Sailfish, Barra and more!!!!!!!!

The weather has been unreal lately. Most days are flat calm until the afternoon westerly kicks in late arvo. The water temp has been hot! - hovering around 31 degrees, with some parts of the creek up to 35. The barra have been on the chew and we have been having some big days lure-casting. Dave Bate caught the fat 98cm barramundi below. Offshore the billfish have shown up. On our best day, we landed 2, jumped off another 2, as well as losing a 200 pound black marlin after a brief fight!                      



                             

Patton Party

Mark Patton, son Andy, Mick and Drew arrived in Weipa earlier this week all chomping at the bit to get to amongst the fish. The week produced a massive variety of fish and fishing styles. I think we covered most bases - jigging with metals and plastics, bait fishing on the reefs, trolling lures for pelagics, popper fishing, live baiting and lure fishing up the creeks just to name a few. There were some real purple patches during the week with a couple of sessions being glassed out with Spanish mackerel and tuna every where. Throw your diving lure or popper out, wind back fast, and watch it get hammered. One afternoon, Guide Josh Lyons put the boys onto a hot threadfin salmon bite, landing 9 up to 86cm, as well as a handful of barra to 77cm. The water temp has warmed up 2 degrees this week and is hovering around the 30 degree C mark. Should make for some interesting barra fishing in the coming weeks!

Offshore Hotting Up

Offshore has been hotting up the past few weeks with good numbers of big queenfish and Spanish mackerel. There have been some good-size golden trevally and brassy trevally thrown in the mix, as well as some very tasty tuskfish, fingermarks and Red Emperor on the soft plastics. The tuna have not arrived in force, but there are still enough around to get a fix!

1st Time

It was Richard and Steven's first time saltwater fly-fishing this week and Weipa did not disappoint. The week was filled with crystal clear skies, gin clear flats, endless fish to sight-cast to and a lot of trout striking. The tuna probably proved the biggest challenge with the few that were about being very skittish, but with patience and a lot of near misses, we managed to get our tuna fix most days. The salmon were out in good numbers along the beaches. It was pretty funny to watch as Richard and Steven ran up and down the beach tripping and stumbling on fly lines while making rushed casts [need to post footage]. Queenfish on popper flies were definitely a highlight with the boys happy to put up with an ordinary hook-up rate on the popper-fly just to watch the bite!