Cape York GT's?

[Andrew Colefax]

heading somewhere up the cape in sept for 7-10days, driving in with small boat so limited to inshore locations. at this stage we have shortlisted bathurst heads/flinders islands or somewhere north of weipa eg mapoon. besides regular fishing we would love to target GT's...does anyone know of anywhere suitable within range of a small boat? flinders islands look good on google map...

[Stan Konstantaras]

Hi Andrew,
Did a dozen  trips up past Weipa over the years and yes we did encounter GTs on the flats up past Mappoon, but not many. Whilst we were mainly fly fishing, we were limited to walking the beaches and small tinnies to get around. That time of year is a good time, with the bait balls starting to congregate in shore, you would get GTs in 2 meters of water and 3 miles out to sea - but only around the feeding fish.
Find the bait and you will find the fish. We never threw big poppers at them, if only we knew, we were limited to trying to stop them on 10 wgt fly rods, and not always successfully. The bigger fish were around 15-20kg. You will see the bait and feeding fish from hundreds of meters away on the flats.
The problems up that way are which fish to cast at, with some trips averaging 15 different species on the fly just wading. Also 50lb tackle would be heaps in this instance and try some small 100g poppers, you will also get Goldens, NB Tuna and queenies into the mix.
Good luck with the GTs on this side of the Cape.
I also fished Bathurst Head years ago for barra and this looked way better for GTs from what I know these days.
But if you want species and versatility - nth of Mappoon is the way to go.
Cheers
stan

[Chris Young]

There are resonable size GT's around Weipa
Fished there a couple of years back with Duncan and a few others. Same as Sam we fished mostly Fly...BUT we did take 2 popping sticks with PE8 line and STD sized poppers (you need to wake em up!!). You just have to work the bigger tides around rockbars and points etc. We found GT to 30kg. These areas would be accessable in a 4.5m tinny etc on day trips from Weipa!!

[Andrew Colefax]

thanks for the replies..given that the aim for this trip is a wide range of sportfishing coupled with our limited range due to boat size we have decided to base ourselves at Mapoon and forego serious GT action (and grog!) this time. i won't have my PE5 outfit ready for this trip, but i do have something which i think will suffice and i guess i could slip my PE8 in on the off chance of finding a few bigguns on the flats. we have timed the trip to fish up to the full moon, so tides will be big.

my regular fishing partner is looking into purchasing a 5m plate boat in the coming months, which will allow us to do some more serious fishing on the reefs and inshore locations on the east side of the cape in future trips...

[Stan Konstantaras]

Hi Andrew,
To get to Mapoon, you need to pass through Weipa, which has a mile of channel markers very close to shore and in small boat range that hold many nasty species of trevally, so worth a shot.
Once in Mapoon, launch your boat, go out of the Bay and turn left and head towards Janie Creek, the flats all the way down are great.
Keep you eyes open and everything happens in less the 2 meters of water and less than 10 meters off the beach. Fish the tides as well, no run no fun.
Also just out from the ramp at Mapoon is the best big queenie and trevelly action in the Cape. Small poppers and small stickbaits work well. Kokoda Rodger poppers are deadly., but also keep a BIg popper handy, no different to most locations, hooked and struggling fish will attract bigger GTs to have a look.
Also if you have any Jackall Mask Vibes, take ALL of these. I have also used the FLT Transam 95 for years, it is the BEST lures for the flats slow rolled, all sizes of trevally love them, just upgrade the hooks and fish light (20-30lb) apart from the sharks, you will land 99% of all your trevs over the flats, no bommies here!
Good luck

[Andrew Colefax]

thanks Stan for the great info! just went and splurged on various slugs and will be taking lots of poppers roostas, yo zuri hydros river2seas etc and stickbaits like tangos miss carnas xrap walks

thanks for the tip on the masks, as it happens i have quite a few mask vibs and transams from my bass days, i was getting transams sent over from FLT to trial on bass for them a few years ago

we have also been told to head north to the skardon, supposed to be epic for big queenies

starting to think a week won't be anywhere near long enough! thankfully living in cairns makes it relatively accessible...
thanks again
Andrew

[Max Grimbacher]

The flinders group does look good - attached should be a pic of what it looked like from the mainland (Bathurst head) last wednesday... (hopefully it works? - this is the first time i have tried to attach a photo). there would be some current flowing between the islands for sure, and it appeared to have clean water around the islands - unlike close to the coast. Don't know for sure if it would have decent GTs, but when i was there last week i was thinking to myself it would be worth a good try with poppers.

One concern might be the difficulty in getting the boat out when the tide is low. unless it is a good location you will likely have to contend with very shallow water in close to the beach/campsite area - and vast areas of mud. it will limit fishing to times determined by the tides - ie leaving and coming in above half tide. the crocs make it too dangerous to muck around with re-positioning the boat into deeper water etc. i think you know what i mean.

The constant winds up on the cape during the dry season make a small boat interesting at times!
Hope you have a good trip.