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Fresh Still Flowing
  |  First Published: May 2011



The rain does not appear to be easing with most weeks still receiving over 60mm of rain. The rivers looked like clearing at one stage earlier in the month but recent rains have seen most waterways have a fair amount of freshwater content in them.

Recent flooding has seen plenty of rat barra come out of any local waterways that have the fresh running into them. Small hardbodies and plastics have been producing fish without too much difficulty. One session that I had with my fiancé, we managed over 30 barra and a few tarpon from the freshwater runoff from Trunding Creek. Although most of these barra were only small a few fish in around 65cm keep things entertaining. The most productive lure for these rats were 75mm Squidgy Wrigglers in the coral colour.

There have been a few days were smaller boats could get out to chase the pelagics, however these have been few and far between on weekends. The wind has been around 15 knots for most of the month with a westerly hint to it. Although it is still fishable, it can be bumpy and a bit wet in a 4m tinny.

For those anglers that persisted or fish out of bigger boats, there has been plenty of Spanish mackerel around. A few of the specimens that I caught this month have been approaching the 15kg mark and they make quite worthy opponents on light spin gear. To see the line disappear of a little 3000 size spin reel at an alarming rate of knots with a big bronze whaler hot on their heels sure is an exciting (and often fruitless) form of fishing. The initial strike of a 130cm long Spaniard is fantastic to say the least and to see it 2m in the air with your favourite popper wedged securely in its mouth is a great sight to see no matter how many times you encounter it!

The down side to using 15lb spin gear when targeting mackerel and queenies in open water is that you have a very good chance of hooking a 20kg+ GT. As much as I like catching these big trevally, they do give light gear (and the angler) a workout and have a tendency to eventually destroy reels regardless of quality.

As most of you would have heard, Weipa had its second Crocodile attack in as many months. Many crocodile attacks in Australia over the last decade could have been avoided with basic crocodile safety. Be careful when fishing either land-based or from a boat and stay at least 3m back from the water’s edge. Crocodiles are not actively out to eat humans but when we keep putting ourselves in risky situations, accidents will happen. Luckily in both recent Weipa attacks, smaller crocodiles were involved and no fatalities occurred.

Until next month, stay safe and keep out of the water!

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