TROPICAL ESTUARY TACTICS

For anglers visiting the tropics of Australia for the first time there are a number of exciting species to chase. The following article is an overview of some of the tactics I’ve found to work well in the tropics. A lot of anglers make the assumption that fishing the tropics is a fish smorgasbord where every cast gets a bite and fish are easy to come by. While this can be true in some remote locations, more often it requires a fair amount of study and planning to work out the “when and where” the bites will come from.

In many tropical areas the tides and wet season runoff make a huge impact on the fishing. At the extreme end, as in the Kimberley’s, you may be faced with tidal differentials that are up to 12 metres and the water shifts can be phenomenal. In most other areas, with the exception of the Gulf of Carpentaria, tidal differentials on spring tides are generally 4 to 7 metres. Big tides can make navigation hazardous, and if you go into a new river on high tide, never ever blindly follow your GPS track home on low tide. There are always hazardous rocks and snags more than