Townsville

TOWNSVILLE Dave Hodge

Many people gauge a trip’s success by how full their esky gets, and that’s fair enough depending on your average fish numbers caught per outing. However, this focus on the freezer can make you a bit stressed or disappointed if the fishing is a bit quiet. To avoid this disappointment, try just savouring the pleasure of being out there, and you will get much more enjoyment from your fishing. ‘Success’ isn’t a full freezer – it’s getting away from the traffic and daily stresses, and enjoying the fresh air, and experiencing the amazing natural phenomenon that most people don’t even know they’re missing.

For my son and I, it’s when we bond the most. He is an avid catch and release angler with a mature and conservative approach to his fishing. We eat fish about twice to three times a week, and when I do a cook-up I’ll do enough for lunches the next day as well. Our preferred species are barra, jacks, fingermark and grunter, and we skin the fillets and cut them into thin, wide pieces before crumbing, battering or just plain old on the BBQ plate with a bit of lemon pepper. We often catch them in the same sorts of areas that people target breadand-butter species (whiting, bream and flathead), we just use different tactics and lures to target the larger species.

Sinking lures and soft plastics are the most regularly used techniques for us, but the trick is finding

Bright orange is one of the author’s favourite dirty water colours, and this fly was ideal for the dirty water on the day.

the fish first. Recently I’ve mounted the Raymarine Element sounder in the boat and the detail is so clear on the bigger screen, it’s making finding fish a breeze.

Throwing the right thing at them is the next piece of the puzzle. 50-65mm Atomic Semi Hardz soft vibes are a very common thing for us to throw at the deeper fish, or Atomic Prongs and Halco Paddle Prawns on jigheads for the shallower stuff. Our lighter outfits of around 10-15lb braid with 25-30lb leaders usually do what we need until a feed is secured. Anything after that is a catch and release target.

This last few months we’ve been using much deeper presentations as this has been where the majority of the bigger fish have been holding lately. Even the jacks have been on the deeper snags around that 4-5m mark, with fewer than normal going up in the shallows, where we generally like to target them with poppers and shallow divers and lightlyweighted weedless soft plastics. Over the last couple of months we’ve been using up to 1/2oz jigheads with either a Halco 5” Paddle Prawn or 4” Atomic Prong bounced over rough bottom or close to deeper structure. The bycatch is quite often fingermark, grunter or barra, so it all works out well in the end. The majority of our fish are released.

If you want to see how we fish, you can check out our little YouTube channel we do called the ‘Hodgie the Barefoot Fisherman’. The whole channel is based on what we do to catch the fish, the analytical decisions made to find the fish, and lure type, size and colour choices based on water clarity etc. We started the channel to help my customers at The Fishing Warehouse in Townsville, where I show people every day how to rig lures, but had to find a way to show them how to use them effectively. It’s really is easy if you decide to have a go. RIVERS,

CREEKS AND BAY

Fishing the bay and tributaries in our local area with either lures or baits is actually quite a productive way to catch a few fish, and if cast and retrieving lures like those mentioned earlier isn’t your thing, then a wellpresented bait is sure to put you in with a great chance of landing some decent fish.

On those open flats, ledges and channels towards the mouths of the rivers, slab baits of mullet, gar, wolf herring work well, as do squid, half pilchard and peeled prawns. Rigged on a running sinker or paternoster rig with just enough lead to hold the bait in the appropriate area, a 3/0 to 4/0 Gamakatsu Octopus suicide hook rigged on a 5-30lb leader will be a great happy medium size for decent sized grunter. Towards the snags, the same rigs can be used for mangrove jacks.

If you change the hook design to a kahle 5/0 Gammy, and pin a live bait such as mullet, herring, or silver biddy through the nose, the odds of hooking decentsized jacks and barra gets way better. Up that leader to 40-50lb and you’re in with bloody good chance of some big fish. Obviously, learning to throw a cast net is essential in being able to secure live baits whenever you like. OFFSHORE

Those targeting billfish have been having mixed success, and trolled gar meant for Spanish have been regularly intercepted by them. It would seem that the majority Spanish are still in closer to the mainland, and the proposed protection of spawning aggregations is going to give a massive boost to the population in

very quick time. Allowing any wild fish to spawn and repopulate at appropriate times is a good thing for future stocks. I’m not going to weigh in on the bag limit changes, as I don’t know the science or have enough experience with this particular species to comment.

If improving and sustaining fish stocks is a priority though, something needs to be done about the shark numbers. Fish stocks are suffering quite heavily from their increased population. Some marine biologists have stated that due to global warming and industrial influences, bull sharks are known to breed twice as frequently. Doesn’t it make sense then that if a ‘supposed’ manmade scenario and influence has had caused an increase in shark numbers, that it will take a man-made solution, such as the sustainable harvesting of the overpopulated species such as bull sharks to bring some sort of balance back? I’m not talking about a random killing of just any sharks, but the commercially harvesting of a few shark species which are thriving, to service a deprived market of people wanting to eat an affordable seafood option. It’d be a damn sight better option than the basa (Mekong catfish) garbage sold at many supermarkets and restaurants

in Australia. FLY FISHING

If you get a bit bored with chasing fish with conventional tackle and techniques, and you’re after the next challenge, taking up fly fishing could be a way to start the learning process all over again. It’s not very often I pull out the ‘long wand’ these days, but I recently decided to dust one off my fly rods and swing her into action just to up the challenge a bit.

Barra were the target species, and while I only landed five on that outing, it was refreshing to step out of my normal routine and wave the wand for a while. I was lucky enough to have been sent some amazing flies by Ben Chambers, and his hand-tied creations played a big part in fish caught. I love flies with powdercoated dumbbell eyes, especially in dirty water, and the Deceiver patterns Ben sent me were spot on for the water colour we fished. I used an 8# floating line to allow both shallow and a bit deeper presentations to land a couple over 80cm, plus a few rats.

With an earlier wet forecast for the north it’ll

be a bit uncertain as to the timing of some runoff, but if it comes before the closed season it’ll be a good time. If it comes after closed season then for those holding a Stocked Impoundment Permit (SIP), let the good times roll.

Good luck and stay safe.

Mick Rennie with a beautiful barra taken on a weighted weedless Atomic Prong 4” fished right in the timber.

Smaller poppers like this Atomic work well on the jacks. They cast well on those days when clearer water requires a more stealthy approach from a longer distance, so as to not spook the fish in the shallows.

If you get tired of catching fish on your normal gear, give the fly a go. This Deceiver was tied by Ben Chambers on an SL12 4/0, and the fish engulfed it without hesitation amongst the timber.