Australian Fishing Adventures & Misadventures - Cape Tribulation

The next segment of our journey was one I was most excited for: a quick road trip from Cairns up to Cape Tribulation. As I mentioned in my last post, the drive up the Captain Cook Highway was just awesome. Great views pretty well the whole way!

Mt Alexandra Lookout

We even made it past Cape Trib and onto dirt road, but the crossing at Emmagen Creek stopped us in our tracks. Regardless, we were happy we made the extra trek because it allowed us a cool "secret" view of the cape :)

Emmagen Creek

Cape Tribulation

On to more important matters... fishing! It turns out that a lot of Cape Trib is protected habitat where fishing isn't allowed. Fortunately I was able to find a couple areas that seemed to be OK to fish. This was a super cool area with very thick rainforest and mangrove-type streams. The Jungle Perch seemed to be the easiest to spot again, but I did find some new species hanging out in habitat with slower, muddier water. The most aggressive of which were these awesome Snakehead Gudgeon! Capturing their colours in the shady tropical forest was difficult but I still managed to get some quick photos :)

Snakehead Gudgeon (G. margaritacea)

It soon became obvious that these Gudgeon were incredibly aggressive; repeatedly throwing themselves at my spinner. Eventually though, I notices a huge shape swimming through the creek: a big freshwater Eel! I dropped a bait right on it's nose and it gulped in down in quick succession. It then proceeded to swim backwards into some thick roots where it came off, never to be seen again. A bonus Gudgeon species, the Spangled Gudgeon, soon made up for it :)

Spangled Gudgeon (O. porocephala)

That second Gudgeon would be the end of the new species in the Cape Trib area proper. We had planned an extremely packed itinerary for our journey in Cape Trib, but were somehow ahead of schedule yet again! We took some pictures of the cape, went for a dip in Mason's swimming hole, enjoyed some fresh ice cream from the Daintree Ice Cream Company, and made our way back to the ferry that crosses the Daintree River. Mason's swimming hole was especially cool, maybe because we were so hot (hehe). Puns aside, it was pretty sweet to snorkel in the clear water and watch the Eel-tailed Catfish, Jungle Perch, and others swim around us.

Cape Tribulation

Mason's Swimming Hole

Being so far ahead of schedule, we stopped and spent an hour on the banks of the Daintree River after crossing with the ferry. I dropped a line with a small hook tipped with cut bait and started catching lots of bland silver fish. I initially figured they were all the same species but I'm glad I got pics because I ended up with three new species!

Silver Javelin (P. argenteus)

Black-ear Javelin (P. trifasciatus)

Pikey Bream (A. pacificus)

I also noticed some small Archerfish hanging out right near shore, but they were so small I couldn't even get one to take a tanago bait :/ Fortunately, spending time focused on the Archerfish allowed me to notice some other fish movement... on shore! I wasn't going crazy, there were Mudskippers hopping around the cobble out of the water. I wasn't sure if I could catch a fish on land, but I was determined to try. Surprisingly, the Mudskippers were super aggressive and the first one I presented to immediately hopped over to investigate and grab the bait! I lifted him up but it got unhooked and landed on the dock I was fishing from. "No worries", I thought, just gotta go over and pick him up like normal. Of course, that wasn't quite the case. The fish, adapted to life on land, "ran" away faster than I could catch him. I resorted to throwing my backpack on top of it so that I could rush over and claim my prize!

Silverlined Mudskipper (P. argentilineatus)

The icing on the cake was releasing it back to the river, only to have it "run" on the water's surface back to safety on land.

The Mudskipper seemed to be the final lifer in the area, so we hopped back in the car after about an hour at the river. We were still slightly ahead of schedule so we took a side trip out to Port Douglas to watch the sunset. The view was nice, but the coolest part was the massive colony of Flying Foxes we saw on the way! These giant bats were high on my list of Australian animals I wanted to see, and seeing them in person was so cool. Just seeing a huge bat during the day is pretty damn neat.

Grey-headed Flying Fox (P. poliocephalus)

Flying Fox (Pteropus sp.)

Port Douglas