The weather the past 11 day trip was under the dominance a string of seasonal large high pressure systems moving across southern
Australia. This is what produces the trade flow that dominates eastern Australia's weather during the middle of the year with fine
clear skys and fresh to strong winds from the east and southeast. The larger the high the stronger the wind. An old North Queensland
mariner saying is "subtract 5 from the size of the high in hectopascals for the wind strength". Works for me, the 1032 hpa highs
in Bass Strait directed winds of up to 27 knots onto Cape York and the coastal waters weather reporting from VMC Charleville advised
of strong wind warnings for the whole of the Northern Territory and Queensland coastal waters for more days than not. The abundance and variety of fishes available on the west coast of the Cape is renowned and the beautiful thing is that during these
high wind conditions the shore line is protected and you can still fish in the calm lee of the Cape with the wind at your back, a boon
for fly anglers.Grey mackeral were schooled up close inshore periodically forcing balls of bait fish to the surface tell tailing their location.
These high speed cousins of the true "Spanish" Mackeral behave exactly the same, readily taking any artificial you present to them
and they "go like stink" on any tackle. A weird mackeral looking like it's been "cut and shut", it has a tiny head and a tail
that looks more like it belongs to a fish half as big again.
Regular client Dog Gow clearing flyline off the deck as yet another Grey Mackeral (right) blasts off. Note the bait ball under the boat.Greys, often referred to as board bared Spanish mackeral as opposed to narrow barred which is the true Spanish mackeral are eight out of ten
via the bar be cue when fresh, a score that rapidly diminishes once frozen. They get the name grey from, once frozen the flesh takes on a grey
coloration, if you are ever buying mackeral at a fish market make sure it's line caught Spanish and not netted grey.
Golden trevalley, welcome surprises mixed in the grey mackeral schools. One of the fathers of salt fly fishing in this country,
Ernie Allen (left) with a thumpen golden left, and a Dr.Bill and John with a double.You don't realize how good you have it when after a mornings fishing catching magnificent sport fish like these you would rather do it a
bit tougher trying to catch a different species than have to go and catch mackerels again. Once there is no challenge, there is no challenge... and no
satisfaction. Some would probably give anything to catch such fish on fly and here we are spoilt rotten saying "please, not another mackeral"
Same story with the queen fish. We found large numbers of fish in the 6 to 8 kilo class feeding on all stages of the tide but more
voraciously on the incoming, which was interesting because where we found them was adjacent the shallow sand bars that typically fire
on the ebb tide as the water flows over the shallows disturbing and dropping nutrients into the channels.
The action was fierce, often the skiffs with 2 fly anglers in each in an area 50 x 50 meters, with at least one bent rod and often two
in each boat. The guides had as much fun as the clients hamming it up keeping the queenies on the boil with hook less poppers on squidgy
spin rods. Games of "cast past the other guys boat and see how close to them you can get a surface crash" and, "who can get a queenie to
hold on the longest", "highest jump", "most jumps". Like the greys when the challenge went out of it we started breaking IGFA fly records just for fun (the fish broke a lot of meticulously
tied leaders as well). All these fish were like peas in a pod weighing in the 6 to 7 kilo range. The most fun fishing I know, if I was only
to catch one species of fish on fly for the rest of my life it would be Queenies. If you were a conventional gear fisher with us last week
you would have caught a fish a cast, guaranteed. Dinner conversations planning the morrows fishing many of the boys would say "I don't care but lets not catch any more queenies".
Tunas were close in shore as usual and we caught several in the mornings before the trade winds picked up. The schools had smaller numbers
of fish in each but there were lots of them scattered along the 10 meter contour.Above left, the two tropical inshore species of tunas of we get, Powell with a long tail Tuna and Ernie with a Mac Tuna more commonly
referred to as a Bonito in North Queensland. Right John and one of many many tunas he caught.
Pretty fish pix from last trip. Coastal Coral trout on fly, rather than face another Queenie Ian ventured to "the dark side" as
the group called to catch a Red emperor on a cut bait, fly caught Mangrove Jack and the True Spanish Mackeral.Previous Fishing Trip Reports:
