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Luring Cooktown

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sudanraghu2210 View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote sudanraghu2210 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Jan 2022 at 1:59am
Martin, you guys really had a g8 day with some huge & beautiful catches ................ cheers!!
Its takes years of hard work, commitment and passion to give a life to a piece of raw timber !!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Jan 2022 at 8:22pm
Originally posted by seagull seagull wrote:

Martin you must have the biggest lure tackle box there is to have in the world qt your place. How do you find your way to the kitchen without getting hooked up 

LOLLOLLOLLOL

Just 4 large tackle boxes….. and a few smaller onesBig smileWink
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Jan 2022 at 8:29pm
Originally posted by sudanraghu2210 sudanraghu2210 wrote:

Martin, you guys really had a g8 day with some huge & beautiful catches ................ cheers!!

We have a great fishery here- always have an encounter with a big fish, although it doesn’t always end well.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (2) Thanks(2)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Jan 2022 at 8:41am
We finally had a couple of days of good showers. It only caused minor flooding and nothing like it he “wet” we really need. At the wharf the water was the same colour as a Werther’s caramel and just as translucent but there were some barra and mangrove jacks busting up through the surface.

I brought out a HJK stickbait and started working it for a Jack. I got about 10 hits from jacks and barra, including one it barra easily 90 cm( thankfully it didn’t hook up as I really didn’t want to catch an out of season barra especially of that size). I did however hooked onto a 68 cm barra that was quickly released.

This fish was skinny so it had already bred. Being right on the cusp of turning female I don’t know if it was a male or a female but it went back in a healthy state.


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote paulpaul Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Jan 2022 at 8:26pm
Found this forum while looking for Cooktown information, will be based there for a few months from next week. Just wanted to say thanks Martin for all the reports. Ill be into them all.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Jan 2022 at 10:51pm
Originally posted by paulpaul paulpaul wrote:

Found this forum while looking for Cooktown information, will be based there for a few months from next week. Just wanted to say thanks Martin for all the reports. Ill be into them all.

Cool Paul, glad you found them informative.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Feb 2022 at 8:36pm
Been a while since I have posted on this thread.

Life and poor fishing conditions has got in the way. Luckily there are a couple of promising looking days coming up so I should get out a couple of times over the next week.

Meanwhile, here a photo of a dead 2 metre salt water croc that washed up on Cherry Tree Bay. Looks like it might have been hit by a boat.


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Feb 2022 at 9:32pm
Mickey Rat and I finally got out this morning. The plan originally was to fish a close in reef down the coast so we could zip back quickly with an expected wind change. But checking the B.O.M. site for an update that said that the winds had dropped off, we decided to head out to a further reef that I had barely touched.

A bit of fun with a couple of bludger trevally in close. We saw a few schools of some sort of small tuna species working but we trolled our lines through one of many schools of bludgers, but at least they were fun.

We they blasted out to out chosen reef and trolled lures again for a bit of a look around. Michael trolled up the smallest spanish mackerel we had ever caught at 50 cm long. We were by then keen to start casting the shallow reef  so we gave up on the trolling idea.

The fish were sort of interested in our lures but not very switched on. We both had a lot of "touches" and brief hook ups with some big fish that often "let go" of the lures after an initial "mouthing" of the lure. We managed a few good fish though and brought back a 36 cm stripey (big for this species and highly rated as an eating fish) and a 54 cm coral trout and a 47 cm passion fruit trout. I let go a 51 and a 52 cm flowery cod. I just  have a soft spot for these fish and prefer not to keep them - don't as me why. But we ended up with enough fish to satisfy our needs anyway.

A couple of interesting things happened. The first was a big trout that I estimated to be over 80 cm just lazily idled up from 5 metres of water to my Fugly "Martin's minnow" and swallowed it then lazily started swimming away. When I struck the hooks home it just shot to the bottom and cut me off on a small piece of coral, I was under gunned in the line size for this fish. This fish was the king of this area and was used to having things his own way.

The second interesting thing happened as I was pulling in a small stripey of about 20 cm. A flowery cod smashed it on the surface and next thing I'm fighting this cod. It promptly spat out the stripey, and I cast it back out to where I last saw the cod disappear to. The cod came back and mouthed the stripey again. Once again I was fighting the cod and it spat the stripey out but the lure became lodged sideways in it's mouth, until about 3 metres from the boat where it was able to spit out my lure.

The trip back home was going nice and smooth, calm conditions, no wind, until we saw the storms over the land to the south of us. We got back to the boat ramp just as the rain started. But 30 minutes later it had stopped and was soon replaced by bright sunshine. Seems like the storms blew themselves out before they got to us.

Weather / wind forecast for the week end has changed again but if all goes well then I'll be back out again Monday.

The bludger trevally. Mine was caught on the now missing Martin's Minnow.






Some more fish on the Fugly Martin's Minnow








Fish on Ganesy 's lures












Big Al's lure is next. This lure was hit and mouthed a few times but only the one hook up. One of the dropped fish was a nice spangled emperor that made it to the boat but it didn't want to come in Cry



Martin-

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote p.j. Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Feb 2022 at 1:18am
Good to see a report from you again Martin Thumbs Up
Not the biggest catch, but still some good action 

        Knaek & Break 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Feb 2022 at 7:11pm
Thanks Per.

Back out again tomorrow but if the weather predictions are correct then it'll only be close to shore. We'll make the call in the morning with more up to date weather forecasts.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Feb 2022 at 6:02pm
Fishing was cancelled today because the winds came up. Usually a westerly wind means relatively flat water for quite a way out but the app I use said that it was going to be a sloppy sea just a few kilometres out. As it turns out it was super flat all day.

Even though it pouring rain at the moment, tomorrow is supposed to d flatter then today so we’ll go out tomorrow all going well.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28 Feb 2022 at 6:29pm
Mickey Rat and I went out this morning in a westerly "breeze" which became stronger the further we went out. By the time were we 3/4 of the way to the first reef - our intended destination, the surface chop had become very sloppy so we came down off wide open throttle and started trolling lures for mackerel. The mackerel weren't co-operating  (it is generally the wrong time of year for them) but I made sure we were passing our deep diving lures over some deep reef areas. That paid off for me with a 59 cm bar cheek trout caught on a Terry Marshall made Garra Wildcat.

We rounded the end of the reef with the intention of fishing the eastern side (with a westerly wind this makes it the lee side). There were 2 methods in my thinking with fishing this section on the reef. The first is that I was hoping the shallower reef would offer us a bit of protection from the sloppy waves and take the sting out of them. Alas this was not so as it was high tide and we were b umped around a lot. 

The second reason was that I wanted to test a theory I have been formulating on the fishing being better on the lee side of the reefs. Now going by todays results of only 7 fish landed for 2 blokes for 7 hours (including a 90 minute troll home due to the condition of the water  chop), it would seem that this isn't so.  But there are a number of reasons why today didn't produce so well and a number of reasons why it should have. I think it will take a lot more trips out on a westerly wind to unravel this more. But as Avocado Mick and I have found out on a regular basis, the western and the north west of a reef seems to fish better and our usual winds are south and south easterlies.

Michael with a 52 cm spangled emperor on a beach found lure.




A little 44 cm giant trevally on a Bass Attack made "Manboobs" lure




2 photos of a 42 cm coral trout and a 47 cm spangled emperor on a Circle V made foiled shad made by Verlon Caudill








2 photos of a 73 cm giant trevally caught on a Roy Durre made C.R.A.F.T. lure






And lastly - the 59 cm bar cheef trout on the Garra Wildcat lure





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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Steve B Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28 Feb 2022 at 7:07pm
Nice trout 🤙
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Mar 2022 at 7:51pm
I hit one of the closer reefs today. I normally don't fish this reef as it's never really produced too much in the past but I wanted to give it another chance. Also because it's a small reef and the westerlies were still blowing, I figured if I drift from the western edge to the eastern edge a few times and using the same lure, I would get a better "feeling" for my fishing the lee side theory.

But before I arrived at this reef I looked around a couple of other small reefs for not even a touch. I can't really draw any conclusions about the fishability of these reefs as it was the dead fishing period associated with the change of tide. As I got to Cowlishaw Reef my GPS showed a small green zone on it. Now this had me intrigued as to why there is a green zone of about half a hectare for no obvious reason. When I arrived at Dawson Reef I saw another small green zone, but this was surrounding the small light house on that reef. It then dawned on me that the small light house on Cowlishaw Reef has been replaced with a new one and in a different location. Seems like they don't want us fishing for light houses?LOL

Anyway within 10 minutes of hitting Dawson Reef I pulled up my personal best bar cheek trout of 64 cm. I criss crossed this reef a few times drifting from the western extremities to the eastern edge and the results were startling by how extreme the difference was. I caught nothing on the western  half of
the reef, not even a hit on the lure. In the next quarter of the reef towards the eastern side I caught a plethora of stripeys, undersized blue bone and wire netting cod. On the extreme eastern edge I caught a 44 cm bar cheek trout (with a near fully healed deep wound in it's back). The 64 cm trout was also caught on this edge.

So this only enhances my reasoning to fish the lee sides of reefs.

The lure I used the entire time on Dawson Reef was a little TBL lure. I forgot where it came from but it has caught me a lot of fish and has taken a beating.




The green zones of Cowlishaw and Dawson Reefs. These green zones are too small to mark on the paper zoning maps so make sure your GPS unit has them marked.





The 64 cm bar cheek trout


The 44 cm bar cheek trout with the wound / scar on it's back


One of the stripeys first, then one of the baby blue bone (blue tusk fish). This colour combo on the lure is the favorite combo of one of the guides up here for use on the reefs.





54165
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Mar 2022 at 10:35pm
I've had a slack attack about posting yesterday's trip back out to Dawson Reef. But here it is (the climb up Mount Cook today knocked me around in today's 40 degree celcius heat) ....

The winds were still predicted to be exactly the same as my previous trip to Dawson Reef - westerly with a slight movement to west north west. Well most of the prediction was true but the winds eventually swung around to a north easter. My trip back to Dawson was to continue on with my little experiment trying to prove that fishing is better on the lee side of the reef. Now by this I mean the shallow reef under 3 metres. It's pretty common knowledge that fish often pile up on the pressure points of structure in deep water.

I drifted from the west to the east side, trolled back to the west side and drifted back to the east side quite a few times. I only got one fish - a little stripey on the western side. See the photos below of my tracks for this reef on the two trips and where I have marked where I caught the trout and where I caught the stripeys. This is pretty convincing to me. I used the same TBL lure as the first trip, until it was taken by a huge coral trout, still in the marked area. I then switched to a Circle V lure and a Blinky's lure. All up I landed 2 coral trout, the largest at 385 mm, 11 stripeys, another blue bone and about 15 wire netting cod. All of the wire netting cod and the blue bone where caught in the marked stripey area.






A stripey on the Blinky's lure




Fish on Verlon's Circle V foiled shad -  blue bone, then wire netting cod, then a 285 mm bar cheek trout.








The just legal coral trout (bar cheek trout are a "type" of coral trout) on the now dearly departed TBL lure



The mountain I climbed this morning - the big one in the middle



And a 46 cm brown mowong I caught in the cast net chasing prawns tonight (no prawns)



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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Mar 2022 at 9:08pm
Been back in Cooktown for a few days now back from Innisfail. We are finally getting some good rain here. A weather report said that we have had a normal wet season here this year but it seems pretty dry one to me. Another report I read said that our wet season is going to be late this year- let’s see how we go but we definitely need a lot more rain here.

Fishing has been a bit slow up here. Very few boats have made it to the reef due to the winds and the wharf has been ordinary. I still do try my hand at bait fishing but my preference is lures. The other morning I had my bait rod go off while casting lures. I pulled n an “ angle” fish of some sort- somebody will know the proper name of the fish. This critter was lassoed by the line wrapping around the fish and the hook catching onto the line above the leader.

Yesterday morning I managed a 16 cm giant trevally and an undersized 50 cm barra on a Mark Andrew’s made Mark A Lure about 8 cm long. With 160 mm of rain last night, this morning’s fishing was quiet with brown dirty water I the river. Tarpon were smashing the bait and a couple of barra were occasionally booting but it was hard to get the lures right past the Garra’s noses for them to see it- maybe tomorrow morning will produce.

I was talking to Justin Coventry ( a member on here is he reads this- hi Justin). He said he was diving a reef and he saw a coral trout with a tag in it. As it seems I’m the only one tagging fish in this sea, and this in a reef tat I have tagged a lot of fish on, it seems like this was one of my releases.

The fish o the Mark A Lure




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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ducks Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Mar 2022 at 9:28pm
Looks like a bat fish to me. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Mar 2022 at 7:44am
ConfusedConfusedConfusedConfused
Originally posted by Ducks Ducks wrote:

Looks like a bat fish to me. 

That’s it Ducks- just couldn’t think of it.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Mar 2022 at 7:52am
This morning’s efforts using a Fugly Martin’s Minnow- an undersized mangrove Jack at 27 cm and a 74 cm barra. The fish were chopping everywhere but the coffee coloured water made it hard for the fish to find the lures. Roly scored a 52 cm barra on a soft vibe and we both had many short hits and dropped fish even though we slowed our retrieves right down to barely moving the lure.




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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 Mar 2022 at 3:44pm
Back at the wharf / waterfront fishing this morning. We have had a few days of rain lately so it probably brings us up to a normal wet season, but stretched out over 4 months instead of flooding rain that dumps it all in 1 month. Water was dirty again but the barra were still chopping. I scored this minature barra of 43 cm on a Gary Akers AK Lure and a tiny gold spot cod at 29 cm on a MFL (Moore Fish Lures).





I left the fishing earlier then usual as my sister and I had planned to go beach combing. We found the usual plastic lures and the odd interesting item washed up in amongst the tonnes of plastic on this 3 kilometre long beach. One of the lures I found was a molded Elliott's dart still in great condition.

I also found 9 old and broken bags of the devil's weed - this stuff was never going to go up in smoke.
An example of the bags of hooch-





I also found a carona virusShocked, funny how the spike proteins look like barnaclesConfused. N wonder people get sick with these coursing through their veinsLOLLOLLOL

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote samurai Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Mar 2022 at 8:56am
       Hey Martin, here is a idea, maybe you should try fishing with some of those Plastic lures you keep finding on the beach, might catch some decent fish with themWinkWinkBig smileThumbs Up                                                                                                                                                                                                            Cheers Warren
Any Brand Of Lure Is Only As Good As The Fishermen Using It.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote hooknose Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Mar 2022 at 10:24am
Nice work Marty !!,
Surprise, surprise 😁👍
Cheers Steve R  !!
MAN I LOVE FISHING ! ! !
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Mar 2022 at 7:31am
Originally posted by samurai samurai wrote:

       Hey Martin, here is a idea, maybe you should try fishing with some of those Plastic lures you keep finding on the beach, might catch some decent fish with themWinkWinkBig smileThumbs Up                                                                                                                                                                                                            Cheers Warren

Prefer to use the lures made by people I know and respect. That's just me though.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Mar 2022 at 10:04pm
Avocado Mick and I had been watching the weather unfold this week for the past 2 weeks. As he has moved to Innisfail, for him to spend 4 hours in a car to come up, we had to be sure that the weather was going to be good out on the reef.

Well we made a plan for him to come up and fish the reefs with me for today and tomorrow. So this morning we headed out on pretty flat water. We made the first reef in very quick time and we set out the troll lines. We had planned to go to a further reef but we often pick up a Spanish mackerel trolling past this one, but not today though.

We reached our intended reef and set about our drift. The tide was just about full but it was a large rikse and fall today. Usually I don't do much good on an ultra high , high tide but you can never wait for the perfect time to go out otherwise you would rarely fish. Well we flogged the water with all types of lures for about 4 hours with mainly little stuff coming aboard. Mick did get done over by what seemed to be a very big coral trout though.

We then decided to fish a different area as the wind direction hadn't changed like it was supposed to and the drift was a very awkward one to fish with. Upon our first bommie we encountered I pulled in a 45 cm coral trout off it using one of Per's Banana lures. Then for the next couple of hours very little happened again - part from Mick and I both loosing a big fish each (mine I'm certain was a shark mackerel that bite me off and Mick got bricked by what seems to have been a big coral trout).

We changed spots again to the north western side of the reef. The winds were still south easterly but should have been east/ north easterlies. This put us in the lee side of the reef. As from previous posts, this is where I believe the best fishing on a reef is - on the lee side.

Well it wasn't long before I pulled in 2 coral trout, the biggest at 44 cm which was kept and the smaller 42 cm fish released. Mick pulled in a nice 103 cm shark mackerel and a 40 cm coral trout. Then I was busted off by a coral trout that found the reef before I could exert any pressure on the line. All of this was within 30 minutes.

Now the options were to stay and catch more trout, or to quickly go over to GT corner and tangle with the big trevally. Well Mick is as big of a sucker for an argument with a GT as I am so off we went.

Upon arrival at GT corner the excitement was on. I had 2 missed strikes using a HJK stickbait (a very pretty orange and black one that I was considering hanging on the wall). This lure was taken off me by a big bruiser of a GT on the other side of a bommie. Mick then lost a plastic stickbait to a massive fish. I only saw the hole in the water as it smashed the lure but Mick said it was the biggest he had ever hooked. Well that one rubbed the line against a bommie and was gone. We then saw a school of big black breeding males smash into a school of some sort of biggish fish, but first I cast my HJK popper to a solitary fish closer to me and up came a 78 cm GT. We lost sight of the school of breeding males and continued on as we were on our last drift before going home. But before we motored back we had another lure each to donate to the GTs including my HJK popper at the very end of GT corner.

All in all it was a fun day, slow to start off but ended up pretty exciting.

Fish on a Bass Attack (Sean Sly) made "manboobs "lure. This was one of the lost lures. In these photos you will see a close up of a trout with a thick piece (50 kilos ?) of fishing line hanging out of it's mouth. In the gullet of this fish and into the stomach was what was a 6/0 or larger hook. Yet this was still a very healthy fish.








I must have caught 3 trout and not 2 before heading off to GT corner-



Fish on Joe (Hurtle) Flint's lure










Fish on HJK lures.










Per's banana lure




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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote p.j. Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 Mar 2022 at 11:26pm
Thanks fore another great report from you Martin, and for using my Wood Big smile Thumbs Up


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote rodsncods Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Mar 2022 at 5:40am
good onya martin, do the gt's turn black when in breeding mode? i thought they were a sub spieces called turrum. . .mick
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Love this report Martin, very nice day out and assortment of fish and lures. Looks like you had the place to yourself also which would be nice. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Mar 2022 at 9:19pm
Originally posted by rodsncods rodsncods wrote:

good onya martin, do the gt's turn black when in breeding mode? i thought they were a sub spieces called turrum. . .mick

I have been told that  the males turn black when breeding and from what I understand the turrum have a more squarish body. Even with the silver GTs you can just make out the faint lines of the "stripes" that the black GTs get.  By black I mean that they are a very dark charcoal grey with lighter coloured irregular lines going down their body that are also have a tinge of blue in them. The bellies of the "black" GTs can also fade to white with blackish dots over it.


I just checked "Grant Guide to Fishes" and it calls turrum as also great trevally but the description is a bit different to what I know as a giant trevally.( Mind you Ern Grant lost his government funding of this book back in the late 1970s). It quotes the turrum as being silver and says nothing about males  turning black when breeding.


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Mar 2022 at 9:22pm
Originally posted by Rivoli Rivoli wrote:

Love this report Martin, very nice day out and assortment of fish and lures. Looks like you had the place to yourself also which would be nice. 

There's a lot of reef off the Cooktown coast so rarely do you come within a few kilometres of another boat on a week day. On a good weather week end a couple of the reefs get busy but those are the ones popular for diving.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Mar 2022 at 10:00pm
Avocado Mick and I were back out again today. Pretty much the same as yesterday with it being slow to start off with. I did manage to put a few coral trout in the esky and a smaller but legal one back to grow.

The stripey snapper were hungry though and they are always fun. They are great eating and many people prize their eating qualities over barramundi and coral trout. Most that I caught today were over the minimum legal size of 25 cm. The biggest ever that I have seen come aboard my boat went 37 cm but I'm happy to put them back for somebody else.

Mick was using a Kuttafurra 120 minnow (120 mm long) and was smashed and taken into the coral without any hope of fighting it. About 10 minutes later the Kuttafurra 120 I was using was smashed and I fought it for about 2 minutes before it powered under a coral ledge. We can only guess that they were huge coral trout or spangled emperor. Mick did land a nice 50 cm spangled emperor using a Seagull (Errol Wishart made) lure.

We trolled for mackerel without any success as we headed to the reef where GT corner is located. We saw a lot of giant trevally but they were largely not interested. Mick had a hit on a budgie murray cod lure he was playing with but I connected to and landed a 76.5 cm one using a Kuttafurra lure that I have only ever seen one of - a sub surface deep bodied minnow. This lure also hooked a barracuda about 1.3 metres long until I managed to free it with the gaff without getting it in the boat (don't like long toms or barracuda in the boat - too many teeth flash about).

Another fun day, Mick was a little seedy after a night partying but he hung in there. Once again the lee side of the reefs proved to be much more productive for us.

David Pearce made lure and fish. The best 2 trout for the day came off thkis lure - a 47.5 cm and a 48 cm coral trout, plus some reefies.





stripeys , and what is actually known as a longfin rock cod








Rivolli, one of your lures caught quite a few stripeys. Here's a photo of one of them. 




Mick with the Seagull lure and the spangled emperor and one of the many small reef fish it caught.






Kuttafurra lures now.
















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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote rodsncods Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Apr 2022 at 5:03am
Originally posted by horrorhead horrorhead wrote:

Originally posted by rodsncods rodsncods wrote:

good onya martin, do the gt's turn black when in breeding mode? i thought they were a sub spieces called turrum. . .mick

I have been told that  the males turn black when breeding and from what I understand the turrum have a more squarish body. Even with the silver GTs you can just make out the faint lines of the "stripes" that the black GTs get.  By black I mean that they are a very dark charcoal grey with lighter coloured irregular lines going down their body that are also have a tinge of blue in them. The bellies of the "black" GTs can also fade to white with blackish dots over it.


I just checked "Grant Guide to Fishes" and it calls turrum as also great trevally but the description is a bit different to what I know as a giant trevally.( Mind you Ern Grant lost his government funding of this book back in the late 1970s). It quotes the turrum as being silver and says nothing about males  turning black when breeding.


well that's arse about face isn't itConfused. . .mick
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 Apr 2022 at 3:27pm
Yeah I don't know what to make of that Mick.
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Both of you guys had a good time after some ups & down, amazing catches with adorable colors Clap.
Thanks Martin & Mick for sharing your adventure.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Apr 2022 at 6:35am

Ever since the first dirty water from our only “flooding”rain period came down the river (we have had a very long and drawn out wet with very little dirty water), the giant trevally have evacuated the premises. During the dirty water a barra went off their heads – but I was in Innisfail – as the way it goes.

Now we have showers but not enough to get the barra really active, or should I say – bring the upstream barra downstream to us. We have our resident barra around the wharf that I have written about before, you know those ones that have seen all manner of lures and baits and are so well educated that they are nearly impossible to tempt. I’ll include a photo here of all of the lures I tried one morning to try on them (the spinnerbait lost it’s skirt and grub to a snagged line).

These resident barra become active on the right conditions but are not easily fooled. They chase the small hardiheads and at one stage to get an interest from them you only had to give them something the same size as a hardihead. Now they are much more selective and at times even a live hardihead as a bait won’t work, if it doesn’t swim naturally then it gets ignored. A couple of locals were having success by pinning garfish through the nose and swimming those through the water. But lately people are watching barra stand off a free swimming garfish then leaving – they learnt that they cannot trust even a free swimming garfish.

So for the last few mornings, with the right tide early, I have been trying to ensnare one of the dozens of barra seen swimming around under some lights. These barra range in size from around 60 cm to well over a metre long. I have been trying many different styles, sizes, colours, techniques but still haven’t landed one of these smart alecs. The only barra I have landed recently was a small 32 cm fish on a HJK minnow further down the wall.

I’ll recount this mornings efforts. I took along a heavy rod with 40 kilo line and a 24 cm stick bait. First cast and it was hit but no hook up, after that no interest what so ever from any of the 7 fish I saw still swimming around. I put out a 12 cm Murphy mid water depth mackerel lure – no interest after about 20 casts.

 I then bought out the 20 kilo gear again, my normal gear for fishing from the wharfs and rocks at the Cooktown waterfront with a little 3 cm lure, repainted in a light green on top with pearl sides, rear trebles removed and a 1/0 Mustad single on the belly. This was a bibbed lure but the bib had broken off and I used it as a stickbait. I flicked that lure like a fleeing hardihead and it was hit on the first cast by a tarpon but failed to hook up. The second cast and a barra in excess of 80 cm shadowed it before inhaling it. This fish dove to about a metre underwater then spat it. Checking the lure revealed that the hook had swung over the top of the lure thus not leaving the hook point exposed. Next cast and I landed a tarpon of about 50 cm. With that tarpon dancing all over the water’s surface, it must have ëducated”the other fish as nothing would even look at it afterwards. I’ll try this lure again tomorrow morning, but I’ll secure the hook in place with a piece of cotton going to the rear hook hanger so the cotton breaks away in case of a hook up.

I tried a few other various lures hat they had shown some mild interest in the morning before. One lure had brought a big metre plus girl out from under a pontoon, only to stop about 2 metres from it – then swim back to cover. Now this water is opaque at the moment from stirred up sediment caused by the strong winds. I doubt that it saw the lure but knew by the vibrations that it was one not to tangle with.

Another previously used lure I placed near a couple of hardiheads. These two hardiheads then swam with it as it safety in numbers and hanging with a home boy. One of them strayed a little too far from the other and my lure and was boofed down the barra’s throat. A tactic I use when chasing the small GTs when they are around is to watch where the bait is about to erupt out of the water (you get to recognised this) and cast my lure into them and hope that the splash down of your lure draws their attention and initiates a reactive response. Using this technique you have to be quick, but this hasn’t worked on these smart arsed barra for me, they just smash the hardiheads all around the lure.

So I finished the morning’s session today without a barra. Tomorrow morning I’ll try a soft plastic grub again as well as my “stickbait”, but I’ll try the grub without a lead head as they don’t seem to like a sinking lure. That will mean that I’ll need the wind behind me to get any distance casting. I’ve got to keep on trying new things on them, but after a couple are hooked I would have to come up with something new again.


PS - This morning has not gone well. The barra are there but not even a follow. I'll see how I go chasing queenfish at another spot.

If the posting of this report seems odd with the timing - well the internet connection at home from the home system or dongle is once again near non existent. So I'm back to writing the report on a spreadsheet and copying and pasting when I park in the main street and use the dongle.



A little 32 cm barra on a HJK






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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote horrorhead Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13 Apr 2022 at 6:41am
Connectivity still crap even in the middle of town - here are the rest of the photos

2 TARPON - YES I used a soft plastic,,,,, times are tough on the barra front. the little stickbait with the second tarpon was lost when the wind blew it off course when casting to a pontoon. Those who have passes into Lakefield National Park are reported to be smashing the barra in the rivers.




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