NT Fishing Report
with Alex Julius 15 July 2010
The wind has been a bugger but there have been some exciting catches over the last week.
On the blue water, it’s almost as if the pelagics have moved inshore just so frustrated Darwin anglers can have a shot at them.
According to Matty West at Fishing and Outdoor World, GTs and queenies have been going ballistic on the other side of the harbour.
“People are catching them from Talc Head to Mandorah, mainly on chromies,” Matty told me.
Lee Point and the Bottlewasher artificial reef are where to go for your inshore mackerel, although the majority of fish have been the smaller broadbars.
I also had an interesting inshore report from Steve Starling who seems to be having a ball discovering do-it-yourself fishing around Darwin.
“I had a brilliant morning on the harbour with Morgan Hartney from Tales from the Tinny,” Steve said.
“We kicked off with a nice longtail tuna each on light spin gear (Morgan's hooked 150 metres from the Ski Club boat ramp off the first cast of the day!) then caught a bunch of pikey bream, small trevally, queenies, golden snapper etc,” Steve said.
Peter Zeroni also reports great blue water action, especially as he was able to capitalise on a break in the windy weather last weekend and belt out offshore to South Gutter for a spot of deepwater jigging.
“It was a good call as we got stuck into plenty of GTs as well as a few Spaniards,” Pete said.
“The highlight of the trip was local fisho Brian Mappas nailing a big goldie on a Reidy’s knife jig.”
Craig Grosvenor from Got One was also able to shed some light on the local blue water scene.
“It hasn't been the most predictable week with regard to the windy conditions, but there were areas that glassed out at certain times and the fishing was awesome when it did,” Craig told me.
“Channel Point's Peron-Islands-and-Red-Cliff accessibility has brought about some monster goldies lately,” Craig also reported.
On the barra front, you should have been there last week is definitely the story with Four Mile Hole on the Wildman River. The road into Four Mile only opened last week, and Roger Sinclair and Glen Hubble made a beeline for it to check it out.
The pair fished mainly with the fly rod and small soft plastics, catching close to 200 barra over two days, with more than half on the long wand. However, only the odd fish was over the legal 55cm, and Roger reckoned anglers trolling appeared to be doing poorly by comparison.
So many fish of that size are a clear indication of the great wet season before last. These would all be what the scientists refer to as 1+ barra – fish that are between one and two years old.
Also still fishing well for barra on the inland scene is the freshwater lagoon above the barrage at Shady Camp.
In the saltwater, good reports continue from the Finniss River, particularly the rock-bars.
Darwin Harbour flats have also been fishing well – Phil Newton caught 18 last Monday fishing flats out of the wind where the water was at its warmest.
The mouth of the Adelaide River and Saltwater Arm also turned it on for Brad Woollams, Wayne Williams and Mick Novinetz. They landed several barra in the 70cm range on the new 12cm floating Rapala X-Rap, and topped the day off with a few nice muddies.
Here’s a reminder about the tropical snapper research project currently taking place.
NT Fisheries has asked anglers to donate the head and frames of tropical snappers and other reef fish species.
The frames will be used by Fisheries scientists to age and assess the health of key reef fishes in popular recreational fishing locations. This information will then be used by NT Fisheries to ensure the sustainable management of these recreationally-important species.
Each frame should be bagged and accompanied by a label stating the common name of the fish, date of capture, location of capture, depth of capture and the fisher’s name and contact details.
Each frame donated with the correct details will gain entry for the captor to both the annual and quarterly prize draws (totalling over $4000 in 2010-11).
See the NT Fisheries website at www.fisheries.nt.gov.au/d/fisheries for prize details.
To date Fisheries has received over 70 frames from around the NT and the prize winners of this quarterly draw are as follows: Paul Van Buggen has won a $50 voucher from Happy Mick’s and a $55 12-month subscription to Barra Bass & Bream magazine; Terri Turner has won $90 worth of Classic Lures; and Lenna Lehmann has won $65 worth of Reidys lures.
Please drop your frames off at the following locations:
Darwin: NT Fisheries Goff Letts Building, Berrimah Farm, Berrimah (open from 8am to 4.21pm weekdays) – Ph 8999 2144 or email:
Dundee Beach: Dundee Lodge, Ph 89782557
Gove/Nhulunbuy: Gove Tackle and Outdoors – Ph: 89871748
Groote Eylandt: Alyangula Police Station – Ph: 89876122
King Ash Bay: King Ash Bay Fishing Club – Ph: 89759800
Limmen Bight River: Limmen Bight Fishing Camp – Ph: 89759844
Mick Novinetz and Wayne Williams with a brace of salty barra from the Adelaide River mouth.
Roger Sinclair win one of a cricket-score catch of feisty Four Mile Hole barra caught on fly.