OLD
Take advantage of bite windows WHITSUNDAYS
Mick Underwood
In my opinion the only good thing about winter is Spanish mackerel, and up to this point they have been scarce. Over the last few weeks the weather has murdered us, the southeast trade winds have not let up, which has limited any opportunities to venture out wide. There has been some enjoyable action on the inshore grounds but we’ve had to fish astutely to be able to take advantage of any available bite windows. Up in the estuaries things have been pretty quiet and it has been noticeable how few boats have been making their way towards the creeks.
Harvey Hunt enjoyed his first foray using micro jigs. This solid fingermark was just one of a good bag he caught. It is my opinion that our local estuary systems are too small and sensitive to be able to deal with this kind of
Carolyn Salisbury with a nice shallow water nannygai. These fish should be more common this month, especially out of the deeper areas. There are still a few mud crabs being caught, but that is largely about all that is going on in those areas at the moment. Unfortunately our local systems are suffering badly from being consistently netted by the commercial sector. I don’t want to start a war with our local commercial fishers as I do believe commercial fishing has its place in our local environment and commercial fishers have a right to earn a living. The problem is not with the fishers but more the clowns that make the rules.
pressure and, as a result of what is going on, I have not heard on one single decent barramundi being caught by recreational means this year, now that is sad. Okay, enough whinging, moving on to something more positive now and what fish that have been biting. The inshore waters of Edgecumbe Bay and around the inner islands has been where the best fishing has been taking place. Up on the shallow banks and reef areas in Gloucester Pass and out in front of Cape Gloucester Resort there has been some action to be enjoyed on some big giant trevally. Using mostly big cup-faced poppers getting these fish to bite hasn’t been that hard,
but trying to land them has been a different story. There is so much structure in the way of reefs rocks and shipping beacons in this area that most fish once hooked have made their way straight behind the nearest bunch of underwater structure cutting us off resulting in plenty of lost tackle and fish. A little further down the coast towards Sunset Beach, the fish have been more catch-able there. There are currently good numbers of school mackerel around and although they are not exactly a line burning sports fish they are an easy way to put a tasty feed in the esky. Mixed in with the schoolies there are some solid golden trevally, and on light line in particular they will make you work for your money. Out around the islands
A lone angler enjoying some therapy fishing at Cape Gloucester at sunset.
Chooky enjoyed getting in on the lure action catching this gold spot cod.
A solid trout falls to the hardbodies, this time it was for Dave Salisbury.
FG + KNOT
earlier in the month, fingermark fishing was awesome with plenty of quality fish being caught. As the month has wound on, the fingermark bite has waned and the local coral trout population took over. A few fish have been claimed on bait but it has been mostly small hardbodies that have been doing the damage.
SUITS ALL SIZE BRAIDS AND LEADERS
When using lures you have the ability to cover lots of country quickly and be able to hone in on where the active fish are lurking. Moving onto July now and what we can expect to get our hooks into over the coming weeks. Spanish mackerel are going to be the two words most commonly heard in
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JULY 2021
local angling circles this month. This is prime time to get into them and we just have to hope that the weather gods play the game and give us some windows in the trade winds to allow us at the fish. These fish will move onto various inshore areas at different times but it is out a little wider where the best
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