NT Fishing Report
With Alex Julius 20 January 2011
If you haven’t noticed, there’s something different about this year’s wet season. Normally, mid January is when the rivers are rising after a good monsoonal belting.
As has been typical of recent years, plenty of anglers are getting out and about, testing the tidal rivers for any early run-off. Usually it’s a failed exercise.
That’s because the floodplains need to fill and soak up, and all those tiny organisms and little fishes that barra love to gobble up need to boogie in the submerged floodplain grasses, spawning regenerated populations which can thrive and grow during the ensuing Wet.
When the rivers begin to fall – generally early March – out of the feeder creeks comes the replenished barra tucker.
The difference this wet season is that this food chain process appears to have happened much earlier. October and November produced record rainfalls for the Top End, and the first monsoon descended early in December.
Over the last fortnight, there have been numerous reports of great run-off barra fishing.
This has been accompanied by a sushi train of rainbow fish and other tasty morsels spewing out of the creek mouths, and so the barra are into them.
The Daly River is a case in point.
For some time, it’s been hovering around the 10m mark at the river crossing, and the Daly River Road was actually closed during the week with 1.4m over one of the floodplains. However, prior to this, barra were being caught at several feeder creeks downriver.
I laughed my head off at one great account I received from Got One’s Craig Grosvenor.
Craig hit the Daly with well-known Darwin angler, Tony Hare, whom I fished the last Barra Nationals with.
Harey is one of those larger-than-life characters, a real ham who is loved by everyone.
According to Craig: “Harey turned it on, talked it up, talked himself up like a broken record early on...raving on for an hour about how his DOA lure (which he stole from by box) is going to get whammed, sucked off and swallowed.
“We heard a shitload of boofin’ going on down below his girlfriend, Lizzy (Elizabeth Creek), so we tied off to a stick and let ‘em have it.
“I must say your tuition during the Nationals must be paying off on the old bloke – I reckon he boated about eight fish to 86cm and missed plenty.
“I spent far too much time soaking a big Renosky, which I knew never matched the hatch but thought I only needed a fish over 86 to put him in his place,” Craig joked.
“Finally, I slipped on a Squidgy Wriggler 140 in Lumo, rigged with a light chartreuse head.
“First cast produced a 72cm just as local guides Geoff and Moussie pulled up for a chat.
“As you know, Harey gets a bit excited when he's on centre stage.
“My second cast was a ripper, right on the edge of the grass – two seconds of sink and it got woofed by a ripper fish.
“I gave it plenty, did everything right, got it to the side of the boat and thought this one will outdo the old bastard,” Craig said.
“With crowd on its feet, Harey was clowning around with the net, pretending to stuff things up for a laugh...trouble was he succeeded.
“He had the Environet under water, full of water, and consuming far too much time to empty.
“Then he thought he'd reverse-net the fish for the crowd. The net grabbed the jighead perfectly with the fish still on the outside – game over.
“It took some time for the laughter from the neighbouring boat to settle, and for me to quietly inform Harey of my thoughts on his efforts,” Craig concluded.
Also fishing well has been the South Alligator, upstream of Nourlangie Creek mouth.
Matty West from Fishing and Outdoor World reports a few metreys coming off Leichardt Rock-bar.
This spot fishes well on the troll as the making tide slows the run. The trick is to bang your lure over the rocks below; as it gets deeper with the rising tide, switch to deeper-diving lures.
Casting big, heavy soft plastics upstream and working them back over the rock-bar with the current is also a deadly technique.
Matty also told me that the Finniss River has been going off with cricket-score catches of small barra up on the floodplains and big fish being caught on live bait down near the mouth.
At Shady Camp, the water is up in the car park, and we’ll know more about how the tidal sections are fishing once they open on 1 February.
There’s a lot of water flowing down the Adelaide River; not surprising considering the river has been lapping at the bridge near the Adelaide River township.
With a full moon this week, and big making spring tides, there should be plenty of barra moving up the Adelaide over the weekend.
Finally, just checking the forecast for the weekend, it’s likely there’ll be a break in the weather.
Should that happen, the tides are certainly spot on for a barra fish in Darwin Harbour’s arms.
Tony Hare with one of his several barra caught below the mouth of Elizabeth Creek on the Daly River.
Darren Kilkeary’s beaut jewfish snapped up a lure being trolled for barra.