Fishin’ Maggie

I took a lovely lady from Sydney on a Segway tour on Friday. She is a nurse and told me some interesting stories. One of the stranger ones was that in Langkawi and much of Asia they deal with stingers by spraying WD40 on the wound, apparently it takes the pain away. I hadn’t heard of that before, it needs further investigation.

She also told me her friend was killed on the jetty in the early 70s after a car driven by some elderly people drove down the jetty and crashed off the side also killing all 4 on board the car. That would make it one of our biggest fatal accidents ever.  Here’s an unusual one, the first  report from Geoff in a Stessr 4.95 Sunday was that while he was fishing the shipping channel a Marlin surfaced, followed the boat, swam up to the side, checked things out and slowly swam away. What a rush that would have been. After that 2 more reports, including ProDive of a Marline cruising the channel,that’s as good as it gets.

Thought the Grey Mackerel have left? They should have but they have made a spectacular return appearance off middle reef in big numbers for some reason. Maybe the bait schools have stayed closer, it is very late for Grey’s, but no one is complaining.

The weather looks perfect for the Christmas period, enough breeze to stop the lead melting on your line but calm enough for a snorkel.

Holiday season Feature Bay Picnic Bay Jetty

Picnic Bay jetty is a favourite for relaxed family fishing. It is close to the R&R Bar for refreshments and with shade for the hot or rainy days. Midway down the jetty there are weed covered coral bommies.  This area provides excellent fun for young kids to catch and release Juvenile Grassy Sweetlip, estuary and Gold Spot Cod and dozens of reef species. The best Bait is small prawns and squid. Lure with small Berkeley Gulps, small RMG’s, squid jigs and small jigs.  The end of the jetty has a dredged sandy sea floor and harbors schools of bait fish that attract Trevally, as well as Queenies. These fish feed just on and after dark as well as early am. They will often take soft plastics and well-presented bait and livie’s. Bait fish can be caught on a $3 Jig rig or by cast net. Live Bait is tops for catching large pelagic species which periodically stalk the jetty. These include Trevally, Mackerel, Barracuda, Catfish, Cobia, Queenfish as well as Reef species including Coral Trout, Cods, Emperor and feisty Sweetlip.  Also present are many species of sharks including Reef sharks, Tiger sharks, Hammerheads, Shovelnose, and Stingrays. The largest Pelagic caught here in the last couple of years was a 37kg Spanish Mackerel, off a floated Pillie.  The jetty has sun cover at the end, is great for spotting Turtles, Eagles, Kites large Rays, Eagle Rays and the occasional Dugong. A Dugong sighting can make your holiday. Watching sunset over the mainland is a spectacular while fishing from the end of the jetty.