Bush ‘n Beach Fishing Magazine Location reports & tips for fishing, boating, camping, kayaking, 4WDing in Queensland and Northern NSW
G’Day all, it’s finally February. Many will be excited for the first day of the month because it signals the opening of barramundi season.
Trebles have been changed, split rings checked, jig heads modified and tackle bags restocked with favourite lures.
The best tip I can give you is to make sure every piece of gear is up to standard, as big barramundi can and will quickly find anything that’s not up to scratch.
During the closed season, I found a few small schools of barra around Gladstone when chasing other species, though mainly they were spread out, in ones or twos.
To consistently chase barra, the Fitzroy River and Port Alma – with the introduction of the net-free zone many years ago – are the best places to find good numbers and sizes of saltwater barramundi.
Finding information on fishing around Rockhampton is easy now, with plenty of written articles, YouTube, fishing shows and social media showcasing what the area has to offer.
Locally around Gladstone, barramundi are a bit harder to actively target in numbers because you don’t typically find them in schools.
You’ll find an occasional fish near bridge pylons and deep headlands but more commonly they are caught around deep timber mangrove edges and rock bars.
Both lures and live bait work well.
If lures aren’t working and you know barramundi are there, try a live bait – it will often get the bite.
Barramundi can be an extremely frustrating species to target because they’ll show up clearly on most sounders, so you know where they are, but more often than not they won’t bite.
Patience and being willing to spend hours fishing the same location will eventually see you catching a few of these chrome-sided beasts.
I recently spent a few days with a friend exploring and fishing the area around Cape Capricorn, on the northern outside of Curtis Island.
Yellow Patch, on the inside of Cape Capricorn, is a picturesque safe anchorage.
Though getting in on a low tide can be a challenge, however once you’re in, there’s a deep channel that you can happily sit in on all tides.
From there you have access to the nearby islands of Rundle and Hummocky, the rocky outcrops around them and the wrecks and rubble patched throughout the area.
There are also a few creek systems at Yellow Patch and along the coastline heading north towards Cape Keppel.
We didn’t look at any of these creek systems, spending our time fishing off Rundle Island chasing coral trout, sweetlip and other reef species.
We did manage a few good fish, but the sharks were a constant menace, taking most of the better fish before we could get them to the boat.
Schools of mack tuna were thick around the cape and were easily tempted to take a fast worked slug, though again, sharks were nearby chasing most of the fish we hooked, so after catching a couple, we left them alone.
We trolled for some mackerel the area is known for, yet after an hour or so with no luck, we gave up on that idea.
Targeting trevally around the pressure points and current lines that can run off the rocky outcrops and headland around Hummocky Island was something else we tried.
Possibly a little under cooked in the gear department and not having ever done anything like this before, we didn’t have high hopes of hooking or landing a fish.
And we definitely weren’t expecting Phil to hook up to a huge giant trevally on the first cast of the morning.
Unfortunately, this didn’t last long.
Even with me driving the boat away from the rocks at a fair rate, this fish was pulling line just as hard in the other direction.
It found the bottom after a minute and left us in disarray.
We tried for another hour but with the swell increasing, we gave this idea a miss, to be tried at another time.
As we were at Hummocky Island and the swell was on the way up, we took the opportunity to head back through the narrows on a high tide and miss the rough ride home.
All up, it was a great few days in an awesome location – we caught good fish, lost many more and saw some unreal scenery.
It’s definitely somewhere I’ll be heading back to soon.
As this is the end of an era for this fantastic fishing magazine, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ben and the Collins Media crew for their support over the past 10 or so years and wish them the very best for whatever the future brings.
It was very rare that I had an article in on time, yet never did I get a nasty word said to me, just friendly reminders that my article was due and could I please get it in as soon as possible.
Also, a massive thank you to fellow contributor Keith.
He’s the one who pushed me to start writing articles many years ago, and my wife for helping me out over that time.
Finally, I would like to thank you, the readers, for purchasing the magazine over the long history of this great publication.
Cheers and happy fishing from Gladstone.
