Having been lucky enough to have been introduced into the fishing industry at a young age, I’ve been very fortunate to have been able to speak to thousands of people in most corners of the country. Of course those conversations almost always revolve around fishing, and to be more specific, lure and fly fishing. I’ve…
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I’ve just relocated from Cape York Peninsula after spending more than half my adult lifetime as a resident. It’s been a bittersweet occasion but I’m sure that my passion for the place will always stay with me. Once the Cape gets in your blood, it’s there forever! As many regular readers will be aware, the…
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It was an early morning run out along the shipping channel to the 3rd buoy. It was April 1986. I had been living and working across the Gulf Country, from the NT border, up into the western side of Cape York Peninsula to as far north as Kowanyama and the Mitchell River, for more than…
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I started out by using the title to this article as, “Fishing – The Changing Order”, suggested by good fishing mate, Kim Martin. Kim’s suggestion followed a lengthy discussion with a group of younger (and not-so-young) fishos whose opinions I greatly admire, about the relationship between observation and experience versus technology, and the reliance on…
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Do you ever really lose skills once you have earned them? Have you ever heard the expression ‘it’s just like riding a bike?’ Well if you never learned to ride a bike when you were younger then this opening paragraph is going to be all sorts of confusing. Basically what I’m getting at is once…
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It’s one of those rare occasions when the weather decides to drop out for multiple days. Consecutive days of 5-10 knots gets the anticipation nerves jingling. You turn to the minister of fun and finance and she just gives you the nod because we all know that being trophy husbands is bloody hard work. There’s…
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Yellowfin Plate Boats is taking its range to the next level with their new Extended Cabin models, challenging the fishing industry with new, innovative designs and boat upgrades. The widely known and trusted Australian brand has been operating since 1984 and now delivers upgraded YF-70 and YF-76 models to the Australian public, officially launched at…
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From the moment my children could stand on their own two feet my wife and I tried to spend time fishing with our children, be it in the boat targeting bream, barra or mackerel or pumping yabbies on the foreshore to target bream, whiting or flathead. As they have aged, we slowly started paring back…
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Growing up in the 80s as a super keen fishing kid from northern NSW, I gorged on VHS videos featuring the late Mal Florence’s exploits in some mystical place called North Queensland. Massive GT’s, brutal red bass and immense coral trout were wrestled out of crystal clear water against a backdrop of coral reefs so…
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I pen this article at the back end of what has been the best weather window I can ever remember. There was not a breath of wind and well below 5 knots each day but it was more about the eight or nine consecutive days of this. Not at any stage did it blow up…
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I’ve been on plenty of boats in my four decades of fishing, but I don’t proclaim myself to be a ‘boating expert’, which in my view has its advantages. You’ll be getting a raw, simplified and honest review of my own experience on the Edencraft 565, which made its way to Manly harbour from the…
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When the fabulous crew from the Australian Marine Centre in Slacks Creek invited me to have some fun in the awesome 6.0 metre Edencraft Offshore it took only a microsecond to hold up my hand! A date and time was agreed upon and the event couldn’t come quick enough as far as I was concerned!…
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Scott squeezed the car topper between a bunch of snags extending from both banks. The small creek, running southwards off the mighty Wenlock River, looked incredibly fishy in the early morning light, but so far had only produced interest from a couple of pesky archer fish. As I worked my Zerek live mullet through the…
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Do you head out fishing with a clear plan? I know I used to. I would look at wind, wave direction and tides, choose my target species and devise a plan for my day on the water. The problem with such planning is that I wouldn’t allow much adaptation. As an example, if I plan…
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One of the biggest advantages hardbody lures have over soft plastics is the ability to suspend. Being able to wind a lure down to a desired depth and get it to sit right in the face of a fish is very hard to beat. Barra in particular are an absolute sucker for a suspended lure…
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Following the demand by UNESCO and the ICUN to the QLD Government to ban all net fishing north of Cooktown (Fish and Boat issue August 2023), Fisheries Minister, Mark Furner, announced that a new ‘working’ group has been created to ‘maximise’ fish tourism revue streams for Cape York communities. The11-member group is a non-statutory advisory…
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When most anglers are using their sounders to find fishable offshore ground, they commonly look for signs of changes in the bottom, structure, and even signs of bait and fish. What many don’t often consider is the hardness of bottom they are exploring. More commonly referred to as bottom hardness or seabed composition, what…
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Over the June-July holidays I was lucky enough to visit the Great Sandy Strait in all of its glory. The Great Sandy Straits is located on the western side of Fraser Island. There is some great fishing and some of the best views and scenery in the world, not to mention some isolated anchorages. We…
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Not that long ago, I was checking out one of the local garage sales when I stumbled across a small plastic dingy for sale. Even though I wasn’t really looking for another boat at the time, I couldn’t help but think of all the relatively untouched waterways such a small craft might open up, so…
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As the water temperatures start to cool and the currents start to slow, the offshore reef fishing starts to fire up. 1770, more specifically the Bunker Group, is a great and diverse area that offers some of the best reef fishing ground on the East Coast of Australia with ease of accessibility. Due to its…
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