FNQ - July 2022

This adventure was  more about a holiday up north catching up with friends and family at different stages. Fishing was more of a side show.

The first part of the trip was a week hanging with Jaz and Lyndal in Cairns. plenty of cool activities but no fishing. After they left to return to cold Junee we ducked down to Cardwell where Camo and Denise live right on the water overlooking Hitchinbrook island. Brad and Dot came up for a brief visit and we did get a couple of fishes in over the couple of days. Walking the beaches to the north was fun, but only rolled one rat. After Brad and Dot left Camo and I hit the Hitchinbrook marina rock walls where we have caught barra before. It was long until we got a couple, one being just big enough to keep. Which we enjoyed for dinner not even 2 hours after it was caught. Fresh as bro!

 As much as we were enjoying our time in Cardwell we had to make tracks to get to Port Douglas in time for B1, Dave's sons wedding. But before the wedding I had lined up a sport fishing charter with PD Sport fishing. B2 joined me on the charter, but B1 was too busy with wedding prep to join us. Sadly the wind was against us and we couldn't do as planned, which was get out to the reef and chase pelagics with jigs and poppers. We were forced to hunt closer to shore and were lucky enough to get 5 School Mackerel (about 60cm long) and one decent Golden Trevally. Sadly Tull's didn't trouble the scorers. 

Before we knew it it was wedding day. Fantastic tropical wedding. A real privalage to be part of Jems's & Al's big day. Not to mention B1 did a great job holding his role down.

A few days after the festivities Sharon and I headed down to Cairns to meet up with Joey and Marea. Joey was to join me on a estuary Barra charter that we booked months ago, but Joey broke his thumb dirt biking. Upon hearing that B1 jumped at the chance to join me. We had a cracker of a day. Rory is an excellent guide, even teaching this old dog a few new tricks. I'm happy to say that I finished a close second on the fish score. But when you get 15 Barra to the boat in the middle of the dry season, you know you have had a absolute cracker of a day. If you find yourself in FNQ and you would like a excellent guided fishing trip with a great bloke, get in touch with Rory. Tropical Sport Fisher.