Australian Fishing Adventures & Misadventures - Fitzroy Island

With our run up to Cape Trib and back complete, the next big activity of the trip was an overnight adventure out to Fitzroy Island. This required paying to park the car for 2 days, a ferry to and from the island, as well as one night at the campground since there's no free camping allowed on the island. The boat ride to the island was pretty beautiful and the employees took the time to point out a historical fort as well as the large aboriginal community of Yarrabah along the coast.

The views and fishing from the island exceeded expectations but the campground most certainly did not! The $40/night was steep but we expected little based on the reviews and figured we were better off than staying at the only other accommodation, an expensive resort. Thankfully, we weren't here to spend time at the campground!

Fitzroy Island

After getting our tent set up, we soon made the hike over to Nudey Beach, where a friend from Instagram recommended I start fishing. The beach was full of other tourists, but thankfully I had the large rocks to the side all to myself. The numerous rocks and reef structures in the water made the fishing very difficult, and it took some time getting used to. Eventually, I figured out how to drop my rig into specific holes between boulders to avoid becoming snagged repeatedly. There would be no long casts here! In fact, I only found about 2 sq ft of fishable area, but thankfully they held fish! All the fish were caught on the same three-way rig tipped with cutbait, as there was a limit of one hook per line in the area.

I won't go into detail for each catch since they were all caught about the same way, but I will say the fish here were especially beautiful. In particular, the Harlequin Tuskfish and Orangestriped Triggerfish really blew us away with their stunning colours. These were reef fish like I had never seen before, not even in Florida!

Bigeye Snapper (L. lutjanus)

Bluespotted Grouper (C. argus)

Blacktail Grubfish (P. queenslandica)

Floral Maori Wrasse (C. chlorourus)

Harlequin Tuskfish (C. fasciatus)

Orangstriped Triggerfish (B. undulatus)

We spent most of the day soaking up the sun at the fishing spot, only returning to our campsite after being thoroughly sunburned. We had some snacks and Alex relaxed but it wasn't long before I started getting bored and wanting to make a cast. I caved and decided to make a cast from the beach near our site as we waited for the sun to set. The bites were instant, as they often are in saltwater, but I kept pulling up the same fish. They all had a dark blotch on their sides but actually turned out to be two new species: Blackspot Snapper and Thumbprint Emperor!

Blackspot Snapper (L. fulviflamma)

Thumbprint Emperor (L. harak)

My friend who had given me the spot from earlier in the day also suggested casting some bait out for sharks, apparently the bite was supposed to be instantaneous! Apparently, I am not a very good shark fisherman because I ended the night with a few takes and 0 sharks.

An incoming thunderstorm pushed us off the water and we returned to our tent for the night, only waking up to make our ferry ride back to the mainland the next morning. It was good stay overall, in a beautiful area with plenty of beautiful fish, I only wish the facilities were nicer given the expensive cost.

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

Australian Fishing Adventures & Misadventures - Cairns & Palm Cove

Picking up from my previous blog post, the new day would be the first "real" day of our trip. The first orders of business were to pick up our rental car, a nice Corolla hatchback, and do some shopping. Then, we headed to Crystal Cascades for a bit of a swim to cool off. Did I mention the insane temperatures and humidity in Cairns!? The walk along Freshwater Creek to the cascades was pretty interesting and gave us our first taste of Australia wildlife; giant spiders, brush turkeys, tropical fish, colourful butterflies, and others were present.

Cruiser (V. arsinoe)

After finishing the short hike, I decided to try to catch some of the tropical fish downstream of the national park area. Seeing the fish upstream, but not being able to catch them, was driving me crazy! In short order, I located a pool with some big Jungle Perch hanging out in the shallows, mixed with schools of Rainbowfish and Blue-eyes. Surprisingly, the Jungle Perch wanted nothing to do with my bait, but the Rainbowfish were more than eager!

Eastern Rainbowfish (M. splendida)

The beauty of the Rainbowfish was astounding, it must be one of the prettiest freshwater fish I've caught to date. Alex was similarly enthralled, enough for her to want to catch one of her own :) 

Catching the Rainbowfish also meant I finally had access to some semi-decent bait, having only used Powerbait pellets up until then. I baited a size 16 hook with a small chunk of Rainbowfish and freelined it out to the bigger fish. Of course, the Jungle Perch ignored my best efforts. But, as the bait neared the bottom, a dark shape moved out from the rocks and grabbed my presentation! It turned out to be a Sooty Grunter, another popular Australian freshwater gamefish. I also quickly learned that they have more than their fair share of spines.

Sooty Grunter (H. fuliginosus)

After releasing the grunter, I repeated the process of letting the bait slowly fall to the bottom, mainly because of the Jungle Perch's unwillingness. As soon as the bait neared the bottom, the Sooty's would come out and smash it! It was good fun but started to get old after catching a few fish without any added diversity. Eventually, my persistence paid off and a new species showed itself! I would called it the "spotted freshwater thing", as I had no clue what it was. Some friends on FaceBook later ID'd it as a Spangled Perch.

Spangled Perch (L. unicolor)

Having exhausted the number of species in the pool, I returned my focus to the Jungle Perch. There were plenty of them, all willing to take bread from tourists but completely unwilling to take anything attached to a hook! I changed tactics and began treating my bait as if it were a dry fly and skittering it briefly along the surface to incite an aggression strike. This new technique worked and I finally hooked into one of them!

Jungle Perch (K. rupestris)

After landing the Jungle Perch, we switched gears and headed up the coast to do a bit of saltwater fishing. The Palm Cove Jetty was a spot I knew literally nothing about, but seemed to be some of the better access I could find. It turned out to be a great first spot to wet a line in Australian saltwater and I managed to land a whole array of cool fish! The first was this duo of Grunters to round off my Terapon genus collection.

Spinycheek Grunter (T. puta)

Largescale Grunter (T. theraps)

Next, a rather bland-looking Emperor and similarly drab Sillago popped up (all new species btw). I also managed to land some sort of dark Grouper which one of the local guys told me was a "Cod". Turns out these three fish were Redspot Emperor, Western Trumpeter Sillago, and Chocolate Hind/Grouper/Cod. You may as well disregard half the common names here because they're all mixed up in Australia lol.

Redspot Emperor (L. lentjan)

Western Trumpeter Sillago (S. burrus)

Chocolate Hind (C. boenak)

The last fish I wanted to show you guys was definitely the most exciting to me! It's one I had planned to catch much further south but I was super pleased to have one show up so early in the trip. I'm not much of a saltwater guy, but I do gotta admit there are some pretty wacky fish in the sea. Case in point, this cool Yellowfin Tripodfish!

Yellowfin Tripodfish (T. angustifrons)

We ended the day by going for our first ride up the Captain Cook highway to look for a campsite. This has to be one of the most spectacular drives on the planet! Tropical rainforest on your left and blue ocean on your right! It might also seems like a great place to camp, but be prepared to sweat! This was our first experience with tropical car camping, and all I can say is bring a fan!!!

Australian Fishing Adventures & Misadventures - Melbourne & Cairns

I knew that Australia would be one of our biggest trips yet, but I think I was still unprepared for the challenges that lay ahead. The first difficulty was, of course, getting there! I fly on standby tickets and the time that Alex got off for the trip happened to line up with Canadian March break. I had to leave 2 days ahead of her and spend the down time alone in Melbourne while I awaited her arrival. That, plus a 12hr connection in Vancouver, made for a long few days of travel. Needless to say, I was very excited to be taking our third and final flight up to Cairns when the time came!

Oh yeah, I did book an AirBnB while waiting in Melbourne and made sure to choose one with water nearby. Unfortunately, the only aquatic life in sight were these exotic Eastern Mosquitofish (AKA the plague of microfishermen).

Eastern Mosquitofish (G. holbrooki)

Arriving in Cairns was a shock. Melbourne was warmer than home, but Cairns was downright tropical! I started getting nervous about our upcoming car camping plans, given the forecasted lows of 25-30C. Fortunately, we had booked an AirBnB for our first night to recoup and get ready for the road trip ahead. It was already 6:00PM by the time we arrived, but I knew there was a tidal creek just behind the resort and, of course, I couldn't stop myself from tossing a line.

Right away, I noticed a lot of Needlefish-looking things on the surface, and tried to convince them to chase my tanago rig. Soon enough, I felt a tap and pulled up something that was definitely not the Needlefish impersonator. At this point, I had no idea what any of the fish were. I called this one the "spiny curled up guy" (it was a Crescent Grunter).

Crescent Grunter (T. jarbua)

Next, it was time to start working on those Needlefish things. The only way I could get them interested was by skimming the bait back and forth right at the surface of the water. This also made it very difficult to hook up. I later learned this may also have had something to do with the shape of their mouths. Finally, I hooked up on one only to have it fall off the hook before I could bring it to land. The same thing happened with a second hookup. Finally, I let the third fish chew on the bait a while before setting, which proved successful! I pulled up and photographed lifer #2 of the trip: the Northern River Garfish. Check out that crazy snout!

Feathered River Garfish (Z. dispar)

Finally, it was time to start trying for some of the really small fish I saw milling about in the shallows. They were very aggressive but seemed too small to hook, even with a tanago. Eventually, I saw something larger take the bait a pulled up a real surprise: this juvenile Mud Crab! Not what I was expecting, but cool to see such an iconic Australian animal.

Mud Crab (S. serrata)

After releasing the crab and rebaiting, I returned focus to the tiny micros. I resorted to just occasionally lifting up the rig because I could barely feel their bites and the water was too muddy to see them properly. I finally lifted up lifer #3: the much-wanted Pacific Blue-eye! This is a beautiful Australian native that is pretty enough to be kept as part of the aquarium hobby. They get a little bigger than this, but not much.

Pacific Blue-eye (P. signifer)

Those three species seemed to make up the majority of the species composition of the creek, so I went on a short walk to the nearby botanical gardens before heading back to our place for dinner. The one thing of note was a Laughing Kookaburra I saw perched on a sign. It let me get really close for some pictures but I had yet to hear them call. I would later regret wishing to hear them as they laughed seemingly all day and night in some areas :p Seriously, look them up on YouTube if you've never heard them.

Laughing Kookaburra (D. novaeguineae)

I then headed back to our resort and Alex and I went out to the Thai restaurant that our AirBnB host worked at. She gave us a great deal and we enjoyed some delicious pad thai! I can certainly recommend the "Taste of Thai" at the Lakes Resort in Cairns North.

Saguenay Fjord Fishing - Round 5

This year was the 5th year of our annual Valentine's trip to the Saguenay Fjord in eastern QC. At this point, we have both iced most of the consistently-caught fish in the body of water, except for one. The Greenland Halibut has evaded all our attempts thus far, despite being caught by other fishermen all around us. It's a species of flatfish more often referred to as the Turbot, and it has the unusual particularity of spending most of it's time in the middle of the water column unlike all the other Flatfish.

Unfortunately, the ice this year has been especially bad due to the overly warm winter, so the usual ice villages hadn't all gone out. We decided to take this inconvenience as an opportunity to do a bit of scouting. We started Saturday out of Ste-Rose-du-Nord, a beautiful town right on the Fjord.

We had no idea what to expect, but were hoping that we'd at least get some bites over the next few hours. My line was the first to get hit, before I could even get my rig down to the bottom! Which isn't such an exciting statement when it takes a full 15min to get your 3oz spoon down. The fish turned out to be this possible Acadian Redfish, much less common in the Fjord than the prevalent Deepwater Redfish.

Acadian Redfish

Alex was the next to start getting bites, and apparently the fish all moved to her hole because I wouldn't get a hit for the rest of the afternoon. She ended up getting on a streak of small Deepwater Redfish brought up from the depths.

Deepwater Redfish (+Girlfriend)

After catching a few of the Redfish, the bite slowed down and we watched the people around us catch some fish. There didn't seem to be too much going on but one group landed a Skate and some of the unwatched tip-ups moved. Lines only need to be checked every 72 hours in these federal waters so people leave them out all day long. We also had a set line with half of a Mackerel lying on the bottom. I didn't really expect it to do much but a big bonus Cod or Halibut could be pretty cool. Eventually, Alex heard a bell and alerted me that the big fish rod was bouncing! We ran over and took turns bringing the fish up. It wasn't big but a lot of reeling is involved in 500+ feet of water, and we ended up landing this small Atlantic Cod.

Atlantic Cod

That would be the last fish of the afternoon and we enjoyed watching the sun set over the fjord before heading to our cabin at the big ice village in La Baie for the night. La Baie is the most popular spot on the Fjord and usually the fishing isn't so good... but it was our only option for a place to stay on the ice because of the poor conditions mentioned earlier. As expected, we didn't catch anything that night.

The plan for the next day was to head to one of the best spots for our target Halibut: Anse St-Jean. We woke up in the cabin and packed our gear before driving south to the Anse. It was a bit chilly in the early morning but it quickly warmed up to be the nicest weather we've ever experienced on this trip. It was sunny, 4C, and with no wind! We walked out onto the ice with high hopes and good spirits.

I decided it would be a good idea to take advantage of the warm weather by drilling multiple holes and spot-hopping to cover more water. Easier said than done when it takes a full 30min to bring up your line and then let it back down in a new hole. On my third hole, something hit the lure as I was letting it down. Knowing the Halibut would most likely be suspended, I excitedly set the hook and started bringing up the fish. Sure enough, a Greenland Halibut popped up at the hole, my first lifer of 2020!

Greenland Halibut

The pressure change didn't seem to have affected him so he was safely released. Alex was pretty jealous so I offered her my rod and hole, but she refused and valiantly kept fishing her rig in shallower water. I kept my eyes on her and, after about an hour, saw her get up and set the hook! I ran over and helped her land her lifer Turbot as well :)

Greenland Halibut

By the time I got back to my line, I noticed that it felt a bit heavier than usual so I set the hook and brought up one last bonus fish before we had to start heading home. It was another Deepwater Redfish but it was a nice one and a great way to round off the weekend :)

Deepwater Redfish