July Fishing Report 2026

July Blog

The year has absolutely flown by, and the end of July marks the halfway point of our season. Typically, we keep July fairly relaxed on the guiding front. After a crazy start to the season, it gives us a chance to catch up on maintenance, spend some much needed time with family, and sneak in a bit of fishing for ourselves.

While we slow things down personally, the fishing certainly doesn’t seem to follow suit.

The flats have continued to be the standout option, with July marking the time of year when we really start to poke around looking for permit. While we encounter them throughout the year here in Cape York, from this point onwards we generally start to see better numbers, larger schools and more opportunities to target them on fly. A few of the boys have been making the most of it, with some great permit fishing already happening.

There are still plenty of blue bastards and tuskfish on the flats too, so we have been making the most of this action whenever the opportunity arises, both with clients and on the guides’ days off.

Offshore fishing has kept us on our toes as well, with plenty of pelagic action happening and the ever present challenge of trying to keep the sharks away from hooked fish. This time of year also sees an influx of phytoplankton offshore, which brings the manta rays in to feed. Where you find the mantas, you often find cobia, creating some seriously cool sight fishing opportunities off the backs of these incredible animals.

The rivers tend to slow down quite a bit through July, but that doesn’t mean the fishing gets any less interesting. We spend more time looking for barra and threadfin salmon in extremely shallow, calm water, where the fishing becomes technical, visual and incredibly rewarding.

This style of fishing probably doesn’t get the credit it deserves. Getting the fly into the right position, making the right presentation and then successfully setting the hook on fish that often don’t eat particularly hard, all while dealing with tricky conditions, makes for some seriously fun fishing.

August is already starting to get busy, and we are about to enter a 14 week stretch of pretty much non stop chaos. We will do our best to keep everyone updated along the way and hopefully find a few moments to come up for air.

Wish us luck!