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Cold water tactics CAIRNS
Dan Kaggelis dkaggelis@gmail.com
June is one of the tougher months of the year to fish the Net Free Zone in Cairns. Whilst the cool water
options this time of year. The first is to keep fishing like you would through the warmer months and grind away until you get them to bite or change things up and try a few different approaches. Some examples of these include fishing smart and really maximising bite times
downsize your lures. Small well-presented plastics are better options as the fish will more likely be not as hungry due to the cooler weather. Plastics like the 3.5” Molix RT Shad and the ZMan Baby Goat and PrawnZ are really good options, especially for jacks. This goes hand-in-hand with your line and leader choices. I like to drop down to 16lb this time of year with around the same strength leader. My choice is Sunline Plasma X and Sunline FC Rock as they are both super tough for their class and allow the angler to cast smaller lures with ease. Just keep in mind that even though the jacks and barra may not be as hungry, they will still give you a run for your money. The other species, which
Mud crabs will be on the march.
ZMan PrawnZ are a very good small lure plastic for this time of year. temperatures can shut the fish down, it’s important to remember they still have to eat. NFZ anglers have two
around the turn of the tide. Make sure you are in the right spot at the right time, and you will get results. The next approach is to
ZMan Baby Goat are a terrific small skip bait, which will work really well.
will be running hard in the NFZ, will be the mud crab. Crabs love this time of year as the females begin to moult, which gets the big male crabs out of their holes. Dropping in your pots is definitely worth the effort. Some things to remember when crabbing in the NFZ. Don’t use too much bait or else the crocs and bull sharks will take a liking to your pots. Also keep them well marked and use plenty of rope so they don’t lift up and roll away with the tide. Not much will change next month in terms of the techniques described above. However, the waters of the NFZ do tend to clean up in July making lures much more visible to the fish that will increase your chances of catching them.
New dynamics in FNQ PORT DOUGLAS
Lynton Heffer www.fishingportdouglas.com.au
We are on the cusp of a new change in the tropics heading into a cooler period or, as we call it, the dry season. The warmer days did linger a bit beyond their expiry date this year but the angling tact must now concentrate on producing the best results for the middle stages of the calendar. The reef fishing is heading in the right direction with catches improving all the time now. The South East trade winds have already made their presence felt and this does tend to bring the fish on the bite. The trick is to navigate these winds for comfortable boating. We are happy to report large-mouth nannygai are up and about and there’s also a steady flow of small mouth nannygai
to be taken advantage of. These are schooling fish, generally found in solid numbers and can be at a hectic pace if you are able to track them down. A good starting point is to follow the contour lines 30m from off the reef and then deeper to isolated pinnacle and rubble patches if you have the marks. Typically associated with the nannygai schools can be various trevallies and also Spanish mackerel mid water. The mackerel are best caught floating a pilchard or trolling garfish and hardbody lures around the vicinity. The nannygai are experts at sourcing bait schools accumulated in deeper water and other target species will follow their movement. The highly valued coral trout continue to be a match winner being caught in depths ranging from 35m and shallower to 20m. They just tend to get stronger in numbers as the cooler months take a stranglehold. Other prized species, such as
red emperor, cobia and green jobfish have played a role on any given day. Sweetlip, stripeys, baldy bream and cod species are the icing on the cake. If calm water fishing the rivers and estuaries is your forté we are still experiencing outcomes with barra, mangrove jack, fingermark, river trevally and grunter all using live bait and fresh dead bait. They will still have an impact more so on the days with a bit of run in the tide and sunny weather. The new players on the scene are some bigger queenfish, which are a great angling experience and they are very partial to taking a surface popper lure. The best time is work the incoming tide, preferably towards the entrances, to these systems. They will also travel in numbers so whilst wetting a livie or dead bait take the opportunity to flick around a surface lure and this may take your day to a new level. We are also seeing a shift
Nannygai numbers are up this season. in momentum for bream, which is great entertainment for the young and old. A quality peeled prawn on the
end of the line will see a lot of action around snags and structured banks like rock walls.
With the change of seasons so does the fishing, but it never stops in our part of the world. JUNE 2023 37
