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Clear Water Holding Fish
  |  First Published: June 2006



The Hinchinbrook Channel has undergone a facelift recently thanks to the large amounts of water entering via numerous creeks.

The water is definitely a darker brown and plenty of dead grass has been floating around. For lure anglers the fishing has been difficult but searching in the cleaner water has paid dividends. Some of our favourite snags have moved on by but some good new ones were created by Cyclone Larry.

The Lodge’s pontoon has been firing with everything from barra to bream being caught, including some nice trout. We have also found some barra on the flats in amongst the root system. Some decent sized grunter have been hooked in the Bay on a variety of baits.

In the channel system itself, anglers fishing Five Mile and Broken Pole creeks have reported good catches of barra on live mullet. These fish to 1m are providing almost daily highlights for anglers.

Local angler Paul Jenson recently boated a nice 1m+ barra on a mullet head. Paul believes that big mullet baits hook big barra so he was quite annoyed with the shark that destroyed his bait. He was less disgusted however, after landing a 102cm barra.

Eva Rock has been the hotspot for fingermark with most boats bagging out, but there have also been some good catches in the channel by anglers fishing with livebait.

We fished the southern end of the channel recently and whilst we didn’t catch any barra we did land some nice cod and jacks. We struggled with all of the fresh that was running in and the dead grass that was fouling in the water.

I think that the rest of the year is going to hold good fishing in our little bit of paradise. We finally got the wet season that I wanted and it should put the system back in order for barra. I will be checking on all the new snags to see if the bait has moved in and if any barra are hanging around.

Don’t forget the smaller creeks that have been running dirty, working a lure around the edges can pay dividends. Best lures for us have been the black and silver B52s, blue FlatRatz and the Rapala Skitterpop. I’m not catching as many as I should on it but still having lots of laughs when the fish smash it!

Safe boating and remember fish for the future – practise catch and release!

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