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A whole lot of wet weather options
  |  First Published: May 2017



Finally the rains have eased off to intermittent storms and the occasional shower. Tourists have started to trickle through and the fishing is going off. With one of the best wet seasons for quite a few years the run-off has really stirred things up. Inshore salmon, barra, grunter and tarpon have been very active as the jelly prawn masses began to appear along the coast.

When the predators are feeding on jellies it can be hard to tempt a bite. Small offerings do better. I know the fly fishers do extremely well here compared to the spinners, due to the smaller flies they cast around. Clousers are the best choice and catch everything.

The Mission River has been fishing well for barra, threadies and grunter, especially around the Mission Bridge. As usual bull sharks are a nuisance and the big croc is still lurking there, so be careful! Plenty of queenfish and a few smaller trevally can be caught on surface lures.

Offshore the fishing has been awesome. Big brassy trevally, GTs, 1m queenfish, Spaniards and tuna have been easy to catch on lures, especially around Duyfken Point and down towards Pera Head. Sometimes big schools congregate under the boat blacking out the sounder. Anything dropped over the side gets eaten instantly.

Once again bull sharks have been a pest and something needs to be done. They’re becoming a real nuisance everywhere right down the east coast and their numbers are increasing every year to plague numbers.

The reef fishing has been good with big tuskies, golden snapper, trout and reds. Sweetlip are in good numbers as well, possibly due to the rain and prawns everywhere. Many of the golden snapper and other fish are full of big banana prawns when caught and prawn plastics are doing extremely well at present.

I recently ran wide of Thud Point and found quite a few floating logs on a current. Every log was full of rainbow runners, leatherjackets and tripletails with schools of up to 50 on each log. It was an amazing day with 30+ tripletails landed on lures – all sight fished.

There have been a few longtail and mac tuna right into the river mouth and the odd big Spaniard in there too on high tide. Big Spaniards don’t have ciguatera up here and are great eating.

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