North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

Clear water, No fish
July 24
Had a lot of fun camping recently, see my website for the stories. But it's meant that my poor boat hasn't gotten a decent run in a while. I'm getting more busy, not less, until mid September. So with a public holiday on the Friday, off we went.

Hit Stokes point first thing, a few splashes and good boof had me in an optimistic mood. For those who don't know, Darwin has huge tides. Combined with heavy dry season wind, water visibility is usually poor. Today was totally different, I could see the ground from about 2.5m, it was amazing. It meant I was able to sight cast, but nope, no luck there.

Moved across to the weeds near Swires Bluff. Water visibility meant we saw about 20 rays, and about 10 turtles, a few said hello. Saw lots of fish too, trevelly, queenies, sharks, a bright blue beast sitting on the bottom I was unable to identify. (It didn't look like a tuskfish to me). Twitched some hardbodies by them all. And some squidgies. Also: gulp, poppers, vibes... you get the idea. Bait fish and life everywhere, none of it interested. Here we caught our sole fish for the day, a long tom.

Once the tide started to recede we the rocks at talc head, and soon saw schools of fish swimming out of the creek. None of them wanted to bite. In fairness, they may have been milkfish, I was struggling to identify them. Up and down, plus a quick trip to some flats on the way home... pretty disappointing day. You could not have picked a better day for it. If I had of known the wind would have been so far down, I would have taken some bait and sat somewhere.

Two boats at the ramp also came up empty.

Ah well, good way to spend a day.

Got:
Joe: Long tom

Story of the trip:
Water visibility. Never seen the harbour like that before.

Boat problems:
Haven't launched it in a while and when we went to push it off it was firmly stuck. Just would not budge. Then we tried this new method that I'd heard about, which involves unhooking the boat before trying to launch. Slid off no worries!

Snap
In two metres of water here, check out the bottom

Bad luck mate, still rather be out there with no action then at work.

Keep the info and stories rolling in Disco. Good read.

Fishing too deep. Find some current, wave action or dirty water. Will make all the difference in my opinion. In clear water you will see a lot of fish but very few will bite.

Billabong Dreaming
August 8
Mud had done well recently at billabong, so we decided to head there in the boat and see what we could get. The plan was to get there before dark and fish it first thing in the morning. That didn't work as Mud managed to get robbed the night before. Not too much was taken, but a set of keys were. So he got some locks changed and instead we got there in the arvo and fished until dusk. A lot of wildlife around, wallabies, jabirus, a few very pale crocs. Yeah, the fishing was that bad I am now discussing wildlife. Anyway Mud managed to get a decent Toga, we both got some large archer fish, but no barra.

I like to look at the positives of a trip... no bait, freshwater, no fish = quick clean up.

Got:
Mud: Toga, archer fish
Me: Archer fish

Story of the trip:
I had to steer the boat into the perfect position so my deckie could take the perfect selfie... what is the world coming to?

Snap

Land based round 1
August 30
Hamilton Island!

So I was getting married and for various reasons (mostly how much we love the Whitsundays) the wife and I decided on Hamilton Island. I had an epic welcome BBQ to cook on the Sunday but that was for the afternoon... the morning I decided I had to get some fishing. Me and some mates had a look around and found an interesting section of rocks with the incoming tide, it looked promising. Turned out it wasn't that good, but hey, who can complain about that scenery.

Got:
Me: Tiny cod (lures)
Aaron: Nothing (lures)
Chops: Tiny cod (bait)
Julian: Bluebones x 2, tiny, (bait)

Story of the trip:
Getting there looked impossible it was so steep... seems some clever locals had decided to tie a rope around a tree which made it so much easier! I cannot tell you how much I love the Whitsundays.

Snap




Bucks Day!!!
August 31
The wife and I are very different in some ways. Whereas she had 3(!) hens nights with various friends in various locations, I did not want one. Strippers? Might as well drink non-alcoholic beer. But she was insistent on me doing something... hey no worries what about a chartered fishing trip?

We set off in glorious weather, having been assured the tides were not ideal. First place we hit a few of the boys pulled up some thumper trevally. The guide was dissapointed and we moved on.

At this point I was thinking of forming a mutiny. Firstly I hadnt caught one yet. What if that was it? Secondly they cook okay if they arent refridgerated. Thirdly nummas/cerviche is awesome. Fourthly how sure he could be we could get others? But no, he wanted it for bait.... so me and Chops (a fellow Trevally lover) waited.

Second place we got, nothing.

Third place we went to, a few of the boys hooked Nannygai. Success!! And a few more... soon we were smashing them! But not poor old me....

Eventually I got onto a 42cm one. Can't complain. I took a break as I was hogging the rods. I found out later the rod that I had was ordinary, but in 60m of water I couldn't tell.

Soon my mate tired and I grabbed my rod again... got a slight nibble and I increased the pressure and hooked the fish. Suddenly my whole body was clenching trying to hang on... he pulled off some line, which was funny as the drag was so tight I broke it easily on a snag. I wound and winded. Over and over. We were fighting sharks, and I was doing such and ordinary job of getting him up quickly I didn't think I had a chance. Wound and wind. Over and over. Soon my whole body ached. The skipper was shouting to me to stop being a princess and ignore that lactic acid. Easy to say... this might seem dramatic but
a) I like a good story
b) It was a really ordinary rod and reel
As I wound that bad boy up inch by inch I was hoping it was something decent otherwise I would look the fool. Part of me wondered if I had a small shark as it kept taking line, and that drag was DAMN tight.

When I got it to the surface.... far out... an impressive (68cm) Coral Trout!!! When I got it in the boat, I mean, wow, what a rush. I remembered why I love fishing, why I love the Whitsundays, and that bait fishing / bottom bashing isn't all bad!

From then on I hit the beer (my first, stop judging me, fishing comes first on these things) and let everyone have a fish for a while. My cousin pulled up a mammoth Nannygai, otherwise everyone was pretty much hitting one after the other. The trick was getting them past the sharks. I spent a bit of time teaching the newbies what to do, one particular highlight was pulling a fish past two sharks who were charging it.

Soon a few people got tried so I hit the end of the day, managed another 2 keepers and a 50cm sweetlip, which was pretty damn cool.

What a trip!!!

Got:
Me: 68cm coral trout, 50cm sweetlip, 3 40-55cm nannygai
Everyone: Lots of nannygai! And some Trevally. One more sweetlip.

Story of the trip:
Clearly my coral trout. I was so stoked with it. The wind was dead, the ocean was blue, just a great trip all around.

Snap


Trevelly!


Me with my Coral Trout!


Close up of the bad boy


The old man looking happy


Cousin with the biggest Nannygai of the day, think around 80 to 90

awesome fish mate, that's the type of bucks party I like and congratulations on the wedding.

nice work mate, was that on the North of the island at Hammo?, i fished the North side years and years ago and did alright, lost a lot of gear but managed a few tuskies.

We were about 1.5 hours from hammo via the boat which was pretty fast, so my guess is around 50km. I sort of wished I had of marked the spot on my phone in case I end up back years later but that seemed like bad form.

Getting into some great fish mate nice post

Be careful trying to mark a charter skippers spot , phones don't float .

Wedding Day
September 2
I was getting married at 2pm, plenty of time for a land based flick in the morning. I also thought that it would read as an omen: a fish would be equal good marriage, no fish would be a bad sign. We hit a sandy and rocky beach, flicking some plastics for not much success. Soon we saw some bait busting up so tried to flick there. Soon enough I caught a tiny cod. Hey, that’s good right? A good omen.

As I wound him in suddenly a little calamari came out of no where and latched on. I tried to drag him up the beach but he let go. I cast the cod back to him and he went it again. I tried again for a fail, but he latched on again to the cod.

We were frantically trying to figure out how we could land it – it wasn’t hooked, and we didn’t have a net or anything. So my mate decided to try to drag a treble lure through it to see if it would hook. It did, but not well, and the calamari bolted.

One final cast of the cod and even again the calamari came back and latched on! The second time we were able to hook it with the lure, and presto, we had a lunchtime feed.

Got:
Me: Small Cod and a claim on a Calamari
Chops: A claim on a calamari

Story of the trip:
Who caught the calamari? A lot of debate has raged on this one. Did I get it interested and he caught it? Did I catch it and he landed it?

Snap




Final land based session on Hammo
September 3
Having day trips organised for the Friday and Saturday (more on my blog) we had one last crack at land based session. The wind was fierce that day and fishing on the beach was next to impossible. We tried a few locations, in the end settled on some rocks next to Catseye beach. Got a few small bites, and Chops managed to land a flathead.

Got:
Me: Nothing
Chops: Flathead, released

Story of the trip:
Saw some whales come through! When we were on the beach with too much wind, a whale and a calf came through, right near the airport. Pretty cool!

Snap

I'm just thinking what if the fish really come on and you stayed tooooo long fishing,
Late for the wedding and divorced the next day

No jinx intended Disco ,,, Congrats

Great time out.
Congratulations to on your wedding.

Barra going Nuts
September 26
I was supposed to be going camping this weekend, even took the Monday off work, but as it turns out the car got a crack in the radiator. I found this out on Friday. Meanwhile Brucesta had just moved from WA to Darwin and had asked me about some fishing. Since I didn't have anything planned we made some last minute decisions to go barra chasing for the 11.30am lock in.

At first it was slow going, I hooked a few small cod (I seem to have a knack for it). A few hours of not much and it was across the low Brucesta managed to hook a fish that buried itself under a log. Since it was 1m deep it took me about 10 minutes of fishing around with the net under water to dislodge it, actually we gave up, but when Brucesta tried to break his line off he managed to get the fish out. Turns out it was a 38cm barra, his first NT one, and at least we were on the board.

As the water started to roll in we heard the occasional boof and we trying to hook something up. We were at a branch in a creek where the craziest thing happened. About 5000 tiny mullet came pouring into the creek. For about 5 minutes we were hearing a boof every 30 seconds. Then for 2 minutes after that, it was a boof every 2-3 seconds. 5 minutes after that it went back a boof every 30 seconds, before dying off. You could physically see the 60-80cm barra jumping. Over and over. It was crazy, they were everywhere!

And yet... they would not hook up. I have never seen anything like it, if I had of known feeding frenzies could go like that I would have assumed it would be easy to get a fish. But we got nothing. Another boat near us got 2 whilst trolling so we swapped to that, I got a decent blue salmon but no barra.

I still just can't believe I saw that. I wish I had a go pro or something as it was just so insane. And yet no barra from it. It was the most disappointing thing that happened that day, and I'm a North Melbourne supporter.

Got:
Brucesta: 38cm barra
Me: Blue salmon for dinner

Random story of the trip:
A boat in that creek had their nose about 2 metres in the air whilst motoring, their outboard was 75% under water.

Snap

An Unconventional Feed
October 3
Mud and I decided to head out again, once again with somewhat awkward tides. We took some bait and decided to chase some Jewies out at Leeder's creek.

Started with a troll for some barra on the way there, but it was quiet. We found our hole and down some bait and pulled out one or two smaller Powertail. After that we moved out to the mouth but it was quiet. Suddenly, both Mud and I were on with decent fish.

I could tell that mine was most likely a large Powertail which was disappointing, but his definitely wasn't. It was charging all over the place, making me hope we had the elusive Jewfish. As it turned out it was a good sized black tipped reef shark.

I think sharks are good eating, most Victorians tend to agree. It isn't that common in Darwin for some reason, I guess because there are a lot of good eating fish here. I asked Mud if he was going to eat it, and to my surprise, he was on board with the idea. He agreed that sharks are damn tasty.

I am not sure if this inspired me or muddled my brain, but the next thing you know I am necking the Powertail, everyone says those golden saltwater ones are good eating... I think I am going to call it cobbler from now on. Sounds better, right?

Otherwise it was fairly uneventful. Some Powertail were caught, plenty more trolling for barra happened, a bit of flicking, and that was the day.

Got:
Mud: A good shark, Powertail
Me: Powertail
Alice: Powertail

Random story of the trip:
When Mud went to get the cat and I was in the boat, I noticed some swirls of water near the rocks. Had a cast and I pulled out a small cod. I had nearly gone the trip without getting one, what can I say, I am the small cod whisperer.

Snap

Plain white fillets, right?