July 2019 - Hinchinbrook FNQ

 Another great visit to one of my favourite parts of the world. Far North Queensland is a place like no other. Tree covered mountains rise from sugar cane covered coastal plains which give way to complex estuaries and reefs. Both teaming with fish. Albeit not always on the chew!!!

This particular visit was the first outing of cousin Brad's boat post the  Feb 2019 Townsville floods.  The boat had a significant rebuild due to the corrosive nature of the flood waters that swamped the boat at its Idalia address which also took its toll on many Townsville homes including Brad n Dot's.

At late notice we kidnapped Chelsey from her chilly Canberra School holidays to join us to catch up with Brad's Anna for a short break holiday in Cardwell to enjoy winter, FNQ style. This is the way winter should be. 

But this is about the fishing adventure!!! Suffice to say that the arctic blast that blew up from the southern states was not at all helpful. Locals had never seen the overnight temps at 8 degrees, nor had the barra, or jacks. Sounds like jilted fishos looking for excuses. Yep.  We did it tough. Not many fish but lovely so I shouldn't complain.  Flicking lures anywhere around the magnificent Hinchinbrook Island is always a much cherished privilege. We could have looked to the dark side of live baiting or trolling but we stuck to the game plan that has worked for us before, that being flicking light weighted soft plastics, working the edges as close as practicable.  Alas, over the 3 days that we stuck to this plan we only got one barra, albeit small at about 35cm.  We also dropped a good jack at the boat. We did boat several trevally, plenty of cod and nailed one descent blue salmon.

A huge thanks goes to Brad for pulling out all the stops to get the flood damaged "Green Hornet" back to a reliable and functional fishing machine in time for this adventure. 

And a huge thanks to Denise and Camo for letting us use their amazing holiday cottages at Hinchinbrook marina. Thanks so much, shame you couldn't get there at the same time to share in the fun. We love the fact that we can call your beautiful cottages our FNQ home. We look forward to our next visit to FNQ and hopefully you are at Hinchinbrook.