The Haughton River is a large river system and The Haughton floodplain contains one of the greatest concentrations of wetland habitat in the entire catchment area. The Haughton system is listed in the Directory of Important Wetlands in Australia, and as part of Bowling Green Bay National Park.

Located approximately 50mins from Townville the Haughton River attracts many anglers and offers a variety of fishing.

The mouth of the river on the South Eastern side provides great flats fishing for Whiting and Flathead. The flat along the beach near Cungulla can fire up with lots of bait, birds and Queenfish, where poppers and shallow diving lures are a good choice.

A little upstream the Haughton has awesome run off fishing during the wet season, with many drains and tributaries. Barramundi are the main catch here, casting lures into the run off and working them erratically out into the main river always produces.

For the rest of the year these same drains and inlets can produce fish during the outgoing tide as bait fish are washed out. Trolling passed the drains is also a good tactic to produce Barramundi.

The deeper drop offs at the edge of the sand bars also hold schools of Grunter and can be effectively worked with soft plastics.

The mouth of Burrumbush Creek that enters into the Haughton River has some really great snags that hold good sized Mangrove Jack, Barramundi and Bream.

North of Cromarty Creek boat ramp is a rock bar that should be work on the turn of the tide with soft plastics or TheadyBuster’s for Barramundi and Fingermark.

The best time to fish is a few hours either side of low tide, the change in tide can really turn on the fish. Anglers should look for large snags that break the flow of the current, casting behind these snags and working the lure past them is the best practice.