Hot Fishing in Cold Weipa

I'm glad I live in Weipa. Even when the weather is cold and miserable, it is still a darn sight better than being further south. Check out what we found this week..... The first couple of days the swell and wind were kind and the pelagic fishing was almost as good as it gets. Plenty of mackerel, tuna, trevally and mad fish schools. The mackerel were that thick that I managed this pic of a mid air 25lb fish returning to the planet after being on some small baitfish's case. Also pictured is Ant with a 40lb fish taken on a soft palstic with wire. Steph found the only BIG queenie of the trip - a nice one just as the swell rose to massive proportions for Weipa...... That picture was taken from the beach jsut to the north of Weipa (not the Gold Coast surf!!!) It was up the creeks for a few days while offshore had a rest. Despite cold water, some quality fish were found on live baits with Craig catching his first 4 barras, all above the 60cm legal size with the biggest 79cm. Ant persisted with lures and was rewarded with this 58 cm fish on a

top water lure, one of the most exciting ways to catch them!! Ant, Steph and Craig each caught a juvenile groper, the biggest 106cm, along with jacks, fingermark, cod, etc. It just shows that even when it's cold and yukky here, it's probably colder elsewhere, but the fishing is still great.

After four days of unfavourable fly fishing weather spent up the river catching barra, fingermark,qeenies and other medium size fish on his last day Frenchy was desperate to get among some bigger fish. We headed south with a few bags of berley were we found some birds flying hi and lots of bait down low. I decided to try the berley amongst the bait schools. We anchored at 9am and only pulled the anchor at 3pm to chase some bait balls. At anchor we caught Spanish mackerel,mack tuna,long tails sharks and mad fish,it was a great day to finish a fishing trip.

I have seen some dodgy reels in my time but this one surprised me. With a good glove on to act as a drag and a competent angler this reel secured some nice captures.

Late March in to April I Had some good fishing up the river for Jew fish. Rob on the right with a nice groper on his bait caster was a good battle to watch. Along with the Jew were all the other river creaters, fingermark,Barr, jack Queenie's and cod. The the weather was good and as you can see from the smiles we all had a good time.

Big Queenies & Bad Weather

There's no doubt why Peter (Windy) Wilson has aquired his nickname - crikey we've had some wind here of late! Despite some ordinary conditions for some flyfishing newcomers and old hats alike, the fishing has still been quite good. Some fantastic BIG queenies turned up to the south this week giving some newcomers to saltwater fly fishing a great thrill. Many of the beaches have been unfishable due to a large swell rolling in. The tuna have been patchy in close, some days quite good, and very close to shore, with both longtails and macks, plenty of madfish and even some billfish been seen. The creeks are still fishing well - smaller queenies, giant herring, and goldien trevally on the flats and some great barra fishing around the low tide drains.


Frenchie caught this cobia off a manta ray during the week.


Frenchie and Ken caught these queenies during a hot bite down the coast

Fish what fish. The end of April and half way through May had some very good beach fishing, with lots of jelly prawns in close. Geoff, Done and Phil were fly fishing for ten days and landed over 500 fish on the fly. The fish were mainly Queenie's, trevallys, blue salmon and giant herring on the beaches and when the offshore winds eased some tuna of shore. Even after fishing Weipa for the last seven years [Geoff fishes in October as well as May] the guys said every time is different and cant wait for the next trip.