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Variety is spice of life
  |  First Published: November 2012



Summer is only a month away and the Whitsundays will be feeling the heat this month. November means mainly hot and dry weather, but don’t let this put you off as it’s also a great time for fishing.

This month we’ll explain a productive technique that you can use to catch a variety of wonderful fish species.

WHITSUNDAY ISLANDS

A productive technique to try this month is jigging the deeper waters around the many Whitsunday islands. You can never really tell what sort of species you’ll catch with this technique as there’s so much variety in the area. For example it could be a school of trevally, fingermark, queenfish, jewfish, mackerel, tuna or a variety of reef dwelling species.

One way of carrying out this technique is to firstly find a reef, rubble patch or wreck location marked on a chart. This is where a sounder becomes invaluable as you can find sunken structure in deep water that attracts baitfish and predatory fish. Many quality sounders these days come with a chartplotter combo and this feature is extremely helpful for this style of fishing.

As you arrive at a location, pass over the area slowly and glue your eyes to the sounder screen. What you’re looking for are any noteworthy showings of structure and fish life. We have a Lowrance HDS 7 that is more than capable of showing up fish activity and structure as we slowly motor over and investigate the location we intend to fish.

When you’ve found a promising showing on the sounder screen be sure to mark the location. All you have to do is punch in a waypoint and you have the area locked in. If there’s any strong tidal movement you may quickly drift away from the spot you’re fishing so by marking the location you can precisely come back to the spot that’s producing fish.

This is the exciting part of the technique when the sounder screen reveals a promising showing – either a school of bait or a group of larger predatory fish beneath the boat.

Once you’ve found the fish, try a variety of lures and retrieves to find what the fish want. Work the entire water column below the boat changing from lures such as heavily weighted soft plastic lures to blades and jigs.

PETER FAUST DAM

November is a productive time to fish for impoundment barramundi and it’s no doubt that the metre-plus fish that reside in Peter Faust Dam will be the main target for anglers fishing the lake.

Many fish will move to the deeper water as the temperature warms up. Therefore casting around the deeper creek channels that can be found in the timbered area at the back of the lake will be worth a shot. Use a sounder to find submerged drop-offs in these areas. These drop-offs are the drowned river beds where streams once flowed before the dam was built. The fish seem to relate to these river channels and move along them even though they are submerged. By casting around the tops of the trees you are fishing prime cover for the fish as they rest and ambush bait from.

Last month Peter Price from Mackay won an ABT BARRA tournament that was held here. The tournament was run over two days with a five fish limit per angler each day. Peter managed to catch his limit both sessions compiling a ten out of ten bag of fish. This shows how productive the fishing is at the moment on the lake with many fish being caught by the other competing teams.

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