The threadies are coming!

Easter is looming and that means one thing for Broome recreational fishers.

The threadies are coming!

In fact, that is not strictly true as they are already here.

Keen fly angler Ross Italiano, who recently moved to Broome after a stint in Albany, hit Roebuck Bay last weekend for his first fishing outing in his new hometown.

Ross, who has helped out at several Recfishwest community fishing clinics in the past and hopes to also help the kids of the Kimberley, and friends headed towards Thangoo and soon discovered there were plenty of boats on the water trying their luck.

That didn’t stop them catching some impressive giant threadfin, which are an amazing looking fish with their prominent ‘whiskers’, to six or seven kilos.

While Ross has always been a lure and fly afficionado, they got their best results by fishing whole prawns close to the mangroves.

In the couple of years since commercial netting was removed from Roebuck Bay, this fishery has certainly thrived and is as good, if not better, than during the halcyon days when the Bay was famed for its annual threadie run.

Certainly the annual run seems to be starting earlier and earlier since the netting was removed in late 2013.

Local fishers have been stunned at just how quickly this fishery has recovered without commercial pressure and it goes to show how a well-managed recreational fishery can be compatible with conservation goals.

Threadfin taste great, but are also a catch-and-release proposition.

Circle hooks are advised when bait fishing, and single hooks on lures help minimise damage to fish which are to be released.

They usually push up into the shallows on an incoming tide as they hunt nervous baitfish and put up a great fight when hooked.

Dr Andrew Rowland is the chief executive of Recfishwest.