4 minute read
Solid start to summer mahi, kingies, AJs and crabs
Hello all and welcome to this month’s issue.
The year has absolutely flown by again, though I’m not really sure where it went.
Perhaps it’s gone into us trying to finish off the rebuild of our house and shop, which were both damaged in the floods of early 2022.
Trying to complete all of this work and fit in the normal day-to-day tasks that life throws our way can definitely make the time fly.
I’m hoping for a heap more normality, a lot less work, tonnes more family time and certainly more fishing than I’ve been able to do this year.
I’ll take this opportunity to thank all of you – the readers of this wonderful publication –for continuing to read our articles and supporting the magazine.
Without all of you, we don’t get to do what we do, so I do hope you all have an amazing Christmas with those who are near and dear to you and a safe and happy new year.
I’m definitely looking forward to enjoying more of the four Fs in 2024 – family, friends, fun and fishing!
As for the fishing, we’ve kicked along into summer rather well, with the current picking up offshore and streaming down the hill at around two knots on a regular basis at present.
Mahi mahi have already made an appearance around the fish aggregating device but have been fairly reluctant to take anything other than lightly or unweighted pilchard.
Good quality snapper have shown up on the 32-fathom line recently and bright coloured soft plastics and octo jigs have proven to be the most productive.
With the increase in the current over the past month, baitfish have begun to school up a little more around structure.
This has meant that slow pitch and knife jigs were popular options for many anglers wishing to target kingfish and amberjack in particular, but also pearl perch if the current wasn’t too bad.
Back in the river, the run-in tide has been producing a few quality blue swimmer crabs.
This is a little novel for us because it’s probably been five or six years since we had a run of them in the Richmond River.
This was largely due to the discoloured water from frequent downpours.
As long as we don’t have a significant rain event over summer, I would expect to see this run continue through to Easter next year.
The mud crabs have certainly been on the quiet side in comparison to blue swimmers, however the slightly drier weather should ensure a solid run of them over the warmer months.
To try your luck – the most productive areas recently were North Creek and the main river, between the ferry and Broadwater.
Flathead have continued to migrate towards the mouth of the river, with better numbers showing up below the ferry in recent weeks.
With the amount of wind we’ve experienced, trolling small hard-body lures has been a fairly productive technique.
Lures that dive 1.53m were the best bet, with the more natural colours having slightly better success.
On the calmer days, large surface lures and swimbaits have tempted better quality flathead over the shallow sand flats.
Lures that are white or predominantly white have been the standout by far.
The warm weather has also meant that the whiting were engaging in a little surface activity.
Small poppers and stickbaits being the choice of lure recently, though a number of fish also showed plenty of interest in prawn imitation surface baits.
Mangrove jack have been enjoying the summer heat and quite a few nice fish were found between the ferry and Broadwater.
As is usually the case, the rock walls in that section of the river produced the bulk of these fish and suspending hard-body lures such as Lucky Craft Pointers and Jackall Squirrels were the best of the bunch.
If you do want to target jacks at night, I suggest trying your luck around one of the bridge pylons with a live bait or a small slab of mullet. Either way, you better take the big gear and be ready to hang on.
Further up the river, bass were also enjoying the warmth, with plenty of fish attacking surface lures early morning and late afternoon.
During the heat of the day, the better fish have shown some interest in chatterbaits and skirted jigs worked slowly along the bottom.
As the mostly dry conditions continue, I’m expecting this species to move further upriver, so both river systems, from Coraki and up, will be the areas to spend a little time this summer.
That’s all from me this month – until next time, tight lines.
