NT Fishing Report

Alex Julius               22 April 2010

There’ve been some good reports of sailfish action down Dundee way but the truth is that you don’t need to go anywhere near that far to find sails in numbers. I heard a whisper that old mate Phil Hall brained the slender billfish straight out off Darwin the weekend before last, so I rang him up to drag the information out of him.

Sure enough, he told me that the last set of neaps during the weekend were champagne sailfish days out at Fenton Patches.

I’ve written before that Phil usually slips out on his own in his 4.6m tiller-control tinny, heads straight for the Fenton Patches artificial reefs and, from there, begins trolling a pair of skipping gars with two teasers rigged on the one spool crank, heading out to Fenton Wide and west of there.
Apparently the gold-striped sardines were everywhere.

“When they move into Fenton, that’s when the sails are about; it was the first time I’ve seen them this year,” Phil explained.

Never one to mince his words, Phil proved it on Saturday by scoring a double hook-up on his first few minutes of trolling.

Landing a decent-sized sailfish out of a tinny is hard enough as it is, but landing two in a solo effort takes a fair bit of skill and experience; both of which Phil has plenty of. He landed both sails and I asked him how he went about it.

“Well, the bigger one, about 20kg-plus, was the first hooked,” he said.

“Luckily the other one that hooked up straight after was smaller, and I was able to leave the rod in the holder and apply tension with one foot.

“There were a few gazelle-like moments out there,” Phil joked.
On the Saturday, Phil raised four and landed the lot, and he reckoned they all fought like crazy, leaping all over the sea.

“Sunday was like glass out there – not a breath of wind, so I was able to troll in any direction,” Phil continued.

“I saw at least a dozen sails because the water was so clear that you could peer down and count them as they worked the sardine schools.

“Once I saw six or seven around one bait school.

“I hooked four that day but only landed two.

“The last sail was one of those tough ones that fought for a long, long time on 8kg line.

“It knocked the starch out of me – after I landed it, I sat back with a towel and ice sitting on my head,” Phil said laughingly.

Phil reckoned the water was teaming with bait schools and tuna about halfway out to Fenton Patches.

“I usually prefer the neaps leading up to the full moon which is this weekend, so the sails should be out there as long as the sardines are still about,” Phil tipped.

There you go then – Fenton Patches for sails this long weekend is definitely worth considering.

On the barra front, it seems an armada of boats descended upon the South Alligator River last weekend, but the huge downpour over the preceding few days raised water levels and all but shut the fish down.
Roger Sinclair was there and told me that, while heading up the river on the big tides, it was soon evident that the river catchment had received significant rainfall and the river level was high up the banks even at low tide.

“Every gutter was spewing with freshwater off the adjacent floodplain,” he said.

“Nourlangie Creek mouth was racing with turbid grey freshwater evidencing heavy floodwater further upstream.

“Heading up the main river further, we were soon aware that the top of the river was well and truly over the banks with only bank-side vegetation remaining to delineate the main river from the ocean of water spread out over the floodplain,” Roger reported.

Understandably, Roger and his mate, Glen Hubble, found the barra fishing slow; however, they managed about eight fish on soft plastics (DOA Terror eyes, Gulp Shrimps and Snapbacks) with only three or four over legal length.

“Even at the height of the incoming spring tide, the outflow at the top of the river barely diminished, given the expanse of water draining off.

It would be reasonable to expect that it may take a week or two for the river level to drop back within its banks but, when it does, the barra fishing at the top of the South Alligator should be very rewarding,” Roger said.

Another tip for this weekend is the Adelaide River which fished extremely well over the last set of neap tides.
For big barra, the recent rains have breathed life back into the Mary River system and both Tommycutt and Sampan Creek mouths should produce some whoppers on the troll. On these tides, crabbing is also predicted to be good this weekend.

Meanwhile, the Barra Classic will be in full swing down the Daly River, so forget about heading in that direction for the long weekend.

NB. Last week, I mistakenly named the angler with the sailfish as Mario Faggion when in fact it was Rob Mills. Sorry chaps.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This terrific sailfish was one of half a dozen caught on the last neap tides by Phil Hall fishing solo out at Fenton Patches.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

James Arbon fished with Justin Jones of Obsession Fishing Safaris and came up trumps with this 105cm barra, one of several he caught with dad Stuart.