Fishin’ Maggie
What’s Happening on Maggie
Adam from Aquascene Charters has commenced his tours on his new much larger boat, after the digital signage wraps were added to the side and back of the boat, making it look pretty cool.
John has also commenced fishing and sightseeing operations in Barnacle Bill’s fishing boat, having completed his first paid trips this week. Good luck to both of you.
Have you ever wanted to go to the reef, but were time poor, or just plain hate boats? I have your solution. Janie and I had a very special and different trip to the reef on Thursday thanks to Townsville Helicopters. We departed Nelly Bay, from the old Helipad, and flew at 1000 feet out to Centipede and Wheeler Reef at a brisk 98 knots, (significantly faster than I get there by boat.) We landed on the sand cay at Wheeler Reef lagoon, for champagne, cheese and bickies, before flying home via Horseshoe Bay.
Try a full reef experience including low reef flyovers, in under 2 hours. It was an amazing scenic bucket list experience. Ring Townsville helicopters and book one, you won’t be disappointed. I GPS marked some good bait schools on the way out for further investigation as well.
This week was an absolute blinder for fishing, as those big bait schools moved even closer around the island. Billions of tiny whitebait are being followed by all sorts of ravenous pelagic species. The most sought after this time of year, are obviously Grey Mac’s although there are plenty of School Mac’s travelling with them.
There were, thankfully, way less box jellyfish dragged and seen last week, although there are some annoying fire jellies around, and a suspected Irukandji was found at Alma Bay. The suspect has been sent to JCU for testing. Caution and stinger suits advised.
Fishing Maggie by Land
Congratulations to Bill Popping, who has been struggling to get out fishing after a knee operation. Bill managed to get out to West Point on Friday with friends, and hooked and landed a 113cm Queenie after some spectacular aerial action.
The Trick with Pelagic’s is most definitely to be fishing at the right time, as they sweep through an area, not when the fish are deep and resting. Horseshoe Bay had a couple of those fun angling experiences last week, when the bait move through the bay and hug the beach, followed by hungry predators. Anglers along the beach found lines suddenly being slammed was tasty Grunter, hard fighting GT’s hard massive Queenies and leaping Tarpon took baits in a blistering fishing session. As they pass the fishing dies again. The same thing has been happening on the jetty, like Last Saturday, when, at 3 o’clock in the afternoon the bait rolled through and under, and the water boiled as Macs GT,s and other top predators all smashed the bait, and provided great entertainment for island visitors.
Fishing Maggie by Boat
Now is the time to fill your freezer with those very tasty and easy filleting Macs, so you have enough for the summer. There are plenty out there, they just take a bit of work. Morning and Afternoon are obviously better than middle of the day, and deep luring seems to be more productive than shallow. Last week trolling at depths of 4 to 7 m depth with lures or spoons seemed to produce much more action then shallow trolling. There is also the battle between light and heavy as I like leader, but most run wire. Last week was my most expensive lure week with 5 losses. Although my freezer is half full already, it was way too costly.
Ray hooked up a 15 kg Northern Bluefin a just few miles out from HB on Tuesday, while out with Josh. The hard fighting fish took dead bait off the sea bottom, which was rather unusual but much appreciated.
Josh had a great time at Chicken Reef, working quality reds and plump Trout on soft plastics.
Benny went out to Brewer where the Trout fishing was unusually brilliant. Benny said you could hear the cheers from other boats as everyone was pulling in good 3-4kg Trout.
Spaniards on the other hand were very scarce. There were some reports from the deeper reefs but not as many as normal this time of year. Mike S caught a 1.55 Spanny close to the Island on Sunday night. That’s a top fish on a grey spoon.
Until next time gone Fishin’…. be back at dark-thirty
Cheers Dale
Fish’n N Fuel’n
36 Mandalay Ave, Nelly Bay 4778-5126
For all of your fishing and sports hire gear. We hire and sell fishing rods, and snorkel equipment, plus sell bait, tackle, ice spear fishing equipment, toys, party, pool toys, and BIKE HIRE, SEGWAY TOURS and convenience supplies. Check out Kooler 24 hour Ice 7kg plus $4. New BIKE section. Rod and reel repair available.