Took my son Jarryd to King Ash Bay for the last set of neaps in March, fortunately we got in and out before Trevor arrived
No wonder that there was a BIG Cyclone as the water temp was 36.5 and the air temp hit 42DecC before midday. This is the first time that I have ever been fishing and NOT wanted to be there. I spent the first couple of hours fishing each morning then retreated to the shade of the beach umbrella and a cooling ale to re-hydrate.We tried a couple of trolling runs that always produce fish but there wasn't even a blip on the sounder. We fished the flats and shallow mangrove banks on fly using large deceiver flies and every fish that we caught was sight cast and most in less that 2ft of water. Fishing was poor due to the high water temperatures and the barra were doughy and were hitting the flies but not hooking up. We found a couple of nice schools of barra in the shallows and there were some great Mangrove Jacks cruising with them. Never seen so many box jellies a the McArthur with hundreds seen each day.
Jarryd managed a couple of upgrades to his PB early on in the trip.
Jarryd smashed the Darwin Flyrodders club record with this humungous 116cm barra on fly using only 10kg tippet.
Not only did he nail record barra but he also landed some magnificent other fish including this 45cm Mangrove Jack. Jarryd had turned 20 just a couple of days before and this fish might have been nearly the same age so it was released to fight another day. I played second fiddle to Jarryd and drove the electric motor for him most of the day but I still managed to get a couple of fish to myself.
It was a great trip to King Ash Bay and I hope the club and town didn't suffer too much damage from Trevor.
