March 8, 2010
Hello Again, and welcome to our Mackay Fishing Charters Report for February 2010
What a great month February has been out on the water!
The afternoon storms and wet season downpours have made inshore fishing a very hot and cold affair, but offshore, small tides and low winds have meant that the bigger boats are reaping the rewards.
It has been the month for drift fishing with boats that know the right ground to fish having plenty of time in the strike zone with refreshingly little lead. This was exactly the technique employed lately by Glen Montgomery, skipper of Reefari Cat Raptor II.
Glen was absolutely blown away when I managed to catch up with him and proudly reported that on one of his recent trips the crew not only filled the esky, but did so by 9.30am.
Now that’s red hot fishing! Glen said that their normal marks were just alive with quality fish, with Nannygai over 5kg coming thick and fast. Amazingly, the quality of the fish was so high that the crew had to cut up legal Sweetlip for bait.
Don’t worry though, the fresh strip bait was transformed into even higher quality fish with a dozen big reds and some trophy sized trout finding the strip baits irresistible. The customers were ecstatic and adamantly declared the fishing the best they’d ever seen.
Earlier in the month, Reefari regular and fishing writer, Lee Brake was able to join a charter and proved that soft plastic lures have a real place in any deep water angler’s tackle box.
Lee not only found the 7″ biodegradable plastics to be prime nannygai attracters, but hard pulling Golden Trevally also seemed to climb all over them.
Lee said that the highlight for him was the repeated double hook-ups that broke out amongst the customers as teams of anglers fought reds, trevally, nannygai and trout. One such ‘double’ actually saw Lee and another angler hook the same fish only to have this greedy specimen grabbed by one of the reef’s gigantean cod, or groper.
Astoundingly, the cod busted off the other angler to leave Lee with one very chewed on nannygai, complete with two hooks in its mouth!
As for pelagics, the Tony Kennedy skippered, Reefari game boat, Mako has been getting amongst some rather unseasonal Spanish mackerel by trolling fast swimming minnows around the offshore islands.
Tony let slip that the pilchard-coloured and Qantas-coloured Halcos were his weapons of choice.
He also revealed that while bottom bashing the odd cobia is still being caught, even amongst the more regular catches of coral trout, sweetlip and nannygai.
On the freshwater side of things, the dams are enjoying the influx of rain and are not only full but fishing with renewed vigour due to the running water. Teemburra has bounced back after a long quiet spell and is now once more producing numbers of barra that test even the best angler’s skills amongst the timber.
Sooty Grunter however, are the real showstoppers with anglers finding rapids and waterfalls of fresh runoff, and then casting poppers, spinnerbaits and small minnows into any noticeable backwaters to snare these exceptionally hard hitters.
While on the subject of Teemburra, anglers should be readying themselves for the up-and-coming Barra Pro Teemburra Fishing Competition which with loads of prizes, including a Reefari charter, is sure to be a hit.
For anglers planning to hit the creeks, I recommend packing the cast net and crab pots as the fresh water seems to make these tasty crustaceans very active. A tip for crabbers though -- work the mouths and flats at the front of creeks as the fresh tends to push crabs out and onto these more stable areas.
Failing that, try deep holes as saltwater tends to sit low under the fresh.
That about wraps things up again for our Mackay Fishing Charters Report for this month, so here’s wishing you a top month’s fishing.
Cheers,
Greg Reynolds
Reefari Boat Charters
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