This year (2001) I went to Australia with Daniel. We spent 3 days in Cairns before our fishing expedition aboard the Capricorn Mist.
We spent the first day traveling over the rain forest in these small cable cars to a place called Kurranda. Excellent views, stopping twice to walk around the rain forest on raised platforms. Kurranda has a great market, really cheap stuff. We came back down to Cairns by rail, winding down the side of very steep hills.
The next two days were spent site seeing. We met a great taxi driver, Greg Sims, who not only drove us around for a very reasonable hourly rate but also gave us the whole tourist guide bit. We visited a local zoo and had the obligatory koala photos. Greg showed us a lot of sites and things that most tourists would probably miss.
We tried to book a charter boat to fish beyond the Great Barrier Reef, but there was to much wind and the skipper called it off.
A one and a half hour flight on Wednesday took us to Bamaga where we met Greg Bethune, skipper of the Capricorn Mist, then a short drive took us to the wharf at Seisia. Setting off at about 3.00pm we headed for Crystal creek where we over nighted and in the morning we set off for a river that has no name, but locally known as river number two. Excellent fishing for 2 days then it was off to the Coterell river. I had fished this one last year and was surprised that I remembered the lay out so well. Casting lures and fishing with bait we were catching Queen fish and various trevallies as well as some good reef fish. Daniel boated a 65lb shovel nosed shark and a 44lb narrow barred mackerel, the two biggest fish of the trip (well done)
Then it was on to the Doughboy River. Greg marked some rough ground, just offshore, where we caught Fingermark, Golden Trevally, Red Emperor, Sweet Lip, Barracuda, Giant Trevally, King Fish, Jew Fish, Queen Fish, Large Mouth Nanigai and Coral Trout.
Fishing up the river was also fast and furious. Daniel very quickly learnt to use the bait casting rods, and was soon casting lures with much more precision than me. Fish in the river are invariably smaller than the ones outside on the reefs but we still had a lot of fun catching them. Many species came to the boat including, Barramundi, Mangrove Jack, Tarpon, small Queen Fish, Tea Leaf Trevally, Eastary Cod and small Barracuda.
On the last day I went in search of Tuna with Zatch while Daniel stayed on the Capricorn Mist. We saw a flock of birds working the water and headed out to them. One cast with a small lure and light tackle was all it took for the fight of a lifetime. 45 minutes later I landed a superb Tuna of 19 1/2 lbs.
Wonderful holiday. Looking forward to returning next year.