North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

Yellow Waters is broken.............
Went out the weekend just gone for the "Pilgrimage".....been doing the same trip, 2nd weekend in November for over 30 years.
This year we fished Mardugal for 3 hours Saturday morning for jack shite............hit YW at 6 pm (after lobbing in the resort pool for a few hours) and fished through to just after midnight for the grand total of half a dozen Tarpon..........it was pretty much the same last year with a few Barra tossed in.
On the plus side there were minimal clumps of floating weed usually left by the firken tour boats and we didn't see a great deal of Salvinia..............water temp was 33.8° and the water was at the usual low level, the norm for this time of the year. The ever present crocodiles were around in force and as bold as brass to boot!

I have noted over the years that YW has slowly been in decline, early 80's it was nothing to catch 100 Barra in a night session, this continued through the late 80's and early 90's, mid 90's numbers dropped to around half, at first I thought is was as a result of crappy Wet Seasons not giving the billabong a big flush allowing recruitment. but the catch number did not rise after a couple of good Wets..........it remained like this for much of the 90's, since then it has slowly worsened to the extent where I could count on two hands to number of Barra caught during the last 6 years..............there is nothing I can readily put my finger on to explain these results............( a few may put it down to my fishing skill ) fishing pressure is not an issue, as per the majority of years there are no other boats on the water at this time and it is doubtful that during the year the small number of anglers that fish this waterhole would have a detrimental effect. Our best results have always come on dark nights, the blacker the better..........over the past 11 years 9 nights at that time of the year have been black or pretty close while only 2 have been a full moon, even with our catch rate favouring no moon results have been poor.
Yellow waters has historically been a difficult place to fish during daylight hours with most success being at dawn and then late into the night, once the sun hits the water you might as well hit the swimming pool..........

Food for thought...................

Haven't been for a couple of years, but dusk and night definitely fish better. Crocs get friendlier too though...

G'day Blinky,

Did you mark many fish? I know on our YW trip around this time last year we struggled to catch half a dozen fish for 2 days despite plenty showing on the sounder. Had the same a couple of weeks back at Bucket Billabong, a heap of fish showing but only managed about a dozen to 65cm over two days despite trying every trick in the book. Billabong fishing in general seems to have been in decline over the last few years, particularly this year. On the other hand the harbour is fishing its t!ts off for Barra. Go figure............................



Melv

I could be wrong (common) but there seems to be a pattern forming with peoples experience's and observations of a decline in fishing quality in our freshwater since the mid 90s, coincidently around the same time that the cane toad started to make its presence felt.
I was reading David Greens article in Fishing World magazine about the crash in Barra numbers in the Daly River, he wrote that the toad could be responsible for a knock on affect displacing the food source for fish in our freshwater, less food = less fish. You have to wonder.

G'day Melv. yep plenty of fish showing on the sounder, just no interest in chewing, also spotted plenty in the shallows, absolutely no interest in taking anything chucked at them. Saw a couple of nice sized cruising in shin deep water at the South Alligator crossing, gear was all packed away so we didn't have a crack at them................
I agree with your thoughts on the general state of billabong fishing, the only places that I reckon are still on par are Hardies and 4 Mile, I don't seem to have much trouble getting amongst them at those spots.

Re cane toads, a mate did a study at James Cook Uni on barra and toad tadpoles, he said that unless the barra are very hungry they spit them out and then avoid eating them.

Maybe some barra are now more cautious about what they bite. The dumbest fish that scoffed toad tadpoles and died are out of the gene pool, a bit of natural selection going on?

Suggestion - don't use lures that look like toad tadpoles.

The popular billabongs would already have a few "lure-educated" fish in there too. There are more boats about, more noise, more lures. You fish a secret billabong and the fish seem to be more aggressive. Anyone finding their "secret" waterholes aren't firing like they used too?

Also, what happens to cherabin and other fish that eat toad tadpoles?

Gotta dig up Top End temp records and see what's been happening. All the old bastards say it is getting hotter, but they forget they are also getting fatter.

Might only take a small overall temp increase to change things.

Re Daly, crustacea are highly vulnerable to copper. Cherabin are a huge part of the Daly system. Read the studies and understand just what a vast mass of young cherabin go up and down the rivers each year. Knock these out with copper (Mt Todd mine) and there would be run-on effects. Dunno if there has been enough copper out of the mine ponds and the train spill to make a difference. Who knows what has come out of the mine ponds.

Funnily enough, trout fisheries across the mainland, Tasmania, and NZ have also been on a slide. Mainland fishos reckon some old haunts have no trout.

A mate just told me it's the same with Rainbows in Eucumbene..........


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I believe this decline in barra stocks could be from not only the recent toad invasion but also the growing croc numbers.
Would I be right in saying saltwater crocs from 1m - 4m main food source would be barra?
Would love to know how many crocs there are now in comparison to the 80's, be quite a significant jump in poulation me thinks.
lets say each croc eats 1 barra per day, and there are now 100,000 more crocs, thats the potential of 36.5 million barra per year..
Estimates are probably over the top but gets you thinkin..

It's not just Barra....where are all the Powertail in the billabongs? (not that I'm a fan)

Corroboree used to provide barra, Powertail, mouth-all-mighty, long tom. All on a regular basis.

Interesting theories both croc's and toads! Something has obviously resulted in a decline in catch rate.

Have fisheries been netting Corroboree over the last couple of years? Have their results shown a decline in numbers and species?

The recreational and tourism value of the billabongs should have someone (fisheries?) looking closely.

Too many tarpon eating all the barra. Ha

I have fished corroboree for 35 years and even saw nets in operation in the early years. I have a special spot that I fish on build up. At night I used to see barra on my sounders. This year and last year they are not their. I have diary entries and dates for years of my catches. So why One theory The barra are not coming up from shady, They used to pass through that creek just below the upstream rockbar which is now 3 mtrs under water. Are they like samon and only follow their inbuilt bearings? Are the fish avoiding common lures as the see them all day. I am interested to see the annual netting program down near p o w e r t a i l island stopped this could of helped. If the numbers of fish were the same each year other theries could be made. Is it like the crocks, the bigger ones are eating the smaller ones. With netting now stopped if in 3 years the barra are scarce we have problems. If one was to throw a cast net for mullet along the coast small barra were common ( 20cm size) last year they were not. corroboree is now much higher than the old days. About a meter in my estimate this allows fish to stay out of the way of lures.

This was a good thread - anything since changed?

Might be a combo of factors, including fish in enclosed freshwater locations seeing more lures and becoming educated, whereas this wouldn't happen as much in the salt.

Would like to see numbers from another Barracade at Corroboree.

I did heaps of trips to Corroboree early 90s, stayed for month long trips regularly, with my great ol mate Jim at his camp....the fishing was always really easy, although i was lucky to have the best teacher....we would fill albums with beautiful photos every year...this was the Nilsy Spearhead days, then came the period Little Lucifers....seemed they woke up again, and we went Scorpions on top thru the little Powertail/tarpon schools at night, straight down the middle of the billabong.We would find them biting at our go-to haunts, leave them biting for lunch and beers and arvo siesta in the camp, go back out and find them biting most times...if not, our main run always produced at night, especially on black Spearheads going one direction over the ledge after the moonrise.
Around 2000, things started to change, for the worse, pretty fast too.Technology definitely got better.Transducers that showed which side fish were on came into play like Hummingbird Optics etc..if fish were stacked up in a weeded bankside, they wouldn't bite, wasn't worth a run...once they showed up all over the run and at various heights, hold on, heaps of double and the odd triple hookups.
The last few times i hit it the car park was full, which would definitely affect the place..in the old days it was us, the odd other boat or three, Nobbys hire boats, Marks charters, Les Woodbridge, Lindsey and one or two others that have long since gone, or slipped my mind.Midweek bugger all...now with FIFO etc everyday is the weekend to so many.
Cane toads must have had some effect, no mistake.Technology too.And pressure.Not sure re the figures from the yearly netting, but i wouldn't have thought there are substantially less on the screen.Maybe they got smarter and the best fishermen still nail them there now...if i go there it is to give the big boat a good freshwater run on return from Shady or Cobourg, not to brain the barra, as to me it just doesn't produce like it used to.....
It was so easy then we would throw a car topper on the roof at camp and drive across Terrys' big plain to Hardys just for a change of location.Geez i was so lucky, they were great times.

hearing stories like this makes me think I was Born a little late..... Good to hear seastorm!

YW's not busted any longer, we slayed 'em 3rd weekend in November, in excess of 30 for the night session.......