On arrival at Seisia Wharf, Ricky Gabadi had just caught this magnificent Queenfish
using live sardine
The Great Escape!
Almost at the very tip of Cape York is a hallowed fishing ground that a lucky few wet a line each year.
It’s beyond the Jacky Jacky, through the tangled mass of mangroves that comprise Middle River, past Trochus
Island and close to the far end of Turtle Head Island. It’s name is The Escape River and to me it is my
‘Great Escape’.
I first made the journey through wall to wall mangroves with a compass and a cut lunch to this magical place
almost 20 years ago with fishing mate John Cross. When others heard of this trip they called us ‘crazy’, and
with good reason as few had tried to penetrate this wilderness through such narrow mangrove corridors before.
But to us it was an adventure and the fishing we encountered was absoloutly mind blowing which more than
justified the risk. It had been two long years since I visited this old stomping ground and the fishing was
just as awesome!
Warren Strevens (Wazza), could be best described as a ‘character’. A true bushy with a wicked sense of
humour and an uncanny ability to find fish. As would be expected he’s a fine hunter too and it’s known amongst
the communities of Cape York that wild pigs quiver at the mention of his name - and so they should! I’ve
fished with Wazza for about 8 years and we’ve had more top fishing days than I care to remember so it was
great to catch up with him for a session on my recent visit.
Warren (Wazza) Strevens with his first fingermark of the day - he’s a top fishing guide!
A few years ago he set up a ‘camp out’ safari operation at the mouth of the Macdonald River which allows the
average bloke to fulfil his fishing dreams on a reasonable budget. He’s been very successful and later this
year I’ll be visiting his camp and will give readers a full update, and hopefully some good pics of those
‘fish of a lifetime’.
Getting back to this yarn, Wazza and I decided to try for fingermark on a few rocky outcrops on the way to
the Escape River. His father, Terry came along to try his luck bait fishing and to perhaps snare his first
ever barra. The weather was nye on perfect, overcast and hot with distant clouds continually threatening to
drench us. The tide was still running in as we anchored on a rock bar in about 5 metres of water.
I opted to use a 100mm Squidgey Slick Rig Drop Bear tied directly onto 50lbs mono leader, the other guys
stuck to fresh squid. As the soft plastic hit the bottom I could feel the rock bar and gently lifted my rod
in a slow up and down action to try and entice a bite. Whallop - within seconds I was onto something of size
as it took me up river shaking it’s head in anger. My 40lbs braid almost sang a tune as it felt the strain
of my lift and wind tactics that soon saw the fish turn it’s head and give me some purchase. The net was out
and there it was, a flash of red with a big black spot near it’s tail. Fingermark, and first cast too. I
couldn’t believe it! The boys hadn’t got a bite on their fresh squid and the soft plastic had a run on the
board. Four kilos, not a bad start!
This 4 kilo fingermark took a Squidgey Slick Rig Drop Bear colour - on the first drop!
I hooked and lost another similar sized fish before hauling in small G.T., then Wazza changed to a Slick Rig
and he was into a finermark too. It’s not hard to tell when someone hooks one of these road trains, the
grunts and groans usually give the game away! Similar in size to my first fish the lad was well pleased
with himself, Terry had yet to get a decent bite on bait!!!!
The expected species began to chew the dead bait - catfish, cod, small grunter - but no fingermark. We were
just about to leave when Terry did hook up and brought a healthy 2 kilo fingermark to the net. Wazzas theory
in such shallow waters that we had spooked them when we lost a couple, fair comment!
Next stop we began to drift along the edge of a small island casting F111’s and Stealth minnows. Using the
‘twitch and wind’ method we soon found customers as queenies to 2 kilos and similar sizes G.T’s were caught
and released. As we approached one tide flooded mangrove, Wazza recalled the last time he had fished there
and got into a bunch of Fingermark, and, he was right on the money as I hooked a 2.5 kilo fish, then Terry
and even Wazza got in on the action. We had a frantic half hour ‘hot bite’ and were done like a dinner on
several occasions as these aggressive hoodlums found home.
Wazza’s father, Terry, used fresh squid to snare this eating size Fingermark
It was time to motor up the Escape and one of my favourite spots on the run out tide still looked like barra
heaven. We negotiated the sandbars and gutters to weave our way in and dropped the anchor. The water was
around 1.5 metres deep so I tied on a sinking F111 minnow and had the honour of the first cast. BOOF, just
as the lure hit the surface I was on as a 3.5 kilo barra tailwalked and behaved badly. Just as I netted him
Wazza was on too, then Terry had an ‘on-off’ experience or we could have had a triple hook up, what a place!
As the tide dropped the fishing slowed so we let the sinking lures hit bottom before starting a slow twitching
retrieve, it worked and I had another 3 kilo plus barra doing it’s stuff. It was time for Terry to break his
barra duck and we tied on a medium diving Barra Classic on for him. It took a few cast but he hooked a
beauty and carried on like a young buck on heat as he excitedly fought his first barra. It was a pleasure
to see Wazza's dad get his first one and lots of photos followed before it was released.
Terry Strevens with his first ever barra - couldn’t wipe that smile off his face!
Last stop of the day was another spot I remembered, a gutter that is isolated at low tide and you have to
walk across shallow waters to get to it. The fish in this gutter were lethargic and it took us some time
to ‘stir’ them up with Gold Bullets and Stealth Minnows, but when it happened it was on for young and old!!
Smaller buck male barras around the 2 to2.5 kilo mark led us a merry dance through timber and mangroves
before we eventually got the better of them. I lost a couple of lures to fingermark, not a good place to
try and extract these critters, too many snags and over a short distance they were just too good!
It was just on dusk as we entered Middle river on our way back to the ramp at Bamaga. The tide was low so
it made for a hair raising ride through the narrow mangrove channels, a great way to finish off a perfect
days fishing. Ten fingermark, fourteen barra plus heaps of other smaller fish made up another trip to
remember. To top it all off we had four fingermark in the esky and knew we’d be in for one hell of a feed!
Adam White with a pair of fine barras taken on the new Stealth minnow
The Barras Just Keep Coming
As mentioned in my article last month we have had a great start to the barra season with fish to 13.5 kilos
taken from the rocks using lures north of Cairns, and with the sultry stormy weather that has followed there
have been some prime opportunities for locals to latch onto some good sized fish.
Visiting my old fishing mate Adam White in Karumba we headed out on the Norman River to try some new lures
called F111’s and Stealth’s. These 11 cms. Metallic coloured rattlers cast a country mile and have a teriffic
action. Loaded with multiple rattles they do ‘ring the dinner gong’ well so we set out with high hopes.
The author with an 80cms (6.5kg) barra that scoffed the new F111 minnow.
It was feeding in less than a metre of water. Bottom pic showing how he ‘wedged’ the lure with one big
in-haling BOOF - he was hungry all right!
The F111 is a very slow sinker so it can be used as a surface lure or let sink to the depths, ideal around
snags and gutters. The Stealth is a floating minnow that gets down to around a metre. We tried some of the
better know barra haunts up stream with no effect due to the big volumes of fresh water still pouring down
so we decided to wait for the run in tide near the river mouth to flick these lures on the flats.
The results were instant as we boated some feisty fish to 3 kilos who readily scoffed down these lures, and
to top it all off we saw a bigger fish feeding at the back of the mangroves in no more than a metre of water.
Casting in front of him I tweaked the F111 and BANG he inhaled it big time. What a top fight tail walking
through stubble mangrove shoots and in and out of small stands. A healthy specimen of around 80 cms. Was
safely netted (approx. 6.5 kilos) and he had the lure well ‘wedged’ across his mouth. We imagined him
‘boofing’ it in with one big in-hale, as barras do!
Our 1 hour session saw 8 fish caught and released, and we concluded yet another couple of lures had to be
added to our ever growing tackle boxes.
