Cape York

from Fishing Monthly Magazine | May 2022

Karratha

Cleaning rivers, clearing skies

CAPE YORK Tim O’Reilly

wildrivercompany@gmail.com At the end of autumn, May is a fantastic month to visit and reside in Cape York. It’s a great time to travel with roads generally graded and creeks normally running, the landscape will be green and vegetation alive. May is one of the most consistent months fishing wise.

With a huge cross section of blue water, inshore and estuarine possibilities, fishers will be hoping for some consistent weather. For May, this usually means 10-15 knot sou’easterly winds with calm, clear mornings. Early starts and long mornings usually lead to the best fishing, followed closely by the late afternoon bite. George with a typical top end jack.

Stable weather conditions make for pleasant fishing days, especially when fly fishing.

Water temperatures up the Cape are usually perfect throughout May for barramundi and most estuarine species. Some of the hotter bites found earlier in the year with barra and threadfin salmon might have passed. As schools of prawns and baitfish make their way out into the Gulf of Carpentaria, the predators left behind will start moving into their dry season haunts. This will be mostly up rivers and creeks rather than out in the bays and shallow beaches.

Having more stable dry season weather patterns emerge will have a settling effect on most species. Inshore reefs will normally fish very well, with cleaner water making them a

pleasure to fish. Some of the deeper sections of estuaries such as gutters, junctions, rock bars and gouged-out snags should be holding fish. Finding barra congregating in these places can lead to some of the best fishing all year. Get the barra chewing and jumping and scores can come quickly.

East Coast systems quite often lack these deeper features, except for some of the larger rivers at the bottom of Princess Charlotte Bay. Anglers need to get in tune with fish movement in shallower systems. The same deeper features will work well on incoming tides as bait streams in. Bit windows will be short and sharp as predators follow the train of food upstream. The reverse will happen on the outgoing tide. Before things shut down temporarily on the low. Those larger systems which hold permanent deeper features might require the use of depth sounders aided by down and side scan technology. Modern technology can greatly aid fisherman in locating schooling fish and actively target them both in structure and out in the open. For example, vibing sunken banks might be a frustrating experience when fished blindly. Knowing the depth and position of holding fish can lead to less lost gear and much better conversion rates.

With a little fresh water still coming down the larger systems, fishing upstream sections will be productive throughout May. Concentrating on the head and tail sections of the larger pools help narrow down focus. Structure causing blockages in current, such as rock bars and sunken timber

will create pressure edges in front of current flow. This is where many of the larger barramundi are taken each year and May is a prime month to make it happen.