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Thread: Lizard island 2020

  1. #1

    Lizard island 2020

    Hi all.
    Not long got back from 5 days fishing at lizard island north of Cooktown.
    We jagged some nice weather for the 5 days.
    Although it was a northerly for most the time which made the fishing smidge slower for up there and the weather insanely hot.

    We launched from Cooktown and ran the 90odd km up in about 2 hours.
    Cooktown caravan park was awesome enough to mind our trailer while away. Legends..

    We managed to fish Jewel reef most days. It’s awesome to fish a place in your own boat after seeing people like nomad on YouTube do the same!
    Place in untouched. 99% lure fishing, nearly every retrieve has fish following.
    Caught a heap of red bass and trout.
    Got some real stonker trout on stick baits.
    Plus usual reef lurkers.

    Fished the deeper water jigging for whatever. Got obliterated most times , lost about 20jigs in one morning! My 80lb gear isn’t sufficient for that joint.


    The fish holding on the outside edge of the reefs is phenomenal. Like an aquarium where ever you stop. At one stage we saw school of 4 trout on a ledge all well over a 1m long. Getting em to hit a lure is another story.

    I will say I’ve never experienced sharks before in such epic numbers. They were absolutely everywhere. We woukd easily have caught 20-30 sharks each day and hooked twice as many more. No matter where we fished we struggled to get away from them at times.

    Lizard island is an amazing place. We camped on the island whilst there. The anchorage in Watson’s bay is excellent. The camp ground is fairly crappy and not well maintained.

    We used 600l of fuel and did 700km on the water whilst there and drank approx 100l of water..lol.

    All in all amazing place and I’ll be back for sure.
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  2. #2

    Re: Lizard island 2020

    I didnt think coral trout got that big have only seen the odd one on tv

    Love that trev want to catch one one day

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  3. #3

    Re: Lizard island 2020

    Thanks mate.
    The main attraction for going that far north is catching huge trout. So many monsters that smoked us bigger than what we landed.

    Def worth while fishing it once in your lifetime at least.


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  4. #4

    Re: Lizard island 2020

    nice report . very pretty fish good to hear there is waters still teeming like the waters of eden , that fish in frame 4 whats that?

  5. #5

    Re: Lizard island 2020

    That’s a red bass. Catch them by the dozen up northern reef. No take species. But that was my first one on a lure. Heaps of fun to catch .


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  6. #6
    Ausfish Addict disorderly's Avatar
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    Re: Lizard island 2020

    Looks like you had a great adventure Flex.

    The missus wants to go up once the tradewinds ease off in September/October if this corona nightmare is over by then...its only a 5-6 hour drive to Cooktown..

    Did you get your extra fuel from the Seaswift…?...we dont want to take a boatload of jerries if possible...

    and mate ...where's the Reds...?...

  7. #7

    Lizard island 2020

    Hey mate.
    Was a blast of a trip. Im honestly not sure you’ll get there comfortably in sep/oct unless you can go when ever the weather comes good the drop of a hat. How big is your boat?
    Make sure you take inflatable. It makes the trip and is to dangerous without one.

    We took all our own fuel. 100l in Jerry’s and 500in boat. Next time I’ll see what i can tee up with seaswift. Have you heard of anyone doing it? They load up from cairns every two weeks to lizard I think?

    We spent about 6-7 hours one day chasing reds in 50-70m mark north of lizard. Found some sensational marks in 60m but no reds. Heap of other reef fish though and bazillion sharks. We got shredded by some massive bottom dwellers we couldn’t turn. Maybe these were 20kg reds
    Found probably a dozen marks all over the place in the deeper water but no nannies or reds . I have a feeling they are in bit closer on the flatter country up that way.


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  8. #8
    Ausfish Addict disorderly's Avatar
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    Re: Lizard island 2020

    Quote Originally Posted by Flex View Post
    Hey mate.
    Was a blast of a trip. Im honestly not sure you’ll get there comfortably in sep/oct unless you can go when ever the weather comes good the drop of a hat. How big is your boat?
    Make sure you take inflatable. It makes the trip and is to dangerous without one.

    We took all our own fuel. 100l in Jerry’s and 500in boat. Next time I’ll see what i can tee up with seaswift. Have you heard of anyone doing it? They load up from cairns every two weeks to lizard I think?

    We spent about 6-7 hours one day chasing reds in 50-70m mark north of lizard. Found some sensational marks in 60m but no reds. Heap of other reef fish though and bazillion sharks. We got shredded by some massive bottom dwellers we couldn’t turn. Maybe these were 20kg reds
    Found probably a dozen marks all over the place in the deeper water but no nannies or reds . I have a feeling they are in bit closer on the flatter country up that way.


    Sent from my iPhone using Ausfish forums
    Looks like you got the pick of the weather too..

    and yeah we are pretty flexible.pretty much work around boating weather anyway...we have to be in FNQ as you dont really know when the tradewind season will taper off...just prefer to go before it gets filthy hot but depends on this virus and the winds ultimately..

    50-80kms each way is the average fishing trip for us anyway off Mission beach or Innisfail and with no islands once we get out there..lol...so the actual distance travelled up by cooktown is not the issue, just the wind and fuel to last the trip...yeah we have talked to seaswift and you can tee it up with them to drop your extra fuel up at Lizard so that makes life a lot easier...

    Sharks are getting insane up here ..basically the more boats that go to certain spots seems to train the sharks that a meal is coming....so when fishing known wrecks, shoals or marks it can sometimes be almost impossible to land a fish....and losing gear and jigs can get exxy....its best to scout around and find your own marks to have a chance...even then as you found they can still sometimes ruin the party..

    Did you have any reservations about leaving your boat moored while you were camping on the island and how about leaving gear unattended at camp while out fishing..?...and what sort of inflatable did you take and why..?..and did you have a freezer to bring fish home or did you release most..?

  9. #9

    Lizard island 2020

    We had a sensational run of weather. Probably only get those long runs of weather in summer. But I have jagged some up north in early autumn and spring.

    It is stupidly hot up there in summer. I feel we left our run bit late doing in March. Water temp was 30+ deg. Next trip will probably be mid jan I think. We drank nearly 6-8l of water per day each and religiously used staminade to stave off heat stroke. If you drank beer all day while fishing and no electrolyte replacement you’d probably die after 3 days..lol

    fishing in a northerly made the fish a smidge shy at times I feel. Need to fish current to get them to bite. Was a smidge frustrating at times to see dozens of massive trout off a Bommy and having no interest in your lure. Had to find patches with good water flow and the fish seemed much hungrier there.
    But during the northerly is when you generally get good weather so it’s always a juggling act.

    As to mooring the boat we anchored up maybe 80-100m from shore in 3-4m. We made the mistake of not having enough anchor chain and the 3rd night around 8pm during a stormy northerly we pulled anchor. (Coukd see boat slowly drifting towards shore via anchor light) so we use inflatable to go out to the big boat and reposition. I turned the underwater light on once we got onto the big boat and The amount of sharks under our boat was insane. Only in 3m of water I lost count how many where circling the boat. One shark was easily 4m long. So no swimming out to the boat for me!

    In Watson’s bay there is a public bouy we used for the remaining nights and couple of other larger mooring bouy’s who are probably private. I’d suggest use these. Two public bouys in the yellow zone bay to the east of Watson’s bay you can use to.

    The inflatable is a must imo. As you can safely Moore your boat and get to and from shore. I’d hate to have to swim out early morning and get the boat off bouy. We’d then leave the inflatable anchored in the bay ready to grab when we returned from the day fishing. Really made the trip.
    Bloke was attacked by little croc in Watson’s bay not that long ago swimming to his boat one evening.
    Also we used the inflatable to putt around to the marlin bar in the evening. Takes 5 mins . The walk over to the bar from the camp site takes ages and is a pain in the ass..lol
    We had a inflatable from bcf. Maybe 2.8mlong? With a 2.3h Honda outboard. Was bloody so awesome to have I’d never do island trip without one again.

    This trip was a test run with camping gear. Took 300w solar, battery and 40l fridge which we left on island. We had planned on using ice blocks in the boat but was to hot to keep fish cold for the day so we released Neely everything.
    Next trip I plan on having dual zone fridge on island to keep food and freeze fish. Then a little 30-40l on boat set to fridge mode and keep fish cold after catching until we get back to the island.
    Keeping fish on and island is sometimes not worth is as you have daily limit to contend with for the whole trip.

    As for safety of the gear we had no issue. I rekon the camp ground wouldn’t see more than 5 people a year. So I wouldn’t worry at all.
    We took a 12v shower pump and camping fan. Was awesome to rinse off them sleep with fan blowing on all night.!
    Hope that helps




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  10. #10
    Ausfish Addict disorderly's Avatar
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    Sep 2006
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    Re: Lizard island 2020

    Thanks for the detailed reponse mate...all good info..

    I'd like to have a dual zone fridge as well for the trip..got a travel buddy hardwired in already and I have a 325w solar panel to put on the hardtop when I get a chance...

    We will likely just sleep on the boat...2 and 3 day reef and island trips are usual for us anyway...its just a matter of organising and storing stuff so it doesn't get in the way as the boat is just 6.25m...

    That's why I didn't want to have to carry too many jerries of fuel on board and can always fill up with some more water for drinking and a shower on the island...

    and yeah the old adage of "no run no fun "sure holds true , particularly in the summer up here with the northerlies....can be some very quiet times between bite periods....that's when we jump in for a bit of a look around and to cool off...the sharks usually keep their distance and don't really bother us but we try and avoid murky water and dusk and dawn times.....they mainly only hassel you if you are spearing...

    Here is a YouTube vid from the local Barra god Ryan Moody on his recent trip....his boat would sure be sweet for a week away...



  11. #11

    Re: Lizard island 2020

    Quote Originally Posted by disorderly View Post
    Thanks for the detailed reponse mate...all good info..

    I'd like to have a dual zone fridge as well for the trip..got a travel buddy hardwired in already and I have a 325w solar panel to put on the hardtop when I get a chance...

    We will likely just sleep on the boat...2 and 3 day reef and island trips are usual for us anyway...its just a matter of organising and storing stuff so it doesn't get in the way as the boat is just 6.25m...

    That's why I didn't want to have to carry too many jerries of fuel on board and can always fill up with some more water for drinking and a shower on the island...

    and yeah the old adage of "no run no fun "sure holds true , particularly in the summer up here with the northerlies....can be some very quiet times between bite periods....that's when we jump in for a bit of a look around and to cool off...the sharks usually keep their distance and don't really bother us but we try and avoid murky water and dusk and dawn times.....they mainly only hassel you if you are spearing...

    Here is a YouTube vid from the local Barra god Ryan Moody on his recent trip....his boat would sure be sweet for a week away...


    Sounds like a fantastic trip away.

    What 325W solar panel do you use? Is it a regular household panel? A 325w 12 volt panel would be bulky and heavy?

  12. #12
    Ausfish Addict disorderly's Avatar
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    Sep 2006
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    In the Jungle/Mission Beach Hinterland

    Re: Lizard island 2020

    Quote Originally Posted by Bremic View Post
    Sounds like a fantastic trip away.

    What 325W solar panel do you use? Is it a regular household panel? A 325w 12 volt panel would be bulky and heavy?
    Hi mate its a REC household panel weighing about 18.5kg and probably close to 2x1m..I'm not too concerned about the affects on stability of the supervee hull..they are very stable at rest....
    I haven't fitted it yet ..still trying to figure out the best way to go about that...

  13. #13

    Re: Lizard island 2020

    I have the same brand, in a 295W, have it mounted on the roof rack when we go away camping.

  14. #14

    Re: Lizard island 2020

    Great post! Thanks for the details 🙏🏽
    fruit salad is the new Bacon

  15. #15

    Re: Lizard island 2020

    Attachment 121234Done the trIp to Lizard and further Nth now 3 times,this year will be doing Lizard and hopefully to Lochart River. Anchored in Watsons Bay 2 years ago

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