Hello May, goodbye April.
It has been a hard time of the year for anglers and boaties with the wind and rain being less than kind. Offshore, the windows of opportunity have been few and far between, but the fishing has been red hot.
Inshore, the rivers are still running with a degree of fresh water and in the impoundments, the barra are becoming a little more difficult to chase, but at least the sooty grunter are firing.
On that positive note, Reefari Charters is proud to announce that at the annual Mackay Tourism Awards, held on the 25th of March at the MECC, the team was awarded the winner of the Transport, Tours and Cruises section.
It’s always great to get positive feedback and this is an excellent award that recognises the hard work which has gone into the last few years, establishing Reefari in a competitive industry, not to mention some truly awesome fishing and trophy quality fish.
Back on the fishing, getting the bigger boats out has been difficult at best, due to the rough conditions, but we did have one cracker weekend that saw the Reefari Cat, Raptor II blast out for some blistering piscatorial action.
The Raptor’s charter boat skipper, Glen Montgomery was all smiles when he returned from several trips and reported that the coral trout and sweetlip are back on the chew around the islands.
“We got a real mixed bag fishing the inshore spots,” he revealed. “On the first bait, of the first drift one of the clients hooked and landed a 120cm estuary cod and things just got better from there.”
“Further offshore, we hit schools of nannygai and some quality lipper.
The weather was phenomenal, but there was a slight westerly component to the wind and any old angler will tell you that that slows the bites down for some reason. Otherwise, I think we’d have done even better.”
Mark Kelly and a very young crew were aboard for one trip and were absolutely stoked with the weather and an esky full of fish, with Mark declaring the fishing amongst the best he’s seen.
The boys were all keen anglers and really got stuck into the red fish!
On that topic, the red emperor have been biting, but our skippers aren’t seeing the giants that characterised last year’s trips, nevertheless with legal reds being regularly landed, no one is complaining.
The best inland option at the moment might be to make the pilgrimage up to Eungella Dam for the up and coming sooty grunter championship held there on the May Day long weekend.
For those who haven’t chased these dark coloured pocket rockets before, try a mix of spinner baits, small poppers and bib-less vibes.
Just don’t underestimate the sooty, whatever you do, or it’ll have you bricked in the nearest snag before you can blink!
Next month is looking promising and the weather is even showing signs of dropping out.
With some luck, the rivers will continue to clean up through May and the whiting, bream and flathead should start coming through as the water starts to cool.
Fingers crossed.
Greg and the Reefari Crew.