THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

AUSTRALIA
According to a very interesting TV documentary, the Cairns area of Queensland in north east Australia,
is statistically the most toxic location on the planet. Not from a pollution point of view, but by way of
a collection of animals living locally in the wild which could, given the chance, and in a variety of ways,
very easily kill you.
Inshore and creek fishing boat, Cairns
The sea for example has sharks,
poisonous sea snakes, box jellyfish
and blue ringed octopus to name but
a few, while the adjacent creeks and
rivers are full of saltwater crocodiles.
On the land its funnel web spiders and
deadly taipans. And so the list goes
on.
Not that anyone need be particularly
concerned. We roamed freely in all
these types of venue, and while we
did see examples of some of what was
lurking out there, we were always
well insulated from it.
So a wonderful experience at a
fantastic location, also supposedly offering some of the best fishing in the world. Certainly from an
offshore big game perspective. But as an avid species collector, I wasn't there to go dragging lumps of
plastic all over the ocean on the off chance of a marlin trying to eat it. There were way too many other
potential attractions on offer for that.
The creeks for example, where you can fish for amongst many other things, barramundi, and of course
there's the great barrier reef.
If I'm honest, though I went to Cairns with the hope of fishing the barrier reef, I wasn't actually sure
until I got there that this would even be allowed, as there was little in the way of Internet back then to
check things out in advance. So I started things off by fishing a few short stints in and around the creeks
from a guided aluminium skiff in the hope of barramundi.
Not that it would have mattered even if I had found myself a barrier reef opportunity, as the weather
was ropey. So up the creeks it was catching all sorts of catfish and snapper-like things, plus a fish that
looked like a barramundi but wasn't.
Usually this would be done in the morning. Our guide would use his cast net to gather up an ample
supply of large shrimps and we were off.
It was fun fishing. Nothing big, but plenty of action from a wide variety of species more than capable
of giving a good account of themselves. Then quite by chance, on one of the days, we chose to fish in
the afternoon. An inspired decision.
Not so much for the fishing on that particular day, but most definitely for what was to come. For
coinciding with our arrival back at the marina came one of the larger reef angling boats, and on the dock
they were sorting through a whole host of huge snappers, groupers and jacks.
That was my cue. I made a bee-line for the skipper, and by the time these trips came around, the sea
had thankfully settled and the sun was out. A good job too as it was a long haul out to where we were
headed to fish some of the deeper portions of the barrier reef.
410