dirvin21

As a follow on from the report in the freshwater section, our honeymoon road trip didn't involve a great deal of saltwater fishing We did have a couple of sessions on palm cove jetty north of Cairns We didn't land any fish, but Amy jumped off a solid queenie and I got bitten off by a presumed mackerel. The main portion of our saltwater fishing was a booked charter to the outer reef off Port Douglas. It was a long rough trip out to the reef but as you coukd guess excitement levels were high We had new rods to blood and a score to settle after our very disappointing reef trip off Hinchinbrook in 2018. Amy opted to start with baits (this guide had good quality bait), I stuck with my stubborn lure purist attitude and dropped soft vibes. The start was a little slow, plenty of hits for Amy on the baits I dropped a very small reef fish beside the boat then Amy's hooked up, the fish shot for the surface first call was mackerel but turned out to be a lesser queenfish A good start and Amy broke the doughnut for us. The sounder was lit up with life, I persisted with the softvibe jigging it on the bottom, I tried something different giving it a few rips up in the water column and on the pause it was slammed. The resulting fight was brutal the fish pulling a near locked drag with ease the fight went on for awhile eith some serious cursing from me and laughing from Amy I was crazy excited when this fish came up, golden trevally off the bucket list damn these things can fight. With new enthusiasm we kept dropping, we caught plenty of fish like purple cod and barracuda to name a few nothing big but fun, Amy ended up with a fair few queenies. Eventually I had another better take and after a decent tussle a gold spot trevally Another fish I wanted to catch, the picture doesn't do the colours justice, note the rid in the holder, I carelessly left my vibe dangling in the water which was slammed the beast took a straight nose dove to the bottom, thinking shark I slowly struggled to pull the submarine back from the depths, then this thing appeared A monster batfish that had been hanging around the boat still can't believe how strong they are. We still had the pressing matter of needing a couple of fish fir dinner, we tried a few trout spots for very little apart from me being smoked by a beast, we moved onto some reef flats, the water was a little dirty but didn't take long for Amy's lure to get slammed A nice blue spot trout and quickly followed by a small emperor I managed a small honeycomb cod There were plenty of hits and misses and with the tide change we moved back to find a dinner fish. Amy put the first fish in the esky with a nice stripey on a vibe But the legal trout kept evading us we caught a few smaller stripeys which were kept for bait. Amy made the switch to fresh bait and the results were immediate with more small variety, queenies and a few royal dustings, them Amy gets slammed she did a great job turning the fish and musclingit to the surface A cracker of a spangled emperor, it measured in the mid 50s as you can tell Amy was a little pleased with herself With time running low and the small fish and queenies plaguing me I finally hooked a decent reefie, and at long last my first coral trout A nice bar cheek a good fish to finish our reef session, we landed many species and had a blast. The next night in the Daintree we cooked our catch must say the stripey outshone coral trout by a mile We fished the salt around the Daintree a bit with no luck, did drop a barra and miss a few jacks but it's crazy croc country Theres was some great clise in reef at Cape Tribulation but it's a green zone Gotta love how the rainforest meets the reef That's it for our saltwater portion of our honeymoon Hopefully we'll have some more adventures to come soon Cheers for reading Dave

Yep, bought just before we went away

I tried calling "chook chook, chook" didn't help🤔

As most of you know Amy and I got married in March and after 6 months of waiting our honeymoon finally arrived a 20 day road trip, from Port Macquarie to Cape Tribulation. We set ourselves a bit of a fishing challenge... our honeymoon hitlist The fishing didn't start until day 3, towards the end of a long drive, we had a tip from a very generous Rockhampton local who I know through an old fishing forum we found a small creek just south of Rocky. We casted weedless plastics around and unexpectedly it didn't take long to get a hit A small barra to start the trip, the long shot paid off, and unbelievably it happened again next cast Albeit the smallest barra I've seen, We continued casting with a few more hits from presumed small barra, we put loads of casts in hoping for a bigger fish ... finally got nailed on the drop and a much better barra cartwheeled out of the water, it put up a solid fight Measured 58cm and set the trip off on a high. We had planned to fish Proserpine dam but the weather and bank access didn't work out on the way we took a backroad trying to catch a Saratoga no luck on the togas despite quite a bit of effort , so we skipped a day of fishing with our next destination Tully gorge. After a quick camp set-up we got into the fishing. The river was stunning as ever The fishing started a bit slow but with some persistent casting we started landind some fish Sooty grunter And Khaki grunter, we fished our way through the heat and vicious march flies for some nice fish before a refreshing swim and retiring yo camp. We hit the river again the next morning for a good surface session on the khakis and sime more quality sooties We walked into a new spot I wanted to show Amy Scenic as I remember The Tully is a beautiful river with great access definitely recommended it to anyone travelling north, the only draw back is the relentless march flies. We moved onto Cairns for some comfy accommodation and an opportunity for a jungle perch, I'll save a long painful story but JPs are hard, it took some serious ridiculously placed casts, wading and swearing I managed 2 tiny JPs Despite the size they are beautiful looking fish. After our stint in Cairns and an epic day fishing the reef (that's another report), we headed into the Daintree Another beautiful place, even had a snorkel in one of the rainforest swimming holes, the amount of JPs and even a mangrove jack in the pool was amazing. With some renewed enthusiasm for JP fishing we headed out early in the morning just wanting 1 decent JP, it took a few missed hook ups but finally A respectable JP, I've wanted this fish for over 30 years, and not to be outdone Amy landed her first JP, we walked down a track looking for a Jack, the jacks didn't comply but we had plenty of fun with the archerfish heading back the car we got a bit upclose with a cassowary Fortunately he just wanted the fruit on the path so we took the long way back. From the Daintree we headed inland to lake Tinaroo We spent 2 days camped here trying fir a big barra No barra but did manage a couple of "mouth almighty" our travels headed inland unfortunately because of a large storm cell a few days before our fishing plans were not an option, but did manage a couple of small sooties on Fletcher Creek north of Charters Towers These turned out to be the last fish for the trip, we tried for Toga in a couple of spots on the way home with no luck, it didn't matter still an amazing adventure There's a YouTube video for the Tully section being edited Cheers for reading Dave

Quintrex renegade 420 It's fine to solo launch, if there's loads of wind and boat waves it can be a little annoying ti retrieve but otherwise it's fine, no mods

Some nice fish there Jon

don't know of any trout around Canberra, plenty of places to target redfin, golden perch and cod, I'm happy to be corrected.

They do have good looking white flesh, just tough and tasteless, for that price I'll stick with steak

the closest lure I can find is the daiwa presso but the colour is wrong

South west rocks would be your best option It covers what you're looking for, makerel aren't a viable target in October

I remember when the left hand wind became a thing, I remember it being preached as the only way yo fish, I tried but could never master it, as you know @big Neil I still manage to catch fish with the old faithful right hand wind

The spoons will catch taIlor and salmon and they work really well on rainbow trout

Thankyou for your post Ash Very sorry ti hear about Bruce, he will be missed on fishraider

The predators will sit on the edge of the light, I've caught plenty of quality fish on soft plastics at night

Look for lights on the water, the bait generally congregate around lit up areas

I agree on the Timmy turtle, definitely lost ot for me There's a few youtubers I watch regularly Andy's fishing, Sammy hitzke are the main 2 Occasionally I watch Luiben Pffeifer and Hawksey but they can get a little repetative

Hey Neil I took a 2.3m rod tube with virgin last year going to Darwin There's a well reputed fishing guide in Rocky, I'll look his name up for you Self guided jump on google and find some river access areas, I believe Rocky has some good landbased options

Looks like the Gwydir or Severn for me

Nice cod mate I'm prepping to hit the rivers for one last cod session before season end

Definitely a tarwine

The GT Amy landed in my most recent report was on a 1000 size spin reel with 6lb braid

We let most of our fish go, occasionally we keep a couple of flathead for the table

Amy and I managed a session on the Nambucca, we hadn't fished up there for awhile so we were pretty excited. The aim of the day variety hoping for trevs. Wasted no time getting into it Amy got the session going with a couple of small big-eye trevs and flathead, the fishing wasn't redhot but enough action to kerp us confidant, after loads of misses I finally pinned a decent fish which turned into a nice big-eye moving upriver we worked the runout tide plenty of small fish landed mostly bream, again I hooked into something solid called it for a trev at first I was surprised to see a good tailor Have never seen a tailor so far up river, not long after I hooked another which chewed me off. The session continued about the same with small bream until I finally landed a decent speci Through that section of river we spotted a few quality river GTs, it took awhile but on a rockbar Amy managed to hook into one, no easy task on a 1-3kg rod with 6lb braid but after a couple of serious runs she manged to steer the fish into the net, Did I say Amy was impressed with herself, I definitely am. Went 49cm, a cracker for the river The rest of the session ended with plenty of flathead and smaller bream, Amy easily won the day on quality and quantity Turned out to be a great session with multiple species, the exact reason we hit the Nambucca A video of the session Cheers for reading Dave

I sold my old boat on facebook, it was gone within 2 days

most areas hold bream, around wharves, jetties and bridges cast up against the pylons and sink your lure down along them bream will most often pick it up on the drop. Bream are a lot more fickle than flathead so you need to make sure your lure sinks nice and naturally on slack line, and subtle twitches of the lure when working it I use zman 2.5 inch grubz and slim swimz in bloodworm and greasy prawn, scents like sfactor definitely make a difference , my main jighead is a 1/16th oz #2 HD but I range between a 1/12th to a 1/20th depending on the depth current and wind, you can go heavier that's just my preference. A long light leader is a must for urban bream you can usually get away with 8lb but 6lb is better it can just get nerve racking with a solid fish