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A Hinchinbrook Channel Adventure
By Gary Brown
When I first contacted Vinnie and Cassie from Aquaventure on May 5, 2020, about going on a fishing trip up to Townsville or somewhere nearby for a few days, we were in a lockdown of some kind.
I was looking at possibly going later in 2020, however after a number of emails and discussions with Chris, Andrew and Dave, it was decided to put it off until late April 2021. Vinnie already had a number of charters booked, along with guiding at the Arnhem Land Barramundi Nature Lodge at Maningrida in the Northern Territory, Burdekin Barra Lodge, Seven Spirit Bay Wilderness Lodge, Australian Flyfishing Lodge and work at the BCF store in Townsville!
After a number of emails, it was decided we would fly up on Thursday the April 29 to Townsville and fish Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, targeting the surrounding areas of the Hinchinbrook Channel.
On the lead up to the trip Vinnie was really stressed about the amount of rain and flooding, along with the winds and the weather forecast for the time that we were going to be up at Cardwell, a couple of hours north of Townsville. After a number of discussions with Chris, Andrew, Dave and Vinnie, it was decided to push on with the trip. To the surprise of all involved, it turned out to be nowhere near as bad as the predictions.
We based our stay at the Australian Fly Fishing Lodge, owned by Clinton Isaac and we fished out of Vinnie's 4.5m Polycraft and Clint's 16' Hewes Redfisher flats boat. After being picked up by Vinnie at the Townsville airport the five of us piled into the Hyundai Highlander and headed off to Cardwell. After we offloaded the luggage, fishing gear and tackle, we once again piled into the Hyundai and headed back to Ingham to stock up on food and drinks.
Once back at the lodge it was onto the job of getting the gear ready for our first assault on the waters of Hinchinbrook. Rods and reels were matched up, leaders were tied on and jigheads and plastics were rigged up. We all couldn't wait to get out!
DAY 1
We launched at Fishers Creek Boat Ramp, south of Cardwell, at 7am and fished a number of creeks, mangroves, rock bars, deep holes and flats looking for anything that would crunch our lures. Chris opened the books with a very nice 74cm barramundi, Vinnie caught a jack, Dave caught of all things a painted grinner, Andrew and I missed a number of jacks and barra strikes... both ending the session with a donut.
Overall it was an extremely tough day, with many missed opportunities, lots of casting practice, trimming of mangrove leaves, getting snagged, trying different colours, learning how to retrieve the lures without losing any and not missing the tide back to the ramp... more on that later.
Vinnie had told us before we ventured up that this would possibly be the case due to the amount of rain (500mm in 2 days) that Cardwell had experienced a couple of days before we arrived. This turned the water to a coffee colour and there was a fair amount of wind about from the south east.
What I did find during that first day was that I was very tentative on where I was placing my soft plastics in the mangroves. The main technique that Vinnie advised us to use was to cast the ZMan 3" MinnowZ, rigged on a 3/8oz, 3/0 TT Lures SnakelockZ weedless jighead, as close to the edge of the mangroves as possible. This would be achieved by either skip casting, the same as you would when skipping a stone, or simply lobbing it in.
On returning to the ramp at Fishers Creek we found that we had misjudged the height of the low tide and we ended up cruising slowly up the creek using the electric motor... only to fail in reaching the ramp by about 100 metres. It was decided not to wait for the tide to start rising in the creek as the sand flies would have carried us away. Instead, we headed 25 kilometres north, back to the entrance at the Marina at Cardwell, to wait for enough water to get us over the bar, into the channel and back to the ramp.
But wait there's more!
From there it took us about an hour to slowly work our way 2 kilometres up Stoney Creek with the flooding tide, while using the Motor Guide electric motor to get to the Hinchinbrook public boat ramp. It was now 8pm. Once there Peter Agapiou from Lecky Leg gave us a hand to retrieve the cars and trailers from the Fishers Creek Ramp and head back to base to regroup with a well-deserved feed and a couple of ales.
DAY 2
For day two we decided to launch at the public ramp at Hinchinbrook and fish the creeks on the western side of Hinchinbrook Island. The colour of the water had started to clean up slightly and there was not as much wind about, so our expectations had risen slightly from the previous day's fishing.
Driving through the marina I couldn't get over the amount of destruction that cyclone Yasi had caused back in 2011. If you have a look at a couple of photos from the ABC and the Qld Police, that I found online, you will see the damage it had done to the boats that were moored there. Some of the boats were also found high and dry on the roads behind the marina!
What also happened is that the once deep water channel has now silted up to a point that there are sections of the tide where you can't get to the ramp and large cruisers and houseboats are left high and dry until the tide comes back in again.
Not only did the fishing improve on day 2, so did my casting. I was now getting the weedless rigged soft plastics so far back into the roots of the mangroves that I couldn't even see them! There were plenty of hook ups, however most of the fish were much quicker and smarter than us, making it back to their dark little holes. We managed to get a number of barracouta, estuary cod, mangrove jack, small GT's, blue spot trevally and another painted grinner.
DAY 3
Once again we launched at the Hinchinbrook public boat ramp and this time we headed out to fish Missionary Bay and its creeks. On the way out we stopped off at the first point to do some deep water jigging with soft plastics, chasing fingermark and grunter. This resulted in a couple of small grunter, another painted grinner and of all things a bloody flathead!
Upon noticing a few terns hovering around, we spotted a few longtail tuna belting into the bait. Andrew picked up the closest rod and cast out a ZMan 3" MinnowZ in the Space Guppy colour, rigged on a 3/0 TT Lures jighead, which was immediately pounced on.
At the time nobody knew the size of the fish and only time would tell.
Did I say time?
It was 3 hours and 20 minutes and 12.5 nautical miles later that Andrew, Chris and Vinnie finally saw the tuna. It was almost within reach of the end of the net when the leader knot popped and the estimated 20kg tuna slowly swam away.
So close... and yet so far.
The air directly turned blue, with lots of swearing in both English and African for at least twenty minutes. After catching up with us at creek number seven, they were still swearing. From what I was told the friendly and sometimes over excited banter, that went on for over three hours went something like this:
Bloody hell, I better start chasing it with the big motor! There is the backing knot! Quick wind faster! That's not fast enough! Wind faster! No #*# slack line! Don't high stick it! Bloody wind faster! Lift the rod! We have lost it! No, it's coming straight for us! Wind like your life depends on it. No *## slack line! My arms are sore! My back and shoulders are sore! Toughen up young man! I am thirsty! Don't stop winding! No slack line! The bloody thing has taken off again! I need a neck and back massage! My hands are cramping up! Who cares, *## wind faster!
By the end of day three we had managed to boat a few more barra, some good size grunter, a number of mangrove jack, more GT's, blue salmon, barracouta, archer fish and plenty of estuary cod.
My casting had improved throughout the day and along with the rest of the crew I was skip casting (same as you would when skipping a stone) the topwater ZMan 4" Hard Leg FrogZ in White and ZMan 4" Pop FrogZ in White, rigged on 3/0 TT Lures ChinlockZ. I was casting well into the mangroves and apparently the saying is that if it's 'balls deep' then it's not deep enough.
We were also hopping a few blades in the deeper water and over the flats, along with casting Bagley Rattlin' Finger Mullet, Bagley Minnow B05 in Baby Bass, spoons and RevlockZ jigheads.
DAY 4
Day four saw all of us casting our arms off. Pitching, skipping, lobbing and pendulum casting our plastics, jigs and hard bodies into ever knock and cranny we could get them into. No more painted grinners and flathead were caught, thank god! There were plenty of estuary cod, GT, mangrove jack, blue salmon, archer fish and one lone Papuan jawfish.
Overall, the approximate number of fish caught was between 55 and 60 fish, which in the scheme of things is not a great deal of fish. But really, who cares. Not me!
What the time away was all about was exploring a place that we hadn't been to. Getting to fish with a mate and family. Meeting and making new friends. Learning a few new techniques and also being advised on how to revise a few old ones from a well-respected guide, Vinnie Versfeld from Aquaventure Fishing.
Staying and chilling out in well appointed accomadation at the Australian Fly Fishing Lodge was great, as was being able to put a selection of gear from Tackle Tactics, Okuma, ZMan, Platypus, Bagley, TT Lures, TT Rods and Fish Inc. through their paces. One thing that I will say about the tackle that we did use, it stood up to the bashing and crashing that we all handed out. I think that there was only a few jigheads and soft plastics lost over the four days.
Thanks again to Vinnie and Cassie from Aquaventure, Clinton Isaac from the Australian Fly Fishing Lodge, Gareth and the crew from Tackle Tactics, Peter Agapiou from Lecky Leg and who could forget Christopher Brown (son), Andrew Humphries (son-in-law) and Dave Tosland (mate).
Without all of them this trip wouldn't have been what it was and it won't be too far in the future before I will definitely be catching up with Vinnie again.
Cheers, Gary
GEAR USED
Okuma Ceymar C-S-702M, 6-14lb rod and Okuma 45 JAW spinning reel, spooled with 15lb Platypus Pulse X8 Braid.
Okuma Competition CM-S-702M, 6-14lb rod and Okuma Epixor 30 spinning reel, spooled with 10lb Platypus Pulse X4 Braid.
Okuma Celilo CE-S-702L, 4-10lb rod and Okuma JAW 30 spinning reel, spooled with 10lb Platypus Pulse X4 Braid.
Okuma Helios HSX-S-702M, 3-6kg rod and Okuma Inspira 30 spinning reel, spooled with 10lb Platypus Pulse X4 Braid.
Hard Armour Leader - 20, 30, 40 and 50lb
Stealth FC Fluorocarbon Leader in 20 and 30lb.
A selection of TT Lures ChinlockZ, SnakelockZ and HeadlockZ HD jigheads.
A selection of ZMan 10X Tough plastics, including 3" MinnowZ in Space Guppy, Pink Glow, New Penny, Nuked Chicken Glow, Pearl and Slam Shady colours. ZMan 4" Pop ShadZ in Houdini, ZMan 4" Pop Frogz in White and ZMan 4" Hard Leg FrogZ in White and Green Pumpkin were also on the menu.
Bagley Rattlin' Finger Mullet and the Minnow B05 in Baby Bass colour also had a run, along with the Fish Inc. Hooker 110mm Sinking Stickbait.