Cairns Estuary Fishing
The first thing to be said about taking a Cairns estuary fishing tour is don’t do it! The estuary is fished out, and despite the colourful brochures showing all those large fish, they catch very little these days.
The fishing trip was for half a day. Although bottled water was available from the icebox, we would have taken a bottle of wine, or a couple of beers had we known the fishing could have been better!
Casting net for bait fish
The tour left from one of the finger piers along the Cairns harbour. We headed out to one of the many mangrove channels in search of bait. It was fascinating to watch the young skipper skilfully manoeuvre the boat around the mangroves and, at the same time, throw a casting net to catch our baitfish.
After half an hour, we had enough prawns and small fish to bait up for the day. (which we later fed to resident seabirds). With only four passengers, we had at least one rod each. I’m not much of a fisherman at the best of times, but Ceri loves it and was pretty excited as we headed around the estuary to catch dinner.
After several hours without a bite, one of the other guests caught a small stingray about the size of a dinner plate… but no fish for dinner.
We moved the boat again to no avail and passed the time talking about Steve Irwin’s unfortunate death by stingray, his amazing energy and his contribution to the conservation movement. But we still need fish!
The 90 kilometres of the mangrove-lined estuary are home to an extensive range of fish. Including the famous Barramundi, Mangrove jack and Trevally, Salmon, Grunter, Flathead, Fingermark and Gold Spot Cod. Some claim that over 40 species of fish can be regularly caught in the Cairns Waterway. If you don’t believe me, type Cairns estuary fishing into Google! You’ll see amazing pictures of all these amazing fish… but you shouldn’t expect to catch any.
Baby Grunter
The main catch
Alright, so we did end up catching a fish. Here it is, a baby Grunter pictured on the right. Of course, we threw it back so you, too, can experience the thrill.
Nevertheless, we had a lovely afternoon out on the waterways and enjoyed the marine surroundings. Watching the seabirds eat our bait fish was great fun!
Cairns fishing, I think the operators could include a bottle of bubbly for the girls. A few beers for the boys and forget the spin about catching fish! We didn’t go out onto the Great Barrier Reef, but people do better.
We certainly enjoyed Cairns, and there are some great places to stay. Let me know if I’ve been a bit harsh and if you have a better story about Cairns Estuary Fishing.
The Daintree Forest trip was much better!