NT Fishing Report
With Alex Julius 26 August 2010
More by good luck than good management, the weekend winds over the last few weeks have generally been on the kinder side.
While predominately the winds have been gusting this dry season, lately that’s mainly happened midweek. With any luck, that’s exactly the scenario for this coming weekend, so hopefully boats will be able to travel far and wide.
Mind you, we’ve got spring tides this weekend, so far and wide will be mandatory if you’re chasing good water clarity and a shot at all the pelagics that seem to be biting at the moment.
Have you noticed too that the sting has gone out of the dry season; the nights are getting warmer and the humidity is rising?
As we progress into September, there should be even more opportunities to head offshore in relatively calm conditions.
This seasonal change seems to get most of our top angling species into a feeding mood, and this is no more so than with our favourite fish, the barramundi.
The barra have already become more active in the billabongs on the Mary River system.
Not before time, Corroboree is starting to produce modest numbers of barra.
According to Craig Grosvenor of Got One: “A crew this week said 20 fish made it to the boat, while another crew had a ball using 5 inch Berkley Gulps, slightly weighted and retrieved through the lillies for both barra and ‘toga.”
Although not fished as much as spots closer to Darwin, Shady Camp above the barrage continues to live up to its reputation of being one ripper of a small lagoon.
You can boat from one end to the other in about five minutes, and that’s not a bad tactic because the top of the lagoon is often chockers with barra.
Not too far from the top, there’s a major rock outcrop that gets to about 2m from the surface. Some days you can troll up barra two at a time at this amazing spot. Mind you, if it fails, you can always slip down to the other rock-bar and give that a good workout.
Fishing and Outdoor World’s Ron Voukolos told me that Hardies Lagoon – which is also part of the Mary River system – has produced plenty of legal-sized barra over the last week.
Not surprisingly, Kakadu billabongs are starting to fish well too. That’s been happening for awhile now at Four Mile Hole; mainly for small fish but suddenly some big barra have been getting into the act.
A chap I spoke with at Palmerston a few days ago told me that he and his mate struck a patch of barra in the 80s and 90s. They had an incredible session for the last couple of hours before dark, mainly trolling big Nilsies.
Further into Kakadu, both Alligator and Bucket Billabongs – two beautiful locations – are also yielding hungry barra.
Darwin Harbour is another place where the barra have welcomed the change in the weather and anglers have been doing well fishing the creeks and gutters up in Middle Arm and in Wood’s Inlet.
Actually, tides this weekend are ideal for a fish around the gutters and creek mouths in the Harbour.
But watch out for those gigantic Queensland groper.
I’m not kidding – Roger Sinclair was up East Arm the other day and saw what at first looked like a massive barra swimming in less than a metre of water.
He tossed a lure in its path and then suddenly realised it was actually a groper at least 100kg in size.
Unfortunately it ignored the little artificial offering; otherwise Roger might still up the arm fighting it.
Darwin Game Fishing Club’s XXXX Gold Billfish Tournament will be on again starting 1 October.
There have been some rule changes this year to allow for more fishing time for the competitors and also a reasonable timeframe to return final tags and photos.
According to Peter Dienhoff: “Basically you can fish the Trench, off Bathurst Island, up until lines out on the last day, phone your scores through, and then return back to Darwin by 3pm the following day (Monday).”
A great innovation this year is a bait-rigging demonstration at the Ski Club at 7.30pm on Tuesday 7 September.
The club has arranged for six bait riggers to demonstrate the finer points of rigging garfish, mullet, squid, tuna and queenfish.
“All these baits will be rigged with top-quality tackle and raffled off on the night,” Peter said.
“It’s a great opportunity for competitors to have a chance of picking up 30 to 40 fully-rigged baits for the tournament.”
For more information, go to www.darwingamefishingclub.com.au.
While on the subject of fishing tournaments, the 2010 NT Saltwater Fly Fishing Challenge will be held 18-20 September on Bynoe Harbour.
Accommodation and social events will be provided for at Crab Claw Island Fisherman’s Village.
Find out more at www.darwinflyrodders.com.au.
Asha Mahasuria goes hard on what could only be a Channel Point monster…
…And yes it is – a whopping great black jew that measured 140cm!