Townsville

TOWNSVILLE Dave Hodge

Mother Nature has been very fickle lately. One minute we’re sweating and discussing how warm it is for winter, then in blink of an eye we’re having record frosts in North Queensland not far from the coast by customers at the Fishing Warehouse where I work. With water temps down as far as the mid-teens, you can imagine the effect this would have on the fish. The coldest we caught barra in was a freezing 17°C.

One effective tactic that’s becoming more widely accepted is downsizing your lures when targeting fish in cold weather. This was demonstrated when my mum and dad came up to Townsville to escape the Kootingal frosts and enjoy the lovely warm winter days that are a drawcard for grey nomads at this time of year. The day they landed we had the coldest day in Townsville for 81 years. I couldn’t have timed it worse to try and get him a few fish. Bait fishing was going to have to do for the first few days, and I rigged half pillies on 2/0 and 3/0 bait holders and suicide octopus fished on lighter rods. A precession of decent bream, GTs and some smaller jacks were landed from the bank,

and Dad was quite happy. As the water warmed a little over the next few days the jacks became more active, and he was keen to chase them so we launched the boat to give us a better chance. Three times Dad got smoked on 40lb braid and 50lb leader and 4/0 suicide hooks with a small ball sinker running down on top of the half pilly rig. He just couldn’t stop the bigger ones.

While the young bloke and Dad mucked around with baits, I was focussing on lure flicking and I managed a few legal-sized fish, including barra. The thing is though, the barra I could see on the sounder wouldn’t touch a lure until

I dropped it down to a tiny 3 1/4” Atomic Plazo with the head trimmed down and mounted on a 1/4oz jighead with a no. 1 hook. This kind of ‘jellybean’ tactic is a good option when all else has failed.

More recently the weather has been warm and what you’d normally expect for up here, and the fish are loving it. My mate Mick Rennie and I headed out for an early morning start to see what was moving around, and as the water temps increased throughout the day, so did the fish activity. Big jacks and plenty of small to medium barra got in on the action, along with the biggest pikey bream I’ve seen. GTs are also thick everywhere at the moment, and so are the smaller queenies. It’s like a switch has been flicked, putting them back

on the bite.

Weedless plastics fished deep are a go-to tactic for us in winter. The sluggish fish don’t like to move too far from cover to take a lure, and if you don’t use weedless plastics you can get snagged up quite often.

Fluoro colours are another trend that seems to be associated with the colder months. The Halco Paddle Prawns in the fluoro orange or pink in the 4” and 5” are consistent for us, and so is the Atomic Prong in radioactive rooster in the 3” and 4” size. When the water clears up in the shallows, we switch to the raw prawn 4” Paddle Prawn.

Mackerel have been absolutely thick in many locations, and both Spanish and doggies are being caught in good numbers on trolled hardbodies. Marlin are regular bycatch, and

some anglers are having several hook-ups in a day.

Since it’s warmed up a bit, the doggies are snapping at everything they possibly can. Even bare hooks are being snipped off – now that’s hungry.

Grunter have been a lot less active in comparison to their normal seasonal trends, but this will no doubt change as the water becomes a little more comfortable.

Ultimately, at this time of year the important thing is to try different approaches until you find what is working on any given day.

A big Jack that couldn’t resist a Paddle Prawn in fluoro orange.

cold days. A ‘cranky’ wind has been relentlessly pounding the coast as well. As I write this report it’s all nice and normal again, but we’re ready for an unpredictable change without notice.

These weather-related mood swings have obviously had a serious impact on the fish’s behaviour. Tropical species just aren’t used to frosty – yes, I said frosty – mornings. I have been shown photos of genuine Mick Rennie with a nice creek jack that gave him heaps on his light spin outfit.

The 1/3oz Atomic Seeker EWG in 6/0 is a good option when they’re sitting deep in cover. The colour is a consistent producer in most water colours.