queensland Cairns Trinity Inlet Fishing

[hamish1995]

New to Cairns, planning to go fishing at Trinity inlet on Saturday, planning to fish around low tide (9:15am). Will be fishing off a tinnie. I read that Queenfish and Trevally are going to be best bet in the cooler months. Any one have any advice for fresh bait or lures? Where I can buy some bait? General advice for fishing the inlet?

 

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Hey hamish1995

First of all, welcome to the forum. I'm not based in Cairns (Brisbane actually), so I don't know much. Hopefully a member on here, tiotony, will see this thread as I know he knows what/where to fish and how to fish up there. Maybe if you read some of his older reports you'll pick up some information. 

Cheers Hamish  (I'm a Hamish too, LOL). 

[kmcrosby78]

Yep, @tiotony would be your best bet for advice. Try sending him a PM (Personal Message) as it might show up in his email and alert him that you're after advice. 

Welcome to the forum also, hopefully we'll get to hear about some successful sessions up your way  

[ellicat]

@Jaz44 is also at Cairns way and may be able to help out. Give him a couple of days.

Welcome to the forum.

[tiotony]

Can't help you too much mate. I'm a land based angler (by choice) and with almost all of the accessible areas banned from fishing in the inlet, I never go there anymore. I concentrate on the warm months salmon and barra on the beach now. 

All I can suggest; forget buying bait and throwing lures at inlet fish that see lures every day. Live bait is the key so get a castnet and fish live bait anywhere and you'll get fish. Use a long leader with lively baits and in the inlet you'll always get a good fingermark or something. Lightest or no lead and most natural presentation is the key - the livie will get smashed.

Other option without castnet; find a nice spot next to snags and burley heavily - plenty of big bream in the inlet this time of year and jacks, cod etc will be attracted too, but there seems to be a lot of bull sharks around this year that have been making my burley trails in the Barron a waste of time.

Last option; if the SE wind dies there will be heaps of doggie mackeral around the leads to the inlet. 

 

  

[ggg]

Hey mate. So sorry for the late reply. I actually went fishing on Friday with little luck. I did catch bait for next trip though! For next time, a simple tip is to just throw a net at the Tingira street boat ramp, We always catch bait there. If not, throw a net off creek mouths and points. You will always get bait. If you are time poor and can't look for fish, just anchor up on one of those yellow buoys. There are always fingermark and I have caught some grunter there. We found some structure just in front of a buoy full of fish. Try fishing the leads too. Time is much needed to find fish. 'Snag bashing' may produce some good fish but is a waste of time. It's too inconsistent.

[tiotony]

On 28/06/2020 at 7:55 PM, Jaz44 said:

Hey mate. So sorry for the late reply. I actually went fishing on Friday with little luck. I did catch bait for next trip though! For next time, a simple tip is to just throw a net at the Tingira street boat ramp, We always catch bait there. If not, throw a net off creek mouths and points. You will always get bait. If you are time poor and can't look for fish, just anchor up on one of those yellow buoys. There are always fingermark and I have caught some grunter there. We found some structure just in front of a buoy full of fish. Try fishing the leads too. Time is much needed to find fish. 'Snag bashing' may produce some good fish but is a waste of time. It's too inconsistent.

True eh about snag bashing in the inlet - get lures chucked at them by tourists all day every day.

I tried burley trail at Kamerunga sunday arvo which just brought in bullies. Then this afternoon at Holloways on the high tide for 30 minutes with gar from the Barron; didn't even get a single run. Fishing's terrible in Cairns in south easters.  

[ozcryptian]

On 26/06/2020 at 7:17 PM, tiotony said:

. I'm a land based angler (by choice)

Hi TT, any tips for land-based fishing, (will live bait and lure). Will be staying at Trinity Beach for a week in May. 

Also would you know anyone that has actually fished off Fitzroy Island (obviously outside of the restricted areas).

Thanks again for any help.

 

 

[tiotony]

On 30/03/2021 at 11:14 PM, ozcryptian said:

Hi TT, any tips for land-based fishing, (will live bait and lure). Will be staying at Trinity Beach for a week in May. 

Also would you know anyone that has actually fished off Fitzroy Island (obviously outside of the restricted areas).

Thanks again for any help.

 

 

I guess if the SE wind is down (unlikely that time of year - trade winds till sep/ oct)you'd get a fish or two right on the beach at Trinity. Very sharky in winter though so expect to go through a box of hooks if using flesh/ live bait.

Way around the sharks is to pump yabbies which will get you a zillion fish on the beach (without sharks) - lots of what we call 'little jew' which are a smallish jew species (think they are the 'silver jew' on the DPI website) - yabbies are crack cocaine for them but not sure where there are yabbies around Trinity. Also grunter.

Fitzroy I've only ever chased doggie mackeral in winter back when I used to boat fish. But hear about people getting big fingermark on isolated bommies at night (boat fishing), and (shore fishing) chucking metal lures at dawn getting lots of queenies/ blue spot trevs etc on the rocky outcrops.

Not too far from Trinity is Palm Cove jetty, which that time of the year may be pumping for mackeral if the wind is down.

Also I've heard Trinity beach is whiting central in winter - maybe catch whiting and chuck one out live and see if you can get a tripletail (other than sharks); seen quite a few reports of tripletail at Trinity in the local fishing pages - actually one just this week.

Sorry I pretty much go into fishing hibernation in winter (except for trying to see how big a bream I can catch on bread in the river down the street), unless the SE winds die for a spell, so thats all I've got.