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.

Video posts

HI everyone
Check out the video that Peter Holland posted on U - tube.

U Tube weipa 06 videos

We have been trying to get video on the blog site for a while now with little result, however this may be the way to get them to you.
We will try another one next week
Give us your thoughts by adding a comment click on comments at the bottom of each posting and click anonymous then just sign the text to let us know who you are?

Hot lure fishing in the creeks

Gavin Matthews and his brother John fished a week with me recently and had some awesome lurising action. 5 days were spent in the creeks and one day down the coast chasing pelagics. A variety of species were caught including barras, jacks, fingermark, cod, grunter, queenfish, blue and threadfin salmon, longtail tuna
In all, the biggest barra caught was John's 89cm fish. Some spectacular top water action was experienced with feeding barras sounding like a microwave full of popcorn! The action got better and better by the day with each of the last two days scoring over 50 barras and 30 odd fish of other species.
This is one of John's first barras on a top water lure. The bites make up for the lower hookup rate. Gavin with a nice cod which took him into the snags before being extracted. John managed to keep this tuna away from the sharks.....
Gavin did well to catch this jack from among mangrove roots on the high tide flat.

John with a harbour caught queenie. You don't have to go far some days to catch some great fish.

Newsflash!!!
We have availability due to cancellation for June 18 - 22 and 25 - 29
June is one of our best fishing months and is normally booked out 12 months in advance so if you are looking at coming up, check out these dates and send me an email wildfish1@bigpond.com

Steve Cooper's Trip

The Cooper family fished with us again this year, using 2 boats for 8 days. I had them for the first 3 days and then moved on to a new bunch of guys. In those couple of days some great fly fishing was had as well as some good beach side barra fishing.

Holy Jumpin Barramundi!!!

Tom with a good beach barra

Gerald caught this great Shovelnose Shark on a small baitcaster after a 40 minute fight. A maginficent effort. The frisky fish was released after this quick pic.

Tarpon are a great fight on fly also...

David with his Tarpon

Father and Son Steve and David with a queenie on fly double header only minutes from the boat ramp!!

2007 Kicks Off!!!

HI ALL, FIRSTLY, MY SINCEREST APOLOGIES TO THESE GUYS WHO FISHED WITH ME A FEW WEEKS AGO FOR TAKING SO LONG TO PUT THEIR PICTURES ON THE NET AND MAKE THEM FAMOUS - STEVE (BUCKO), FRANK, AUSSIE ANDY, AMERICAN ANDY, MARTY & THE OTHER STEVE.
FUN WAS HAD BY ALL WITH A VARIETY OF FISHING INCLUDING ESTUARY, BEACH AND OFFSHORE SPORT AND FLY FISHING. AMERICAN ANDY WAS IMPRESSED BY THE LUSHIOUS LIPS OF AN EXCITED GOLDEN TREVALLY AS OPPOSED TO THOSE OF THE SMALL SALTWATER CROCODILE WHICH TOOK A LIKING TO ONE OF HIS LURES UP A CREEK. ALSO PICTURED IS FRANK WITH A NICE QUEENFISH AND MARTY WITH A TASTY BARRA FROM A CREEK MOUTH AND A LARGE (BUT STILL ONLY JUVENILE) QUEENSLAND GROPER ON A BAIT MEANT FOR A BARRA. THESE MAGNIFICENT CREATURES ARE TOTALLY PROTECTED IN QUEENSLAND WATERS AND ALWAYS AN ACCIDENTAL CAPTURE. THEY INHABIT THE ESTUARIES UNTIL THEY MOVE TO OFFSHORE REEF AREAS WHERE THEY REACH SEVERAL HUNDRED POUNDS!! GREAT SKILL IS REQUIRED TO LAND A LARGE ONE IN THE RIVERS AS LIGHTER LINE IS GENERALLY USED AND COVER IS NEVER TOO FAR AWAY. THE LARGER ONES OFFSHORE CAN OFTEN BE OBSERVED HANGING AROUND THE BOAT WAITING FOR AN EASY FEED. THANKS GUYS FOR COMING UP AND SEEING WHAT WE HAVE TO OFFER FROM THIS GREAT PART OF AUSTRALIA.

First weeks charter 2007

Just a few images from the first weeks fishing with Dave Donavan.
these were taken underwater in a bait ball.
I have some great underwater movie footage also but as yet I can't post on the blog.,but we are working on it

The life of a baitfish is a stressfull one!

Back on line!

Hi Guy's it's been a while!
With the wet break and we have been to Africa checking out all the animals and stuff.

Notso and Kristy, Sue and myself travelled first to Dubai where we spent 4 day's with the Jooste family looking around this unbeleivable city. The skyline is a forest of tower cranes, as the city grows at an incredibly rapid rate. High rise after high rise appear to grow almost daily as an unbroken line of trucks file into the city bumper to bumper 24/7.

Dubai Airport

The mind boggles with the vast amounts of money and technology being poured into this arab desert to produce this amazing place. Shit, you can even snow ski in the desert on real snow!

This is the Berg the only 7 star hotel in the world and costs AUS$15,000 a night for the best rooms, but you can get a budget room for around AUS$6,500 If you like.

Nothing like a cold beer in a hot arabian desert watching the sun set.

From Dubai we travelled on to Nairobi the capital of Kenya and then on to Malindi which brings us to the real reason for an african holiday"FISHING".

I wanted to catch a broadbill swordfish on fly and from all reports this was the place to do it.

However to cut a long story short I had one shot when we raised one on the teaser on the only night we fished for them, and didn't manage to tease it all the way back to the boat.

It was a long night!

(picture Angela Jooste with her first ever sail on fly)

We did however catch 9 sailfish on fly between us and the Jooste family that organised the whole trip to Kenya and who we stayed with in Dubai.

Kristy managed to get a striped marlin and a sail on conventional tackle and I also caught a 200lb black marlin on fly which was only the second ever caught on fly in Kenya and the biggest on fly.

The blue water fishing in Kenya was sensational, they have a great fishery, but the boats and equipment leave a little to be desired.

My black marlin, check out the weather, it was like this the whole 6 day's fishing

Lunch! This red snapper was caught on a jig from the bottom, which was deep while I was fighting my marlin.

After the fishing, we took a 3 day safari out to Tsavo national park to see some of Africa's wildlife.

We stayed in canvas tents on the bank of the Sabaki river and although were upmarket safari style tents theey didn't appear to give a lot of protection against the lions.

I think the mossie mesh on the sides should be made from Kevlar instead of nylon.

I know Kristy did when the first night a hippo came charging down the hill which sounded very close to her tent as it crashed into the water in the river.

Kristy didn't sleep at all that night!

It was exciting though and very well run. Our guide was "Gaetano" was a great guide and very knowledgable about the wildlife and all the amazing bird species.

I would certainly recommend the whole Kenya experience, although it is a long way from Oz it is worth it.

The Wet

Upper Wenlock flyfishing





Caught a few of these little porkers also

Sooties will brick you everytime when fishing light

File snakes were prolific on the banks of the Wenlock



Well the rain has finally turned up!
It has been raining constantly since last friday the 26th Jan hence I have time to get something on the blog.
Previously Notso and I had been doing a lot of camping and fishing in the bush.
Prior to last week the weather had been beautiful, other than a few hot day's.
Over the Xmas and New year period we did a trip to Chillie beach and Portland roads on the east coast and came back via frenchmans road which was great 4wd country.
We got to see lot of the cape that we hadn't seen before and managed to get a few fish for the pond project downstairs from the top of the Wenlock.
Other than freshwater fishing, which I must say I have been enjoying thoroughly I haven't been doing much in the salt.
The family did do a camping trip up on the Skardon/Jackson over Xmas which was great and caught a few good fingermark, but haven' got out since.
My intention was to get out tommorrow but the constant rain may also put an end to that. Kristy with a thumper goldie
Anyhow here is a few pics from the camping trip and I will let you know how the fishing goes in the next week.
Brynn Philliskirk with a good Fingermark

The only charter I had in November and these guys had great fishing for barra. We released 85 barra in three days up to 112cm. The weather is hot but so is the fishing. I had plenty of time to catch my own fish and do some hunting but I would rather see these guys catch there nice fish. So hope we see more fisherpersons in November on my boat.

Xmas end of 2006

Permit doing the covered wagon deal

Hi everyone!
We havent posted much of late as we have finished fishing for the year.
Duane has gone down to Newcastle for a month, and Notso has just arrived back after his heavy tackle marlin season. I have been busily working around the house doing all the jobs that I don't get to do during my season. groover was up a few weeks ago to do a little fishing, and we went camping for a few day's and had a ball catching barra's and threadies and some great queenie and GT action.
It really is good to have a break, and pick up a rod!
My son Brynn and his girlfreind arrive tommorrow from Cairns and with Notso and Kristy,Sue and I are all going camping for a few day's over Xmas.

Next year is really shaping up well and looks like we have a new guide working with our team, Lee
Has guided with DeJaVu and also with Carpentaria Seafari's and has done a bit of work with Notso on the marlin boat. He is only 19 but according to Notso and Groover who have both worked with him are both impressed by his abilities and work ethic.
As we now have a full time 4th guide we still have a few vacancies left for one boat in prime time Apr/May/June so if you did miss out give me a call or email and see if we can work something out!
So to all our valued clients both new and repeat We at F.F.& S. wish you all a very Merry Xmas and a happy New Year and look forward to fishing with you and having a few laughs again in 2007

The last week in October seen the last charter that was a shame because the fish were jumping in the boat. We were heading down the coast to do some reef fishing when I seen this sailfish fining on the surface as we pulled up the fish came over to investigate. I had the still frozen mulet out of the esky and was feeding them over the back while getting a trace ready. As I looked over the side I could see the fish ten feet down eating the mulet

one at a time. We baited the hook and dropped it over, the fish swam up and eat the still half frozen mulet the hook was set and the game was on. After about 15 minute of great boat driving the sail was ours for some quick photos before release. The tuna were so thick you could have walked on there backs this 24 pounder was the size of quite a lot of them. We also got up the river for one and a half days with 50 barra caught and released and many other species these guys had a great time and will be back. It was a shame to finish at the end of October with the fish jumping in the boat.