Cooktown

from Fishing Monthly Magazine | December 2022

Boat Test: Merry Fisher Sport 795

Crystal clear waters

COOKTOWN Justin Coventry

Temperatures rising, and calm days sees so much opportunity to fish the reefs. This time of the year would have to be my favourite with so many chances to head out wide and get some great fish and experience the crystal clear waters of the Great Barrier Reef.

The only downside is the temperature. It doesn’t take long for me, when the fish start to go off the bite, to look

Chase Hunt caught this large mouth nannygai. to jump into the water to cool down. I love to go spearfishing and it can be a good option when fishing is slow on a hot day. Often when the coral trout go off the bite you find that when you jump over the side with a speargun then they appear. It is much easier to choose what you would like to eat with a speargun, and there is the bonus of crayfish as well. Christmas seafood feast with coral trout, crayfish and mud crab goes down such a treat. Who would want to live anywhere else? The large mouth nannygai have been showing up in large numbers and great size. They are such good fun on a rod and can put up a great fight. Quite often they can be so strong you feel it could be a shark but then turns up a 10kg specimen that would make any angler’s day. The best option I’ve found for these fish is the pilchard stuffed squid. Squid big enough to have a pilchard half placed inside with the squid presented with head and tentacles freely moving at the base of a 9/0 hook – not much can refuse that offering.

I have used soft plastic squids and had success, and the squid jigs, like the Savage Squid, seem to produce. My favourite would be the ones that glow and seem to get more strikes. These work well in large schools of fish as competition for food can see them smash almost anything when they are feeding. The stuffed squid, however, releases so much scent it would be hard to refuse for any hungry nannygai in the area. The mud crabbing will be at peak once the rains come and the freshwater forces them to move more. Get the pots ready and waiting as the first flush can produce the best catches for the year. Having such good reef weather, the freezer should be full of nice fish heads and it’s amazing how much bait you go through when the crabbing is hot. I usually set around eight pots and run them over five days, so that’s 40 heads. I always use fresh bait in them each check and find that works well. Anyway, when the first flush of flooding occurs in the river you need to be ready to go. Make sure you have a good supply of heads on hand as it’s disappointing having no bait when the crabbing is hot. The local wharf has seen some big schools of herring and are great bait for the reef and the schools attract some nice trevally and mackerel into the harbour. When the is baits there, so are the fish.

The big female barramundi can be seen regularly cruising around, especially when the water is clear and tide is not running strong. Let’s hope they produce many more offspring for years to come. We still see some of these fish caught by our locals and it’s sad to see that people still target them. Hopefully more can be done to protect them over this closure period. It does seem we are seeing more and more closures and rules change but the future of our fish stocks needs protecting and we can all do our part to ensure our children have some fish to catch.