Hinchinbrook annual trip

Each year, I plan a trip to fish the Hinchinbrook Channel. My father lives in Townsville, so it’s an easy flight and then an hour and a half drive north.

We always base ourselves at the southern end at Lucinda. Lucinda is a perfect place to stay and explore the area.

There are plenty of creeks close to the ramp that offer protection from strong wind.

It also offers good access to the offshore grounds and the famous Lucinda Bulk Sugar Loading Jetty.

The jetty is used to load sugar onto ships and is nearly 6km long.

It’s an amazing site and has hundreds of pylons that hold a huge range of fish.

The water in close is about 7-9m deep. Halfway out to the end of the jetty is a shallow section that rises up to around 1.8m.

From there it drops back down and at the end of the jetty, it gets to about 15m.

Most anglers head straight to the end of the jetty to fish, but plenty of good fish are also at the start of the structure.

 

 

Usually, my brother Chris or my partner Ashlee come with me on this trip to Hinchinbrook, however neither of them could make the start of September this year.

My regular fishing friend Benny got a call and he was more than happy to come, having never been there before.

We arrived in Lucinda before lunch and quickly dropped our gear off at the accommodation we’d booked.

My dad and his wife Debbie were due to get there a bit later that day, so we jumped in the boat and went up the channel.

Things started off a little quiet, until later in the day when the tide started running back in.

One of my regular spots looked promising, with plenty of fish on the chew.

Plenty of mangrove jack, cod, bream and a few grunter were landed, but the size was disappointing.

 

The weather looked good for the next few days for Hinchinbrook, so we decided to head out to the jetty the following morning.

Things were looking a bit quiet out there too, with no one in any of the boats catching a thing.

I managed a nice grunter around 60cm on a Zerek Fish Trap, but it was a lot of effort for the one good fish.

We went back up the channel to fish a creek that I’d previously caught a heap of fish from.

Once again, it started off slowly until the tide dropped out a bit.

Then the jacks and cod started to play.

We landed a few nice jacks and the standard range of cod from 20-50cm.

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