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Stonkers start to Sept HINCHINBROOK
Ian Moody info@ianmoodyfishing.com
Hinchinbrook’s temps are now starting to slowly rise from one of the coldest winters experienced in many years. After weeks
up. A few anglers I speak to say the Spanish mackerel have been quite plentiful given there is a supposedly low biomass showing up in fisheries research. Plenty of big largemouth nannygai and red emperor have been keeping anglers arms stretched, along with
effect from plastics or hardbodies that are presented up close and personal to them. However, we have been getting quite a lot of rats on the flats and in among the timber in that 50-60cm range with an occasional 80-90cm thrown in. Fingermark have been in
Coral trout have been producing over the last few months in the closer inshore reefs.
Brendan with a decent golden trevally. on end with sub 19ºC water temps, it made it one of the slowest winters I’ve seen inshore for a while. Most schools of bigger barramundi have been mostly sulking in the deeper stretches of the Hinchinbrook Channel by day, and then often using the large tide that occurs at night to come out for a feed. It has also shifted or thinned out bait schools in many areas, which in turn often takes the predatory species with it. A few good weather windows recently have allowed a lot of anglers to get out to the reef and give the winter Spanish mackerel a shot before it warms right
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plate-sized coral trout adding icing to the cake. Coral trout have been quite good during the last two months in closer inshore reef areas like Cape Sandwich and Cape Richards. On the barra front, charters recently have been fairly hard work. Bites have been very finicky and fish not really wanting to eat properly. They can become very difficult to hook when they behave like this, when they don’t inhale their prey, but pick up the bait in their lips and swim forward towards you. They don’t seem to be really interested in live bait this time of year and prefer that stimulating
good numbers in the channel during August with them mostly being just smaller school sized ones with the odd 60cm one thrown in. Great to see them coming back in numbers over the past year or two. Plenty of small gold spot cod mixed in with them too, which can be a pain if they decide to take over the bite and start taking live baits meant for fingermark.
Looking ahead into September should see things heat up so to speak. As the water temperature rises the barra activity increases as well. Last year’s September and October months were pretty awesome for my charters as a lot of the larger barramundi start to show up in big numbers. The last few years they have done this without fail where sometime during these
The barra fishing will really start to heat up this month, especially on the flats.
months they show up in numbers almost overnight at all the usual locations for barra to aggregate. They usually increase the urge to feed more ahead of their spawning season, sometimes we catch them on headlands in as little as half a metre of water hugging the edge as they sometimes look for those pop-eye mullet cruising next to the waters edge on rocky headlands and mud banks. You would be surprised as to how shallow those big metre-plus models actually swim in and quite often when you land that lure in front of them the smash on the surface is incredible in shallow water. I’ll be making the most of these months before the barra season closes. • I still have a handful of good barra dates left for this season. Gift vouchers can still be purchased if you’re looking for birthday gifts. You can email us at info@ ianmoodysportfishing.com or phone us on 0402 339 459. Barra season closes midnight 31 October, so get in early to secure a booking bassco boats for this year.
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SEPTEMBER 2022
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