February 28, 2005 Opal Mining Update - No 46 In North Queensland Fishing - Part - 1

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Well we are at last on our way to Cardwell in North Queensland, which is almost half way between Cairns and Townsville, so here is the local map again for the regular readers to refresh there memories, as you can see it Cardwell is opposite Hinchinbrook Island and right across from D on the Island which is called Hecate Point, the Fisheries Dept here in Queensland have closed off some more of the reef from amateur and professional fishing, so now I cannot fish past the tip of Cape Richards on the Island and that little rock at the tip of Goold Island, that is the boundary line, but if I could get to the reef itself I could drop a line in the water but that is to far out for us as it is 28 miles out.

Not much to report about on the way here this year, there had been no rain in front of us so it was good trip weather wise, the wind was even kind to us as on the first and second day as there was none and on the 3 day we had a tail wind until we got near Townsville where it turned into a head wind, but the trip was nearly over by them as we are only about 2 hours north of Townsville. (183 kilometers) We did run across something a bit unusual and it was this camel, we did go past a mob of 8 wild camels quite some kilometers before we got to this one, when I first saw this camel it was on Pats side right next to the road so I slowed up the vehicle and let it just crawl up to it trying not to frighten it, but as I was trying to get the camera ready it started to move off, at first I thought it was going to put its head inside the window on Pats side and what a photo that would have made as it was that close.

But it just walked around the front of the vehicle, across to the other side of the road and stopped by that puddle of water on the side of the road and started to take a drink, I had to shout at it to get it to raise its head for this shot, it is a tame camel from this little roadhouse in the background and must be used to vehicles, however you never know what you will see in this country when you are driving around in the outback.

We also drove through a swarm of locusts that covered over 100 kilometers, made as mess of the vehicle as you can see, lucky for me Colin the owner here had a high pressure water cleaner that he let me use to get all of this off, so that saved us a lot of work.

Here we are at the van park, this the owners house, nice colors, it is a very nice shady park with lots of trees and palms, lots of work required here to keep it like this.

This a view of the entrance and just across from the owners house, as our cabin is just inside the exit road with is to the left of this photo we do not use this entrance at all.

This is shot of the street that it is, again neat and tidy, the whole place is like this, it is not a very big place but has a name for fishing, the Barramundi is the most sort after fish here as there is a lot of creeks here and that is where they catch them, bit overrated as a eating fish in my book but it is supposed to be a great fighter as it does a lot of jumping when hooked or so they say I have never caught one as yet.

This is the cabin we are in, very nice it is with plenty of room inside, it is one of the newer ones and as you can see there is plenty of room for parking the vehicle and the boat and as it is the off season it is very quiet during the day and night, which is what you need when you have the alarm set for 5:00 am to go fishing.

This the veranda side, not neat, but dont need to be, there is plenty of room for everything including the Tucker box freezer in the background that the owner has supplied for us to use while we are here, handy for putting the ice in that we use for the fish box on the boat, plus other stuff that we keep in there frozen, I also put the fish fillets in here until I have enough to fill one of my freezers, then I will take it out of the vehicle and put it next to this Tucker Box and put the fillets in it, will take a while as we are not caching a lot as yet, for some reason they are not on the bite, we are getting one here and there, can also park the vehicle in front when it is not with the boat.

We have a professional Crabber across from us, John & Jan, they pulled in the park about 2 hours before us and are also here for 2 months, we have already made friends with them, hard working people and there job is not an easy one, going out in all kinds of weather and cannot have a day off because if you leave the crab pots for more than a day without emptying them, that is if he has any crabs in the pot (net) because if there is more than one crab in the pot they fight each other which can result in one or more crabs being killed or loosing limbs resulting is loss of earnings and a waste of the crab/s.

These are Estuary Cod, John the crabber gets these in his pots trying to get the crab bait, so he is giving some of them to me, then when I filleted them I give the carcasses back to him so he can use them as crab bait, I also give him the carcasses from any fish I catch and it helps me out right now as the fish are not on the bite and these cods as ugly and slimy as they are really are beautiful eating with thick fillets on them of pure white flesh, look a lot different when the fillet is on a plate I can tell you.

This is shot of one of the mountains on the Hinchinbrook Island, we are in the Missionary Bay and up the No 7 creek trying a fishing hole that is 43 feet deep, but we did no good as it was filled with small sharks and cat fish so we pulled anchor and looked for another spot.

This is another deep hole that is 54 feet deep but again it was full of small sharks and cat fish, when I got back a feller on the park here told me that I am fishing them wrong, that I should not be fishing in the middle of them down deep, I should have been fishing them just on the drop as this is where the bigger fish lay in wait for the small fish to swim over the top of the hole as the water is going in or out, so I still have a bit to learn about creek fishing yet, this a another boat that was fishing this hole but no sooner had we stopped they pulled anchor as they were also catching sharks and cat fish and they moved up the creek a bit, we gave it a try but after the 2nd cat fish we pulled up and left.

This is my neighbor John the Crabber doing his job in Missionary Bay or I should say the creeks up in there, do does not mess around and does not stop for more than a minute to talk as he is working with the tide and move quick, to hard a job for this little black duck, I will stick to fishing as that is hard enough when they are on the bite.

This is a couple of crabs that I have bought of John, as they only have one claw they are worth half price where he sells then so we have got these 2 for dinner, of course I have just cooked them and they cost us $13.10 not bad for a meal, he also gets one now and again that has no claws and so far he has given 2 of them to us as they are worth nothing for him to sell to his supplier, so we are lucky to have this man near us.

This is a craft (dont know its name) that is drilling holes in the mud and then it will go back later and drive concrete pylons in there for making boat pontoons, so we should have a photo of the pylons before we leave, they wont have any more than that done so I will have to wait until next time to see the rest.

This is a Golden Trevally that I caught but as Pat takes a better photo then me, thought it better I use her as a back drop, that is one of our favorite spots in the background Garden Island and on the right of the photo is what is called Sail Rock, we also caught some fish around that last year only small stuff there so far this year and we loose fishing rigs there because of the rocky bottom and weed growing on the bottom, so if there is nothing a decent size around its not worth loosing the rigs, but when the fish are around, which there aren't so far here this is a nice place to fish and is 10 miles out.

Here is good days fishing at last, pity we did not catch them all, but we managed to get 7 Grunters (member of the perch family) nothing big this time just over the legal limit and a couple a bit bigger and there are 7 good sized Cod here from John, so I have 14 fish here to fillet, will get all of this in the freezer, we have now been to a new spot and have caught fish 2 days in a row, but as I said nothing big like we get around that Garden Island when they are there, but better than nothing, tomorrow is a day off for us so we will see what we get again when we go back on Friday, we are fishing along the side of a creek bed in what is called a gutter or drop-off and funny enough when these go off the bite the small sharks and cat fish take over, its then after you have caught 3 or 4 in a row that you know its time to move or go home, us we come home.

This is the new Ingle freezer that we bought last year, it holds 80 liters in mass what ever that is, but I recon it will hold about 30 kilo of fillets, it is 12 or 240 volt and is made of Stainless Steel, it also has a temp gauge on the front where the adjusting switch is, beautiful unit, dont have to switch it over on power when it in the vehicle as it senses what power is on line when one is switched off and switches over to the other one.

We are just about over half full so far and would be almost running on empty without these cod from John, so I am grateful we are getting some in the freezer at all and as we are half way through our trip I am hoping that the fishing will pick up as I have another small freezer to try and fill or at least get some in as I want to look after some friends back in Coober Pedy when I get back, but me first, this freezer is for us and I should fill this with no problems with 4 weeks to go.

As the AC in our cabin has broken down, since last Friday which is a week tomorrow and was supposed to be replaced yesterday, which it wasn't as the company let the owner down on the time so he has got some one else to come and fix it tomorrow, would seem even up here they get treated just like us in Coober Pedy, the weather here is very humid, which the locals call hot and you need a AC to cool off the cabin in the afternoon, especially for when you have just had a shower as you sweat a lot and a couple of minutes after you have toweled off it is like you just walked out of the shower, at night it is cooling down and you do not need the AC at all, so here is my beautiful hard working wife taking life easy outside keeping cool in the afternoon breeze, while I am inside sweating and writing this.

This is what is called a Shovel Nose Ray, when swimming in shallow water it looks like a shark with the fins sticking out of the water, as I did not land this fish I estimate it to be approx 4 foot in length, it took me around 15 minutes to get it to the surface and see what I had caught and then I could take a photo of it, they are good to eat but I cut the line and let this feller go, no need to kill this nice fish which was good fun to catch.

This is another side shot, so you can see the flat underside and profile of it, this fish has no teeth, a lot of people call them a shovel nose shark, but they are not a shark at all, but a ray as it has crushing plates like a sting ray to kill it prey with not teeth like a shark

This is a shot of Goold Island, (see top photo) Goold Island is the big one in the middle, the small one on the left is Garden Island and one of our favorite fishing spots, but this year it is not producing many fish and the small Island on the right of Goold Island is called Mona Rock although it is a small Island, there is a deep hole along side of this but we have never caught any decent eating fish there yet and we have not tried it so far this year.

This is a small Grunter (member of the Javelin Fish family) but this one is different than the ones we normally catch, it has yellow on the anal fin and the large spike and some yellow on the rear fin on the top, apart from that it looks like the other Grunter.

This is a nice Black Bream, we caught 5 of these today, this was the biggest, we also caught some small grunters that were undersize and had to be thrown back, so we did not have a good day fishing again, but better than the day before this as we caught nothing and you cant get worse than that, thankfully John the crabber got 4 nice size Cod again today so we have some fillets to put in the freezer to bring home.

Today is the 28th of the month and we are fishing at the last channel marker in Missionary Bay in front of the number 7 creek, we saw this House Boat going past us with 3 dinghy's in tow so thought it would make a good photo, dont see many of them around here, we have already fished just inside the mouth of this creek and had no bites so we have moved near this marker which is also a good spot for fish but not today, after this we moved over to the small creek where we got the Black Bream yesterday, which is across the other side of the bay and behind the House Boat, we did not catch anything there either, so was another bad day for us fishing.

So far it has not been a good fishing trip for us, for catching fish that is, the weather has been great but not for the fish, there is not a lot around, even the locals are complaining, so it is not just us, if there is fish around we will catch out share for sure. This time last year there was plenty of rain around for you that are regular readers if you remember, this year we have had 2 small showers of rain so far and no Cyclones as yet to stir the water up, the locals that we have talked to say they need a lot of rain to get these creek fish going again, all I know is last year there was alot of rain and fish and this year there is or has been no rain to speak of and not many fish around and the fish that we are catching, the majority are undersize, so the locals may be right. We still have the Month of March here yet so we hope to be able to catch some more fish yet, this man John the Crabber across from us is looking after us and I have had a lot of Cods from him so far, so our 1st freezer is getting filled nicely and wont be long before we start on the second one, thanks to him they would be looking a bit sick and empty. I will try and get some photos of interest for you all to look at in the next issue, there is still some things here that I have not shown you yet, save them for when there is nothing else to talk about. Hope you have enjoyed this issue and look forward to the next one, hopefully we will have caught a few good fish and a fisherman always likes to brag about fish they have caught, But normally it Patricia who gets the big or unusual ones......... Stay Tuned for the next Issue, who knows what I will have to report. Until the next issue......... and wish me lots of LUCK. Cya Later, Stuart Bird. To return back to the Archived Page for more Updates click, Here!

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