NT Fishing Report
With Alex Julius 8 April 2010
It certainly has been a topsy-turvy end to the wet season and start to the Dry. Just when you thought it was all over, along came Cyclone Paul which, although it diminished and turned and ran back east, seems to have brought some rain back over the Top End.
According to the Bureau of Metreology, don’t count on the dry season being with us just yet.
There is still potential for another monsoonal burst towards the end of April.
Between now and then, it should be relatively fine, but a cyclone could possibly spin up and draw in heavy falls over the Top End.
For organisers of the NT Barra Classic – due to be held down the Daly River across the neap tides later this month – the last thing they would want would be another monsoon.
Conversely, with the Barra Nationals scheduled much later than normal – 2-9 May – the above scenario could work out well.
Irrespective of the weather patterns at the moment, after doing the rounds, I was surprised at just how poor the overall fishing was during the Easter break.
With the exception of the Finniss River, every other major Top End river within 300km of Darwin failed to produce anything of note.
The South Alligator, which was expected to fire up on the bigger tides, was in shut-down mode except, that is, right down the bottom where a couple of metre-plus barra were caught at the mouth of Brook Creek. I wouldn’t give up on the South Alligator just yet.
This weekend’s neap tides are perfect for trolling that terrific rock-bar a couple of bends down from the mouth of Nourlangie Creek. The rock-bar not far inside the mouth of Nourlangie could also fire up, especially on the early making tide.
Some anglers made an early visit to Corroboree Billabong where, although too high for serious barra action, kept rods bent thanks to a hungry saratoga population.
Offshore over Easter was also slow, but I did hear that Fenton Patches yielded some beautiful big golden snapper.
Speaking of snapper, NT Fisheries is asking recreational anglers to hand in their tropical snapper frames for examination as part of a new research project. The project aims to raise awareness of the life history of tropical snappers and will collect information on the size range, depth range and the size at age relationships for this group of fishes.
The frames supplied by recreational fishers will enable fisheries scientists to measure the fish and remove the two otoliths (ear bones) for aging. By aging many fish from the same area, it will then be possible to describe the age structure and status of the stock for that location.
The information gathered will then be used by NT Fisheries to ensure the sustainable harvest of these recreationally-important species.
Fishers are asked to record the common name of the fish as well as the date, depth, location of capture and the angler’s contact details on a label and attach it to the bag containing the fish before it is taken to a drop-off point.
They will then be eligible to gain an entry to both the annual and quarterly prize draws.
Drop-off points will have a freezer for storing the frames and will be located at Berrimah Farm, Dundee Beach, Gove, Groote Eylandt, King Ash Bay and the Limmen Bight River.
More details can be found at http://www.nt.gov.au/d/Fisheries/index.cfm?header=Tropical%20snapper%20research
Just before Easter, Ricky Zulkarnin trolled a big Bomber up inside Sampan Creek for this spectacular 120cm barra.
Chris Errity was back at it again, working those Chambers Bay coastal creeks on the big tides, and catching metre-plus barra like this 115cm fish.