Fishing
With Alex Julius
The fishing action within striking range of Darwin over the last couple of weeks has been nothing short of sensational.
There are neap tides this weekend and, weather permitting, this is the opportunity for anyone who has ever wanted to catch a sailfish to go out there and do exactly that. On the last set of neaps, it was peak-hour sailfish traffic out at Sail City and elsewhere wide of Dundee and Point Blaze.
One boat skippered by John Sykes landed 10 sailfish in one day. That would even raise eyebrows over at Broome which has the best sailfishing available in Australia.
According to Ron Voukolos at Fishing and Outdoor World, John reported raising hundreds of sails that day.
He had pods all around his boat and kept pointing to them as other boats came past. Sadly (for them) they misinterpreted his message and thought he was telling them to knick off…which they did.
Bloody hell, will one of our gamefishing clubs please get a dedicated billfish tournament happening from Dundee?
Obviously, neap tides early in May would be the go, but that would clash with the big Daly River barra tournaments for sure. But maybe late May or even early June would work.
There are increasing numbers of anglers getting out there and giving the billies a go, and
I’m sure the response would huge; not to mention the potential numbers of sails and marlin that would be tagged and released.
Given how the Broome sailfish scene took off, and how many charter boats operate successfully because of it, I can just see a small fleet of gameboats moored at Dundee and working through the dry season.
The weather, of course, would be the problem, but Broome gets its share of rough days too, as do the billfish waters out from Cairns in north Queensland.
Anyway, there’s a thought.
On the mackerel scene, go no further than Lee Point where macs have been around in droves.
Chris Hurt has been catching his share, mainly by anchoring, setting up a berley trail with finely-chopped-up pilchards, and floating whole, gang-hooked pilchards out the back in the current.
There were some interesting results from the recent NT Freshwater Fly Fishing Open held at Corroboree Billabong. For starters, there were 155 barra caught, which is far more than usual.
According to competitor and founder of the first freshwater fly fishing tournament in the NT, Roger Sinclair, the increase in barra numbers was most likely the result of late rains, high water levels and the fact that the lagoon was still flowing.
“However, that’s probably why saratoga numbers were down compared to past years,” Roger explained.
The average length of each species was definitely on the small size: 35cm for barra and 42cm for ’toga.
Of course, such a proliferation of minuscule barra can only mean there has been a good recruitment into the Mary River system this year as fish that size must surely have come from the latest barra spawning season during last year’s build-up.
Apparently, the winning team caught 60 of the little cackers on the last morning.
There have always been a lot of tarpon caught in the fly tournament but this year broke all records with 1381 caught on fly.
The results are as follows:
Champion Team – George Vlazney and Kim Dunstan with 6460 points
Runner Up Team – Cathie and Roger Bassett with 5369 points
Third place Team – Roger Sinclair and Matt Henger with 4956 points
Champion Angler – George Vlazney with 3555 points
Runner Up – Cathie Bassett with 3522 points
Cathie caught the biggest barra at 80cm, a great fish on fly, and Gary Walsh caught the biggest saratoga at 70cm.
There were 1725 fish caught over the day and a half of competition.
Danny Brazzale is helped by brother Marc to lift this terrific Finniss River barra on a fishing trip with Peter Zeroni.
Mother’s Day was made extra special for Julia Christensen when she bagged this 84cm barra up the South Alligator River.
A lorikeet-coloured Squidgy Slick Rig did the job for Peter Zeroni when he dropped it into a school of GTs near the Vernon Islands.