Top Townsville trip

At the start of September, I came up with a plan to try getting my son Luke onto his first barramundi or mangrove jack.

His tenth birthday was in the middle of September, so I organised a plane flight for the two of us to fly to Townsville.

My father lives in this coastal city and my brother Chris was already there on holiday.

We surprised Luke after school on the Thursday, telling him the news.

To say he was excited was an understatement.

We went straight to the airport, landing at 8.30pm.

Chris has been going to Townsville for a few years now and had found a few land-based spots that were possible hideouts for our target species.

The next morning, we got to one of the local beaches near Townsville as the sun was rising.

The wind was blowing a little, which had some waves breaking on the beach and dirtying the water.

Barra prefer calm and clean water in these areas, so our hopes weren’t too high.

We flogged the water with a range of surface lures and lightly weighted paddletail plastics, giving it a couple of hours before deciding to move on to the next spot.

 

A southeasterly wind had kicked in by then, which had the fish shut down.

We hit a range of spots, from beaches to bridges to drains, and could barely get a bite – other than a fringe-eye flathead.

Chris had been out the day before looking for some activity and found a school of tarpon in one of the drains as the tide started to push in.

These were the biggest tarpon I’d ever seen, and they were in a strange mood.

They weren’t feeding but were constantly swimming up and down the drain and around in circles.

I’ve seen threadfin salmon do the same thing in one of the local rivers in Brisbane.

After talking to some anglers in the know, it turned out the fish were actually spawning.

As the tarpon were moving similarly to the threadfin I’d seen, perhaps they were also spawning.

Either way, we threw everything we had at them and never got a bump.

Some of these fish were pushing close to 1m long, so when they do eventually feed, there’ll be some spectacular scenes if you hook one.

We pulled the pin after missing out and went for a game of golf to wrap the day up.

 

We saw a couple of freshwater crocodiles on the course, which was very cool.

The next morning, we fished one of the bridges, yet once again the wind was howling, and the fish didn’t want to play the game.

We decided to fish a rock wall out of the wind.

Over the past few years, we’ve caught nice jacks at this particular spot – another target species on Luke’s list.

We were struggling to get a bite on a lure, so we grabbed a box of pilchard and started drifting half pillies along the rock wall.

It didn’t take too long before Chris hooked up to a solid fish.

He did well to keep it out of the rocks at his feet and a nice jack of about 45cm was lifted over the wall.

This boosted our spirits and we were all keen to get more bait in the water.

I pulled the hooks on a jack shortly after and then got smoked by a better fish.

It went quiet after that, so we moved up the wall a bit to a likely looking spot.

I pulled the hooks on another, then hooked up solid to a big fish.

 

It immediately tried to bust me off in the rocks, so I free spooled it.

This worked and the fish swam straight out to the middle of the river.

While the gear I was using was possibly too light to be chasing this particular fish, at that stage we were still in with a chance.

On several occasions, the fish came close to the bank and tried to get me into the rocks.

It popped up – it was a cracking big mangrove jack.

It took another couple of dives before it tired and Chris dragged it onto the bank.

The 30lb leader was shredded and it snapped as soon as it was on the rocks.

Chris pounced on it and had it up the bank before the fish could kick back in.

The jack measured 54cm – an absolute cracker for the Townsville area.

The tide turned shortly afterward and everything shut down, so it was time for some more golf.

The next morning, we returned to the same area, hoping we could get Luke hooked up.

The midges and sandflies were next level due to the lack of wind.

 

It was the nicest day we’d had, however we had only a couple of hours before needing to be back on the plane.

Because barra were boofing on the other side of the river, the bait was nervous.

Luke hooked up but it wasn’t the target species.

It was a flounder, a rare species to be sitting on a rock bar.

Shortly after, he got a good bite and sunk the hooks into a better fish.

As it got closer, we saw a red flash and got excited.

It wasn’t the biggest jack, yet it was Luke’s first and he was stoked.

To make it better, I hooked up while he was having a photo taken and it turned out to be another little jack, so we got to take a double hook-up picture.

We missed out on the barramundi this trip, but we ticked off one of the target species at least.

Of course, the weather improved after we left and Chris scored a few nice barra off the beach.

We had a great time fishing and visiting family in Townsville, it was good to see everyone.

Hopefully next time we can get Luke his first barra.