NT Fishing Report
With Alex Julius 6 May 2010
The dry season is well and truly with us now. Beautiful blue sky days and cooler temperatures with diminishing humidity will continue to be the pattern for the next four months at least.
It’s a great time of year in the Top End, and it’s also the time to go bluewater fishing.
Already there has been some exceptional bluewater pelagic fishing, and not just for for mackerel and trevally species, but also for billfish, including black marlin.
This weekend, there are fantastic neap tides and, if the last set of neaps are anything to go by, the bluewater should be alive.
Last weekend a lovely black marlin of around 70kg was taken off Dundee, along with several sailfish hook-ups. Best results were on trolled garfish.
I also had a great report on the same weekend from Peter Deinhoff who fished Fenton Patches and Stony’s Lumps. With Peter were Wayne Francis and Dean Shaw. In a busy day so close to Darwin, they raised four sails, hooked three and landed one estimated at 20kg-plus.
“Wayne is now approaching 60 years old and it has taken him all of that [time] to catch his first NT sailfish,” Peter said.
Getting away from billfish, I also had a great report from Peter Zeroni, who took new Darwin resident and high profile fishing identity, Steve Starling, out for a jig around the Vernons on ANZAC Day, the weekend before last.
Apparently the weather was near-perfect and there were plenty of fish showing up on the sounder. Peter told me: “They took a little coaxing to get onto the jigs, but our persistence paid off and we ended up with some nice macs and plenty of brassy trevally to 7kg or better.
“Unfortunately, as is often the case at the Vernons, the sharks were on song and the majority of our macs got nailed soon after hook-up.
“For something a little different, on the slack of the tide Starlo swapped from the metal jigs that we were using to some of his Slick Rig Squidgy soft plastics, in order to prospect the bottom.
“He was instantly rewarded with all manner of reef fish, including various cods, Spanish flags and even a moonie.
“The local trevally population were also all over them like seagulls on a chip left on the lawn at the cricket,” Peter said.
“Towards the end, Starlo showed his class with a thumper of a narrow-barred Spaniard, caught on his little Curado baitcasting outfit – somehow he managed to get it past the legion of whaler sharks that were swimming around the boat, too.”
“The session really opened my eyes to the effectiveness of those Squidgies offshore,” Peter concluded. “I’ll be using them for a lot more than barra in future!”
Speaking of barra, there have been some good reports coming in from anglers fishing the South, and again, soft plastics have been dominating catches, particularly those ubiquitous Squidgy Slick Rigs.
As you read this I’m away fishing the Barra Nationals on the Daly. I’ll have a full report on this great event next week.
Wayne Francis and Dean Shaw fished with Peter Deinhoff for the capture of Wayne’s estimated 20kg sailfish wide of Fenton Patches.
Steve Starling with a thumper of a Spanish mackerel caught on his little Shimano Curado baitcasting outfit while fishing the Vernons with Pete Zeroni aboard Barradiction.