FNQ Dunk Island and Cooktown

[exhail]

Hi Guys and Gals,

Im up in Far North Queensland on holidays at the moment and have managed to get a few days fishing in.

The weather prevented us from fishing for the first 10 days as north Queensland received record amounts of rain in their dry season. finally when we arrived in mission beach the weather cleared. So we packed the camp gear into the tinny and headed to dunk island for three nights.

We realised when we arrived that we had the entire island to ourselves.

The next day we found a shallow reef flat on the run out tide and cast a few plastics. Well, it was a fish a cast. Mostly small coral trout and different types of cod. My girlfriend loved it.

The next morning my girlfriend wanted to stay at camp and relax so i went out on my own to an area i had scoped out the day before. Sure enough after flicking a few 6" plastics around something grabbed hold and tested out my drag which i couldn't tighten enough in time and busted me off on the reef. As i re rigged i noticed a few good arcs come upon the sounder so i dropped another plastic down and Whack! 30lb braid was tearing off the stradic at an enormous rate. After a few minutes an average sized Queenfish of around 5kg came up. I realised at this point that i didn't have a knife to bleed the fish and i'd promised my girlfriend fish for dinner. So, in went the fingers, out came the gills and bled it the hard way. It was delicious on the BBQ that evening.

The next day we headed back to the same spot and after persisting with the same plastics for an hour or so found the fish again. This time hooked a larger one which jumped out of the water a bunch of times. We got him on board for a few quick snaps and quickly relased him back in the water. It measured 85cm to the inside of the fork of its tail and weighed around 7-8kg. Going to enter this fish in Frogleys COTM.

Today we headed out to Osterland Reef 25km ESE off Cooktown. Got a few Coral Trout and Fingermark on poppers.

Had a few unidentified pairs of very fast dark shadows chase the popper and not hookup which got the heart racing. Finally one stuck and it took a fair bit of line but unfortunately spat the hook.

Eventually i worked out the type of retrieve they couldn't resist, fast with a short pause. A shadow flew out of the reef and intercepted the popper. This fought a lot harder than the queenie and didn't give up. It put up an enormous fight which id almost put up there with a GT.

My girlfriend grabbed the net and stuffed the head of a massive Chinamen Bass into it. It went ballistic on the deck and was extremely difficult to hold and get photos of. We got a few pics and released him back to maraud some other poor species half his size.

I have another week up here then doing the 3000+km drive back on my own with the tinny over 2 weeks. Stopping for a fish or two along the way no doubt.

Thanks for reading!

[Guest]

Couple of beaut fish there and those chinaman fish go bloody hard as well

[josamill]

Mate what a fantastic trip!! Love Mission Beach and Dunk Island. What size tinny/donk are you dragging? I'd never really thought of taking mine up there, but if you've got the time, I guess 'why not?'

[W4z]

Sounds like a dream trip! Hope you put up another report or two and let us know how the rest of the trip goes

[exhail]

Josamill, it's a 4.5 with a 60 on the back. Very manageable.

[Raymondo]

That's awesome, would love to do a trip like that. Have to say I've never fished in budgie smugglers

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