Hinchinbrook is the gateway to the Australian wetr tropics and the Worlds largest island national park, the island is approximately 52km in lenth and separated from the mainland by a deep,narrow,mangrove fringed channel that can be accessed by boat from Lucinda at the southern end or Cardwell at the northern end, both these small fishing villages have excellant accommadation and charter services.

Hinchinbrook Channel with its maze of feeder rivers and mangrove lined creeks is home to some of the worlds great fighting fish, these include trevally, permit, mangrove jack, queenfish, fingermark and of course the magnificent Barramundi.

The Barramundi is Australias premier sport fish, Barra grow to a weight ineccese of seventy pounds and is a true brawler their fighting style is a mix of the Florida tarpon and the snook, the most popular way to catch a Barra is with small lures such as locally made Lively Lures and Rapala Shad Raps in neutral colors these need to be cast in among the mangrove roots and fallen trees and slowly worked back to the boat with a twitching wrist action. When a Barra strikes they make for the mangrove roots and its at this point that most fish are won or lost usually you get only one shot, once clear of cover they turn on a real show tail walking and leapping skywards shaking their solid silver bodies with gills flared trying to slice the leader with razor like plates on their gills. There is a closed season from October to Febuary and a bag limit of five fish per day as well as a minium and maxium legal lenth.

Another great sport fish here is the Mangrove Jack now this is one mean s.o.b. the average jack grows to about five to ten pound and does not have any respect for man or tackle when it comes to the fight whoever pulls the hardest wins most times its the jack, the jack is not fussy when it comes to lures he will take them in amongst the snags or right under your nose next to the boat, sometimes when hooked a jack will try to hook the trebles on a root or snag to tear the hook from its mouth, jacks also have a set of fangs to much your local junkyard dog.

At Lucinda is the worlds biggest F.A.D. the famous sugar loading jetty which extends some six klm seaward around its pilons lives some car door sized trevally which seem to have a fetish for collecting surface poppers from visiting anglers silly enough to toss them on any line under 30lb. For the live bait anlers the deeper waters at the end of the jetty offers Fingermarkt up to 30lb, Fingermark come from the same family of fish as the mangrove jack and pull like the main attraction at a saturday night tractor pull.

From the end of the jetty its only a hours run to the inner edges of the Great Barrier Reef where you will encounter marlin, sailfish, tuna, mackerall and a huge variety of reef fish.

The area also offers some great freshwater fishing for sooty grunter, freshwater barramundi and jungle perch.

Hinchinbrook is a anglers paradise and easy to get to only one and a half hours drive north of Townsville, Queenslands second largest city and two and a half hours drive south of Cairns the Black Marlin capital of the world. And I get to call it my office, if your ever down under and want some top sportfishing just give me a call or drop in to the Wanders Holiday Village at Lucinda and say Gday.