The First Steps: My First Couple Weeks Down Under

So I've been living in Townsville for acouple weeks now and am really enjoying the place. Quite, ocean, rum, and awesome fishing potential is how I can summarize the last couple weeks. I am here to attend James Cook University Marine Biology program, hopefully it will help my fishing, but that is rather irrelevant since this is a blog about fly fishing.

Coming to Townsville I was fresh meat when it comes to saltwater fishing and I only really started fly fishing acouple months before. I have learnt tons over the last couple weeks even though I have had rather crap luck at catching fish. I will use this post to jot down some of the things I have learnt so I can check and see if they hold true.


-its all about the tides. fish the very top and very bottom
-look for holes in the sand on low tide caused by goldens digging for yabbies and crabs. also look for flat head lies
-always cast at bait
-too much bait is a bad sign, often means nothing is eating them, no bait is also crap
-full moon=shit fishing
-bigger tides means hotter shorter feeding times
-neap tides offer clearer water but less activity
-clouser, shrimps and crabs are what works on the flats for most species, also match colours to suit bottom and when fishing for bottem feeding fish, choose a fly that hits the bottom in 3 seconds
-watchout for crocs, stingers, and sharks. wear long pants when wading and tuck into socks
-fishing the snags and pressure points when targeting barra. they are lazy so you need to really get your fly in there
-most goldens on the flats can be found in 1-3 feet of water
-wade slow and do the stingray shuffle
-lead, sink, pause-strip-pause, when going for goldies
-casting behind large rays can often be rewarding


Armed with this basic knowledge I have have been hitting the local flats around Pallarenda with minimal success however I do know that the fish are there. I have heard from local gurus that the fishing has been very slow the last couple weeks and that I need to keep trying and hitting up the same location. I the weather is supposed to be crap the next couple days so I will be using this time to devise a plan to start catching more fishing.