Species

Floodgates opened about a week before the comp was to commence. It was clean water, so competitors in the Gracemere Rocky Barra Bounty were still hopeful it wouldn’t chase the barra from the top half of the river. Only three days out, the water turned from clean to mud as the dirty water from the Dawson area arrived. I think …

During the heavy rain just two weeks prior to the trip, immense amounts of water had gone over the dam wall. Even so, we were still keen to give it a crack. As we arrived at the dam, a massive storm rolled through and we had to wait it out before hitting the water. We launched the boat at about …

While the fish vary in colour, there’s no mistaking their pointed head – complete with concave forehead – large jaw and, in these parts, a good-sized barramundi can weigh between 10kg and 20kg and reach lengths of around a metre. With a cool million bucks up for grabs in Tourism Northern Territory’s Million Dollar Fish promotion, locals are understandably a …

We headed back to camp for an arvo of beach fishing and chilling in the water watching an epic sunset. A plague of mosquitoes soon got us moving and we ducked into camp to dine on slow-cooked shanks for dinner. Day four started with a big breakfast cooked up by top bloke Stevo. With nice clear skies, no wind and …

We hit this area hard because of the consistent water temperature. In this section you can find numerous small points with bushy trees in 1-3m of water and water lilies along the edges. These points were by far the standouts. Dad and I located four points holding barra thanks to our Humminbird Helix sounder with Mega Imaging. Once we found …

Tackle I often see people going to target jewfish with tackle I feel is too light. The argument of having fun is fine but getting the fish in faster is better for both the angler and fish. Baitcast and spin tackle with a rating over 6kg spooled with 20-40lb braid with 20-50lb leader is my preference because it gets the …

The presentations were concluded and we managed to sneak into the top 10 in the three-man division, with the Whyte brothers absolutely schooling the rest of the field and Brendon Whyte taking out champion angler with an amazingly high score. This team really is the benchmark for other teams to try to reach.The brothers fish so well together they’re like …

I am not sure where they are feeding on the run-in tide but I’m still looking. Another thing that has been noticeable this season is the week between the new and full moons has fished as well, if not better, than the weekend around the full and new moons. While Gold Coast whiting will eat a variety of baits as …

LOOKING back over eight years of working with cod, with two professors, two doctors of biology and three biologists, not to mention 100 mad-keen cod anglers who stuck tags into over 1500 of these great freshwater fish, what has happened with the results? In Queensland, we are still using the same size limit for cod. Thank god. While in NSW …