NT Fishing Report
with Alex Julius 14 October 2010
An interesting story came out of last week’s Billfish Classic.
Three of the competing boats in the tournament were anchored at night off Point Jenny – which is west of Point Blaze.
Suddenly a small boat turned up with two blokes aboard who, apparently, had mistaken the lights of the anchored boats for the lights from Dundee. They’d been up the Finniss River chasing barra, and came out at night and headed in practically the opposite direction to where they intended to go.
It turned out they had no anchor on board, no form of radio or phone communication, no food, no water and no-one back at Dundee to expect them and react when they didn’t turn up. As well, by heading in the wrong direction, they didn’t have enough fuel to make it back to Dundee anyway.
Good Samaritans that the game fishermen were, they fed and watered the “refugees”, then one of the teams towed the stricken boat back to Dundee the following morning. They were lucky lads indeed.
Something else that came out of the tournament and I didn’t have room to cover in detail last week was the incredible number of mackerel that are still available offshore.
Two anglers, Bob and Jeff Morris, tagged 44 Spanish mackerel.
Ronald Voukolos from Fishing and Outdoor World raised an interesting perspective on the mackerel fishing scene this year.
As do all Darwin’s tackle shop owners and employees, Ron has a good grasp on fishing trends simply because the anglers who are catching fish are coming in to purchase the gear they need.
Ron reckons this year has been the worst in several for the quality of Spanish mackerel inshore around Darwin, particularly at Lee Point.
From my own information sources, I’d have to agree; I certainly haven’t received to publish anywhere near the amount of Lee Point mackerel photos this year as I have in past years.
What does this mean?
Logically, it means one of two things: either the mackerel simply did not appear at Lee Point in good numbers compared to previous years or not as many anglers with the necessary mackerel-fishing nous targeted them at Lee Point.
Ron seems to think the angling effort was there; and again, he’s in the best position to know.
Clearly, there have been plenty of mackerel – heaps in fact – offshore from Darwin, so it’s unlikely it has anything to do with stock levels being down.I’ve always been a great preacher of the philosophy that, if you find the bait, then you should find the fish.
I mean, how many times have you not caught anything – be it pelagic or barra – and you’ve found yourself commenting: “Didn’t see any bait about”? Maybe the type of baitfish that previously have been attracted to Lee Point didn’t turn up this year.
One of those types of bait is, of course, garfish.
From my Lee Point mackerel fishing days when I’d fish there several times during the dry season, I’d often anchor, berley and fish for gar whilst waiting for a mack or two to turn up.
It was nothing to catch 30 or 40 in a session; and a live gar out the back could usually be readily converted to some nice mackerel cutlets.
So maybe the garfish numbers have diminished.
I’d be interested to find out if NT Fisheries have researched the inshore Spanish mackerel fishery as part of the ongoing mackerel research project across the Top End. Hey, maybe the mack numbers at Lee Point have been up to scratch this year, but the information has just not filtered through.
Maybe there are plenty of garfish still at Lee point, but the baitfish pickings have been much better offshore.
If anyone out there can shed some light on this, I’d love to receive an email at
The diamond trevally is a rare but spectacular catch. Marty Krantz with his big diamond which was one of two caught in a session at the Vernon Islands.
Steve Blair took his boys Lachlan, 8, Bradley, 5, and Drew, 11, to Red Lily Billabong deep in Kakadu. They caught this and several other barra on Scum Frogs worked over the lilies.