End of Season

Our final charter has finished today.

As you can imagine as much as I love my fishing this year has been very busy and I am looking forward to the break.

This week was great fun and some fabulous fishing.

We found quite a few Manta ray's and some had a few cobia and goldies with them.

The early rain started the jelly prawn hatch and most of the beaches had quite a few jelly prawns which really gets the action hotted up.

Lots of tarpon, goldies, giant herring, blue salmon and small queenies creating good fly fishing on the beaches and flats.

Duane has decided to leave us with some trepidation, and has joined the Rio Tinto workforce as a shift fitter. Duane has been with me since 2000 and has been an integral part of the business, and as some of you are aware a great fishing guide.

He will be doing some cameo appearances during next season, doing some part time guiding with us on his day's off.

FF&S wish Duane the very best in his new job.

It looks like we are going to have a good wet with the rain that we have already had and that should give the fishing a great kick start for the next season.

By the way we still have a vacancy in April and have had a cancellation late June which is prime time, so if you might be interested get onto us soon.

Those groups that haven't paid their deposits for their 2008 bookings please do so to secure your trip!

Almost there!

Well, end of season is almost there!
Oct was perhaps not our best fishing month, although there was some great highlights.
One day travelling along the beach and one of the clients said have a look at that big shark!
I said that isn't a shark, it's a marlin!
We tied lure on and trolled it past the 500lb fish. He immediately crashed the lure and hooked up.
The marlin took a long run then put his head out of the water thrashing back and forth. It then swam back toward the boat and swam under the boat and out the other side. He again put his head out and thrashed throwing the lure into the air.
A short but very exciting experience, for the angler, and on a 30lb spin outfit I think slightly undergunned.
This whole episode happened about 800m from the beach just outside the harbour, and in 14ft of water.
This was not just an isolated incident either during Oct/Nov we seen quite a few billfish which is encouraging as we wern't fishing for them.

On the 5th Nov I had a client ( Nick and Roz Durrant)and his wife fishing with small metal slugs. Both of them were on a double hookup whenroz's tuna was smashed by something we didn't actually identify, but dissapeared in a flurry of whitewater.
I released the other tuna and told Roz it is probably a shark just break it off!
She tried but couldnt break the 30lb Fins braid on the very light Sage spin rod.
She gave me the rod to break it off.
I held the spool waiting for the slow constant pressure to break the line when to everyones surprise a marlin slowly launched itself from the water 20m from the boat.
I quickly gave Roz back the rod, who was still, like all of us, in a state of shock and awe.
The marlin was around 200lb and gave us a fantastic show as it jumped and jumped with some spectacular airobatics finally after an hour losing it next to the boat when the line eventually chafed through.
I don't know how it managed to get hooked on such a small treble and stay hooked with a 4ft 45lb schneider leader?
But it did and made one angler very happy!
We also hooked some memorable fish jigging soft plastics over the reefs.
The fishing in general has been great over the past couple of weeks although the sharks are still a real problem.

One more charter to go before finishing for the year, and I am really looking forward to a break even though I am sure it will be a wet one.
Sorry no images today as I can't seem to upload them?
I will post some images ASAP

Three young guys were lucky there dads were into fishing. The dads had fished with us before and decided to bring there sons up for the experience. In the three days the weather was great we fished down the coast and caught GT, mackerel tuna and more. Dads got problems now because the boys wont to come back.

These guys were fishing for five days with very relaxed hours. We would pick up at 7 and be having beers back at the lodge by 3. Ten guys on four boats meant we could spread out to find the fish. The boat on the wide reef caught lots of nice treavaly and some tuna. Up the river there were barra, salmon, jew, fingermark and lots more. All caught good fish over the five days and will be back to catch more in the future.

Floss & the GT

Hi Guy's Check out the "floss" with a 20lb fly caught GT.

This is not a guides estimated 20lb either it is a genuine 20lb check out the certified boga grip in it's mouth!

Pay up Renee!

These guys came over from NZ to fly fish for some of the tough fish that swim in our warm waters. They have fished with us many times before and caught lots of fisher. The request on the first morning was for quality fish not numbers of fish. John had caught lots of barra on fly but not a legal size one so he was happy with his 63cm fish caught on his first cast one morning. We fished for Permit, Milk fish and Painted sweet lip (blue bastards) allot of the time with lots of fish of all species sighted. Doogle caught this sweet lip on the last day after hooking two others earlier in the day that got back to the rocks. In between the sight fishing they also caught lots of Trevally, Queenie's, Barra and more it was a good week weather and fishing.

This week

Dougall Rilstone from NZ with a fly caught King Salmon.

Kiwi John Dean with a great fly caught Goldie caught from under a manta ray.

some nice queenies and a big fingermark

The fishing in the last month has been good with lots of Spaniard's nice queenies when the weather is good the wide reefs have had good trevally and up the rivers the fingermark fishing is great on the jigs. Late July the Weipa fishing challenge was held I caught this 83cm barra and lots of fingermark on the first day. The second day Linda and I went down the coast and caught lots of reef fish and macks non of which were big enough. Wining sizes Barra photo graphed and released 100cm mackerl 10kg queenie 6.8kg trevally10.4kg grunter 3.3kg fingermark4.5kg and reef fish(nanigie) 6.2kg. If the fishing stays as good for the next month I will be happy, with the water warming it should get better.

Damian and Mario one night were sitting around with the guys of Notsos boat, after lots of scotch they decided to have a bet on the biggest fish caught the next day. At 9.30 Damian caught this large Queensland Groper and we new we had it in the bag. The other boat in a different river caught some nice fish with the biggest a 78cn barra but when the photos were shown they payed up and drank more scotch.

On my days of I still get to go fishing with the family and when the tides are perfict. When the tide is low in the middle of the day I can have my sleep in and still take the girls fishing in the prime time. 78cm and 67cm two of a bunch of barra we caught in a three houre fish not far from the boat ramp.

Steve Huff Visit

Steve Huff and Fish with a fine fly caught barra caught on Steve's Weipa visit



During late July I had the pleasure of guiding one of the worlds famous guides.

Steve Huff was the guide that guided the late Del Brown onto almost all of his 513 fly caught permit.

Steve guides in the Florida everglades and is a great fly caster and fisherman. Guiding Steve on his australian visit was a great and most interesting experience.
I can't wait to take him up on his offer to guide me in Florida!

Winter in Weipa

Well winter has come and gone and we have had some filthy weather over the last few months.

The fishing however has been pretty good and ther have been plenty of the larger pelagics on the bite.

The mackerel have been thick although ther are always casualties with the sharks also being thick.

Some day's you can manage to evade them and land a good percentage of your hookups.

Check out Maurie Mariani's fine Mack caught on a Shimano bullwhip baitcaster and Shimano 2 speed beastmaster, not a bad effort. The fish measured 134cm and managed to outrun the 9ft bullshark that was hot on it's tail.

Pete Leemon and his big queenie caught on fly on his first saltwater fly fishing experience.

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.