainforest tree – but that’s what happens when the biggest storm Australia has seen crosses right over your property! At least the house and kids came through unscathed.

Even our efforts securing all those boats you no doubt saw in the news was a waste of time as many of my friends lost everything. Fortunately mine survived and I’m ready for business as usual, and this coming year is going to be crucial for all operators at Port Hinchinbrook and we need our usual support from all of you to come and fish the area to keep our balls rolling; plus you will get to witness what these giant storms are capable of.

As you can imagine we have all been very busy and not much fishing has been done so reports have been minimal. However, just recently many of the area’s younger anglers fishing the rock walls at the front of the marina have had some good sessions on the smaller barra up to 70cm. Many of these fish came from the destroyed Conn Creek barra farm when the surge annihilated it. It was a massive aquaculture facility and now there is nothing left whatsoever. The only upside is the hundreds of thousands of barra that escaped into the channel; but it did come at a major cost to the area as the farm supported many other businesses.

I have also heard that the headlands near Cape Sandwich and Cape Richards have been kind to some of the area’s anglers of late with great daytime catches of fingermark and even some black jewfish. The reef well offshore has been fishing good too with all the usual suspects on the bite.

In the coming month things will settle down back to normal and we should see a return to some great fishing all round. The barra should be the main target species as there was no attention at all shown towards them at the start of the season: but we were hit by Yasi on the second day. It was the first year that I did not hear anyone mention the word barra; normally there is a frenzy just before the season opens.

The inner islands should also be back on the money with April being a great time to fish for big grunter and other tropical species. When these storms get so intense they may bring driving rain at the start but it will disappear inland so you are not left with flood rains for days as normally associated with smaller cyclones.

I am also continuing my boating and fishing consultation business in the Townsville to Cairns area while we are in recovery mode so if you need your boating and fishing improved give us a call on 0418 538 170 to enquire or get me at --e-mail address hidden-- .

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