What a horrendous month wind-wise! It continually blew 20 to 30 knots, making for hard fishing – not much fun at all.

The only respite was between the highs when the wind abated for a day or so. On these days we were able to fish the flats in Missionary Bay and on the northern end of Hinchinbrook Island. There we found good jacks and small barra which took our lures readily.

Those anglers who fished the drains in any of the creeks faired better size-wise, with some nice barra coming off the drains – provided the drains were running and didn’t have much boat traffic.

Grunter and small bream have been the mainstay of bait specialists, with most of the fish coming from the small creeks that run into Hinchinbrook Channel. The mouth of Mary Creek produced some nice barra to over 70cm on live mullet.

We still had to fish even though it was blowing, so putting in at Fisher’s Creek was the go (remember that you need a minimum of 1.4m to get out of this creek). It fished OK, with some jacks and cod coming off the flats and good barra on the drains. The snags in the main channel weren’t bad either when we found a bank that wanted to play. There were some good fish amongst them, but unfortunately they often didn’t hook up too well.

The rock bars are starting to fish well now. They seem to fire up in the cooler months, and the best lures for these have been the Gold Bomber and B52.Whilst were are on lures, the best for us has been the ever reliable Flatz Ratz in pink.

The freshwater has been fishing well, with some nice jungle perch and good sooties coming from Kennedy Creek. Meunga Creek has worked OK with JPs (jungle perch), sooties and small jacks hooking up on small diving lures. At this stage they are leaving the poppers alone.

So what are the options this month? Well, for a start, if the wind would only die down we could actually go fishing!

Now that the cooler months are here the barra are going to be sluggish, so you have to slow that lure down, almost to a stop. For myself, I will be making regular stops to my favourite rock bar, and giving it the once-over mainly at a half tide or less. Another trick is to downsize your lure. Small Mann’s and Flat Ratz work for us, and you can also try using the smaller gold Bomber (I think it’s around 75mm) if you can find one.

I would like to mention a few ‘no-no’s that have been happening at our ramp in Pt Hinchinbrook.

Firstly, I saw one guy scaling and cleaning his catch in the water’s edge. Now, you don’t have to be a Rhodes Scholar to work out that that’s not good for your health, plus there’s a big sign that says crocs are about and that you shouldn’t clean your fish at the ramp.

Also, some galah emptied his bait tank on the carpark, leaving dead sards everywhere.

Please guys, I know most of you don’t live here but use common sense and leave it as you find it.

Talking of ramps, Meunga ramp has a nasty croc in the vicinity which has reportedly made a few runs at fishermen – probably because they have been leaving fish scraps behind. Please be watchful there until the authorities trap the crocodile.

That’s all for this month. Safe boating and I’ll see you on the water, and remember: ‘Fish for the future, practice catchand release!’

[CAPTIONS]

1) Anthony Casey took a break from shearing to land this Channel barra.

2) Cameron Bird of Blackall with a quality jack.