# cairns land based fishing spots



## soggypilchard (Dec 1, 2008)

Gday, im heading up to cairns for my honeymoon for a week, taking a bream rod and a barra rod, can anyone please point me in the direction of cool places to fish or explore?
we will have a hire care
cheers
Marcus


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## Junglefisher (Jun 2, 2008)

Marcus, any ideas what you want to try and catch? Barra are going to be a tough ask this time of year, especially land based.
Cairns is not ideal for land based fishing. 
If the winds drop below 10-15knots for a few days (good luck), you can catch mackeral or barra off palm cove jetty. Live bait is best. Are you staying at Palm cove? You'll see the water clear up if the winds do drop.
You can fish the breakwall at the pier marina, not real exciting fishing though. Good for eels, shovel nosed sharks and the occasional mack or barra. Outgoing tide is best.
You can fish the headlands, but that's more of a summer / runoff thing. Might still be able to pick something up.
You can walk along the freshwater creeks and rivers chasing Jungle perch or sooties (let me know if you want spots / a guide.) If your intended is outdoorsy, there are a few very nice spots that you can go together. I even have a few yaks you can borrow if you want to explore the Mulgrave.
I believe Port Douglas may offer better land based fishing, there's some rock wall up there that are said to be productive at times.
You could drive to Lucinda and fish off the jetty there.


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## soggypilchard (Dec 1, 2008)

Gday Jungle fisher, im keen on catching anything really, maybe i should get a guide or go on a charter.
wouldnt mind getting a GT or Barra
but also wouldnt mind casting around small lures to see what they produce.


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## Guest (Jun 9, 2010)

There are the remnants an old bridge on the eastern side of the road which connects Port Douglas & Cairns, the old bridge is located where the Captain Cook Hwy intersects with the Mowbray River.

We arrived just before dusk, caught a couple of Trevally initially, just on dusk baitfish started busting up in all directions. We quickly switched to surface poppers which matched the bait and we landed 2 nice Barra within 10 mins 8) we packed it in straight away and had fresh Barra in the oven within the hour!

The bridge is 4 or 5 meters high (see pic) and the old pylons are still there in the middle of the river covered in barnacles so landing fish is a bit of a challenge, we sent a man down on the rocks beside the bridge (quite steep) to bring the fish in and back up top. Take care if doing this, we spoke with a few locals who were there who mentioned there is a big Croc which hangs around there.










Worth a look


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## bungy (Jan 1, 2008)

Hey mate it's your honeymoon....You won't have time for fishing....Congrats


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## soggypilchard (Dec 1, 2008)

Dallas said:


> There are the remnants an old bridge on the eastern side of the road which connects Port Douglas & Cairns, the old bridge is located where the Captain Cook Hwy intersects with the Mowbray River.
> 
> We arrived just before dusk, caught a couple of Trevally initially, just on dusk baitfish started busting up in all directions. We quickly switched to surface poppers which matched the bait and we landed 2 nice Barra within 10 mins 8) we packed it in straight away and had fresh Barra in the oven within the hour!
> 
> ...


hey mate there sure is a Big croc down there. a 2 1/2m one that hangs under the bridge and the mud at lowtide. i have photos of it chasing my popper.
I ended up in there on a charter boat.there is also a 4 m croc in there that they havent seen since it was shot a few years ago and it moved upstream.
here is my fishing report copied from realsurf forums

guys, i went on a charter with some guys from port douglas called fa fun

http://www.fishingportdouglas.com.au/fafun.html
both Adam and Mario know their stuff.
The reef fishing was pretty slow flicking poppers and flyfishing, and we couldnt get the long tail tuna to stay in one place. so they gave me and the other customer a ful day for the price of a half day.
Mario is a croc catcher when not chartering, and showed me all the creeks beetween cairns and port douglas. he also knows the sizes of the crocs and theyre names in all the little spots.
what mario doesnt know about fishing (especially Barra and jungle perch) isnt worth knowing,
and looking through his mobile phone pic gallery i recognised a mate from cronulla chris Billing, and old shark island guy, who also catches marlin off the rocks, turns out he had tracked down mario to help him get a barra.

if your ever up there give these guys a call. mario was keen for a fish and was bummed i was flying out the next day, he was going to show me around for free. i slung him some beers and an ecogear lure he liked the look of.

this guy catches barra at the boat ramp like its nothing.

i ended up having a funny fish experience out on the reef at the quicksilver pontoon. i like feeding fish when diving, but they have a no feeding the fish rule.
at lunch i secretly flicked some chicken bones and prawns off the side and watched big mauri wrass, mauri cod paddle tail snapper and other huge fish fight over the food.

when i next went for a dive with my wife i had secretly placed a few peices of bread and prawns down my wetsuit with the intention of feeding little fishies on the reef.

we jumped in and swam a few meters when all of a sudden i was surrounded by massive massive fish bumping me adn one bit my finger. so i am swimming away half pulling my wetsuit down to free the bread and prawns and half lookingat the pontoon hoping nobody would notice and hopng the fish would stop attacking me.

my wife was watching from a few meters away in hysterics saying i looked so worried, a whole line of fish following me.
she nearly choked on the water in her snorkle from laughing.

i got up on a metal mesh stand next to the boat that was 1-1/2 feet deep to undo my wetsuit and this massive groper comes rightup onto it like when great whites come onto shore and get seals.
fkin scary that one. i learnt a lesson.

Mario reakons if the mangrove jacks that live just off the edge had have come into it i may have been on the tv and in hospital as they have sharp teeth and a crushing jaw.


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