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Information on the quality and location of local Boat Ramp facilities. Includes photographs, maps and some video content.

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Promoting family fishing.

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FishingTownsville.net promotes catch and release fishing.

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Popular fishing spots including GPS locations, sounder shots and maps.

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Fly Fishing

Chasing Golden Trevalley on the Magnetic Island flats.

Relaxing!

Enjoying one of the many beautiful beaches of Magnetic Island.

Saturday 28 April 2012

Townsville Marine Predators Tournament

The Townsville Gamefishing Club is holding its annual Predators Tournament next weekend the 5th, 6th and 7th of May. Major sponsors for the event include Townsville Marine and Northern Conquest Charters. There are some great prizes on offer and Townsville Marine will be hosting a BBQ and drinks with a kids jumping castle at the weigh in. For more details visit the Townsville Gamefishing Club website or download the brochure directly from this link.

Sign on
Friday 4th May at 2pm - 6pm
Fishing Warehouse
158 Duckworth St Garbutt Ph: 47798399

Weigh in
Monday 7th May at 2pm - 5pm
Townsville Marine
943 Ingham Rd The Bohle

Presentation
Monday 7th May at 5.15pm
Entrants must be present to win lucky entrant prizes and boat

Entry
$50 per adult
$20 per child
$100 per family (2 adults and 2 kids)

Information
Lew Haines - 0407746548


Sunday 15 April 2012

Haughton River Barramundi

I hit the Haughton river yesterday again with Jake. I was really keen to try out some Z-Man 4" SwimmerZ that I picked up from ProTackle on Thursday. These soft plastic lures look and feel fantastic.

We headed into some different country as the big morning tide didn't really suit where we have been picking them up in previous weeks. Second cast of the Z-Man and I hooked into a small fish. It was just a little Archer fish, but as I pulled it in a large Barra 'boofed' it right beside the boat! While he completely missed the Archer, we at least knew straight away we were in the right spot.

Continuing to work the deeper banks we picked up a succession of smaller rat barra from as little as 30cm up about 55cm. But convinced it would have taken a much larger fish to have a go at a 30cm Archer, we persevered in this area. Jake worked his way through a series or hard bodied and soft plastic lures, and enven brought out the fly rod for a while. All were successful on the smaller fish, but nothing worked quite as well as the Z-Man.

We had probably boated a dozen or so of these 'rats' before a real fish hit my lure. Immediately we knew it was a good fish as it was the first to peal the 8lb PowerPro off my Stella. I would have had some great GoPro action of this fish, but as the fish ran toward the back of the boat I went to step off the front casting platform onto the eski and fell arse over. The camera then fell off my head and finished its filming on the bottom of the boat! The fight was quite a long one as the fish slugged away against the small amount of pressure I could put on it. And, of course, I then started to question my use of a 20lb leader. But all held and the fish was soon in the net, hardly a mark on the leader! At 68cm it was to be the fish of the day.


It wasn't long after this fish that we finished up our session in this part of the system and headed off to try some other areas. Our next trick was to work some deeper water with Thready Busters and Transam style lures. We headed to a favourite corner of Jake's that has a deep 4m hole on the inside bend. A few fish were marking on the Humminbird Side Image, so we Spot-Locked the Minn Kota and began to work the lures deep. Jake is far more skilled and practiced in this style of fishing that I am, and he managed 2 nice little Barra from here while I only had a bump!


From here we headed back around the mouth of the river, but didn't really find success anywhere. Boats were all over the place, the tide was ripping through and the water was pretty dirty. But we had had a pretty good morning session. In all we probably boated about 20 Barramundi and a few small Jacks.

The Z-Man had really proven itself for me. At the end of the day I was still fishing with the exact same lure I had used all day. It had caught numerous fish including the 68cm Barra. I'm going to retire it and put on a fresh one next trip, but it could still be fished if I so desired. In fact, the lure photographed below is the one used all day yesterday! They are sold at ProTackle in packs of 4. They come with a funny looking hook to rig the plastic on, but I discarded this in favour of a 3/0 Owner worm hook. I rigged the plastic the weedless Texas style with a '00' ball sinker in the same way I rig Atomic Prongs. The plastic is very soft and has a hollow belly. This allows the plastic to fold away and expose the weedless hook very easily. The only thing I found was that the smaller Barra would consistently grab the tail of the lure and pull it down on the hook and fail to hook up. This could potentially be improved by a larger hook that puts the point further back in the tail. In fact, Matt at ProTackle did recommend to me to use a 4/0 Owner, but I was happy with the action of the lure with the 3/0.  I also squeezed in a little s-factor in the belly of the lure.


Friday 13 April 2012

For Sale - Trackabout 2007 Camper

For sale is a Trackabout 2007 model camper trailer. It is a full 4wd camper with water, kitchen, 12 volt battery system, 2 water/fuel carries, 2 gas carriers, queen size bed, treg hitch and awning.

Asking price $11,500.

Contact Ward Nicholas via email.




Monday 9 April 2012

Sunfish Lifestyle Kids Fishing Day

Sunfish NQ will be holding a Lifestyle Kids Fishing Clinic on the 22nd April 2012.

9.30 am start

Places are limited to 20 children so registration is a must!

Please do not register if you cannot turn up on the day

At the clinic the children will be shown and have hands on instruction on
  • Basic Knots
  • How to use a cast net
  • How to use a spinning rod and setup
  • Fish care and handling
  • Regulations and care for the environment
Sausage sizzle and drink for lunch

This is designed for children around 8yrs and over.

It will be held at the Townsville Barra Fishing Farm.

For the Adults!
  • Fly casting lessons
  • Fishing at Barra Farm Costs
Anyone who can lend a hand on the day will be most welcome please contact Jo on 0404068396

Friday 6 April 2012

For Sale: 54lb Watersnake Bow Mount Electric **SOLD**

For sale is a 54lb Jarvis Walker Watersnake 'shadow'. This is a bow mount style electric motor with corded foot controller. It is less than 2 years old and in 100% working order. Comes with the nylon quick release bracket.

Receipt available to show purchased on 18/8/2010.

SOLD

Send me an email if you are interested in taking a look.


Acres of Tuna!

I was supposed to spend Wednesday and Thursday of this week fishing Hinchinbrook with Graham Knight, but a phone call on Tuesday night put an end to that idea. Knighty had blown his power tilt and trim that day and it wasn't going to be fixed in time. So a last minute change of plans saw me out the back in the dark madly preparing the big boat for a run offshore with the family. Luckily the forecast was for 5knot winds and I had already been cursing the commitment made to fish the channel!

Knowing there was a lot of timber floating around after the heavy rains and big tides, we didn't plan to do any running around in the dark. So we didn't hit the ramp until about 5.30am. Being mid week for everyone else, it was quiet at the ramp and a park was easily obtained. We were soon shooting across the bay at a comfortable 25knots.

First location we planned to target was an old favourite shoal mark of mine. But on arrival the water was green and horrible in colour, confidence was not high! A sound around soon located a small patch of fish holding to the bottom and down went the baits. We managed to hook a couple of good fish that were assumed to be Nannygai, but the sharks got every one only meters off the bottom! It didn't take long to get sick of sharks and decide on a move wider.

Our second location wasn't any better, only small shows on the sounder and very little biting. Anything that did get hooked up became shark bait one more.

From here we headed to the Bomber wreck. I was at lease hoping for a Cobia or Spanish Mackerel to take home for dinner. There was considerably more showing on the sounder here, but the bite was still slow. Lachy managed one undersize Mack, but some nearby Tuna schools caught our attention. With little bottom action we thought we might go investigate.

What we found was acres of Tuna schools working patches of little flying fish. The schools were not dense like when feeding on smaller white-bait, but were spread out and feeding over very large distances. This was more suited to trolling than casting metal slices, so out went a couple of small skirted lures. It didn't take long and we were soon getting single and double hookups one after the other. I will let the video tell the story, but the kids had a blast.

I also managed to get 3 or 4 nice Tuna on a cast Thready Buster! It was already rigged on a Sustain 4000 and 20lb braid ready for Hinchinbrook. I couldn't be bothered changing it over to a metal slice, and when a Tuna poped up beside the boat I thought I'd give it a go! Proved very successful indeed. No need to wind fast, the action of the plastic at medium pace was enough. One fish even took the lure as soon as it hit the water, I hadn't even closed the bail arm! So they must look attractive in the water.


A couple of hours later we headed back in closer to one last mark before home. Tania managed a couple of SM Nannygai that made it to the eski for dinner, but the sharks where thicker here than anywhere we have seen. At one stage we counted 8 under the boat at one time, and there was a second boat close by with them around their boat too. A few large GT's thrown into the mix made getting any decent red fish to the surface almost impossible. The only thing that could beat the Sharks was the Stella 10000SW and DeepJig 200. In fact, Tania demanded I put a bait on it for her as she couldn't enough hurt of the fish with any of the other gear!

About 3pm we decided to head home, but not before playing with a few Dolphins that enjoyed swimming along the bow of the boat. Tania even managed to reach over and give one a good rub on the side and fin. I think they enjoyed our company as much as we did their! The kids tried for a pat too, but they couldn't quite reach. There is some footage of the Dolphins toward the end of the video clip.

Lachy was so keen that he drove all the way home. Sitting on 4,400rpm and just over 50km/hr the GMI-10's showed the Suzuki DF150 sipping away at 0.5lts per km or 27lt per hour. I think this is outstanding economy from a big 150hp motor pushing a fairly heavy glass boat.


Monday 2 April 2012

Haughton full of Rats!

I fished the Haughton twice yesterday! First in the morning with Jake, and then again later in the day with my old mate Christian.

The morning session was pretty good, we started off early putting the boat in Doughboy Creek right on the high tide at 6am. We headed straight to the flats at the mouth hoping to pull a fish off the many snags that sit up on the sand. But that wasn't working so we moved over the one of the mangrove edges nearby. The tide wasn't really running yet, and the fishing was slow. I spotted some bait on the sounder that was hanging deep in the 4m of water off the edge. So out came the Thready Busters and Trans Am's. I missed a good hit, but Jake soon nailed one! A fight like a Jack, but turned out to be a nice Fingermark.

We couldn't find the school again, so we moved back to the mangroves. A couple of prominent sticks in the current were holding good bait, and we soon had a couple of near misses from rat Barra. Then Jake finally pinned one! A little fish about the 55cm was photographed and sent on his way. The water where we were fishing was only 1-2m deep on the mangroves, so we decided to look for a better stretch to work.


We moved to the front of the Haughton where we have had some success in the past, but despite good looking water and plenty of bait we only managed a couple of missed strikes. This is when we decided to make bigger move up toward Burrumbush.

The bank we wanted to fish looked good. Nice clear green water and just the right depth over the timber. But the current was now racing. We gave it a go anyway, but our lures were in and out of the structure pretty quickly. But we found a section of the bank were the water slowed a little and fish were keen. In a fairly short time we managed to boat half a dozen rat Barra and a couple of undersize Jack. None of the Barra went any more than about 55cm. But a bit of consistent action was nice on the light lines. Eventually the wind came up and the water dropped too much and we had to move yet again.


This was our final stretch to fish for the morning as I had to be home about 12. Again it looked good with clean water and lots of bait. We soon found the barra were again keen and consistent. As we worked along this bank we progressively added to our morning tally and eventually managed to find a couple of fish that went just over the 60cm mark.


In total we would have boated near on 20 fish for the short morning session, the majority of which were Barra in the 55cm range. Jake definitely out-fished me in every way! Easily catching 2:1 on my, and getting the biggest fish of the day too! Full credit to him, he had a great morning. I fished my 3in prongs all morning on the Stella 1000fe and 8lb braid. Almost all Jakes fish fell to a DOA prawn fished on a Stella 2500 and 4lb.

Later that day I returned with Christian. This time I launched at the Cromarty ramp and headed upstreem. I was hoping to find some bigger fish higher in the creek. But the water was muddy and I really didn't have a good feeling. We gave it half an hour and the I pulled the pin. 

We headed back to the mouth and the closer we got the better the water looked. The tide was now well on the way back in and the water looked great. We worked the same edge as this mornings outgoing tide and managed a couple of stikes and a solid bream. 

Our final stretch of water look beautiful. It was now very clean and green with the last of the incoming tide. Some fresh fallen timber looked very fishy indeed. Along this stretch we managed another bream, a small Barra, an a couple of Jack that included one 43cm specimen. 


I'm not a bit fan of the incoming tide for casting lures, and it wasn't anywhere near as good as the mornings fish, but I was quite happy with our efforts. Strikes were consisten enough to keep us going. The bigger Barra still eluded us though. 


I have a Hinchinbrook trip planed with Knighty for later this week. So keep an eye out for plenty of photos and some video later in the week.