Hinchinbrook

Warm species acclimatise quickly to the cold

HINCHINBROOK Ian Moody

info@ianmoodyfishing.com

Not that it gets really that cold up here in North Queensland but for some inshore species it certainly to hold a lot of fish on the outgoing tides. The biggest threadfin we managed to boat was only 102cm but there were quite a few that just didn’t connect and got their freedom quickly.

Most fish fell to slow rolled hardbody lures, one

being the Scaleblazer 125 from Ryan Moody Fishing. Live baits of herring and mullet were fairly well ignored or only seemed to attract sharks. The same has been for the barra as well in recent weeks as the water temp has cooled down, and most fish were ignoring baits and preferring hardbody lures. The retrieve on such lures is super important to get a fairly lethargic winter barra to have a go. Showing my clients how it is done certainly opened their eyes as to how they will cast lures for them in the future. From now and over the next few colder months it will be a good time for inshore pelagics and reds. Areas near Gould Island and the back of Hinchinbrook will see schools of queenfish, golden trevally and Spanish mackerel showing a greater presence, we just have to hope the sharks keep away when we find them.

The Lucinda Jetty is a

popular place for a wide range of species during winter. At times large fingermark and even big barra frequent the pylons along with the queenies, tuna and mackerel. High speed retrieving metal slices around here will get you some fun, as well as using vibes and jigs. Recent charters here have seen from 20-40 large queenies caught in a very short time. However, the shark population seems to get worse year by year.

Grunter have been around in very good numbers and some real stonkers are among them as well. Smaller mullet baits set near the bottom will often produce good sessions.

The weather during July here at Hinchinbrook can be quite pleasant and is a great time of year to fish if you hate being out in the hot sunny days in summer. Can be some real flat calm conditions and magic days in between spells of trade wind rough weather. My new vessel for offshore charters is now quite advanced in its construction and looking forward to getting it up and going for late this year or

Brian Ellis with a decent fingermark.

doesn’t make them want to get out of bed. However, generally for species like barramundi, they tend to become accustomed to the new lower water temps after a few weeks and will then go about their normal feeding habits. Some days where the mercury can drop to around 18ºC can make things almost impossible, but the average lately has been 22ºC, which still becomes very do-able.

Finally, I got long time regular clients from Melbourne up here after a failed attempt due to Covid and bad weather. They got to experience some really nice weather and good fishing too. They got threadfin and barra on their first few days while plugging a rather generous rocky headland that seemed Chris was just shy of the magic-metre mark, with this 95cm barra.

Bernie with a stonker sized grunter. Neil Simpson with 95cm of beautiful threadfin.

early next year.

Here’s hoping to some more days of lighter winds. • There are still a few spots available left for this year’s barra season for bookings so if your looking to come to Hinchinbrook to discover its variety of fish and wish to book a charter, you can email us at info@ianmoodysportfishing. com with your enquiry.

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