You can expect excellent fishing in October with the warming temperature firing many species up.

The barramundi fishing is great in the right areas and Townsville is an ideal location with plenty of creeks and rivers, which are close and a wide variety of ones that are within an hour’s drive. Giving the avid angler a place to fish with no crowds and good fishing opportunities.

The weather is well and truly heating up and the water temperatures are following suit, this results in the north’s favourite fish becoming increasingly active – barra.

Barra are a wonderful fish for many reasons but one of them is that they can be effectively targeted on a wide variety of techniques. One of the more popular techniques of late has been jigging soft vibes and sinking lures in the deeper water. It is no new fact that big fish prefer the deep water and by fishing in these areas you have a much better chance of hooking up to your next PB.

River mouths, junctions, rocky out crops, deep ledges and sunken timbers are all ideal areas to jig for larger barra. Probably the most popular method to target barra would have to be snag casting, and for good reason. Visual strikes and some tight drag hand-to-hand combat are needed to extract the better fish from the snags.

Casting at any likely looking structure that is scattered along a mangrove-lined bank will get some action in October. A few lures that have worked well for many anglers, including myself, would be the Koolabung Razorback Prawn Divers and the Maria range of divers.

Golden snapper are another species making their mark in October and fishing around the bay and islands are top spots to catch a few decent ones. Using soft plastics is a technique that has grown tenfold in popularity for golden snapper recently and it is because of one reason, it just works. I was fishing with a mate recently using plastics and he fished down south for snapper and was mentioning that the technique was just the same. Drifting over a likely looking area and casting up current then working the lure back.

If you are heading up to Townsville from the southern areas I am sure you’ll have a ball getting into a few of the local species.

There have been some magic days of calm weather in the previous month and those ideal conditions have followed through to give the keen reef fisher no better opportunity than to head offshore and get the rod bent.

Some absolute cracking red emperor have been around recently. Despite the notion they can only be properly caught at night, I have plenty of photos with the sun in full light to convince any red fisho to give their hot spots a crack in the day time hours.

Large baits are the way to go and having good size hooks of 8/0 up that are sharp will see you staying connected to the big fish.

Overall, October is a month with plenty of options and picking up your favourite barra rod and tying on your favourite lure and spending a few hours up the creek should see you having a blast.

Tight lines and good luck.