Skipper Meggs Adventures in Cardwell – Part 1
Posted by Meggs | Fishing Holiday Stories | Posted on September 24th, 2009
Greetings all,
My brother in law Wazza and I headed off to Townsville in March this year with no return plane ticket, a cabin booked for a week in Cardwell and a hire car. For those of you that are unsure as to where Cardwell is it’s basically on the coast half way between Cairns and Townsville across from Hinchinbrook Island. The drive takes just over two hours from Townsville and slightly longer from Cairns.
I had earmarked this area as a potential candidate for a full on F&RTS (Fishing & Reef Tour Specialists) trip with all our mates as there are bareboats and houseboats for hire, easy access to the reef and islands, and the inland creeks and streams were suppose to fish well for barramundi and mangrove jack.
We had brought our own fishing gear up in the plane with plenty of lures and fishing rods for trolling, bottom bouncing and casting lures and live baits. Our real goal was to tackle the famed Hinchinbrook barramundi.
I had booked a dinghy with 40hp and (thankfully) two fuel tanks from a local hire boat place for $140 per day plus petrol and Wazza and I set off from the marina in good weather to fish in a deep hole off Hecate Point on Hinchinbrook Island. The bites came straight away and after a couple of strikes the first fish (?) was on. Several pump and winds later up came our first shark with a number of others joining it in quick succession. Letting these little toothy things go was a no brainer and once it was proven that this was all we were likely to catch we decided to pack up and move spots only to find that the sharks had either followed us or that was all that we going to catch.
With our tail between our legs plan B came into operation and that was to troll along the edge of the channel that ran between Hinchinbrook Island and the mainland until we reached the second port marker along the so-called transit lane. I forgot to mention that the area surrounding Cardwell is subjected to 3 metre plus tides and trolling in a small dinghy became a touch unpleasant for Wazza who was sitting up the front of the boat for ballast. We weren’t too disappointed to bring the trolling lines in and get the boat up on the plane.
Heading up to the second starboard marker we pulled into Paluma Creek only to have the motor cut out on us. Hmmm… no problem – a lesson I have learnt from Iron Guts Wayne is never panic so I got Wazza to throw the anchor out and I opened the first well earned beer of the day. We took advantage of the disruption to have a few casts toward the mangroves with some gold bomber lures to no avail. Getting back to the motor I picked up the petrol tank and gave it a shake and could swear there was plenty still left in it so I gave the pump a squeeze and the tried to start it all to no avail. I was thinking of opening another beer but I’m a responsible skipper so instead I swapped petrol tanks and hey presto the motor started.
That’s ok, but we had to make our way back to the marina later plus spend time fishing and there were several other spots further on that I would’ve liked to have tried.
Anyway to cut a long story short we tried the Gayundah and Paluma Creek “Y” junctions, mouths and drains with lures and cut baits with no takers apart from some black bream all of which were sent back to fight again. With the tide dropping rapidly (3 metre tides lose 1.5 metres in the bottom two hours alone) and some shallow creek entrances to navigate we decided to head back to the channel and drift with the tide and current line. In the back of my mind was the petrol situation so the drift was an added advantage.
To cut a long story short, the drift was reasonably disastrous with catfish and small sharks the order of the day. With our barramundi dreams shattered we motored back to Port Hinchbrook Marina at Cardwell.
Can Skipper Meggs and Wazza redeem themselves on their next Cardwell outing – stay tuned for Skipper Meggs Adventures in Cardwell Part 2 next week!
Sea you later,
Skipper Meggs