Any tips for My Fishing Road Trip

Depends where North is mate. Plenty of decent spots around the Kimberley can be fished from land, but having a boat is 10 times better. Best time for barra fishing is the wet season, but the weather might not bo too kind. It is the best time of year though. The country is nothing like it is during the dry, which is what everyone see's.

Fraser island - August/September is prime time for fishing there.
But fishing is good all year around. Grab a rod and head to the nearest beach - easy as that!

-T

Just a couple of things that may pay to be aware of.

No.1 Don't stand to close to the waters edge north of about Rocky. They've just shifted a 3.8M croc from our boat ramp here in Cairns.
In Topsy Creek in the Gulf last year there was sign saying not to fish from your boat for too long in one place. That creek has crocs everywhere.

At the same boat ramp a vehicle was broken into and cans of spaghetti were thrown all around the inside of the vehicle.

Fish Tinaroo for big barra, not great to eat but good to catch.

Best of luck.

Only boat ramp or isolated parking spots to even semi trust will be the more populated & traffic ones. Infact never leave the vehicle & camper at a boat ramp anywhere in Aust..

Get yourself a few fishing location books, www.cairnsfishing.com.au is great website & there will be many others for our area here. FNQ

BCF sell a very detailled book (cannot remeber its name) with gps marks etc mainly for boating but will give you great ideas, seasons etc. its a very thick book blue cover from memory.
As said above hit the barra asap after the wet finishes, i would plan barra for April - may before the water recedes.
There are heaps of barra dams especially from Proserpine onwards heading north so hit them all & there are no crocs in them.

Land based salt water fishing - target all headlands etc marina's contact some of us as you move & perhaps we can go or at least help you out...
Have fun & catch sh*t loads....
Cheers Towie.....
PS. i live in Port Douglas if you get here..

A ' laptop ' safe bolted to the floor will give you some peace of mind . Only cost about $60 , from memory . Good for the camera and expensive gadgets , and for the spare credit cards and money .

Gday Pony,

Think the blue book towie mentioned is called North Australian Fish Finder (edition 7). Covers a fair stretch of the east and west coasts too. Be well worth a look.

Some advice i can give is that i did the trip round OZ about 5 years ago in a station wagon, and it really hurt going past 4wd only roads/tracks. know a 4wd can hurt the budget though..

Once you hit Qld, think about buying a cast net, youtube has some vids on how to throw em. Apart from bait, i was catching a heap of prawns too. And once i was lucky enough to get 15 whiting over a ft long in a school i thought was mullet :) i only kept 5, but they made a nice brekky!

Have a great trip, will be up Cape York in July (troopy these days).

Hi,

I've just started a similar trip but starting from the other side! I left Perth three weeks ago and am slowly making my way up the west coast. Don't know what you consider good fishing but in comparison to home (Ireland) this place is unreal.

Spanish Mackerel/Tuna/Bronzies/Jumbo Mulloway & Tailor off the stones at Wagoe 30kms south of Kalbarri (I couldn't fish it cause of the swells - easterlys only... on neap tides).

However here's what I have caught in just 2 weeks! Kalbarri itslef has some cracking Mulloway, forget about Chinamans Rock and fish the beaches at Wittecara and Red Bluff 5kms south of the town. Am up in Shark Bay now, Goulet Bluff, Whalebone Rd, Fowlers Camp Rd. are producing shovel nosed sharks to 20kgs, tailor in the 4-6kg bracket, dozens of blacktip reef sharks every night to 10kgs and some monsters I haven't even identified yet close to 70-80kgs, lots of species of stingrays in the 10 - 30kilo bracket fishing only 30 - 50m out from the beach, snapper in shark bay so far have been small but good yellowfin whiting and hordes of tarwhine etc. if you fish small hooks. The trouble is there's so many reef sharks after dark you cannot fish for anything else, it's every 10 minutes - pests!

Like you I only have 2WD and am severely limited but I'm still finding outstandiing fishing and plenty of access spots, if I had a 4WD I'd probably never even get out of Shark Bay.

Am heading north to Quobba, Exmouth, Broome, Port Headland, darwin and across the NT over the winter months before heading down the east coast next Sep/Oct so we may cross paths at some stage and compare notes!

Liam

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