Hi there, thanks for tapping into what we have to report on with our endeavours for the month. The start of the month still remained ugly from a weather point of view with south east winds just still providing a headache. We did manage a few coastal trips to save face but even they were a challenge and probably not worth reporting on as even the ‘so called I’ve got good sea legs’ clients got churned up. On a more positive note, it took till the second week of the month to gain momentum safely offering coastal and 5hr trips with reasonable results of nannygai, trout and gold spot cod. We pretty much maintained this program for a further week or so. It wasn’t till the third week that we started to see a decent shift in the weather and more consistent. Thus we started to offer up full day experiences to the outer reef. To be truthfully honest the fishing was red hot, no problem hooking into nannygai, spangled emperor, red emperor and coral trout. At times though the ‘men in grey suits’ stole the show entirely and made it difficult. Trust me we boated some cracking fish but the worst day I had saw me re-rig 40 terminal outfits thereabouts. Some of the heads of the fish we did manage to boat showed they were thumping fish. It was just a bad section of the reef covering 3-5 miles and I won’t be going back there any time soon. You change plans day by day and things ran a lot smoother once you avoided this trouble section. Very frustrating though because they were good sorts lost to the shark depredation agenda in that area.
School holidays saw a decent run of visitors coming through the region and the weather remained favourable. We found ourselves doing a lot of 4-5hr trips with families with the odd full day experienced angler. It’s been a nice change to hit calmer waters and it puts a buzz in your step.
It’s also been terrific to see more ladies joining us on charters, and yes, the ladies do normally catch the largest fish of a trip! Over the Reef Closure period 30th September to 4th October we’ll be only offering estuary or trolling trips, and then please remember we have the first Spanish mackerel closure. October forward bookings are looking busy but I wouldn’t say a typical gang buster period. Enjoy the footy finals in the immediate future with whatever code or team you follow.
We look forward to hearing from you when you want to book your Port Douglas Fishing Charter.