Species

AS a charter operator, mess and disorganisation seriously get under my skin. Now, if you know me personally I am one of the messiest people about, and the console of my boat is a clear indication of many moments of mayhem. Lures with rusty hooks stacked on top of each other and hidden underneath is a pair of line clippers that …

WHAT a relief. For a while there it didn’t look like we would be able to travel far from home at all and annual fishing expeditions to Fraser, Moreton and Stradbroke islands was under threat for many Queenslanders. Fortunately, that fear doesn’t look like it will be realised, provided we continue to keep this beast of a virus under control. So touch …

THE 2020 Barrabasstasstic Lake Awoonga barramundi tournament was held from January 9-12, with 40 participants across the junior and senior angler events landing 155 barra. The major award for the seniors’ event at the Lake Awoonga barramundi tournament was the Best Five Barramundi, taken out by Justin Nye and Roderick Walmsley in a tie. Both got their bag limits, with upgrades, …

HI, it’s Craig Tomkinson here. Before we get into my pre-COVID-19 impromptu trip to Fraser Island with the family… how was the late rain season? It turned up like it does most years, when school starts back for first term. We had fantastic soaking rain as well as some very heavy downpours. About 200-400mm has fallen around the area so far. We only …

FINDING the perfect lure is an almost impossible task. Most fishers overlook the hooks on their lures even though hooks are the most important aspect of fish catching ability. So what treble hooks should you choose when upgrading lures? With so many options available, it can be somewhat confusing trying to decide, but each has its place in a tackle box. …

THE plan right up until the Sunday afternoon of a long weekend was to head out early on Monday for an offshore saltwater session chasing mackerel. When rolling the weather dice, sometimes things don’t go your way. While loading the boat on Sunday arvo, I did a last-minute weather check, only to find the wind was getting up earlier than …

WHEN it rains, it pours. And pour it did, with some parts of the Gold Coast shaken and stirred, copping 500mm or more. You can’t deny we needed it though, and boy was it good to hear rain on the roof. With all the creeks and estuaries in flood, the systems are receiving a well-overdue flush. The wet can really change things on …

IT has been a great start to the year and we have scored cracking weather between wet season squalls and thunderstorms. Boating during the wet can be a gamble, let alone boat camping, because you simply can’t trust weather forecasts and it can turn nasty extremely quickly. The wet certainly came late, with heavy rain and thunderstorms on Thursday Island from mid-February. That …

EXPLODING in the US, the Ned rig is basically a stand-up presentation built around a mushroom-style jig head and a buoyant soft plastic, meaning in the water the plastic is either fleeing on the retrieve or rapidly standing up in a claws-up ‘defensive’ pose or tail-up ‘feeding’ pose on the pause. On the pause, the buoyant plastic moves around naturally …

THE 2020 barramundi season opened at midday on February 1 and I was on the water ready for the abundance. The season opening coincided with good tides and after only an hour, at 12.55pm, the abundance was clear – we had the first barramundi measuring a respectable 80cm. With the neap tides building towards the quarter moon, the fishing in estuaries …